For the upcoming academic year, the music department will award $30,675 in scholarships, the largest amount awarded to date. Eighty scholarships, ranging from $200 to $1,000, are given for outstanding achievement in music academics, ensemble performance, music industry studies and to encourage creative activities. Scholarship funds are raised through donations, endowments, faculty and staff performances, student ensemble performances and grants.

The department will award five endowed scholarships this year. The Eric and Elizabeth Turkel Endowment will be awarded to Charles Parsons, Michael Jung, and Matt Borgialli for classical piano performance. The Paul Anka Endowment will be awarded to Megan Benevante for songwriting. The Duo Concertante Endowment will be awarded to Sean Aldas for string performance. The Rosenbauer Music Education Endowment will be awarded to Trevor Vasquez for music education. The Varnasi Endowment will be awarded to Carlos Cardenas for vocal studies.

Two awards are named awards after faculty who made a lasting impact on the department and have since passed on. The Charles Lindsley Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to Scott Robinson for voice, and the Philip Clarke Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to Matt Borgialli for piano.

Phillip Browne, professor emeritus, gives a sizeable donation each year to support instrumental students and those who might be interested in composition. This year, Browne awards will be given to JJ Alvarez, Nicholas Anziano, Andres Meza, and Bradford Isaac Tidwell.

Civil engineering Professor Felipe Pérez has received the 2012 Innovations in Teaching Award from the College of Engineering. Since joining the department in 2008, Pérez has made significant contributions to lecture and lab courses. His innovative use of technology has improved student learning through enhanced real-time data collection and display. In lectures, he employs tablets that allow students to access to his annotated notes simultaneously. Beyond the use of technology, Pérez cares deeply about students, and his passion for teaching is evident to colleagues and students.

Industrial and manufacturing engineering Professor Phil Rosenkrantz has received the 2012 Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Engineering. Rosenkrantz has taught at Cal Poly Pomona for 30 years. Over the past two years, he has taught lower and upper-division IME courses, in addition to the courses ethical considerations in science & technology (EGR 402) and asset allocation in technical decision making (EGR 403). He also has led a variety of workshops and is a member of the faculty Development Advisory Committee.

Andrea Ferris, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, received the Outstanding Student of the Year Award from the Pacific Southwest American Society for Engineering Education.

This award is given to a student in the Pacific Southwest region (Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada) who demonstrates excellence in the classroom and in extracurricular activities. It was presented on April 20 at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Ferris is a member of the Kellogg Honors College and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. She has also served as president and activities coordinator of Engineering Council, and currently serves as the vice president of Tau Beta Pi. She is also an avid volunteer at many College of Engineering events, such as Bronco Engineering Day, where she led 75 other volunteers to host prospective new students.

Cindy Khov, civil engineering major, represented Cal Poly Pomona at the 26th National Conference for Undergraduate Research.

Khov presented "Gardening in Urban Environments (Brownfields) Exposed to Lead Contamination," research that she had been working on with Mónica Palomo, civil engineering professor, and Ganga Hettiarachchi, agronomy professor at Kansas State University.

Palomo says that working with Khov has been a joy. "Cindy is not afraid of new and challenging experiences. She naturally looks for new knowledge and is curious about why things happen."

The conference took place March 29 to 31 at Weber State University in Utah. Despite her courage and curiosity, Khov was not immune to the pre-presentation jitters.

"I was nervous," Khov says. "I had flown all the way to Ogden, Utah by myself and there were so many other student presenters."

But she quickly hit her stride.

"Attending the conference was an amazing experience," Khov says. "The enthusiasm at this conference was refreshing. I absolutely loved it."