PSU-VIRGINIA FOOTBALL GAME RESCHEDULED FOR DEC. 1
All Penn State athletic events scheduled through Sunday, Sept. 16 have been postponed or cancelled in the wake of Tuesday's tragic events in the nation, Tim Curley, director of athletics, announced Wednesday. This includes all events, home and away. An effort will be made to reschedule all events.
"We have postponed all Penn State athletic events through this weekend out of respect for the people who lost their lives or were injured in Tuesday's tragic events," stated Curley. "The entire Penn State athletic family extends its heartfelt sympathies to everyone involved and their families."
Penn State's football game at Virginia will be played Saturday, Dec. 1 in Charlottesville, Va. The contest was originally scheduled for today and was postponed on Tuesday.
The time for the game on Dec. 1 is to be determined, as is whether the game will be televised. The original tickets for the game will be honored.
"This is a difficult time for everyone," stated Coach Joe Paterno. "People were prepared to play and were excited about playing on Thursday. But, after what happened, I was reluctant to go play a football game. Penn State and Virginia were in agreement that playing on December 1 was the best time to play."
The postponement is the first for a Penn State football game since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. The Nittany Lions were scheduled to play at Pittsburgh the next day. The game was played Dec. 7 in Pittsburgh.
In other sports, Tuesday night's women's volleyball home match with Youngstown State was postponed early yesterday afternoon and Wednesday's field hockey match at St. Joseph's was postponed this morning.
In addition, the women's golf team will not participate in the Memphis Intercollegiate event Monday and Tuesday in Memphis, Tenn. due to the difficulty it had returning to campus from a tournament last weekend in Lincoln, Neb. Monday's second round of the tournament was delayed and the squad missed its connecting flight in Kansas City, Mo. that night. With all domestic commercial airline flights grounded early Tuesday morning, the team drove back to campus in a van, arriving this afternoon.
For the latest updates on Penn State athletics, go to http://www.GoPSUsports.com.
FACULTY PRESSED INTO SERVICE AS EXPERT SOURCES
Penn State has a triple mission of teaching, research, and service. As tragic events have unfolded across the nation, the service aspect has been particularly active as numerous Penn State professors who are experts in their field are being called upon to provide information and background to the media from a variety of angles.
For Stephen Cimbala, an expert on international terrorism and professor of political science at Penn State Delaware who is the author of more than 20 books on international and U.S. defense and security, the telephone wouldn't stop ringing. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Business Week, People magazine, eastern Pennsylvania newspapers, television stations, and radio stations all called seeking help understanding what was happening nationally. The last interview aired on a Montreal radio station at 2 a.m. Wednesday. Cimbala will likely answer many more questions as the week progresses.
"I try to give the media, background, perspective, and above all, context to help to avoid a rush to judgment," he said.
Other professors and experts weighed in on topics such as international terrorism and politics, airline safety and airport operations, structural dynamics and transportation to help the media cover Tuesday's tragedy. Ted Krauthammer, professor of civil and environmental engineering, studies the effects of explosions on buildings. He said he talked to literally "dozens of people" Tuesday representing newspapers, radio stations, and television networks, as well as responding to e-mail requests for information.
Kevin Parfitt, an architectural engineer who teaches a course in building failures, was quoted in several newspapers about the structural soundness of the World Trade Center towers and what caused them to crumble. "We were hopeful at first," he told the Washington Post. "But the longer the fire burned, the more we feared the outcome."
Barnes McCormick, Boeing professor emeritus of aerospace engineering, discussed airline security precautions with BusinessWeek Online. His comments also appeared in the Sacramento Bee.
Stanley Weintraub, professor emeritus and author of Long Day's Journey Into War: Pearl Harbor and Day of Infamy, linked Tuesday's events to "a day that will live in infamy."
"I think we have another one" he told the Baltimore Sun, pointing to similarities with the sneak attack by the Japanese some 60 years ago.
Stephen Couch, professor of sociology at Penn State Schuylkill, studies the sociological and psychological responses to long-term technical disasters like Love Canal and Three Mile Island. He co-authored a book about the Centralia mine fire with Steve Kroll-Smith, titled The Real Disaster is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict.
Couch fielded inquiries Tuesday from the Sacramento Bee and Capitolwire.com among others about what people's reaction to the tragedy will likely be, what kind of unprecedented long-term impact could be a result of the attack and whether reactions would change over time. Crouch was asked for information on what kind of past events could provide context for what is happening now and how it differed from natural disasters.
"I hope (my answers) provided research-based information that they might not have access to otherwise," he said. "I can offer research-based perspective to complement the responses they tend to get from the person on the street they interviewed."
Cimbala answered a wide range of questions, such as: Who did it? How were they able? What we do now? What's wrong with intelligence? What should corporations do in the wake of terrorism and how could people so efficiently hijack that number of planes in such a short period of time?
Cimbala is teaching a course on intelligence and natural security this semester. He plans to incorporate Tuesday's tragedy and his experiences talking with the media into the lesson material. "Part of what a faculty member has to do is provide reassurance and a broader historical perspective for students," he said.
"We forget how young our students are," Cimbala continued. "I spent time offering counsel and comfort to my students yesterday. One student called in tears, she wanted to know 'are we at war?' Vietnam is ancient history to them. Think about when an 18-year-old was born."
Couch also plans to incorporate his experiences with the media as a springboard for discussion in a social change class that he's teaching now. He wants his students who are working on a service learning component to study the media's relationship with the disaster and how it helps shape public opinion.
Helping the media connect with these and many other faculty experts is the job of Penn State’s Department of Public Information, which answered inquiries Tuesday from Salon.com, Time magazine, the Washington Post, Tech TV, the Associated Press, the Centre Daily Times, the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, and other media outlets.
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION MOBILIZES TO OFFER ASSISTANCE
The Penn State Alumni Association is mobilizing its affiliations around the world to provide information and assistance wherever possible. The Association is dedicating a message board on its Web site to help alumni contact friends and family who may have been affected by Tuesday’s events and for offers of assistance in the New York City and Washington, D.C. areas. The message board can be found by going to the Association’s Web site at http://www.alumni.psu.edu.
Diane Ryan, Executive Director of the Penn State Alumni Association, states “the Association stands ready to assist alumni and friends in any way possible.” Alumni and friends can contact the Alumni Association at 800-548-LION or by e-mailing alumni-relations@psu.edu.