HEARD ON CAMPUS: LARRY ALEXANDER AT GREAT VALLEY
Speaking on the essence of entrepreneurship in information technology at the Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies last week, Larry Alexander of Lockheed Martin said, "I think thousands of companies will be formed around the idea of understanding information; how to take raw data, aggregate it into information, and then understand the use of that information in making some decision. This is the grand challenge. A lot of people are going to work at it for a long time, and we're going to get increasingly better at it." Alexander is the director of advanced technology at Lockheed Martin. He also discussed human interfaces, computing forms, and the Internet. He said, Now that everyone has access to everything through the Internet, and everybody is empowered to communicate, the power is really at the level of the individual. “To me, that has a tremendously profound impact on society." For information on Great Valley, go to http://www.gv.psu.edu
NOT ALL INSECT PREDATORS SUITABLE BIOLOGICAL CONTROLS
An enemy is an enemy is an enemy, but some natural enemies are better than others at controlling prey populations and some enemies are ineffective, even though they are specialized, according to a Penn State entomologist. "Indian meal moths are a serious stored-food pest, and pathogens such as the virus Plodia interpunetella granulovirus and parasitoids, such as the wasp Venturia canescans, are prime candidates for its biological control," says Dr. Ottar N. Bjornstad, assistant professor of entomology and biology. "However, while they are both specialist enemies, the parasitoid wasp serves to depress host densities greatly, but the virus is completely ineffective." For more on this story by Andrea Messer, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/insectpredator.html
ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK 2001:
TEACHING DISADVANTAGED KIDS ABOUT HEALTH, NUTRITION
By carrying an impressive 3.81 grade point average in a demanding double-major curriculum in nutrition and media studies, in addition to a plethora of service and scholarly pursuits, there’s no question that Annina Burns is well-deserving of a relaxing spring break vacation. But rather than join classmates in Daytona or Cancun next week, Burns has chosen to spend her mid-semester break from classes in the place she most enjoys being: the classroom. For the third straight year, Burns is leading a group of 10 students in her Nutrition Service Project to a rural Pennsylvania community to provide a nutrition education program for approximately 200 middle and high school students from a low-income district. The group will kick off the program with a weekend of service work, such as painting and cleaning local historical landmarks and buildings, as a way to give back to the community for welcoming the Penn State contingent into their classrooms. For the full story by Tysen Kendig, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/springbreak01.html
DEAN LINDSAY NAMED TO COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Beverly Lindsay, Dean of the Office of International Programs, was recently elected to the Council on Foreign Relations. A policy organization, the Council on Foreign Relations is dedicated to strengthening U.S. foreign policy by promoting understanding of global trends, and by providing new analysis of challenges in world affairs. Members include national leaders in academia, business, the media, and government such as Donald McHenry, Condoleeza Rice, Henry Kissinger, and President Jimmy Carter. For iinformation on International Programs, go to http://www.international.psu.edu/
NATIONAL MULTICULTURAL AND DIVERSITY CONFERENCE
Third Annual Multicultural Education Conference will be held on Saturday, March 31, at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. Sponsored by the College of Education and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Multicultural Education, the conference is designed to give educators and the community an opportunity to discuss ways to achieve, understand and promote multicultural education and diversity. The keynote speaker will be Don C. Locke, director of the Asheville Graduate Center at North Carolina State University and author of “Increasing Multicultural Understanding.” For more information, go to http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/MulticulturalEducation/
PALMER EXHIBIT ON DELANEY, CALCAGNO OPENS TOMORROW
In honor of the centennial of Beauford Delaney's birth, “An Artistic Friendship: Beauford Delaney and Lawrence Calcagno” will open at the Palmer Museum of Art tomorrow, Feb. 27, and be on view through May 13. It brings together some 15 works on paper, many from a local collection. Delaney (1901-1979) was a black American from Knoxville, while Lawrence Calcagno (1913-1993) was a white American from northern California. The two became friends in Paris and remained close for 20 years. Both committed themselves to lyrical abstraction, though Delaney's work was influenced more by Claude Monet's water lily paintings than by the color-field painters who were important in Calcagno's work. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue and will travel to the Hampton University Museum this summer. A gallery talk will be held on Wednesday, March 14 at noon. For photographs and more information, go to http://www.psu.edu/dept/palmermuseum/friend/friend.html
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
February 26, 2001
As faculty members devoted to the study of constitutional issues, we wish to defend Penn State University's position regarding recent events on campus designed to educate students about women's issues and sexual health matters. These provocatively entitled events sparked controversy among some state legislators, particularly State Rep. John Lawless of Montgomery County who has threatened to suspend funding to the University because he finds the speech at these events offensive and disagreeable.
