QUOTE OF THE DAY – PRESIDENT SPANIER IN WASHINGTON
“I am not one who believes that modern information technologies will displace the primacy of resident instruction in institutions such as ours, but I believe that the current rigid distinctions between distance education, commuter and residential students will be blurred. This growth is definitely having an impact on resident instruction….We will see a shift in the learning process combining face-to-face and online instruction with more real-world applications of concepts being studied. Our students will have the most up-to-date information as cutting-edge technologies enable us to expand what we bring to the classroom.”– Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, speaking at the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges’ (NASULGC) 114th-annual meeting in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, Spanier was appointed chair of the NASULGC Council of Presidents for the coming year. The meeting began on Sunday and concludes today.
SEEN ON CAMPUS – SEPT. 11 MEMORIAL INSTALLATION
A memorial sculpture designed by students to honor the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was installed Sunday, Nov. 11, in front of Pattee Library on the University Park campus. Featuring approximately 5,000 waterproof black panels representing the current number of people listed as dead or missing from the attacks, it will remain on display through Nov. 18. The project will be documented through still and moving images that will be archived within the School of Visual Arts. For more information, contact Sallie McCorkle at 814-865-9471 or mailto:smm11@psu.edu, or visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/9-11memorial.html. For photos by Greg Grieco, visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_2001/memorial/index.html.
GEOSCIENTISTS BEGIN A SEASON IN ANTARCTICA
Armchair theories abound about what forces formed Antarctica, but now a team of Penn State geoscientists, with colleagues from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Alabama, has embarked on a project to take the true measure of the frozen continent. By stringing arrays of seismic stations across thousands of kilometers of icy desert, then analyzing the shifts and tremors their instruments pick up, they hope to better understand the crust and mantle beneath the Transantarctic mountains - the range that splits the continent into east and west. Eight seismic stations are already in place. Over the next month, the 15-member TAMSEIS team (Transantarctic Mountains Seismic Experiment) will install 36 more. Team member John Pollack, a freelance journalist, will send the Penn State Newswire regular dispatches on the expedition’s progress. Grab some hot chocolate and follow along! For more information, visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/antarctica1.html
MANAGERS GO ON DEFENSE TO KEEP CONTROL AFTER IPO
When a firm goes public with an initial public offering (IPO), conventional wisdom suggests managers take action to drive up stock prices to help with the eventual sale of the firm. However, a new study found that managers do take action when they go public--to make sure they retain control. “In our research, we show that many firms implement takeover defenses before they go public,” says Laura Casares Field, assistant professor of finance in Penn State’s Smeal College of Business Administration. “These findings are surprising because managers of IPOs should have incentives to maximize the value of the firm.” Field studied takeover defenses in 1,019 industrial firms for a paper that is forthcoming in the Journal of Finance with colleague Jonathan Karpoff. Takeover defenses include such tactics as the fair price provision, which requires a bidder to pay the same price to all shareholders. For the full story by Steve Infanti, visit http://www.smeal.psu.edu/news/depth/november01/shark.html.
OUTREACH BUILDING MUTUAL RESPECT IN SCHOOLS
Like a human knot, a school contains both groups and individual children--all of whom must learn to become responsible and respectful to each other, says Jeffrey Parker, associate professor of psychology. Parker is training a new generation of undergraduate students to teach children to communicate, share and resolve conflicts through community service at the West Branch School in Morrisdale. Selected topics include competition, jealousy, rumors, gossip and respect. His students have also staffed conflict resolution retreats at such schools as Mt. Nittany Middle School in Boalsburg. Psychology major Erica Wampole, of Allentown, says that when the Mt. Nittany children signed a pledge promising to consider other people’s feelings and to include those who were different from them, “We all had tears in our eyes. In one day, the barriers between these children had been knocked down. We had planted the seeds for change.” The full story by Karen Trimbath appears in the Fall 2001 issue of Penn State Outreach. For more Outreach news, visit http://www.outreach.psu.edu/News/.
PENN STATE OFFERS FANS CHANCE TO HONOR PATERNO
Penn State alumni and friends can honor Nittany Lions’ Head Football Coach Joe Paterno and support the Beaver Stadium renovation and expansion project at the same time through a new fund-raising initiative announced by Timothy Curley, director of athletics. With victory number 324 over Ohio State on Oct. 27, Paterno now holds the record for Division I college football coaching wins. Fans may purchase a personalized, engraved Beaver Stadium brick for a gift of $1,500. The bricks will be prominently displayed at one of the stadium’s major entrances. Each purchaser will also receive an identical keepsake replica brick with felt base and engraved plaque. For more information, visit http://www.goPSUsports.com/ or call 1-800-655-4184.
FACULTY HUDDLE ADDRESSES BOTH SIDES OF TOURISM
Tourism is often seen as the answer for shaky economies, but it can have negative effects as well, says Duarte B. Morais, an assistant professor of leisure studies at Penn State, who will discuss the positive and negative outcomes observed in both international and regional tourism in the next “Huddle with the Faculty” lecture at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, in the Nittany Lion Inn’s Faculty-Staff room. Morais has investigated the sustainable development of tourism in rural areas of the United States, Portugal, Mozambique and China. The free presentation is the last in the 2001 lecture series, which is a Penn State Alumni Association outreach program featuring talks by Penn State faculty prior to every home football game. For more information on the lectures, contact Mary Jane Stout at 814-865-LION (5466).