Equipment and Facilities Request
Equipment and Facilities Request for Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science
Tailored to Lilly Endowment, Inc's 1998 Capital Improvement Program, June 1998
Last updated June 22th, 1998
Introduction
The primary purpose of this request is to update the computing
equipment and facilities employed by the departments of Mathematics, Physics
and Computer Science. Currently the equipment and facilities are both
elderly and lacking in many necessary capabilities.
The secondary purpose of this request is to provide equipment and facilities
for the departments of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science to expand
existing programs in ways which will attract Indiana high-school students to
Earlham and to increase the likelihood that they will remain in Indiana after
they graduate. There are a number of programs currently in place which
address the issue of retention in Indiana after graduation from Earlham.
Improving the facilities and equipment as we describe below will enable these
three departments to build on this existing framework with the goal of increased
retention in Indiana after graduating with a degree in either Mathematics,
Physics, or Computer Science from Earlham College. We have evidence that one
key to retention is student involvement in local business and governmental
organizations.
Existing Programs and Projects
Robotics
DBA Group
Internships with local companies and governmental organizations
Computational Geometry
Parallel and Distributed Computing
Theoretical Astrophysics Research
Study of the formation and evolution of active galactic nuclei. Active
galactic nuclei are believed to be supermassive black holes at the center of
large galaxies which are accreting matter and explosively emitting energy in
a fashion which makes them the most violent and energetic objects in the universe.
We do our research by building models for the formation and evolution of these
objects and then testing our models for consistency with observed data for the
distance and luminosity of AGN's. We use empirical data from earth-orbitting
X-ray telescopes and make model calculations which require as much processor
speed as possible.
To date six Earlham students have presented posters on this research at three
different conferences during the years 1994 and 1995. We expect this research
to be a continuing and ongoing effort as new data becomes available with the
launch of the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics facility (a major new X-ray telescope)
by NASA later this year. This work was supported by a three-year grant from NASA
during 1992-1995.
Mathematical Modeling
Coursework and yearly national contest, hope to provide students with
opportunities to use modeling skills in governmental, industrial and
business settings.
System and Network Administration
Support Unix, WinTel, and Macs for m, p, c faculty and students
Dialup Internet Service for Earlham community
New Initiatives
High Energy Physics
Opportunities for involvement in new and ongoing research in experimental nuclear
physics exist, which take place mainly during the summer. The research involves
running experiments at facilities such as the Tandem/Superconducting LINAC
Accelerator at Florida State University and the National Superconducting
Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. Computer analysis of the
data collected could be done at Earlham.
There is potential for bringing some detector development work to Earlham which
would support the experiments mentioned above.
Projects Involving Computer Science and Physics Majors in Collaboration
There is currently a need to port data analysis software to the Linux
operating system and perhaps to produce graphical user interfaces for
some of this software. These analysis packages are used to produce,
view and manipulate one and two dimensional histograms of data.
For particularly ambitious students, there are potential projects involving
development of analysis software "from scratch."
There may be opportunities to port theoretical nuclear physics calculations to the
Linux operating system. It would be useful to run them on the parallel virtual
machine (PVM) currently under construction by the CS Department. We must first
enlist a nuclear theorist interested in collaborating with us.
Project in Physics Pedagogy Involving both Physics and CS Majors
A project for physics majors interested in teaching, and for CS majors
interested in web development using JAVA, is the development of online
graphical physics simulations for use in introductory physics courses.
Operations Research
Indiana Software Association
They are working on an internship program. www.indsoft.org
Dan Woodhouse - 962-7393 (w) 965-9123 (h)
1997 grad that did a couple of internships in Richmond and then stayed. (From
Indiana originally.) Currently works for Robert W. Baird. Sending a description
of his experiences as an intern.
Richmond Community Schools
Rodger Smith
CS, on-going, one per semester
West End Bank
John Russie
Management Program maybe?
School for the Arts
Dan Woodhouse (on the board)
CS, on-going, one per semester
Other entities in Richmond
Belden
RP&L
City and County
Credit, money, both? How many hours/week, journal? The first experiences for students
should be credit-based, with potential paid work for those students who demonstrate
the qualities our "clients" desire.
csoft - full time for a semester? Tony
CompuMentor chapter, work with Service Learning?
Our Track Record
In all of these programs we strive to find internship and job opportunities
within Indiana for our students and graduates. Over the past 15 years
many Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science majors have stayed in Indiana
after graduation. We have found that students who participate in internship
programs with Indiana companies often stay here after they graduate. For
this reason we have begun to focus on this as a key aspect of our efforts.
Statistics for Lilly Grant
Computer Science, Math, & Physics Departments
Yazeed Moor
Alumni/Development, Earlham College
1. Graduates in any of the selected majors that are originally from Indiana
and still reside in Indiana? 13 out of 26 (50%)
2. Graduates in any of the selected majors that are originally from other
states but now reside in Indiana? 7 out of 163 (4.3%)
Note: Total number of graduates from 1980 - 1998 in the departments of Computer
Science, Math, & Physics: 189 students
Our anecdotal recollections:
From Indiana and stayed in Indiana (for at least a year or two)
Amy
Buddy Conner
Don Siler
Paul Retherford
Barb Nicholson
Paul Neff
others?
From elsewhere and stayed in Indiana (for at least a year or two)
RayO
CharlieP
NathanT
Larry Fisher
Nick Fankhauser
Eric Eastman
Mark Stosberg
Chuck Kuehn (from Indiana?)
others?
