Norwood Viviano, associate professor for sculpture and foundations and area coordinator for sculpture, will receive a mid-career artist award from the Smithsonian and have his work exhibited at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
During the Smithsonian Craft Show, May 1-5, Viviano will receive the Smithsonian Women’s Committee’s Delphi Award , which recognizes mid-career artists who demonstrate distinction, creativity and exceptional artistry in their work. The committee noted Viviano’s complex sculptures and installations that tell the story of worldwide climate and population changes.
“It is really an incredible opportunity,” said Viviano. “It is a chance to introduce my work to a whole new audience, which can lead to wonderful conversations that open up even more opportunities to build momentum for the work.”
In his projects, Viviano explores how urbanization, industry and immigration shape personal and shared histories. For example, “Recast,” is a series of kiln-cast glass sculptures that highlight the manufacturing history in several U.S. cities combined with their current architecture. Modern Detroit is cast on top of the cylinders of a V8 engine block and Pittsburgh is cast on top of a steel I-beam.
Sydney Lim, who is on pace to earn degrees in marketing and business economics in December, considers herself an avid gamer. Yet Lim said she was hesitant to step into the Laker Esports Center when that facility opened two years ago in the Kirkhof Center.
“The first semester it opened, I looked in there and it seemed to be all guys playing, so I walked by,” Lim said. “Later that semester I was craving to play, plus the center’s computers have great specs for gaming. I thought, ‘Maybe if I go in, other girls will see me in there and maybe they will be more willing to go in there.'”
Sydney Lim is dressed in her esports jersey. Lim was a member of the Game Changers team, which finished second in the National Association of Collegiate Esports’ Varsity Plus Valorant Conference.
Image credit – courtesy of esports program
Lim’s inclination to step into the center aligns with the esports program’s value of inclusion. Now a sponsored organization housed in Recreation and Wellness, the Laker Esports Center has intentionally hosted women-only game nights and recruited women and students from diverse genders to play on teams or during drop-in hours, according to Riley Long, an assistant director for Recreation and Wellness, who oversees the esports program.
Those efforts have proved fruitful. Lim and other members of the Game Changers, an esports team composed of women, finished second in the National Association of Collegiate Esports’ Varsity Plus Valorant Conference.
Sponsoring a Game Changers team is unique in the collegiate esports world, as most programs have all-male or co-ed teams. Only once did the team play other Game Changer teams and Lim said that was a tournament sponsored by Valorant.
Valorant is a first-person tactical shooter game and its characters have certain roles and abilities. Long said it’s the most popular game at the esports center, ahead of Rocket League and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Lim was encouraged to try out for the Valorant Game Changers team by other student gamers last fall. Sadie Doctor, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology last week, was the team captain.
“Last year, I played on a club Valorant team and was the only woman on the team,” Doctor said. “Riley messaged me over the summer and asked what I would think about leading the Game Changers.”
Doctor said while team members connected as friends, they did not instantly connect as teammates in their roles on Valorant.
“We had to take on more aggressive roles that women usually don’t do, more fighting roles,” Doctor said. “We had to learn to trust our experience. Some teammates were low-ranked players but our quality of play surpassed a lot of the teams we played once we learned to trust one another.”
Lim agreed, saying her initial role while playing Valorant was as an agent, a protector of the team. Then she began to enjoy playing more aggressive roles.
“Women may be nervous to make mistakes during a game and get called out. Or, they might be nervous of critique and whatever someone would say,” she said.
Long said the center’s intentionality toward inclusion spills over to its goals of aiding the university’s recruitment and retention efforts. The growth of the center has allowed Long to hire part-time coaches for its premiere league teams.
A new studio, in partnership with the School of Communications, has allowed the esports program to livestream premier team matches multiple days per week. The program has hosted and broadcast two high school events this year. Long said he has hired more student employees to broadcast and announce matches, in addition to serving in other support roles.
The GVSU Symphony Orchestra released a digital recording of a concerto that previously had been only available for listening in the Czech Republic.
Under the direction of Joel Schut, the orchestra recorded Vladimir Werner’s “Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra.” The piece was originally recorded in 1984 on LP (long-playing record) in Brno, Czech Republic, by the Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra. Before Grand Valley’s digital recording, the only way to listen to the concerto was at a Czech library.
While on sabbatical, Marlen Vavrikova, professor of oboe, studied several oboe concertos written in the Czech Republic and discovered this rare Werner work.
Schut said the project stemmed from Marlen Vavrikova’s sabbatical research in that country . While studying scores of several oboe concertos written in Brno, Vavrikova, professor of oboe, found Werner’s hidden gem and worked to share his talent. Vavrikova took the music to Schut and they created a recording plan.
“It is a beautiful blend of faculty research and faculty collaboration that creates opportunities and brings research to life,” Vavrikova said.
