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Business Fellows, funded by a $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Incorporated, will sponsor 13 programs in 2004. The inaugural projects will be collaborations with Ball State's Building Better Communities initiative, which received $2.5 million in funding from the Indiana Legislature.
A faculty member and a team of students will work on a problem-based project to improve services, quality, or competitiveness. It can also increase their business to develop new job opportunities. Students will earn a stipend for their effort.
This year's faculty leaders are: Claudia McVicker, assistant professor of elementary education; Fred Kitchens, information systems and operations management assistant professor; Joseph Brown, marketing professor; and Martha Hunt, assistant professor of landscape architecture.
Also, Jeffrey and Susan Clark, physiology and health science associate professor and instructor, respectively; Joseph Block, landscape architecture instructor; Linda Keys, associate director of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs, and Eric Damian Kelly, professor of urban planning.
Also, Michelle Glowacki-Dudka, assistant professor of educational studies; Roger Hollands and Grant Neely, political science professor and assistant professor, respectively; Jeff Hornsby, management professor; Michael Baur, assistant professor of finance and insurance; and Stephen Kendall, associate professor of architecture.
External funding exceeds $24 million
For the second consecutive year, Ball State has received more than $24 million in external grants to fund faculty education and research projects.
The university received $24.3 million in outside funding in 2002-03, due to collaboration with partners in education, business, state agencies, and other not-forprofit organizations.
Ball State has increased outside funding for research and educational programs every year since 1998-99, when the university received $5.5 million. Outside funding doubled to $11 million the following year, increased to $19.9 million in 2001-02, and established a record level of $25.2 million last year.
During the 2003-04 academic year, faculty received funding for 242 of the 339 proposals submitted, a success rate of 71 percent. The university had 14 proposals exceeding $500,000 and 26 projects surpassing $100,000.
New book lists broadcasting program among nation's best
Ball State has one of the nation's top broadcasting programs in the country, according to a new book examining career opportunities in telecommunications.
In This Business of Broadcasting, author Leonard Mogel touts Ball State as one of eight schools having a superb program in broadcasting and provides information about Ball State's Department of Telecommunications.
The writer opens the chapter "Colleges and Universities Offering Programs in roadcasting" by discussing television talk show host David Letterman, '70.
The author lists "superb broadcasting programs" in the following order: the University of Southern California, Emerson College, New York University, Ball State University, Temple University, Boston University, Michigan State University, and the University of North Texas.
Criteria for selecting schools for the book included availability of professional broadcasting facilities on campus, industry experience of the faculty, number of quality internships for students, exposure to all the opportunities in broadcasting, and the ability to work on student projects that actually produce programs.
Undergraduate and graduate students may participate in a number of broadcasting opportunities, including WIPB-TV, a public broadcasting station; WBST-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate; Cardinal Vision 57, a student-managed cable channel; WCRD 91.3 FM, a student-managed, on-campus radio station; and NewsLink Indiana, the university's news convergence project.
Ball State will soon expand opportunities for students to explore existing and future options in telecommunications with the soon-to-be constructed Communication Media Building, a $21 million project slated to open at the beginning of the 2006-07 academic year.
Ball State to open networking lab for computer security
Future business leaders will learn how to protect computer networks and other information systems from cyber-attacks by working in the new Networking and Security Lab at Ball State.
The lab, established last summer, features the latest equipment provided through a grant from Ball State's technology office and features an enclosed network that simulates the Internet environment with "virtual" ISPs and "virtual" organizations.
The lab enables students to go into existing networks and, in the process, learn where security leaks may exist, gaining knowledge on how to prevent attacks.
The new lab also is connected to the Cluster Computing Research Lab, enabling students and faculty to extend their research into the security of widespread distributed systems.
The cluster lab features a computer cluster built from discarded personal computers.
Lilly Endowment funds Ball State plan to build intellectual capital
Ball State will use a four-year $4.9 million grant from Lilly Endowment Incorporated to attract and retain high-quality faculty and students and sponsor research that will lead to economic development.
The university received the funding after developing a strategy to achieve the goals outlined by the Endowment in its Building Intellectual Capital program. The university will retain and attract faculty through early career awards.
Ball State's plan calls for the funding of research projects or programs that are technology intensive and require an initial capital investment. The university also plans to target highachieving students.
The endowment announced the $100-million Building Intellectual Capital initiative last February. The university plans to encourage the growth of interdisciplinary relationships and research projects across campus.
Trustees approve funding requests
In September, Ball State's board of trustees approved the sale of bonds to finance construction of the Communication Media Building, providing needed space for the university's emerging digital media content production facilities, which show promise in creating spin-off business.
In 2003, the Indiana General Assembly and the state budget committee approved bonding authority for the $21-million project. It will be located between the Ball Communication Building and the Robert Bell Building, bringing all four departments of the College of Communication, Information, and Media into a four-building conjoined complex with the Art and Journalism Building.
Part of the new building will be used to expand the Center for Media Design, the centerpiece of Ball State's iCommunication Initiative, funded through a $20-million grant from Lilly Endowment Incorporated.
With construction slated to begin early next year, the building is scheduled to open at the beginning of the 2006-07 academic year.
The trustees also approved the university's legislative request for the 2005-07 biennium, which seeks state funding to support faculty and staff salaries, supplies and expenses, and repair and rehabilitation of university buildings. The university is requesting an increase of three percent for salaries, supplies, and expenses.
It is also requesting operational funding for the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities, a public school for academically gifted high school juniors and seniors, which is located on the Ball State campus.
Another request is for $2.5 million to fund the Center for Innovation as part of Ball State's Building Better Communities initiative. The center would house student-faculty projects resulting in economic or quality-of-life improvements in Indiana.
High-bandwidth prototype becomes national model
Ball State has deployed a high-bandwidth wireless network to two elementary schools, a project that could become a national model for the application of highbandwidth in classrooms.
Researchers from the university will test the educational impact of a range of multimedia content that will be delivered over the network to fourth- and fifth-grade classes at Cowan and Mitchell elementary schools in Muncie. They also will analyze the network's technical capabilities.
Both schools have been provided with new hardware to access the content.
The project is dubbed "Digital Middletown," a digital age follow-up to the pioneering sociological studies performed by Robert and Helen Lynd during the 1920s and '30s in Muncie.
