Dear All, As we move forward together here at the Birck Nanotechnology Center we are implementing a series of operational changes that are designed to promote increased staff-student collaboration and to reward student processing excellence. At the same time we also want to implement additional educational initiatives that will provide a broader processing background that can be tailored to the specific needs of students from a variety of engineering and scientific disciplines. The changes, effective March 1st, 2012, are as follows: (1) Each resident faculty at Birck will receive 8 free hours of "technical staff" time per fiscal year to help with their research projects in the cleanroom and/or laboratories. Faculty who are heavy users will get an additional 8 hours for every $100K they spend in recharge. This will be tracked in Coral and reported monthly. (2) Super Users will be identified by our Engineering Staff members for each of the main tools in the cleanroom and labs. The role of a Super User is to help train new students and assist staff members. Super User status will be evaluated on a month-by-month basis. If the Super Users spend at least 6 hours supporting staff they will receive double reservation time for their own equipment use during the month, and free monthly lab or cleanroom access (depending on where their tool is located). This also will be tracked using Coral and reported monthly. (3) Prior to starting a process in the cleanroom, new students will present a 15min summary of their proposed research to key staff members. Ron Reger will lead this activity and appoint the staff members who will participate in this review process. Also, as process problems arise, please contact Ron directly via e-mail or in person to discuss the problem. He and his staff will be happy to assist you in solving the problem and/or providing alternative solutions. (4) We are revamping our processing class to appeal to a broader user base: EE, ME, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. This will become a required class for every student who will need access to the Birck cleanroom. This class will include both theory and hands on work in the cleanroom so that students will be ready to do great processing after they have taken this class. Our plan is to eventually have this class accepted as one of the elective graduate classes in all the appropriate departments. Please note that this initiative will take more time to fully implement as new course material must be created. (5) If students are careless and don't follow procedures and break any equipment or contaminate it, their advisor will be charged for the staff time needed to re-train the student. We realize that mistakes happen and this is part of the learning process, but repeated gross negligence will result in retraining charges. These retraining charges will be assessed when students misuse the equipment on a repeated basis after a written warning to the student and his/her advisor has been ignored. This affects all of the users of the cleanroom and their productivity. (6) For repeated "major" safety, procedural, and/or citizenship issues (misuse of equipment, not using Coral to log in, or a behavior which will put other students in danger), technical staff manager and director can and will forbid access to the cleanroom for one week or longer, depending on the severity of the action. (7) Recharge billings are distributed monthly to faculty for approval. We are working to make sure that all expenses are reported in a timely fashion. However, on the other hand, some bills remain unapproved for several months. This causes a problem with understanding and tracking budget performance throughout the year. The new procedure will continue to provide monthly billings to faculty, but if these go unapproved or unchallenged for a period of one month, payment will automatically be processed. Thank you all for supporting our initiatives. Together we can improve the educational experience of our student researchers and continue to provide a world-class research environment and experience. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Best regards, Ali Ali Shakouri Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Birck Nanotechnology Center, Room 1027 Purdue University 1205 West State Street West Lafayette, IN 47907-2057 (765) 496-6105; Fax: (765) 496-8299 shakouri@purdue.edu