They received a Catalyst Grant from the College of Education and Community Innovation to fund the recording, Schut said.
The GVSU Orchestra performed the concerto in November in the Louis Armstrong Theatre at the Haas Center for Performing Arts. The orchestra collaborated with many Grand Valley faculty, including Vavrikova (oboe soloist), Letitia Jap (violin), Pablo Mahave-Veglia (cello), Greg Secor (percussion), Andrew Lenhart (piano) and Richard Britsch (horn). Schut said the recording was completed two days after its premiere by Blue Griffin Recording.
“It was an opportunity for students to experience what it is like to go into a professional recording studio,” Schut said.
The project also gained the attention of Mark Hoffman, CECI associate dean, who established the Global Awareness Collaborative Colloquium.
Sponsored by CECI, the colloquium features various presentations about a country each semester. Czechia and the orchestra’s performance were highlighted in the fall semester.
“I think one of the successes of the project was that it was collaborative in many ways,” Schut said.
– Samantha Drougel is a student writer for University Communications. Drougel is from Monroe and is a double major in film and video production, and journalism, broadcasting and digital media.
On a beautiful spring day, Frederik Meijer Honors College resident Rachel Maude led a group of students from Kentwood’s Endeavor Elementary on a campus tour. Maude’s group was one of several this morning, criss-crossing the grounds and listening to Honors College students lead the expeditions.
As they approached one of GVSU’s landmarks, the Transformational Link, Maude issued a warning to the group that’s ingrained into every GVSU student. “If you walk under it, you won’t graduate,” Maude said.
Most of the group heeded her caution, but one student made a break for it, jogging underneath the massive sculpture while sporting a sly grin and earning the shock and admonishment of his classmates.
Hosted by the Meijer Honors College and Office of Multicultural Affairs, the students experienced a morning of exploration and discovery on the Allendale Campus, which included stations of activities headed by geology professor Peter Wampler. Inviting students from Endeavor was a strategic decision, said Roger Gilles, director of the Honors College.
President Philomena V. Mantella and a banking leader highlighted in an op-ed this week the opportunities for economic prosperity through partnerships that accelerate educational advancement for the Latino community.
Mantella and Raul Anaya, president of Bank of America Business Banking, said in a piece in the Detroit News that efforts from corporate partners to help Latino students earn a higher education degree can have a profound impact on the knowledge economy of the future:
Despite a 15% drop in overall college enrollment from 2010 to 2021, Latino students are defying this trend, showing a 30% increase in higher education enrollment, equating to 3.3 million students, as the National Center for Education Statistics has reported.
This significant increase is more than a statistic; it is an opportunity. The 2020 Census found more than 560,000 Michiganians reported as Hispanic or Latino, which was 5.6% of the state’s population and a 29% increase from 2010.
As the fastest-growing demographic in the United States, with a 23% increase since 2020, the Latino community is poised to rejuvenate both local economies and the broader national economic framework. Achieving an educated workforce in the U.S. is intrinsically linked to enhancing Latino college completion, given this community’s youth and expansion.
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) is leading in this effort with targeted initiatives, strong outcomes and a bold commitment to eliminating racial and ethnic equity gaps. The results are evident: a 106% increase in Latino student enrollment in the past four years, notable graduation rates, becoming the third largest producer of Latino bachelor’s degree holders in their state and a narrowing equity gap between Latino and White students.
This commitment by Grand Valley is underscored by the 2019 Seal of Excelencia by Exelencia in Education, the Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on Latino student success in higher education. Mantella is also a member of Excelencia’s Presidents for Latino Student Success .
Read the entire op-ed at this link available to subscribers .
Grand Valley State University Provost Fatma Mili announced the appointment of Marouane Kessentini as the new dean of the College of Computing, effective July 6.
Kessentini is the Winegarden Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at the College of Innovation and Technology at the University of Michigan-Flint. He also serves as director of the National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center on Pervasive AI in Michigan, the director of the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates site on Digital Accessibility and as an executive board member of the Rackham graduate school and MCity at the University of Michigan.
“Dr. Kessentini brings expertise, experience and a track record of successful transformational leadership in every position he held,” Mili said. “He will be a key player in giving shape to the new College of Computing, the Blue Dot, and the Digital Literacy initiative. I am really looking forward to having him on campus engaging with the internal and external communities.”
Kessentini’s appointment comes after Grand Valley’s Board of Trustees approved a plan to elevate and expand the current School of Computing during a meeting in November. The as-yet-unnamed College of Computing will help GVSU reach its goal of delivering three times as many graduates in high-tech fields over the next 10 years.
“Having a new College of Computing at GVSU is a transformative action by the leadership of GVSU President Philomena V. Mantella and Provost Fatma Mili,” Kessentini said.
