For those of you who were able to join us in Orlando for the Capital One Bowl, you know that the New Year had a great Penn State feel to it. Despite the football team's loss, we had a huge turnout of alumni and supporters at every event. It really gave us a chance to get a lot of alumni and and potential students – into the Penn State spirit. Congratulations go to the Alumni Association and Centre for Travel for putting together a great week of events.
Just to give you a sense of some of the numbers, we had over 1,000 people attend a reception that I hosted at the Peabody Hotel. We had nearly 1,400 at a New Year's Eve party, and approximately 3,500 at a Pep Rally the day before the game. At the game, the stadium was overwhelmingly decked out in blue and white. And while the outcome of the game was not what we would have desired, it brought to conclusion a great year by the football team. Their success on the field and in the classroom is something that can bring pride to all of us.
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Following our last Board meeting, we received some rather bad news on the budget front to conclude 2002. On December 10th, Governor Schweiker announced a mid-year budget freeze that included a 1 percent reduction for Penn State and other state-related universities. For Penn State, this latest cut amounts to $3.23 million. Over the past 14 months, mid-year reductions and permanent budget cuts have reduced Penn State's appropriation funding by $25.5 million.
Half of the current reduction will be made through central administrative cuts, and half by reducing the budgets of administrative support and academic units. As we have done in the past, we will leave it to the unit heads to determine where to make the cuts, with our goal to have a minimum impact on classroom operations.
The impact of a mid-year cut is exacerbated by the fact that you have a shorter period of time to recover the lost funds. But our deans had been advised this year to budget with the understanding that there could be a mid-year cut, so we feel that we can manage without any significant impact on our core operations.
It is important to note, however, that this latest cut reduces Penn State's appropriation to $319 million. This takes us back to approximately our 1999 level of funding. Given the current fiscal situation in the Commonwealth, it appears that it will take quite some time for the University to recover.
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On a much brighter note, we ended 2002 with some firsts at our fall commencement. We had our first full graduating class of bachelor's degree students in IST, with a dozen receiving their degrees from University Park and nearly 80 from our campuses across the Commonwealth. Add to that more than 60 associate degree students in IST, and this marked a memorable moment for Penn State.
The speed with which we have been able to bring the School of Information Sciences and Technology into full operation has been remarkable, and congratulations are truly in order for Dean Jim Thomas. No other university in America could have made this happen so quickly and with such great success. And with the new IST building making great progress, we have much to be proud of in this important new program and the role it will play in strengthening the technology job force for Pennsylvania.
Also at commencement this year, we had our first on-line master's degree recipients, with 10 students earning master's degrees in adult education from the College of Education through the World Campus.
Launched in 1998, the World Campus now has 6,000 enrollments from all 50 states, 43 countries, and every continent. Students enrolled in the World Campus can currently choose to study from among 150 courses in 28 certificate and degree programs. More courses and programs are in development, and we will no doubt see the fruits of this as future commencements reflect ever-larger numbers of on-line degrees.
As an example of how demand for the World Campus is growing, we currently have 222 applications for the 60 places in the Fall MBA program. At this time last year we had fewer than 20 applications for the program.
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I am also pleased to be able to report today that overall applications to Penn State are up significantly this year. Total applications for all campuses as of last week are up by 10 percent, showing a gain of approximately 5,200 applications over last year at this time.
Undergraduate applications are up 9 percent over last year. Graduate applications are up 14 percent. Applications to Penn College are up 7 percent. Applications to the Dickinson School of Law are up sharply, showing an increase of 51 percent over last year, and applications to Hershey are up by 9 percent.
The sharp increase in graduate applications esp especially law school applications – is likely in part a reflection of the national economy. The increase in undergraduate applications parallels a nationwide trend, and is in part a reflection of applicants applying to an increased number of schools.
These gains are very good news and demonstrate the continuing popularity of a Penn State degree.
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At past Board meetings, there have been a number of trustees who have asked how the University plans to protect student social security numbers. I am pleased to note for the Board that last month we announced plans to eliminate the use of social security numbers as the primary identifier of faculty, staff and students at the University. Using social security numbers as a main identifier is no longer practical and may be seen as compromising the confidential nature of each individual's number.
