Grits are made from dried corn ground into coarse or fine particles. The corn kernels are treated to remove the hull, resulting in hominy, which is then dried and milled into grits. To prepare, the grits are simmered in water, milk, or broth until soft and creamy.
They are served hot with butter, salt, or cheese. Sweet versions might include sugar or honey. In the Southern U.S., grits are sometimes paired with eggs, bacon, sausage, or shrimp for a hearty start to the day.
This is happening Thursday at Peterhouse:
13:00 – 13:30
Fellows Orientation
14:00 – 15:30
Session I: Scruton’s Aesthetics
A. O’Hear
F. Hörcher
A. Frost
16:00 – 17:00
Session II: Art and Modernity
C. Varry
J. Kolata
17:30 – 19:00
Keynote I: Beauty and the Sacred
D. Hedley
J. Orr pic.twitter.com/EYnWIbDwtl
100 years ago, the Supreme Court made it clear in Pierce v. Society of Sisters: raising children is the responsibility of parents, not the government.
100 years later, the Trump Administration remains committed to protecting parental rights. pic.twitter.com/yduXdLShty
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) June 1, 2025
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
Its been 20 years since we began following educational facilities construction activity. Starting this month we will examine federal government data together with the best available data about space utilization to enlighten our response to the perfectly reasonable question: “Are we over-building or under-building or building ineffectively”. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
California Polytechnic University | San Luis Obispo County
Oulun yliopisto | Pohjois-Pohjanmaa
Tulane School of Architecture Louisiana
University of Michigan | Washtenaw County
Auburn University | Lee County Alabama
University of Kansas School of Architecture |
Douglas County
As reported by the US Department of Commerce Census Bureau the value of construction put in place by May 2025 by the US education industry proceeded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $135.970 billion. This number does not include renovation for projects under 50,000 square feet and new construction in university-affiliated health care delivery enterprises. Reports are released two months after calendar month. The complete report is available at the link below:
This spend makes the US education facilities industry (which includes colleges, universities, technical/vocational and K-12 schools, most university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises, etc.) the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States after commercial property; and fairly close. For perspective consider total public + private construction ranked according to the tabulation most recently released:
$136.9590 billion| Education Facilities
$156.919 billion | Power
$68.968 billion | Healthcare
Keep in mind that inflation figures into the elevated dollar figures. Overall — including construction, energy, custodial services, furnishings, security. etc., — the non-instructional spend plus the construction spend of the US education facilities is running at a rate of about $300 – $500 billion per year.
We typically pick through the new data set; looking for clues relevant to real asset spend decisions. Finally, we encourage the education facilities industry to contribute to the accuracy of these monthly reports by responding the US Census Bureau’s data gathering contractors.
Reconstruction of Ancient Agora
As surely as people are born, grow wealthy and die with extra cash,
there will be a home for that cash to sustain their memory and to steer
the cultural heritage of the next generation in beautiful settings.
When is it ever NOT storm season somewhere in the United States; with several hundred schools, colleges and universities in the path of them? Hurricanes also spawn tornadoes. This title sets the standard of care for safety, resilience and recovery when education community structures are used for shelter and recovery. The most recently published edition of the joint work results of the International Code Council and the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute SEI-7 is linked below:
Given the historic tornados in the American Midwest this weekend, its relevance is plain. From the project prospectus:
The objective of this Standard is to provide technical design and performance criteria that will facilitate and promote the design, construction, and installation of safe, reliable, and economical storm shelters to protect the public. It is intended that this Standard be used by design professionals; storm shelter designers, manufacturers, and constructors; building officials; and emergency management personnel and government officials to ensure that storm shelters provide a consistently high level of protection to the sheltered public.
This project runs roughly in tandem with the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute SEI-17 which has recently updated its content management system and presented challenges to anyone who attempts to find the content where it used to be before the website overhaul. In the intervening time, we direct stakeholders to the link to actual text (above) and remind education facility managers and their architectural/engineering consultants that the ICC Code Development process is open to everyone.
The ICC receives public response to proposed changes to titles in its catalog at the link below:
You are encouraged to communicate with Kimberly Paarlberg (kpaarlberg@iccsafe.org) for detailed, up to the moment information. When the content is curated by ICC staff it is made available at the link below:
We maintain this title on the agenda of our periodic Disaster colloquia which approach this title from the point of view of education community facility managers who collaborate with structual engineers, architects and emergency management functionaries.. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting, open to everyone.
FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements. Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility
NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals
Buildings:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
