Michael Chinneck ’06 has a degree in middle grades language arts and social studies. But in 2008, he began working for Central Texas College, running education centers on military bases in Afghanistan. After spending several weeks helping to set up education centers on different Army bases, he settled at Forward Operating Base Sharana, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. There he oversaw the offering of college courses to the more than 3,000 members of the 62nd Engineer Battalion. He returned to North Carolina in May and talks here with former NC State intern Ryan Greene about his year of challenge, danger and personal growth.
On his job
[It encompassed] setting up classes for soldiers to take on site. I hired teachers [and] worked with universities to facilitate getting books to their students there. One of the things that soldiers have is goarmyed.com. [The military] gives [them] $4,500 while on active duty to take college courses. There were over 300 different colleges within the system, and the number of degrees was in the thousands. So there were a lot of choices for the soldiers.
On the importance of the work
It sets up their career after the military. I saw soldiers positively working toward something they thought could be attainable in the future. And it provides an outlet for them while they’re deployed to take their mind off the combat environment. I saw soldiers going to classes at night, and they said, “This is the only thing I have besides going to my room and just sitting there and thinking about what’s going on.” On the base, you really don’t have anything else. You have maybe a small [Morale, Welfare and Recreation area], which provides computers and phones. But when you have 20 computers and over 3,000 soldiers on the [base], it’s really not going to be feasible for them all to do that.
On the dangers
Our bases got attacked a couple times while I was there. One base in particular, Salerno, it was attacked twice in two days. About [2 a.m.], I heard something fly by and thought, “That does not sound good.” (more…)
About 25 NC State students are participating in EcoCAR: The Next Challenge, a three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, General Motors and Argonne National Laboratory. The team is one of 16 from universities around the country that are working to convert a 2009 Saturn VUE into an electric, hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle. The students completed their design the first year and will now begin transforming the VUE, which they received in August. NC State magazine intern Deborah Neffa spoke with the team’s outreach leader Erik Schettig ’08 about the project.
How did the first year go?
Considering this is the first time NC State is participating in the competition, [it] went very well. We were able to keep up with other universities that have participated in the competition for many years and have bigger teams—upwards of 40 or more people. . . .
Who’s on the team?
It’s a mix of undergraduates and graduate students from all departments throughout the university. The faculty adviser also gives some kind of assignment through the mechanical and aerospace engineering department so students can participate on the team for a few months to get credit. Even people who have already graduated and are working can become involved. . . . I am an education [graduate student] and have nothing to do with the engineering aspects, but we have people from [all over campus] working together. It really helps better the product.
What’s special about your vehicle?
I’d have to say that our vehicle is closer to what the public will be seeing in EREVs (extended range electric vehicles). [It has] a B20 biodiesel engine (which runs on (more…)
In the Summer 2009 issue of NC State magazine, we asked readers to tell us their memories of living on a student budget. We received nearly 175 responses and printed many in the Autumn 2009 issue. Below is a submission from (Ret.) Col. Ralph Brake ’40.
Ralph Brake '40, from the 1940 Agromeck.
Not only did he send us his story (below), he loaned us the ledger in which he recorded his income and expenses for his junior year (1938-39). We’ve reproduced images of pages from it at the end of the post.
How much did college cost? I estimated my freshman year expenses at $400. Expenses went up approximately $100 per year for my sophomore, junior, and senior years. For my junior year, September 1938 to May 1939, I kept a written ledger of my income and expenses.
I had to work to stay in college. I had no bank account. I was fortunate to have three older sisters who provided financial support during my four years at NC State. My father and mother died before I enrolled.
Beginning with the second term in January 1937, I worked daily in the dairy, milking cows by hand starting at 3:30 a.m. The building for milking cows in 1937 was located near the site of Reynolds Coliseum. I occasionally dropped off to sleep at 8 a.m. classes. At the end of my freshman year my roommate, Bruce Hildebrand ’40, informed me that I had a choice: I either get a new job or get a new roommate for my sophomore year. I got a new job in the botany department doing typing, filing, etc. A bonus was working for Prof. Murray Buell occasionally as a babysitter.
Brake's ledger, where he recorded his expenses for the 1938-39 school year.
