Delta Tau Delta in the news

Undergrad can't wait to be a professor

September 9, 2006

GENESEE COUNTY | THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
By Laura Misjak |JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Kettering University senior Sam Perlmutter spent a year and a half analyzing what happens when you put cadaver arms on a machine that resembles a "torture device" - and said he couldn't have been happier.

The mechanical engineering student's co-op was spent at Chicago's Northwestern University. He was the only undergraduate student working closely in a group of researchers studying a common sports-related injury to the elbow. Through the project, he aided Chicago Bears' surgeon Gordon Nuber.

"Coming into it, the medical jargon was where I lacked," he said. "Coming in with a mechanical engineering background was to my favor. The arm is a pretty complex organism, and it helped to have a pure mechanical mindset of 'This is how it works as a machine.'"

Perlmutter was involved in constructing a machine, on which cadaver arms were mounted, that simulated pitching. With other devices attached to the project, he and the researchers could measure the impact the motion had on ligaments around the elbow.

After 80-90 hour work weeks and pay that was less than an earlier co-op job, Perlmutter had enough data to write an abstract of the research. As lead writer on the abstract, he was invited to speak at a bio-medical conference in Ohio. Because he was on a study-abroad trip in Germany, Ohio State University offered to fund his flight back to the U.S. so he could present his findings. Again, he was the only undergraduate student in the room.

"There were people there from all over the world - Belgium, England, Asia. I was the only undergrad there," he said. "I could answer questions and hold my own. It was a priceless experience."

Perlmutter will graduate from Kettering in the next couple weeks and will finish his thesis at Northwestern University this fall. He plans to continue working with the group at Northwestern and will begin work on his doctorate in the university's new human movement science program. Northwestern is paying for the rest of his education.

When it comes to the rest of his life, Perlmutter plans to teach at Northwestern, spending extra time doing research.

After studying abroad, he wants to teach in Europe during the summer breaks.

"I have it tattooed in my head right now that I would love to teach," he said. "I would love to be a professor, and I really love doing research. That whole lifestyle of academia is really appealing to me."

Ironically, Perlmutter said he almost didn't go to college. He applied to Kettering at the last minute after hearing of the college's unique co-op program, where students spend three months in the classroom and three months working throughout the year. He wants to become the sort of teacher who impacts students.

"I hate school, and I hate college more than anything," he said. "A lot of that is because I hate the way people teach. The couple of good professors - I remember them " I'm not going to whine about it all day, I'm going to change it."

The Detroit native said he couldn't be where he is now without the help of his colleagues at Northwestern, his family, girlfriend, friends and fraternity brothers at Delta Tau Delta.

"The people I worked with at Northwestern - I put it all on them," he said.

"These people made an environment where I could ask the dumbest questions and they would explain, at length, until I understood it, and that's very rare. I flourished in the environment because of them."

Teetering for a good cause: Fraternity raises money for Adopt-A-School

September 8, 2006

By Amanda Dennis | Staff Writer | www.oxfordpress.com

It is not often that Miami will find its president balancing on a teeter-totter in front of the Phi Delt gates on a Friday afternoon.

But President David Hodge, along with his wife, Valerie, and daughter, Meriem, "teetered" for charity Friday to help raise money for Delta Tau Delta fraternity's national philanthropy Adopt-A-School.

Members of Delta Tau Delta took turns teetering on a custom built wooden teeter-totter from 8 a.m. until

3 a.m., from Wednesday until early Saturday morning.

Donations went to the local Adopt-A-School program, which brings Miami student volunteers into area K-12 schools to assist students and teachers.

"We had a great time and everyone here has great spirit," Hodge said. "It's important to make the community around us very special."

Steve Dealph, director of the Cliff Alexander Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Leadership, said Miami's Delta Tau Delta chapter is very involved with Adopt-A-School and aside from raising money, also provides some of its own members as tutors for the program.

"There's so much need and a lot of cost," he said. "This year the goal was just to do it."

He added that next year the fraternity hopes to make it a 24-hour a day, week-long event.

Melissa Healy, associate director in the Office of Community Engagement and Service, is responsible for the Miami Adopt A School program. She said the program has grown from about 240 volunteers to around 465 in the past year.

"Miami students, both Greek and non-Greek, are eager to volunteer," she said.

Healy added that Adopt A School is a semester-long program with a minimum commitment of one hour per week. She said the program also provides transportation to and from Adopt A School sites.

Sign ups for fall semester will begin at 6 p.m. Sept. 25 in the basement of the Hannah House. For more information, visit www.muohio.edu/adoptaschool.

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