The Ara Pacis Augustae, dedicated in Rome in 9 BCE, celebrates peace not merely as the absence of war but as the condition in which families, agriculture and civic life could flourish. Its maternal figure—variously identified as Tellus, Italia, Venus or Pax—sits with two healthy children amid fruits, animals, water and vegetation. The imagery joined fertility to the Augustan promise of renewal: Rome endured because households formed, children were born and succeeding generations inherited the settlement. In an age when Augustus promoted marriage and childbearing through law, the relief made family formation part of the Roman vision of abundance and continuity.
This facility class has many names but is similar in our approach to them: the settings that provide primary care in a visible, central service. After the chapel, the library, the kitchen and the classroom, the on-campus medical center is a central fixture. These clinics typically provide basic medical services primarily aimed at addressing the immediate health needs of students and sometimes staff. These clinics are often staffed by a nurse or a small team of healthcare professionals such as nurse practitioners or physician assistants.
Services may include first aid, basic medical care (such as treating minor injuries and illnesses), immunizations, health screenings, and sometimes mental health counseling.
These clinics are often staffed by a nurse or a small team of healthcare professionals such as nurse practitioners or physician assistants. In some cases, a physician may be available on a part-time basis.
These clinics are usually small and may be located within or near the school premises. They typically have limited space and equipment compared to hospitals.
Access to school-based clinics is often limited to students and staff during school hours. They may not be open during weekends, holidays, or outside of regular school hours.
During today’s open door session we examine the literature relevant to making this facility class safer, simpler, lower-cost and longer-lasting in the links below, including open public consultation close dates:
The Center provides comprehensive healthcare services to students. Located on the Logan campus, the clinic offers a range of medical services including general health check-ups, vaccinations, mental health support, and chronic disease management. Staffed by experienced physicians, nurse practitioners, and support staff, the clinic aims to address both physical and mental health needs. Students can access acute care for illnesses and injuries, preventive care, women’s health services, and counseling.
The clinic also provides lab services, prescriptions, and referrals to specialists when needed. With a focus on promoting wellness and healthy lifestyles, the USU Student Health Clinic ensures that students receive quality care in a supportive environment, contributing to their overall well-being and academic success. The clinic operates on an appointment basis, with some walk-in availability, and is committed to maintaining confidentiality and respect for all students.
Join us today when we examine the state of the literature that governs the safety and performance of occupancies designed and operated for the care of children specifically; family support generally. There is a fair amount of overlap in the safety and performance principles in the titles which frequently reference each other; all of them responding to unintended incidents, innovation and new discoveries.
In hospitals and clinics, the titles we follow — and engage with proposed revisions — are listed below:
NFPA 99: Health Care Facilities Code: NFPA 99 provides specific requirements for the safe and effective operation of healthcare facilities, including those serving pediatric patients.
American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines: While not legally binding, guidelines provided by organizations like the AAP offer best practices for pediatric care, including safety considerations.
Since the ASHRAE catalog is growing to encompass every occupancy on earth; we keep pace with it; There’s never not something happening there is not relevant to our work:
To repeat a statement made throughout the Standards Michigan facility: We place the Underwriters Laboratory and ASTM International best practice catalogs at a lower priority because the business models of those organizations deal primarily with product standards — not interoperability standards. You will see UL and ASTM labels on many, many products within pediatric and daycare environments but, as a user-interest, we do not have the resources to engage with the UL and ASTM suite product-by-product; essential as they may be.
Ensuring the safety of children in daycare centers involves compliance with various codes and standards in the United States. Here are some key ones:
International Fire Code (IFC): The IFC includes provisions for fire prevention and protection measures in buildings, including daycare centers. It addresses fire detection, alarm systems, fire extinguishing equipment, and evacuation planning.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The ADA sets requirements for accessibility in public accommodations, including daycare centers. It includes provisions for accessible routes, entrances, restrooms, and other facilities to accommodate children with disabilities.
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 101: Life Safety Code: NFPA 101 provides requirements for the design, construction, and operation of buildings to protect occupants from fire and other hazards. It covers aspects such as means of egress, fire protection systems, and emergency planning.