Companies started in Indiana by people in either of these groups:
Cygnus, Inc
Ray Ontko & Company
infocom, inc
Summersault, Inc
Development of the Wayne County MIS Department
others?
Equipment
/* Make sure each of these is well connected to the projects that address this
initiative. */
Compute server - used primarily for astrophysics research.
Sun UltraSPARC 10 $7,370
128MB memory
4GB disk
24X CD-ROM
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
19" monitor
This would replace a Sun SPARC 10
Teaching lab - used primarily for teaching classes and as an after-hours lab
Some classes (operations research and computational geometry
for example) would be taught in this facility.
200MHz Pentium II $3,500 x 8 = $28,000
64MB memory
4GB disk
24X CD-ROM
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
17" monitor
Environmental modifications $10,000
Total $38,000
These would replace a cluster of 8 NeXT workstations
Parallel computing cluster - operations research, high energy physics,
computational geometry, parallel processing
200MHz Pentium II $3,000 x 4 = $12,000
128MB memory
4GB disk
Quad Fast Ethernet
Console and switch boxes $1,500
Fast Ethernet switch $2,500
These would replace a cluster of 386s, 486s, and DECstations
File and general purpose server
200MHhz Pentium II $7,000
128MB memory
2 9GB disks
24X CD-ROM
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
RAID controller and 7 bay cabinet
17" montitor
This would replace a pair of DECstations
Machines for faculty/student research rooms
200MHz Pentium II $3,500 x 4 = $14,000
64MB memory
4GB disk
24X CD-ROM
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
17" monitor
These would replace a collection of Macintoshs and DECstations. Former
Closet on 2nd Dennis, 4th floor room, area around Dick's office. Facilitate
long-term projects.
Grand Total $82,370
Facilities
Power
Clearly we will need more power in Dennis to support this hardware.
Currently we have limitations concerning where we can plug-in machines
and how many machines can be plugged in at a time. We can provide the
information about current requirements so a reasonable solution can be
engineered.
HVAC
The heating and cooling in Dennis never has been particularly good and
the addition of computer hardware has only made the situation worse.
We can provide the information about BTUs generated by the equipment
we have so a reasonable solution can be developed by the engineers.
Lighting, Clean-up, and Paint
The hallways of Dennis are somewhat shabby, they could use a serious
face-lift.
Faculty/Student Research Rooms
As always space in Dennis is very tight. Currently Wilderness uses two
rooms on the fourth floor. Computer Science uses one room on the fourth
floor. Physics uses the remainder of the fourth floor for research
facilities. Computer Science and Physics would like to use the two rooms
which Wilderness is currently using, in addition to the one that CS
is using, and convert the three of them to faculty/student research
labs. Each of them would have a workstation, whiteboard, table, chairs,
and bookcase. These would be designed for research and projects lasting
a semester or longer.
Office Arrangement
Currently Mathematics and Computer Science share an area at the West end
of 2nd Dennis. The Physics department is spread-out along the length of
the 2nd Dennis corridor with the department office for the three departments
1/2 way down the corridor. With some shuffling we could have the faculty
of all three departments and the office area at the West end of 2nd Dennis
with the rest of the floor used for classrooms (existing) and student study
lounges, research rooms, and computer labs (existing.) This would offer a
number of benefits:
Nicer look and feel, more organized and welcoming. 90% of the people
who come to 2nd Dennis do so via the West stairs. When they entered
they would be presented with the department office and a cluster of
faculty offices.
It would be easier for the faculty and students of the three departments
to work together due to co-location. This has proved to be very useful
for Mathematics and Computer Science.
More...
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Notes
Cost-out second floor of Noyes but don't push unless it's cheap
Explain that 90% of the software that we use is free. WinNT for teaching
purposes is an exception.
Descriptions of what each thing will be used for, how will it effect our capabilities
and ability to retain people in Indiana after graduation.
Illustrate places where students and faculty work together.
The two basic questions at hand are:
1) What can the computer science department do to increase the number of
Indiana high school students that go to college in Indiana?
2) What can the computer science department do to increase the number of
graduates that stay in Indiana after graduation from Earlham? Particularly
students that hail from Indiana.
In general I think our program is currently in a better position to address
the latter question rather than the former. At this time we don't do anything
with the local school corporations nor do we offer any Explore A College
classes. These seem to be the most obvious places to start with respect
to increasing the number of Indiana students that go to college in Indiana.
Starting initiatives for either of these would require the CS program to
reallocate significant resources.
Here are subjects which you should start writing on...
- A brief description of current programs
- Statement of the primary purpose of the project
- Objectives and Description of the Project
- Population you plan to serve and how the population will benefit from
the project.
- Strategies that you will employ to implement the project.
- Anticipated length of the project and the period this grant willl cover
- Your criteria for a successful program
- The results you hope you achieve by the end of the funding period, and
the method by which effectiveness will be measured.
- A budget for the project for which funds are requested
- One-paragraph resumes of key staff who will be working on the project
- Plans for publicizing the grant and project that's submitted (don't ask
me, it's an Ameritech question)
- Beneficiaries of the program
A lot of this information draws along a logical line, if you
want to write one paper, I can seperate the parts for those
applications which request specific information. The rest of the
information, much more trivial in form, won't take me more than a week to
compile. I imagine the tax exempt stuff may take a week or two to procure
knowing local politics.