Salish Kootenai College Tier 3 Center Tim Olson Salish Kootenai College GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
Tribal Colleges Analogous to HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) First one chartered in 1968 (currently 33) 30 are tribally chartered, 3 are federally chartered 30 are fully accredited (remaining 3 have candidate status) GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
A “Typical” Tribal College Less than 25 years old Has a relatively small student body, predominantly Native American Located on a remote reservation Chartered by one or more tribes with a board of directors appointed by the tribal council Open admissions policy Began as a two-year institution GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
Salish Kootenai College Flathead Indian Reservation northwest Montana 4-year college chartered by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes 2000 students (1200 FTE), 80% Native American A.S. in Computer Science (B.S. in 2003), B.S. in Environmental Science, A.S. in General Studies/Science, A.S. in General Studies/ Engineering GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
iVDGL Tier 3 Center 5-yr subcontract from the University of Florida to build a iVDGL Tier 3 center at SKC starting Jan Construction of a 32 node Linux cluster at SKC within 1 year The SKC cluster will be available as a computational resource for the SKC Astrophysics Group, and for instruction in cluster and grid computing for computer science students GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
SKC Astrophysics Group Tim Olson and three students (rising sophomores and juniors in engineering or computer science) funded by NASA/Goddard and NSF/iVDGL Recent work on theoretical neutron star astrophysics Supporting Java and C++ programming performed with the aid of the students GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
SKC Astrophysics Group – future plans MOU for SKC to join the LIGO Scientific Collaboration was signed this week, vote on SKC LSC membership at the coming March LSC meeting LIGO data analysis taking advantage of the SKC iVDGL Tier 3 Center LIGO detector characterization Theoretical neutron star astrophysics GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02
SKC iVDGL Education Activities 2-4 student research interns per year learning cluster/grid computing New distributed computing course Incorporate SDSS and LIGO educational materials in SKC astronomy and astrophysics courses Potential for reaching 185 K-12 Indian-controlled schools in 23 states in through the SKC/National Indian School Board Association science and math teaching improvement collaboration Other ideas? GriPhyN/iVDGL E/O Meeting3/1/02