NFPA 1: Fire Code: NFPA 1 addresses fire prevention measures in various occupancies, including daycare centers. It includes requirements for fire alarm systems, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and other fire safety features.
ASTM F2373 – Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Public Use Play Equipment for Children 6 Months through 23 Months: This standard specifies safety requirements for play equipment commonly found in daycare centers, ensuring the safety of young children during play activities.
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Standards: While not legally binding, NAEYC sets voluntary accreditation standards for childcare programs, focusing on quality, safety, and child development.
Governmental agencies at all levels incorporate these titles — partially or whole cloth — present additional, typically more rigorous requirements.
Of course, the primary hazard we address is the presence of reliable of safe and economical electricity. All of the foregoing titles depend upon electricity so we deal with the technical literature on electricity on a near-continuous basis.
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Anglosphere (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) ~ $36.7T (or ~33% of GGDP)
United States GDP $29.3T (or about 26% of GGDP)
“Livres des Merveilles du Monde” 1300 | Marco Polo | Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Today we break down consultations on titles relevant to the technology and management of the real assets of education communities in the United States specifically; but with sensitivity to the global education markets where thousands of like-minded organizations also provide credentialing, instruction, research, a home for local fine arts and sport.
“Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. Enterprise only pretends to itself to be mainly actuated by the statements in its own prospectus, however candid and sincere that prospectus may be. Only a little more than an expedition to the South Pole is it based on an exact calculation of benefits to come. Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die; — though fears of loss may have a basis no more reasonable than hopes of profit had before.”
Extended Versions Certain standards are required to be read in tandem with another standard, which is known as a reference (or parent) document. The extended version (EXV) of an IEC Standard facilitates the user to be able to consult both IEC standards simultaneously in a single, easy-to-use document.
A partial list of projects with which we have been engaged as an active participant; starting with the original University of Michigan enterprise in the late 1990’s and related collaborations with IEEE and others: (In BOLD font we identify committees with open consultations requiring a response from US stakeholders before next month’s Hello World! colloquium)
IEC/TC 8, et al System aspects of electrical energy supply
We collaborate with the appropriate ANSI US TAG; or others elsewhere in academia. We have begun tracking ITU titles with special attention to ITU Radio Communication Sector.
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We have collaborations with Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Sapienza – Università di Roma, Universität Zürich, Universität Potsdam, Université de Toulouse. Universidade Federal de Itajubá, University of Windsor, the University of Alberta, to name a few — most of whom collaborate with us on electrotechnology issues. Standards Michigan and its 50-state affiliates are (obviously) domiciled in the United States. However, and for most issues, we defer to the International Standards expertise at the American National Standards Institute
* A “Hello, World!” program generally is a computer program that outputs or displays the message “Hello, World!”. Such a program is very simple in most programming languages (such as Python and Javascript) and is often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language. It is often the first program written by people learning to code. It can also be used as a sanity test to make sure that a computer language is correctly installed, and that the operator understands how to use it.
In the late 1960s, the discovery of massive North Sea oil reserves transformed Norway from a modest fishing, shipping, and hydroelectric economy into one of the world’s richest nations. Oil revenues funded an expansive welfare state and created the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. This “outsized good fortune” should temper any sense of moral or cultural superiority some Norwegians express toward America. Striking oil is no guarantee of success — see Venezuela or Nigeria. Norway also benefited from American technology, open markets, and capital.
The United States further provided critical security: liberating Norway in WWII and leading NATO during the Cold War, allowing Norway to focus on welfare rather than heavy defense. No student debt! Arrogance ignores contingency. Norway’s success rests on oil rents, a small homogeneous population, high trust, and luck — not inherent superiority. America’s innovations and security role helped create the global order that enabled such fortunes in Norway specifically and Western Europe generally. Recall the American role in the destruction of the German heavy water refinement plants in November 1943 (The Heroes of Telemark) which bears an uncanny resemblance to the present USA Operation Epic Fury in Iran.
Gratitude and humility suit these discussions better than condescension.
