RESEARCH AND GRADUATE SCHOOLS FORM PARTNERSHIP
Eleven research institutions of international standing have come together to create a worldwide research and graduate education partnership, to be known as the Worldwide University Network (WUN). Unlike other international partnerships whose focus is on undergraduate education and distance learning, the WUN is based primarily on collaboration in research and graduate education. Cooperating institutions will also develop online distributed learning programs to facilitate the delivery of graduate and continuing educational programs. The founding members in the United States are The Pennsylvania State University, University of California-San Diego, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Washington. The members from the United Kingdom are the universities of Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and York. Universities in other countries will be added as the partnership evolves. For the full story, visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/wun.html
$250,000 GIFT SUPPORTS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM
Paul and Joanne Tanker of Philadelphia have given $250,000 to Penn State’s Jewish Studies program in the College of the Liberal Arts to encourage curricular innovations and various forms of student involvement. The gift will enable opportunities and resources for the promotion and cultivation of knowledge and learning in the area of interfaith relations. “We want to provide support for work that will have positive effects on future relations between Christians and Jews,” said Paul Tanker, who graduated in commerce and finance at Penn State in1948. The endowment has already helped students who took a new course in Jewish Communities during the spring semester visit the Dutch island of Curacao in the Caribbean, a community in which Christians and Jews have lived and worked together since the second half of the 1600s. For the full story, visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/tankergift.html
TWO MOST DISTANT OBJECTS IN UNIVERSE DISCOVERED
The discovery of the two most distant objects ever observed in the universe was announced yesterday (June 5) by Donald Schneider, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and chair of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Science Group. “We are trying to learn how early in the history of the universe the first stars and galaxies formed,” Schneider says. “This is the first time any object has been detected beyond redshift 6, which is about 800 billion years after the Big Bang.” One of the objects is probably a black hole about one million times the mass of the Sun. Schneider has held many previous records for the discovery of “most distant” quasars. His announcement is part of the first public release of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a large international team. For the full story by Barbara K. Kennedy and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, visit http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Schneider6-2001.htm.
PENN STATE HISTORIAN TO LECTURE ON PCN PROGRAM
Carol A. Reardon, associate professor of history at Penn State and author of the book, “Pickett’s Charge in History & Memory,” will be interviewed by Pennsylvania Cable Network during a nine-day televised series of commemorative tours, presentations and speeches on the Battle of Gettysburg beginning Friday, June 29. Using official records, Reardon will speak on Tuesday, July 3, addressing details of the famous and doomed charge by Confederate Gen. George E. Pickett against Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. Reardon, currently director of the Penn State Mont Alto Civil War Program held every June, demonstrates in her book how memory competes with fact in reconstructing Pickett’s charge and other major historical events. A schedule of Battle of Gettysburg television programs and related activities is available at http://www.pcntv.com. For more on Penn State Mont Alto, visit http://www.ma.psu.edu.
FACULTY FROM EGYPT TO LEARN ABOUT OUTREACH
Ten faculty members from two universities in Egypt will spend a week at Penn State’s University Park campus, from June 8 to 15, as part of a three-week Observational Study Tour in the United States. At Penn State, they will meet with Outreach and Cooperative Extension faculty and staff members to learn how the University extends the research and scholarship of its faculty to benefit individuals, organizations and communities in Pennsylvania and worldwide. For the full story by Deborah A. Benedetti, visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/egyptvisit.html