Dear Friends,
The students have returned to campus and the spring semester is officially underway with classes starting today.
Next week, Karen Whitehead, Tim Henderson, and I travel to Pierre to appear before the Legislative Appropriations Committee.
Items of major concern to the School of Mines are:
1) Faculty salary competitiveness.
2) HB1085 bond bill to allocated $74.5 million for science facilities and laboratories. There is a critical state-wide need for science and engineering facilities. The passage of this bill is very important to us as we have two projects which would be impacted: $8 million to be allocated toward the construction of a new Chemistry/Chemical Engineering and Research building http://resources.sdsmt.edu/documents/construction/cbe.pdf, and $7 million toward the construction of a new Paleontological Research Center. http://resources.sdsmt.edu/documents/construction/paleo.pdf
3) Other requests in support of the Governor's FY09 budget include the support of increased technology, funds for facility maintenance and repair, and a system-wide request for funds to support an increase in utility costs.
4) SB59 which supports program revisions to the South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship.
Two School of Mines Legislative bills are SB55 and SB57. SB55 requests the transfer of 0.39 of 33 acres back to the US Air Force (EAFB) for digital airport surveillance radar (a.k.a. the DASR NIKE site). SB57 requests authorization to spend funds from non-state sources for a road to connect the School of Mines campus to St. Patrick Street. The completion of this road will begin the development of the south side of campus and ultimately connect St. Patrick Street to St. Joseph Street.
Other items we are focusing on include alternative energy research, economic development, research centers, progression of new doctoral programs, international initiatives, and expanding our student diversity. I will be updating you on these and other items of interest in the upcoming weeks.
The men's and women's basketball teams are beginning conference play in the DAC and are off to great starts. This week two-time DAC MVP and NAIA All-American Melanie Vedvei was named as conference player of the week for the third time this season.
The School of Mines recently received a CASE award for "excellence in communications-overall publications" for our "Invent Tomorrow Recruitment Series".
Congratulations go to Dr. Jim Martin on the publication of his book, The Geology and Paleontology of the Late Cretaceous Marine Deposits of the Dakotas. A celebration and book signing in his honor was held on December 20th in the Museum of Geology on the School of Mines campus.
We recently received word that Kurt D. Kost (MinE78) has been promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Foundation Coal Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:FCL) effective January 1, 2008. Mr. Kost had served as Executive Vice President since June 2007. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President, Western Operations and Process Management overseeing Foundation Coal's Powder River Basin operations. He has been with Foundation Coal and its predecessor companies since 1980.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments. I can be reached at charles.ruch@sdsmt.edu.
Charles Ruch