We are not here to attack Rep. Lawless, but to remind him about a concept that has been safeguarded and sacred in this democracy for well over 200 years. That concept is freedom of expression. It is protected by both the Pennsylvania Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. While courts decide First Amendment issues of free speech every day, the underpinnings of free expression are as time honored as the Constitution itself.
Rep. Lawless does not like the message he heard at the event he attended. Yet, information about sexual health issues for young people constitute ideas—important ones for today’s society—and what better place to examine and debate ideas than a university campus—the quintessential “marketplace of ideas”? As the United States Supreme Court wrote in 1972, “the college classroom with its surrounding environs is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas.’” Fifteen years earlier, the Court remarked that “teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study, and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding.”
Rep. Lawless wants to remove the students’ speech from the marketplace of ideas. The preferred remedy under the Constitution, however, for speech with which we disagree is not to remove it from the marketplace, but to add more speech designed to counteract it. Justice Louis Brandeis, in his concurring opinion seventy years ago in the criminal syndicalism case of Whitney v. California, articulated the premise of what today is known as the doctrine of counterspeech. When it came to expression that was perceived by some to be dangerous, threatening, or harmful, Brandeis wrote, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
We do not always agree with what our students say or do, and perhaps they could frame issues a bit more gingerly, but we do not—and legally cannot—attempt to limit their expression simply because someone might find the message distasteful or offensive. Clearly, the Supreme Court has made it well-settled law that bad taste is not a sufficient reason to censor speech. Perhaps the late Justice William Brennan summarized it best when he wrote:
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.“
Rep. Lawless objects to the students’ speech because he finds it offensive. This raises an important and troubling problem. In particular, how is the concept of offensiveness defined? The United States Supreme Court in 1971 famously wrote that it is “often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” The Court added that “because government officials cannot make principled distinctions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.”
The Court’s comments suggest the dangers of the slippery slope of censorship. For example, would the state legislature prohibit the speech of pro-life advocates on campus who often demonstrate with graphic posters of aborted fetuses because some people find those images offensive?
As a state-related university, Penn State is a part of government for purposes of the First Amendment. All the prohibitions government face when attempting to restrict speech apply to Penn State. Rep. Lawless, in essence, is asking Penn State to violate settled principles of law and is basing his decision on the University’s funding on its refusal to do so. We find that to be a rather odd position for a lawmaker.
Quite simply, the legislature should not condition funding on an unconstitutional mandate. It cannot say, “We’ll fund you, but only if you agree to waive your First Amendment rights.”
We find it troubling that Rep. Lawless would embrace a system where government is the arbiter of good taste and sound judgment and can dictate what can and should be said. While college students do not always exercise good judgment, they are young adults and should be treated as such. There is no better time or place for young adults to learn about the values of a democratic society than their years in college.
Respectfully submitted,
THE FOLLOWING IS THE BEGINNING OF DR. SPANIER’S REMARKS
Penn State is grateful for the state support it has received in the current fiscal year that is enabling the university to make important progress on initiatives in information sciences and technology, workforce development, and agricultural research and cooperative extension. We are eager to continue our partnership with the state and build on these successes to meet the challenges facing the Commonwealth in the future.
The Governor's budget recommendation must only be seen as a starting point for discussing the needs of our university and the Commonwealth in developing a highly educated and productive work force to enhance the state's competitiveness. The Governor's budget does not include the continuation of $7,000,000 in funding for key elements of last year's appropriation, nor does it address our special requests for this year, namely critical funding for our College of Medicine and for our School of Information Sciences and Technology. The budget proposes a 3 percent increase in the remaining items in the Penn State budget.
Overall, the Governor's budget reflects only a .62 percent total increase from our 2000-2001 appropriation. We are hopeful that the Legislature will unite in bipartisan support for an appropriation that more adequately recognizes the contributions Penn State makes to the citizens of the Commonwealth, and the critical needs that are before us.