News Briefs... Donald Z w iep, form er Chair man o f the M echanical Engineer ing Departm ent, has been named acting Provost and V P o f A ca dem ic Affairs, replacing Richard G allagher w ho w ent to Clarkson University. Kenneth Scott has been named acting Chairm an of the M echanical Engineering De partment. Searches are underway to find perm anent replacements for these positions. In May, President Stauss an nounced the departure o f Dean W illiam Taft. Michael Massouh has been named acting D irector o f Graduate Studies. A search is being conducted to find a new Dean of G raduate Studies. Ground has been broken for Fuller Laboratories, W P I’s new in formation sciences building. C on struction began on the $9.9 million Fuller Labs earlier this sum mer and when com pleted it will be hom e to the C om puter Science Department and W PI’s adm inis trative and academ ic com puter operations, began earlier this sum m er. The C ollege C om puter Center h as replaced its outdated DECsystem 20 com puter with a new En core M ultimax. All students who had login ID ’s on the D ec20 must apply at CCC for a new ID.
Doing business with the phone com pany
Reaching out and touching someone is not so easy by Jeffrey Goldmeer and Gary DelGrego What type of service would you like? W hat is your social security number? W ho is going to be your long distance carrier? Do you want touch tone, call waiting, call for warding, three-way calling, speed dialing,...?? These are just some o f the ques tions you are going to answ er if you are planning on getting a phone. New England Telephone will be in the Wedge Monday through W ednesday (9-4 Monday and 9-6 Tuesday and W ednesday), so be prepared when you go. There are only a few things that you need to do beforehand. The first is to decide who the phone bill will be sent to; you or your room m ate, and have that address ready. The phone com pany’s representative will also ask for that person's social security number, and if he or she has previ ously had a listing with New England Telephone and what the num ber was. If not, the representative will ask for a credit reference; eith er a parent’s phone number, or a bank
account number. The only other question that deals directly with bill ing is the installment charge of $31.77. This charge can be paid on the first bill, or broken up into two, three, or four equal m onthly pay m ents. (Hint: If you break it up over four m onths your money can be m aking interest for you and not the phone company.) The rest o f the questions that you will be asked deal with the type o f service that you want. If you have a touch tone phone, and want touch tone dialing, you must tell them so; this will also add a fee o f 58 cents to your bill each month. O ne o f the most im portant ques tions is what type o f service you would like. There are three options: (1) M e a su red R ate, (2) U nlim ited Local C alling, and (3) Bay S tate E ast. M ea su red R ate service is ideal for som eone who does not make many phone calls. It provides 30 m essage units per month. Each m essage unit is any full o r fractional part o f five minutes. For exam ple, a six m inute call would use two m es sage units, while a thirty second call
would use one message unit. This service costs $5.61 a m onth, plus .0898 cents for every additional m essage unit. U nlim ited Local C alling pro vides exactly what y ou'd expect: unlimited local calls. This covers all areas that can be reached without dialing a “ 1”. It costs $11.97 per m onth, and there is a charge for all calls that need a “ 1" when dialing. The last type o f service. Bay S tate E ast, offers unlimited local calling, and two free hours o f calling time to non-local areas in the 508 and 617 area codes. The cost is $23.05 a month, plus the charges for any amount o f time over the free hours. T h is year N ew E n g la n d Telephone no longer offers a free trial o f its custom calling services. If you want any of these special fea tures, which include call waiting ($2.58/month), three way calling ( $ 3 .1 5 /m onth), call fo rw a rd in g ($2.57/month), speed calling ($2.10/ month), or any com bination (ask the representative about special package rates), tell the representative when applying for service. Unless you like to pay New Eng
land Telephone for service visits, it’s a good idea to have basic m ainte nance service (45 cents per month). This provides free repair of all inter nal w iring and jacks. However, if the phone com pany arrives and discov ers the problem is your phone, they will not fix it and you will he charged for the service visit. To avoid this possibility, you could get m ainte nance plus ($1.95/m onth). This serv ice covers everything under basic maintenance and doesn’t charge for service visits if the problem is your phone. In addition. New England Telephone will loan you a phone for 60 days, free o f charge, while you get your phone repaired. Probably the last question you will be asked is to -choose a long distance phone com pany. There are many selections, and New England Telephone will not give out informa tion on any of the carriers. You must know what company you want when applying for service. The current choices are: T D X , AT&T. MCI, First Phone Link, ITT, US Sprint, W estern Union, A llnet, and ACC. Each o f these com panies has advansee T elep h o n e, page 2
