HAZWASTE STAFF EFFICIENT WITH HANDHELD COMPUTERS
Handheld computers are helping Penn State Environmental Health and Safety personnel enhance field operations and automate government-mandated record keeping. The Penn State team is believed to be the first among schools in Pennsylvania and the first in the Big Ten to adopt the use of handheld computers or personal digital assistants (PDAs) for use in this type of application. The HazWaste staff each month responds to between 75 and 150 requests to collect and manage hazardous waste which includes flammable solvents, corrosives, toxic materials and other hazardous wastes. Federal and state regulations require container tracking from "cradle to grave," according to the HazWaste staff. An Applied Research Laboratory team developed the applications and new software, which is undergoing field tests this past year. For a long version of the story by Barbara Hale, go to: http://www.psu.edu/ur/2000/hazwaste.html
INQUIRER PHOTO EDITOR TO BE PROFESSIONAL-IN-RESIDENCE
Donna Hendricks, photo editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, will join the Penn State College of Communications this fall as its Professional-in-Residence. Now in its eighth year, the Professional-in-Residence program, co-sponsored by the College of Communications and The Inquirer, offers professional journalists the opportunity to spend a semester at Penn State. While at the University, the journalists teach courses, collaborate with faculty, and meet with students to advise them on their career objectives. In addition, the journalists may take classes to strengthen their own skills. Hendricks began her career as an editor, reporter, and broadcast writer for United Press International before joining The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, FL, as a news editor. Having joined The Inquirer as a news editor, she has served as a photo editor for its features department for the past two years. She is currently responsible for the selection of the section’s front-page photos, a job that requires close coordination with news editors, content editors, and graphic designers. For more on the College, go to http://www.psu.edu/dept/comm/news/news.shtml
SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE ORIGINS OF A CLASSIC NOVEL
Whether it be novels or films, the tinkering with classics has prompted ongoing debate among fans and critics. In novels, the current trend is to offer pre-edited drafts by major writers or their "new" books crafted from unfinished manuscripts. James West, distinguished professor of English and general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, has edited and published an early version of "The Great Gatsby," considered the best American novel, offering some of the most insightful writing on the topics of money and success. The novel still sells more than 300,000 copies a year and recently was listed on several "Best of Century" lists for English-language novels.
According to West, Fitzgerald’s first draft of Gatsby, dubbed ‘Trimalchio,’ is focused more on romance and the manners of the 1920s than on the tragedy of wonder and identity, which emerged in the final version. "The Great Gatsby is a better book than Trimalchio, but Trimalchio in itself is a remarkable good novel and different enough from Gatsby to deserve publication on its own," says West. Literature scholars have known for decades about the original text sitting in the Princeton University Library, but no one had considered publishing it. A specialist in the history of book publishing, West believed that scholars, students and the general public would benefit from reading the original draft, and supervised its publication in "Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby," this year by Cambridge University Press. For a longer version of the story by Vicki Fong, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/2000/gatsby.html