[After] my first year at NC State, I was given summer employment working for the U.S. Forest Service doing a timber survey of Pisgah National Forest between Asheville and Blowing Rock. This job helped pay for part of my sophomore year expenses.
In September 1938, I was accepted for the Advanced ROTC program, which provided some additional income. I also was offered a job in the ROTC Military Department for my junior and senior years, which helped pay my expenses. During a six-week ROTC camp at Ft. McClellan I was given extra duty as the company clerk in addition to the required training, but no extra pay.
Another source of income was from selling pecans. My father had planted about 5 acres of Stuart Pecans on his farm. I sold and delivered about 100 pounds of these to faculty members and students each fall.
Editor’s note: Click on the images for a closer look. There are more after the jump.
The Autumn 2009 issue of NC State magazine will be mailed next week, and we’ll be posting to redandwhiteforlife.com some of the content as well as blog-exclusive items. Look for:
A roundtable discussion about NC State’s culture with former UNC System president Bill Friday ’41, former Board of Trustees member Suzanne Gordon ’75, organizational leadership expert and management professor Art Padilla ’69, ’71 MS, former Alumni Association president Billy Maddalon ’90, former Faculty Senate chair Jim Martin and assistant news editor for The Washington Post Dwuan June ’90.
Photographs from freelance photographer David Evans ’84, whose work has appeared in National Geographic and who helped start the National Geographic Channel.
Q&As with an alumnus who helped design the Lonnie Poole Golf Course and another who spent a year in Afghanistan helping soldiers get a college education.
There will be much more, so make sure you check in throughout the week.
Welcome freshmen! Many of the 4,700 entering freshmen will arrive to campus this weekend to move in to their dorm rooms before classes start next Wednesday. It’ll be the beginning of a spirited Wolfpack Welcome Week highlighted by the Alumni Association’s Legacy Luncheon, the Convocation Festival and the Friday Fest Concert. So as our newest members of the Wolfpack family settle in, what advice do you have for them? What should they do to get the most out of their NC State experience? What would you have done differently? What do you wish you had been told or listened to when you started college? Let us know, and leave a comment.
Here’s what Eric Webber ’74 told Melissa Clements ’07, our program assistant for outreach and engagement, at an alumni network event this week in Portland.
What would you say? Tell us! Read what others had to say on our Facebook page.
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for Chancellor Woodward. We spoke with him Monday about everything from tenure to athletics to transparency to e-mail. An edited transcript follows. We hope to announce our next “Seven Questions” subject soon.
1) You talk a lot about transparency. Can you explain what that means to you, why you think it’s important and what you plan to do to spread that mindset throughout the university?
It really goes in two directions. Let me talk internally, because that’s a lot easier to speak to. The campus community needs to understand [and] needs to have reasonably full information on how major decisions are made and, where appropriate, an opportunity to participate in those decisions. To some degree, I’m talking about faculty, but there are other organized groups on campus—students and staff—as well. Internally, transparency [means] that key decisions will result after there is appropriate consultation. Once decisions are made, they will be carefully explained. That’s not to say that you make, say, budget decisions based on a democracy. That’s not it. This is a hierarchy. But the faculty, staff and students need to understand, for example, how the budget decisions we’re now confronting are made and why and, when appropriate, have a say so in [them]. (more…)
NC State releases additional documents related to the Mary Easley hiring. . . . Wired magazine has feature article on an NC State researcher’s dinosaur discoveries. . . . NCSU Libraries launches online reference resource, NC Architects & Builders. . . . Alumnus, pioneer landscape architect who designed the Brickyard starts blogging. . . . The Caldwell Program’s month-long trip to China draws to a close. . . . NC State magazine cover project digs into the ’80s.
Today is the deadline to send us your questions for Chancellor Jim Woodward, who’ll be the first subject for our “Seven Questions With” feature. You have until 5 p.m. to send us your questions. We’ll post his responses next week.
You can submit a question in the comments section of this post or by e-mailing us at alumniblog@gw.ncsu.edu. And don’t forget about our Open Thread, where you can post your thoughts on Chancellor Oblinger’s resignation and the related events.
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