> Homepage > Print version > View previous issues OCTOBER 2010 News International Energy Research Campus From the President Reach for the Sky Glittering Prizes Home for Life Singapore Signs Mr Nice Guy How the Internet was Born From the President Prof. Peretz Lavie The Technion campus changes color and mood with the change of the seasons. At the end of summer, the somber and festive mood and quiet days of the High Holidays give way to the muted colors of fall. Visitors can feel a subtle buzz reverberating through Technion City as faculty, students, administrative and technical personnel accelerate toward the opening of the new academic year. The beginning of every academic year is a celebration. There is a unique sense of excitement in the air. New students try to find their way around the campus for the first time; veteran students greet each other happily after being away for the summer. Classrooms and lecture halls are prepared and polished, and the summer-vacant dormitories become alive once more and are filled with cheerful voices and music. The Technion stretches its muscles in preparation for a new year, a new beginning. And there are several new beginnings to celebrate in 5711 (the 2010-2011academic year). The 2,167 new students - 1,352 men and 815 women - commencing their undergraduate studies this year will enjoy the long-awaited renewed Student Union Building that was renovated beyond recognition, thanks to the generosity of one of Technion’s most dedicated friends - Shalom Zielony. Graduate students will find a new academic program in Energy research that is part of the new Grand Technion Energy Program. Soon we will begin an intensive worldwide search for new faculty members in this important field. Graduates with interdisciplinary passion for robotics and autonomous systems will find new integrative courses at the dynamic Technion Autonomous Systems Program (TASP). These two programs that begin this year join the successful Seiden graduate program in Nanotechnology and Nanoscience that is attracting brilliant students from diverse disciplines across the country. And to our delight, there is a new dawn breaking for housing on campus; soon the Shalom Zielony Graduate Village will be opened, which means a new beginning for many graduate students and their families. It is also a new beginning for 36 students, 23 men and 13 women, of the second class of the International School of Engineering who came to the Technion from more than 20 countries around the globe, and for 31 international students, 14 men and 17 women, who begin their medical studies in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. And it is certainly a new beginning for 23 new faculty members joining the Technion family who will make their first steps in the teaching halls and research laboratories. And another whole new beginning greeted the New Year: we welcomed the birth - in Technion’s Junior Staff Housing - of a new baby boy, Elisha Chaim, born on September 13 to PhD student Yael Schuster and her husband, Moshe Schuster, the first ever baby to be born on campus! A warm welcome to all and a warm welcome to this edition of FOCUS. A focus on new beginnings... © 2011 Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Division of Public Affairs and Resource Development All rights reserved. If you wish to use any text or graphics contained herein, please contact focus@tx.technion.ac.il