New faculty members appointed (W PI N ews Service)-W PI has announced the appointment o f four teen new faculty m em bers for the 1989-90 academ ic year. The appoint ees represent seven departm ents: C hem istry, Computer Science. Elec trical Engineering, Humanities, Man agem ent, Mathematics and M echani cal Engineering. H ussein B aher will be an associ ate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. B aher’s re search background includes signal processing and electronic com m uni cations circuits. He earned his undergraduate de gree in electronic engineering from A le x a n d ria U niversity in C airo, Egypt, and his Ph.D. in electronic engineering from University College in Dublin. Ireland. B aher has conducted research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and in Ireland, by the N ational Board for Science and Tech
nology. He has lectured at Cairo University, Dublin Institute o f T ech nology, and University College, D ub lin. His teaching includes Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U ni versity, and most recently, professor at the School of Electronic Engineer ing at the National Institute for Higher Education in Dublin. C h risto p h e r A. B row n joins the Mechanical Engineering Department as an assistant professor, his research includes machining, and tribology, related to com posites and ceram ics, as well as fractal analysis of surface topography. Brown’s undergraduate, m aster’s, and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering are from the University o f Vermont. His professional back ground includes work at the U niver sity of Vermont, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and most recently, at CERAC S.A., European Research Center for A tlas Copco in
Switzerland. He is a former co-captain of the University o f Vermont ski team. E ast ern Downhill champion in 1973 and 1974. and a 1973 A ll-Am erican Ski Team member. Steven C. B ullock will be an assis tant professor in the H um anities Department. His undergraduate his tory degree is from Houghton C ol lege, with a M.A. from State U niver sity o f New York - B ingham ton and an A.M. and Ph.D. from Brown U niver sity. His teaching interests include C o lonial and Revolutionary America, 19th Century Am erica, American Social and C ultural H istory, and English History. Bullock has taught at SUNY Binghamton, University o f M assa chusetts - Boston, Lawrence U niver sity and Vassar College. In 1988-89 he was an American Council of Learned Societies research fellow for
recent recipients of the Ph.D. re searching “ Freemasonry in America, 1730-1840.” W illiam W. K arr has joined the M athematics Department as an assis tant professor. He comes to WPI from the Department of Mathematics at the University o f Houston where he was a postdoctoral fellow. He earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University o f Minnesota. Farr worked as a research engineer for Dow Chem ical and has published articles in Chem ical Engineering Sci ence. M ei-H ui G uo will be an assistant professor in the Mathematics Depart ment. Her undergraduate m athem at ics degree is from the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, Republic of China. Her Ph.D. in probability and statistics is from the University of
M aryland. Her m athematics teaching experi ence includes the University o f M in nesota, and most recently, the U niver sity of Maryland. C h ick o ry J . K asouf will be an assistant professor in the M anage ment Department. His education includes a B.A. in psychology from Providence College, an M.B.A. from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in marketing with minors in statistics and strategic management. K asouf's research interests are m arketing strategy, product life cycle, managem ent o f declining in dustries, and health care marketing. His teaching background includes the Monson Developmental C enter in Palmer, Mass., University of North Carolina, Christian Brothers A cad emy in Syracuse. N.Y., and Syracuse U niversity. He also worked for the (continued on page 2)
The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute Volume 17, Number 14
Saturday, August 26, 1989- Welcome Back Issue
The Princess Apartments: A miracle cure by Jeffrey S. G oldm eer In the last three months the Prin cess A partm ents (a.k.a. the Lambda C hi Alpha House) has been a focus of activity at WPI. The school has al most com pleted converting this house into a ‘state of the art' dorm itory. This dorm has been named Institute Hall. A ccording to R oger Fournier, A ssociate Director of Physical Plant, the decision to renovate the house was m ade in early June. This decision was m ade in order to accom m odate the large num ber of incoming freshmen. This new dorm itory will house 70 freshm an men, in singles, doubles, and triples. In order to properly renovate the building, the interior had to be gutted and rebuilt. This process was bur dened by the severe time constraint; a start to com pletion time o f less than three m onths. During this time, the contracts had to be approved, and com plete plans for the demolition and construction had to be completed. A tour o f the building last Thurs day revealed a majority o f the work com pleted, with finishing touches being applied. Furniture was being set up, and the fixtures in the third
floor bathrooms were being installed. To date, the only m ajor renovations still uncompleted are the basement and the elevator. The basement will house a laundry room, a study lounge, a recreation room, and vending machines. The plans call for the elevator to be in
stalled into an addition that has yet to be built. This addition will function as the main entrance into the building. It will take a number o f weeks to complete this work: the foundation must be rem oved on one portion o f ihe building so that the elevator can serv ice the basem ent. The process o f
supporting the foundation as sections are rem oved takes three days for ev ery two feet of foundation. One o f the few difficulties that those living in this dorm will face is that the phone lines have not been completed, and will not be till the phone company strike ends.
The building became available for this renovation when Lambda Chi Alpha had its charter revoked. The school allowed the members o f the fra.emity to continue to live in the house until the end of the academ ic year. This renovation has a total cost of 1.5 million dollars.
Doing business with the phone company Reaching out and touching someone is not so easy by Jeffrey S. G oldm eer and Gary D elG rego What type of service would you like? What is your social security number? W ho is going to be your long distance carrier? Do you want touch tone, call waiting, call forwarding, 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 (8:30 to 5 all three days), so be pre pared 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 the address ready. The phone com pany’s representative will also ask for that person’s social security number, and if he o r she has previ ously had a listing with New England Telephone, and what that num ber was. If not, the representative will ask for a credit reference; either a parent’s phone number, or a bank account number. The only other question that deals directly with billing is the in stallment charge o f $31.77. This charge can be paid on the first bill, or
broken up into two, three, or four monthly payments. (Hint: If you break it up over four months your money can be making interest for you and not for the phone company.) The rest of 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 add a fee o f 58 cents to your monthly bill. One o f the most important ques tions is what type o f service you would like. There are three options: (1) M easu red K ate, (2) U nlim ited Local C alling, and (3) Bay S tate
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E ast. M easured R ate service is ideal for someone who does not make many phone calls. It provides 30 m essage units per month. Each message unit is any full or fractional part o f five minutes. For example, a six m inute call would use two message units, while a thirty second call would use one m essage unit. This service costs $ 6 .5 1 a m onth, plus 10 cents for every additional message unit. U nlim ited Local C alling provides exactly what you’d expect: unlimited local calls. This covers all areas that can be reached without dialing a “ I” . It costs S 12.87 per month, and there is a charge for all calls that need a “ 1" when dialing. The last type of service. Bay S tate E ast, offers unlimited calling, and two free hours of calling time to non local areas in the 508 and 617 area codes. The cost is $23.95 a month, plus the charges for any amount of time over the free hours. New England Telephone offers additional custom er calling services. If you want any of these special fea tures. which include call waiting ($2.58/m onth), three way calling ($ 3 .1 5 /m o n th ), c a ll f o i* a r d in g ($2.57/m onth), speed calling (S2.10/ month), or any combination (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 maintenance service (45 cents per month). This provides free repair of all internal wiring and jacks. However, if the phone company arrives and discovers that the problem is your phone, you will be charged for the service visit. To avoid this possibility, you could (continued on page 3)