Transverse energy in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions with the PHENIX MPC

The muon piston calorimeter (MPC), one of the detector upgrades to the PHENIX experiment, has only been in place since 2006. Consisting of two stations, North and South, the MPC significantly extends PHENIX's kinematic acceptance into the range $3.1<|\eta|<3.8$. In 2007, $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions were produced at RHIC. Progress in measuring the transverse energy in the forward region of these collisions using the MPC will be discussed.