Seventeen join faculty As classes begin this fall, W PI w ill be w elcom ing at least 17 new full-time professors. In addition, 11 part-tim e faculty m em bers have been hired. Here is the full time line up: BIOLOGY -and BIO TECH NO LOG Y ■ Samuel M . Politz, Assistant Professor; B.S., Louisiana State U., Ph.D.. U CLA , 1978. For the past three years taught at Georgia Tech. Research interest: genetic and im munological aspects of d e velopm ent o f the nem atode Caenorhabditis elegons. B IO M E D I CA L ENGINEERING C hristopher H. Sotak, Assis tant Professor, B.S., M .S., U. of N o rth e rn C o lo ra d o . P h .D ., Syracuse U., 1983. For past four years was w ith G E N M R Instru m ents, Freemont, CA. Research interest: m agnetic resonance im aging. CHEM ISTRY Jeffry A. A res, Assistant Pro fessor; B.S., URI, Ph.D ., Ohio State U. For past two years was a post-doctoral research assistant at U. of Illinois. Research interest: medical chem istry, design and synthesis o f drugs for use in pul monary, cardiovascular and aller gic diseases, antidiabetic drugs. COM PUTER SC IEN C E David Finkel, A ssociate Pro fessor, B.A.. Temple U .. M.S., Ph.D , U . o f C hicago, 197J. Served since 1971 am the m ath and CS faculties of Bucknel! U . Research interest: operating system s, simu lation and algorithms. Nabil H achem , A ssistant Pro fessor, B.E., A m erican U. o f Beirut, Ph.D.. Syracuse U., 1988. W as with D itacom m , Lebanon, from 1979- 85. R esearch interest: artificial intelligence. ELE C T R I C A L ENGINEERING Valentin Boriakoff, Associate Professor; M .S., U. o f Buenos Aires, Ph.D., Cornell U ., 1973. Taught and d id research at Cornell fo r past 15 years. Research inter est: VLSI design, radio astron omy, aeousto-optical signal proc essing. Peter L. Levin, A ssistant Pro fessor, B.S., M .S., Ph.D.. C arne gie Mellon U ., 1987. Research interest: application o f numerical m eth o d s to e le c tro m a g n e tic s. HUM ANITIES Theodore K oditschek, Assis tant Professor, A.B., R utgers U., M .A., Ph.D., Princeton U „ 1981. For the past seven years taught at the U. of California at Irvine. Research interest: urban industrial history, industrial capitalism in Britain. M ANA GEM EN T Nanette J. Fondas, A ssistant P ro fe sso r:A .B ., Cornell! U„ M. Phil., Oxford U „ D.B.A ., Harvard see N ew s, p ag e 3
The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Volume 16, Number 14
Sunday, August 28,1988
A brief history of the WPI campus by Howard B. Bernard W orcester Polytechnic Institute has alw ays been a school with a unique viewpoint. Founded in 1865 as the W orcester County Free Insti tute o f Industrial Science, WPI was created to provide an education which would, according to its open ing day notice, “aim at practical re sults as far as possible, in all cases.” A lth o u g h the In stitu te has changed with the times (it is no longer a “free institute,” despite the
plaque over the door to Boynton Hall), the emphasis on practicality has rem ained. Perhaps the best way to follow the developm ent of W PI - and a very good way to get a feeling for the WPI o f today - is to trace the history of the cam pus itself, buildings and facili ties. The oldest building on campus is Boynton Hall, built to house class rooms and a chapel, and designed for attractiveness and econom y. Today, B oynton Hall (nam ed for John
Boynton, the founder of the Institute) houses no classroom s, but rather serves as the adm inistration build ing. What was once the chapel is now, after several renovations, the Office o f Graduate and C areer Plan ning (O GCP), although the stained glass rendition of the school seal in the window still lends a chapel-like mood to the room. The next building built was the W ashburn Shops. The Shops were financed by Ichabod W ashburn, who set out to establish a w orking me-
Freshmen tally looks good Male:Female ratio better The following is a com parison of this y ear’s freshman class (projected) and the class o f ’91. They show a rise in enrollm ent of approxim ately 30 students, and a rise in female enrollm ent, bringing the male:fem ale ratio down to about 4:1 for the class o f '92. Class o f '92 Class o f ’91 APPLICATIONS 2,820 2,950 A DM ITTED 2,068 1,766 ENROLLED 640 612 SAT-V 550 560 SAT-M 660 670 FEM ALES 125 102 MALES 515 510 STATES REPRESENTED 35 25 Unlike the situation two years ago. housing is not a problem this year. All requests and there are even a few fem ale vacancies. Anybody with a housing question or problem should go to the Office of Residential Life.
WPI set to celebrate 100 years of football
see H istory, page 3
W P I’s New Number
Defensive keys are being explained to the team as they prepare to kick off the season on Friday, Septem ber 9 in a special 7:30 game against Division II oppo nent Springfield College. PHOTO BY WALTER FREEMAN
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chanical lab/m achine shop which would provide education for student apprentices w hile o perating for profit as a m anufacturing shop. W ashburn was erected shortly after Boynton Hall, its tow er com pet ing with that o f Boynton as a practical and academic struggle to unite on the hill. The original building has been added to and renovated often. The most recent renovation was accom plished four years ago and W ashburn now houses lecture halls, professor’s offices, the M echanical Engineering machine shops (aka “grunge lab”), and W P l’s nuclear reactor. The Salisbury Laboratories were next, built as an academ ic and labora tory building for the sciences. The building was nam ed for the Salisbury family, who did m uch to develop W orcester and W PI, including fund ing the school for years, donating the land for Salisbury Park, and arrang ing to have Institute Road curved around the bottom o f Boynton Hill. Salisbury is now home to the Humanities, Biology, and Biotech nology Departm ents, and a student lounge. Also in Salisbury is Kinnicut Hall, named for Dr. Leonard P. Kin nicut, a well-liked and forward think ing chemistry professor around the turn of the century. Also constructed around that time was the sm all, attractively un usual building at the com er of Boynton Street and Institute Road. It was built there because it was to be a laboratory for studying electricity and m agnetism and its designer,
As o f July 20th, all of cen tral M assachusetts has a new area code, including W PI. Aiso the WPI offices have a new prefix. The area code is now *508, and the prefix is 8 3 1. To reach offices at WPI, please dial (508) 831-(old ex tension). If you need the extension of a particular office, dial (508) 831-5000, our m ain sw itch board.