“With the growth of computing, artificial intelligence, data science and cybersecurity and beyond, it’s very inspiring to see the commitment of the university to create a new college that hopefully would become a bridge for every single field at GVSU to democratize computing.”
The College of Computing will be an integral part of GVSU’s Blue Dot initiative, a technology and science hub on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus, designed to transform the way the university applies data science, artificial intelligence and computer technology to forge new opportunities for students.
A supplemental funding bill signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at Grand Valley in December provided a $30 million boost to the Blue Dot project while, in March, the project received a federal grant totaling $2.5 million.
“We are very committed that all of our curriculum and programs are built in a close and authentic partnership with industry partners based on their needs in artificial intelligence, human-centered design, software engineering, digital transformation and cybersecurity,” Kessentini said. “Our students would be ready from day one. They would have huge opportunities to be involved in hands-on training in collaboration with those companies.”
Kessentini received bachelor’s and master’s degrees with distinction in computer science from the University of Tunis in 2006 and 2008. In 2012, he received a doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Montreal.
Since graduating with his Ph.D., Kessentini has spent his career in Michigan as a leader in software quality assurance, intelligent software engineering and artificial intelligence engineering. His research focuses on software engineering, artificial intelligence, big data analytics systems, mobile cloud and edge computing and cybersecurity.
Wendy Reffeor was at a crossroads. She was finishing her master’s degree and making plans to pursue a doctorate, specifically to teach. However, doubt about this plan crept in. Everywhere she turned, someone told her that there was no place she was going to teach with a doctoral degree in engineering mechanics.
The world these doubts built for her consisted of little more than writing grants, overseeing research without actually doing any of the research herself, and no teaching.
“I’m not going to go for a Ph.D. and go through all those years of school for that,” Reffeor, professor and chair of mechanical engineering, said about how she felt at the time. “I’m just going to be overseeing. That did not sound fun to me.”
Looking for hope, she called her old professor at GMI Engineering and Management Institute, Paul Plotkowski.
Plotkowski is the founding dean of the Padnos College of Engineering and Computing. He plans to retire at the end of May. When Reffeor called him asking if there was anywhere she could teach with a Ph.D., Plotkowski invited her to visit him at Grand Valley. He told her that if teaching with a Ph.D. is what she wanted, Reffeor could find that role at GVSU.
The next summer, Reffeor started working as an adjunct professor.
“She became my first grow-your-own faculty member here,” Plotkowski said. “Grow-your-own faculty is an approach I’ve been supporting for a long time because hiring faculty with industry experience who want to teach is a challenge.”
With Plotkowski’s support, Reffeor finished her Ph.D. and started full-time as a professor at GVSU on a tenure track. Reffeor recalled that this was not the first time Plotkowski was a major support for her.
Reffeor was pregnant during her junior year of undergraduate studies. As a student, she did not have much money, and her husband did not have a job that paid particularly well. Right after finding out about her pregnancy, Reffeor showed up in Plotkowski’s office in tears.
“There was a personal connection, even at that point,” she said. “He was the guy that I felt comfortable going to on the faculty.”
Plotkowski was there for her. He was a shoulder to cry on, and he listened to her worries and fears. More emotional trials came when Reffeor lost the baby, and Plotkowski continued to be there for her.
Reffeor lost the baby the Thursday before her final exams, and she had to call her professors and tell them that she would not be able to take them. All but one of her professors were understanding. One professor wanted medical documentation in order to excuse Reffeor from the exam. It was here when Plotkowski stepped in again.
“We had to have a conversation from me, a very junior faculty member, to them, a very senior faculty member,” Plotkowski said. “I tactfully said that demanding medical documentation at a time when a woman is going through what she is going through is not a terribly appropriate thing to do.”
Until recently, Reffeor had no idea Plotkowski had that conversation with the professor. For Plotkowski, that conversation was just doing the right thing.
When Reffeor joined GVSU’s faculty, her relationship with Plotkowski transformed from one of mentor and mentee to one of dean and professor. She said Plotkowski remained approachable in either role, and he was able to identify which role was appropriate for their conversations. Their relationship is one that she cherishes.
“He’s been a father figure, he’s been my mentor, he’s been my friend. He’s probably
A survey of West Michigan businesses and managers conducted by a Grand Valley researcher shows a promising trend of modest economic growth for the region’s economy.
Key metrics in the monthly survey conducted by Brian Long, director of supply management research at the Seidman College of Business, ticked upward for the third straight month. Despite this positive trajectory, some of April’s respondents approached the year’s second quarter with caution.
Long’s survey of the region’s purchasing managers pointed toward two pivotal indices rising in April. New orders, or business improvement, rose six points while production, or business output, climbed 14 points.
Long said industries like auto parts suppliers and office furniture manufacturers are maintaining their momentum, despite challenges in the global supply chain.
