eorgia Gov. Zell
Miller's recommended 7.5 percent reduction in the University System's
resident instruction appropriation could mean a $6.8 million cut in
Tech's budget.
According to President John P. Crecine, a large portion of the resident instruction budget is composed of personnel costs. "There is no escaping the fact that personnel costs at all levels must he reduced," he says. "Having nearly exhausted our options for budget reductions last year, there will be no real option except to reduce personnel expenses in both academic and nonacademic areas."
Crecine hopes that enough reductions can be made through early retirements among faculty and staff to avoid any further layoffs.
He emphasized that layoffs, if necessary, will not place an "excessive burden" on any particular group at Tech. He also stated that the cuts would be undertaken with a "long-term view, protecting as much as possible the areas most important to Georgia Tech's future, and those units and individuals who have consistently performed at a high level."
Some bond-funded activities such as repair and rehabilitation funding and the $24 million for two new Georgia Tech residence halls are not affected by the cutbacks.
roposals for new
Olympic athlete housing are nearing completion as the Oct. 4 deadline
set by Atlanta Mayor Maynard H. Jackson approaches.
Preliminary plans developed by a team of consultants to the Atlanta Housing Authority (AMA) call for incorporating 10 acres located south of North Avenue between Techwood Drive and Williams Street into the Olympic housing area. The property would become the site of new dormitory buildings for students after the 1996 Games.
The re-development project would include conversion of some Techwood/Clark Howell structures into middle-income townhouses, create more green space in the community, and provide better access to downtown Atlanta.
The effort is designed to create a less-populous, more diverse neighborhood in the area, and would retain about half of the public housing already in place. The plan would necessitate displacement of perhaps several hundred Techwood residents, who would be able to choose from among several relocation options being developed by the AHA.
The original Olympic housing plan called for a pair of twin towers to be built, one on each side of North Avenue at Techwood. That plan would have worsened Tech's existing housing shortage, according to Brad Satterfield, ARCH '73, campus architect.
"The North Tower construction would have demolished Smith, Brown, Cloudman and Howell residence halls, and Brittain Dining Hall," Satterfield says. "Tech would have gained only half the bed count that was assigned to the new building because of the loss of the existing bed count."
eorgia Tech was
listed among the nation's best college values in the second annual
survey conducted by Money magazine.
Tech ranked 30th in the survey, which analyzed 1,011 colleges and universities and picked the top 100 based on tuition, quality of students, faculty and facilities. In measuring educational quality, the survey used such indicators as student-to-faculty ratio, average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, library resources, graduation rates, percentage of graduates who earn doctoral degrees, and the number of graduates listed in Standard & Poor's Executive-College Survey of 70,000 top corporate executives.
mployment-seeking Georgia Tech graduates are encountering a
recession-plagued job market, but they may not be having as much
difficulty finding a job as are the alumni of other universities. While
the number of companies interviewing Tech graduates is down about
5-percent, the total number of interviews has remained steady, according
to John Hannabach, director of Georgia Tech's placement office. He said
that the demand for chemical engineers is high, along with alumni
holding environmentally related degrees. The average annual starting
salary for chemical engineers is $37,000; for electrical engineers,
$34,000; and for a management major, $27,000, Hannabach said.
eams from five
top universities all managed to come up winners at a competition
sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems and held at
Georgia Tech on July 29.
The object of the meet was to devise an aerial robot that would move six metal discs from one side of a volleyball court to another. But when none of the entries was able to accomplish the task, the judges decided to pro-rate the $10,000 purse on the basis of how close each team came to achieving the original objective.
The Tech team won $1,500 and an honorable mention after its helicopter was grounded due to last- minute engine failure.
eorge P. Burdell
has been making the rounds again. In an Aug. 28 story about the Georgia
Tech band, a New Jersey newspaper ran a photo of a tuba player and
identified him in the caption as "George P. Burdell." Also, a rebate
check sent recently to the Waffle House restaurant chain by Kraft
General Foods bears the signature, "George P. Burdell." Attempts to
reach Burdell at Kraft's accounting office in Decatur, Ga., were
unsuccessful.
t may seem
roundabout, but that's the idea behind a new exhibit at Atlanta's
SciTrek museum.
A senior design project by a group of mechanical engineering students at Tech, the device is a "Rube Goldberg machine," which uses a series of unnecessarily complicated means to accomplish a simple task. In this case, a cue ball rolls through seven stages of mechanical equipment to turn on a device that plays "Ramblin' Wreck" on a single guitar string.
The machine was designed to demonstrate basic principles of mechanical engineering, such as kinematics, pneumatics, hydraulics, mechanical resonance, vibrations, heat transfer and acoustics.
The class of 44 students had only 10 weeks to work on the project from conception to construction.