“Architectural Landscape with a Canal” 1783 / Hubert Robert
The construction industry is one of the largest employers in any community. Many labor unions in the United States support construction of education facilities. The so-called “multiplier effect” cited by economists means that when you add one person working in the construction industry you create two additional jobs in other sectors. With an annual construction spend of $75-10 billion, the education industry contributions mightily to the economy of host communities. Any spend at that rate — the largest non-residential building construction in the United States — presents opportunity higher effectiveness and better profitability for all sides involved in a construction project just by doing a few simple things well:
Provide general terminology; especially important when equipment (fenestration, environmental air systems, elevators, generators) originate from offshore manufacturers Organization of information in the processes of design, manufacture and construction
Provide geometric requirements for buildings, building elements and components including modular coordination and its basic principles, general rules for joints, tolerances and fits, performance and test standards for sealants;
Provide general rules for other performance requirements, including functional and user requirements related to service life, sustainability, accessibility and usability; Procurement processes, methods and procedures.
A paradigm shift is is well underway in the use of building information. Improved capital efficiency can be achieved with better data handling and information flows between project actors; falling into the wheelhouse of ISO TC 59; described in the links below:
CLICK ON IMAGE | Norway is the Global Secretariat | ASTM International is ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group Administrator
While parts of the scopes of various subcommittees may already be familiar to construction professionals — Building Information Modeling (BIM), for example — the bulk of the work product remains fairly high-level. We will keep an eye on it.
You may do so on your own by communicating directly with ANSI’s ISO Team and/or either of ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group Administrators:
For TC/59/SC 8 (Sealants)
ASTM International
David Lee / 2128 W Evergreen Ave / West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959 / Phone: (610) 832-9585 / Email: dlee@astm.org
For TC/59/SC 13 (BIM)
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc.
Brian Cox / Training & Safety Office / 30 Hart Street Room 301 / Atlanta, GA 30329 / Phone: (404) 636-8400 / Email: bcox@ashrae.org
Kennedy School Construction / Harvard University
Because this topic cuts across all building industry disciplines we maintain this committee’s titles on standing agendas of several colloquia; Construction Spend,E Pluribus Unum, Model Building Code and Global teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [15-211]
Category: Management
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben
September 6 is an “unofficial holiday” celebrating Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the “906” area code). Northern Michigan University is in Marquette, right in the heart of the UP, so the day is a big local pride thing on and around campus.
Pasties are the classic UP food: handheld meat-and-vegetable pies brought by Cornish miners in the 1800s and now a Yooper staple. One of the most common ways people are told to celebrate 906 Day is simply to eat a pasty (along with things like playing cribbage or swimming in Lake Superior). Local shops often run 906-themed specials, such as a pasty + sides for $9.06.
NMU has its own pasty history that ties into this culture. In 1978, as part of Homecoming, the university baked what it billed as the world’s largest pasty (unofficial Guinness record): 12 feet by 6 feet, over 1,000 pounds of filling, baked for six hours, and served to more than 2,000 students. The school still highlights it on its achievements page.
So the connection is cultural rather than one single official NMU event: 906 Day = UP pride day in Marquette, pasties = the food that represents the UP, and NMU sits in the middle of both.
ICYMI:
Northern Michigan University has genuine institutional pasty history. NMU says its students produced the “world’s largest pasty” during Homecoming in 1978: 250 lb beef, 400 lb potatoes, 75 lb carrots, 25 lb onions and 250 lb of dough. It reportedly fed more than 2,000 students.
More importantly for your dinner-post purposes, an NMU history piece explicitly says NMU and Michigan Tech dining operations have long served pasties to students.
Michigan Technological University is even better documented. Michigan Tech has published the actual Cornish pasty recipe used by Dining Services—skirt steak, potato, onion and rutabaga—and its 2026 Alumni Reunion included a Pasty Dinner in the Memorial Union Ballroom.
There’s even a third Michigan angle: University of Michigan‘s U.P. Scholars program holds a 906 Day celebration where U.P. students gather over pasties. In one documented year they brought in pasties for more than 130 students.
Allied non-profit organizations and unions play a critical role in training electricians, ensuring skilled, safe, and competent professionals. The National Electrical Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers offer structured apprenticeship programs combining classroom instruction with hands-on training. We review the basics today at 15:00 UTC. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
Michigan’s 2024 Public Act 172 amended the Skilled Trades Regulation Act, the state law governing licensing and regulation of electricians, plumbers and other skilled trades. Among the subjects addressed by the legislation are the number of apprentices who may work under the supervision of licensed journey or master tradespeople.
