MCFARLANE-ROSS GIFT OF $1 MILLION TO EMS
Cathleen McFarlane-Ross, longtime friend of Penn State, has pledged $1 million that will establish two endowments to benefit students and faculty of the Materials Science and Engineering Department in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. McFarlane-Ross’s gift honors her late husband, industrialist and Penn State alumnus Norris “Mac” McFarlane, a 1934 graduate and retired president and owner of Macalloy Corporation, the single largest ferrochrome producer in the United States. One of the endowments is for faculty career development and the other will provide financial support to undergraduate and graduate students in materials science and engineering. For more on this story, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/mcfarlanegift.html
ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK 2001:
CHRISTIAN STUDENTS TO AID IN HURRICANE RECOVERY
While volunteer service excursions over spring break continue to rise in popularity and participation at college campuses nationwide, few have provided a helping hand to those less fortunate for as long as Penn State’s Christian Student Fellowship’s Alternative Spring Break program. Next week will mark the 19th year that the group will embark on a service mission over the semester break. This year’s group will make its second straight visit to the Tarboro-Princeville area of North Carolina where students will work on rebuilding efforts in areas still languishing from devastation caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. For the full story by Tysen Kendig, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/asb4.html
WEB FAIR WINNERS ANNOUNCED
David Kiger, Lance Castellano and Lisa Carney won laptop computers and the IST team won first place among the team entries to the Undergraduate Web Fair, which had its awards ceremony last night. More than 300 students were nominated by faculty to enter a total of 178 Web sites for the competition to showcase innovative ways they are using the Web. Subjects for the winning entries ranged from Continental Drift to Samantha’s Fine Eatery. Rather than being consumers of Web resources, students are now expected to be producers of sophisticated, semester-long web-based projects, said John Harwood, senior director of the Center for Education Technology Services, the chief sponsor of the online competition. To see students’ Web sites, go to http://www.psu.edu/webfair/. For a story on the Fair by Heather Herzog, go to http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_2001/Feb22/index.html
AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT TO BE DISPLAYED AT PENN COLLEGE
A portion of the 44,000-paneled AIDS Memorial Quilt, the poignant, traveling tribute to lives lost, will be displayed March 2-3 at the Field House at Penn College. Twenty-two 12-by-12-foot pieces of the quilt - enough to fill up the floor of the Field House - will be exhibited from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, March 2, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 3. Each block contains eight colorful panels from the same region. Presentations on the history of the AIDS Memorial Quilt are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Friday, March 2. The full quilt is the size of 16 football fields and weighs more than 50 tons. For more, go to http://www2.pct.edu/news/events/aidsquilt0201.htm
MELLON AWARD TO STUDY DIGITAL IMAGE DELIVERY
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $755,000 to the Penn State University Libraries to support an extensive study of digital image delivery. Leading the study, the Libraries will partner with other Penn State units, including the Center for Education Technology Services, the Center for Quality and Planning, Library Computing Services, and the School of Information Sciences and Technology. The Visual Image User Study will examine the use of digital pictures at Penn State in the disciplines of the arts, environmental studies, and the humanities. The project includes the development and testing of a prototype system for image delivery slated to begin in May, activities will continue for more than two years. A summary of the project is available at: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/crsweb/vius
SERVICE LEADERSHIP TARGETS STUDENTS, FACULTY
In addition to their importance to students’ intellectual and social development, service-learning projects represent opportunities for faculty members to apply academic expertise to the needs of their surrounding communities, speakers from the Penn State McKeesport campus said yesterday at a statewide conference on such projects. In a presentation to students and employees from a variety of Pennsylvania colleges and universities, J. Patrick Boyle, director of student affairs, and Joseph Marchesani, assistant professor of integrative arts, described recent community service and service learning projects that Penn State McKeesport has undertaken on its own and in conjunction with the Penn State Fayette campus. Their talk was one of 21 by experts from across the Penn State system, CentrePeace, AmeriCorps and other service-related organizations at the Penn State AT&T Center for Service Leadership’s 2001 Service Leadership Conference, held at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel on the University Park campus. For more information on the McKeesport presentation, contact Boyle at mailto:jpb12@psu.edu; for more about the AT&T Center and the rest of the conference, visit http://www.sa.psu.edu/att/.
SPANIER MAKES CASE FOR UNIVERSITY FUNDING
During budget hearings before the state Senate and House earlier this week, President Graham B. Spanier stressed the importance of state support for the University. The funding received for the current fiscal year, he said, enabled the University to make important progress in initiatives in information sciences and technology, workforce development, life sciences, environmental studies, materials science, and children, youth and families.
In response to a question from Sen. Roger A. Madigan (R-Bradford County) during the Senate committee hearing Feb. 26, Spanier said the loss of funding would be “somewhere between difficult and catastrophic.” He said that $2 million of the money was directed specifically for workforce development at Penn College and the other $5 million to several University-wide initiatives important to the Commonwealth.
“You can’t begin long-term academic programs, you can’t begin to hire staff if the following year you don’t get those funds. If the University doesn’t get that funding, it amounts to an overall cut in the budget and we’ll be backtracking on progress made in this area,” he said.
In contrast to the Senate hearing, which concentrated on particulars of the budget, the House hearing quickly strayed off topic. Most of the four-hour hearing on Feb. 28 dealt with the Sex Faire held recently on the University Park campus. Rep. John Lawless (R-Montgomery County) showed a five-minute video of selected scenes from the event, and several lawmakers denounced the event as wrong or immoral.
In response, Spanier told the lawmakers that while he found some of the materials at the event to be offensive, the students were within their rights to hold the event. Spanier argued that universities must support freedom of expression.
“We are in the difficult position of drawing the right distinction between protecting free speech and upholding community standards,” Spanier said. “It is a difficult line to walk.”
For the full story by Annemarie Mountz, check the Web at http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_2001/March2/budget.html
In addition, a Brief Memorandum of Points and Authorities, presented by a group of professors from University Park and The Penn State Dickinson School of Law who are specialists in constitutional issues of free speech, is on the Web at http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/pointauth.html