“I do believe that at least some of our statistics will moderate as the summer moves along, but there’s still no sign of an impending doom even if the economy does slow down some, which is what the Federal Reserve wanted to happen,” Long said. “They just don’t want it to slow down too much.”
Even with the encouraging numbers in the GVSU survey, Long noted that among surveyed respondents the mood was decidedly reserved, pointing toward slower growth over the next few months.
“Locally, our current statistics depict stable growth, but our April anecdotal comments from our survey participants continue to grow more cautious,” Long said. “In general, the survey respondents now expect slower growth for the next few months, but still little probability of a recession for the rest of 2024.”
Here’s a look at the key index results from April’s survey of West Michigan businesses:
New orders index (business improvement): +16 vs. +10 in March
Production index (output): +16 vs. +2 in March
Employment index: +7 vs. +9 in March
Lead times index: -15 vs. -2 in March
More information about the survey and an archive of past surveys are available on the Seidman College of Business website.
Grand Valley hosted the Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE), a delegation of economic development leaders from around the globe, at the Shape Corp. Innovation Design Center (IDC) on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus Wednesday.
The event was part of a series of stops for ACE in Michigan with other locations including Ann Arbor, Battle Creek and Lansing.
After the delegation received a tour of the IDC building and viewed a demonstration of a robot created by Hopkins High School students, President Philomena V. Mantella gave her opening remarks to the group of over 50 ACE delegates.
An engineering and computing panel followed Mantella’s opening statement. The panel featured Paul Plotkowski, dean of the Padnos College of Engineering, Jonathan Engelsma, professor of computing and director of GVSU’s Applied Computing Institute, and Marouane Kessentini, the first appointed dean of GVSU’s newly-formed College of Computing.
The panel discussed the importance of applied research and experiential learning through cooperative education and internships.
“The cooperative education program means that the students do three semesters of work experience,” said Plotkowski. “That experience lays the groundwork for our senior project programs that are deliverable due to products, automation and the list goes on.”
The panel highlighted how this model prepares students for careers with applicable experience sooner than the norm. Engelsma noted students are starting their internships as early as sophomore year instead of what he noticed was the more typical final semester of senior year.
Glendon Ashby, an ACE delegate from Barbados, described building this connection between industry and university as innovative. He said the model can be used to solve problems while expanding opportunities to those who are still gaining experience.
“It just goes to show that when people collaborate what can happen,” said Ashby. “We can bring all the players to the table to ensure that they are making a better pathway to the future.”
A 10-week journey for a cohort of veterans, current service members and their spouses participating in a small business accelerator program came to a close on May 13.
Members of Cohort 13 in the Michigan Veteran Entrepreneur-Lab, a program of the Richard M. and Helen DeVos Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, gave their final pitches to a panel of judges, family and friends at the L. William Seidman Center as part of the MVE-Lab’s Pitch and Showcase.
At stake for the seven entrepreneurs was $20,000 in seed funding for their startups.
By the end of the night, it was Spencer Scarber and his startup, Emergency Medicine Innovations , taking home the coveted $10,000 first place award as determined by the judges. Emergency Medicine Innovations develops portable cold storage technology and containers suitable for transporting blood or plasma without worry of contamination.
“ The big issue is that our troops are dying out in the field,” Scarber said. “People aren’t getting the blood or medication they need here and pharmaceutical companies are losing a lot of money, $35 billion to be exact, because they can’t keep things cold.”
Scarber, an airman first class in the Michigan Air National Guard and a 2022 graduate of Grand Valley with a degree in mechanical engineering, said the inspiration for his invention came from his time as an EMT technician prior to enrolling at Grand Valley.
“ During my clinical rotations, one of the things that I noticed was the big beefy coolers that we have, and they’re bolted to the inside of the ambulance,” Scarber said. “So, if you arrive at a car crash, there’s no easy way to lug this thing directly to the scene of an incident.
“Having something that’s a grab-and-go factor, that’s where the idea came from, but it really just blossomed into determining what customers need.”
Scarber’s technical advisor at EMI is a former professor of his, Sanjivan Manoharan, associate professor of mechanical engineering.
“ If you ask any student who has had him or even anybody who’s heard of him, he is hands down one of the best professors at Grand Valley,” Scarber said.
“During my senior year, I did an independent study under him and we performed some computational fluid dynamics to really make sure that our technology was as good as we said it was.”
Scarber’s winning idea embodies the approach to entrepreneurship that Michael Hyacinthe, the lead instructor with the MVE-Lab, viewed with each cohort.
“Veterans are very community focused, so a lot of their solutions are based on problems that they’ve experienced themselves or they’ve known someone in service that experienced an issue,” Hyacinthe said.
“Just seeing the passion and the joy as they figure out how to solve their own problems by themselves, but also serving other veterans who are going through those same problems, makes it very rewarding.”
Oregonstate News Blog 