For electrical work, Article 7, MCL 339.5717, continues to permit a ratio of one journey or master electrician to no more than three registered apprentice electricians. The requirement applies on a jobsite basis, rather than across the overall workforce of an electrical contractor. The enforcing agency or the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs is responsible for enforcing the ratio.
The provision illustrates an important distinction between technical standards and labor standards. The National Electrical Code and related technical documents establish requirements for electrical installations. Michigan skilled-trades law separately establishes requirements concerning the people permitted to perform that work and the conditions under which apprentices may participate.
For large institutional owners — including school districts, colleges and universities — these requirements affect not only electrical safety and workmanship but also apprenticeship opportunities, contractor staffing, project scheduling, maintenance operations and the long-term availability of qualified electrical workers.
United States national electrical trade standards prioritize safety, reliability, and economic efficiency in electrical systems. Governed primarily by the National Electrical Code upon which the University of Michigan has had a vote since 1996.
The NEC outlines requirements for wiring, equipment installation, grounding, and overcurrent protection to prevent hazards like electrical shocks, fires, and equipment failures. Compliance ensures safe operation in residential, commercial, and industrial settings. Standards also promote energy efficiency, encouraging practices like proper insulation, energy-efficient lighting, and renewable energy integration to reduce costs and environmental impact.
Organizations like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) further enforce safety through regulations and product certifications. Adherence to these standards minimizes risks, ensures system longevity, and supports economic benefits through reduced energy waste and maintenance costs, fostering a safe and sustainable electrical infrastructure.
European Union electrical trade standards prioritize safety, interoperability, and economic efficiency across member states. Governed by the Low Voltage Directive (LVD) 2014/35/EU and harmonized standards from the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), these regulations ensure electrical equipment operates safely between 50-1000V AC or 75-1500V DC. Standards like EN 60335 address appliance safety, while EN 50110 outlines safe maintenance and operation practices. Compliance with CE marking requirements certifies adherence to safety, health, and environmental standards, facilitating market access.
For economy, the EU promotes energy efficiency through directives like the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC, mandating efficient lighting, motors, and renewable energy integration to reduce consumption and costs. National regulations align with EU standards, ensuring consistency. These measures minimize electrical hazards, enhance system reliability, and support sustainability by reducing energy waste, fostering cost-effective, safe electrical infrastructure across the EU’s diverse markets.
Non-profit organizations and unions play a critical role in training electricians, ensuring skilled, safe, and competent professionals. Organizations like the National Electrical Contractors Association And unions such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Offer structured apprenticeship programs combining classroom instruction with hands-on training.
These programs cover electrical theory, National Electrical Code compliance, safety practices, and emerging technologies like renewable energy systems. Non-profits often provide certifications, scholarships, and continuing education to promote workforce development. Unions advocate for fair wages and safe working conditions, while their training centers emphasize practical skills, ensuring electricians meet industry standards and contribute to reliable, efficient electrical systems.
Providing reliable internet to Alaska’s rural communities has long been a challenge. Now, members of #IBEW Local 1547 are readying to fix the problem for good, starting work on the Alaska Communications’ FiberOptic project later this year. https://t.co/cxwCug9Sfnpic.twitter.com/W0kNjYA6Kk
Calling all apprentices! Get ready for a day of inspiration, learning, & activities at Apprentice Appreciation Day at #NECA25. Connect with peers, hear from industry leaders, & take on challenges to help you build skills & advance your career. Learn more: https://t.co/Rhs3cgmhKRpic.twitter.com/sHLKWd57XD
Want the opportunity to give something back and help to build the next generation of the electrotechnical industry?#ECA#Skills Committee wants someone with #careers or local skills engagement experience to get in touch. Deadline – Friday 19 September: https://t.co/hljTXUg5PL. pic.twitter.com/WEG8JarB4r
— ECA – Electrical Contractors’ Association (@ECALive) August 20, 2025
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
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