Scott Kokones demonstrates his team’s entry, a safety device for indoor recreational rock climbing, while team members Kristalyn Mack (left) and Scott Howes (right) look on. Their project is one of about 30 from the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics 450 senior design class that were on display last week in the EECS Building atrium. Projects are sponsored by industry, individuals and organizations that present a problem for the student groups to solve. The students choose a project and a team and begin work that will last the whole semester and may require such differing skills as mechanical drawing, computer aided design, budgeting, soliciting funds, machining parts and assembly.
This year, students also could choose projects with a community service component. Requests from the Jewish Community Center and ProCEED (Program for Community Engagement in Engineering Design) gave students a wider range of projects to choose from. See related story on page 20. Photo by Rebecca A. Doyle
Photos
Trisha Brown here April 12
Award-winning director, choreographer and avant-garde artist Trisha Brown brings her dance company to the Power Center April 12 for an 8 p.m. performance under the auspices of the University Musical Society. The presentation will feature ‘Canto/Pianto,’ a suite from Monteverdi’s opera ‘L’Orfeo,’ and ‘M.O.,’ based on Bach’s ‘Musical Offering.’ Brown, considered one of the most enduring and original choreographers of the 20th century, has played a significant role in shaping contemporary dance during her 30-year career. Tending to create her work in cycles, Brown characteristically explores particular ideas of movement over the course of three dance works. ‘M.O.’ is the first in her ‘Music Cycle,’ embracing the complex polyrhythms of Bach’s score for harpsichord, ‘Musical Offering.’ Tickets, $32, $30, $22, $16, are available at the UMS Box Office, (734) 764-2538. Educational events offered in conjunction with the program include an interview of Brown by Ben Johnson, UMS director of education and audience development, at noon April 12 in the Betty Pease Studio, Dance Building, and ‘Trisha Brown’s Music Cycle: A Choreographer’s Journey,’ also by Johnson, at 7 p.m. in the Koessler Room, Michigan League. Photo courtesy University Musical Society
Folk song duo performs April 13
Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer and guitarist Sharon Isbin will team up for a romantic evening of French and American folk songs at 8 p.m. April 13 in Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Tickets are $40 and $25. Photo courtesy University Musical Society
Ford’s Vietnam papers released
Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt, a Civil War researcher from California, looks over some of the materials from Gerald R. Ford’s presidency related to the Vietnam War that have been released to the public.
Release of the papers coincided with a full-day conference April 7 at the Michigan League, ‘After the Fall: Vietnam Plus Twenty-Five,’ which marked the anniversary of the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Some 40,000 pages of ‘sensitive’ material on the war, especially its final years and immediate aftermath, were declassified for the release. The materials include files from such collections as Memoranda of Presidential Conversations, National Security Advisor’s Backchannel Messages, Presidential Country Files, National Security Council Staff Country Files, and National Security Council Staff Intelligence and Other Reports on Vietnam.
Other materials archived at the Library range from minutes of staff meetings to campaign stragegy plans. The Presidential Handwriting File (annotated memos, etc.) alone fills more than 20 feet of shelf space. The total collection includes 20 million documents and 500,000 audiovisual items.
It took an escorted convoy of nine moving vans in 1977 to get the material from Washington, D.C., to a warehouse on East Hoover where it was stored until the Library opened in 1980. The April 7 conference included reflections by Ford on the tumultuous events of April 1975, followed by panel discussions examining how America’s involvement in Indochina changed this country, its institutions of government, the making of foreign policy, and popular and media attitudes toward the political process. Record coverage of the conference will appear in the April 17 issue.
Photo by Paul Jaronski, U-M Photo Services