I have charged a committee with developing an implementation plan to address the technical, financial and logistical impact of such a change. While we will still be required to collect social security numbers for reporting and taxation purposes, we plan to implement a change to random, nine-digit identifying numbers for students and staff by 2004.
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As is always the case, our faculty ended the 2002 year with more important discoveries and insights into the world around us. To give you just a small sampling of some of the research results produced by Penn State faculty, let me note that Penn State acousticians have achieved proof of concept for a compact freezer based on technology that substitutes sound waves for environment-damaging chemical refrigerants.
Dr. Steven Garrett, the United Technologies Corporation professor of acoustics at Penn State, is leading the research team conducting the project with financial support from Ben and Jerry's and its parent company, Unilever.
This new 'green' technology has been able to produce temperatures of 8 degrees below zero using sound waves. This new technology could revolutionize the way we understand and use refrigeration, and could go a long way toward protecting our environment.
Another development by Penn State faculty could have major implications for protecting mail, packages and other things in this era of terrorist worries. Researchers at Penn State and Ultran Labs have shown that high-powered ultrasound is 99.99% effective in killing bacterial spores after only 30 seconds of non-contact exposure.
The researchers say the experiments demonstrate that non-contact ultrasound is a potentially safe, effective, non-radioactive way to decontaminate mail, including packages, since ultrasound waves potentially can penetrate cardboard and other wrappings just as they do layers of skin and tissue when used to image internal organs in the human body.
The Penn State members of the research team include Dr. Kelli Hoover, assistant professor of entomology and Dr. Nancy Ostiguy, senior research associate in entomology. A patent, "Gas Contact Ultrasound Germicide and Therapeutic Treatment" is pending.
Those trustees who have joined us in the past couple of years may not recall that Penn State faculty played the central role in the development of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, a joint project between Penn State and the University of Texas.
I am happy to report that a team of astronomers led by Penn State's Michael Eracleous, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to help measure the spectrum of a gamma-ray burst, one of only a dozen such detailed measurements ever recorded.
The Penn State team, which also includes Peter Meszaros, Distinguished Professor and head of Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and professor Steinn Sigurdsson, are trying to understand the mysterious underlying cause of the explosion that results in gamma-ray bursts. Possibilities include the formation of a black hole at the end of the life of a massive star or the coalescence of two neutron stars that have been circling each other for hundreds of millions of years, themselves remnants of an earlier generation of massive stars. Their work is leading to a better understanding of how the universe was formed, and what its future might hold.
Another member of the Penn State astronomy department received significant national attention last month when Tom Abel, assistant professor of astronomy, was featured on the cover of Discover Magazine. The magazine featured Abel's work, which has utilized supercomputers to study the origins of the first galaxies, the first stars and other cosmic structures.
Closer to earth and appropriately timed for all of you who couldn't say no to all the good food that seems to pop up over the holidays, Barbara Rolls, holder of the Guthrie Chair of Nutrition in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development, has led a study that confirms that when we put too much food on our plates (and I know that no one around here is ever guilty of that), we tend to eat it. The result of all that eating is just what you would expect: significant increases in our collective waistlines.
In the first systematic, controlled study of how adults respond to portion sizes, the Penn State researchers found that the bigger the portion, the more participants ate. On average, the participants ate 30 percent more from a five-cup portion of macaroni and cheese than from one half its size, yet they did not report feeling any fuller after eating.
The bottom line: dish up a little bit less, and you might not have to make all those New Year's resolutions about losing weight.
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I want to report on the creation of a new institute at Penn State. Last month we formed the Penn State Institutes of the Environment (known as PSIE) to expand Penn State's capacity to pursue the newest frontiers in environmental research, education, and outreach by encouraging cooperation across disciplines and the participation of local, state, federal and international stakeholders.
The PSIE will serve as the preeminent focal point of environmental activity at Penn State. It replaces the Environmental Consortium and the Environmental Resources Research Institute. The creation of the PSIE makes a positive statement to academia, government, industry and the public of Penn State's strength in and commitment to leading-edge environmental science and engineering.
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I am happy to be able to report that the new library at the Pennsylvania College of Technology will be named in honor of Trustee Emeritus Roger Madigan and his late wife Peggy. The state recently announced that it was providing $7 million toward the $13 million project, which will be named the Roger and Peggy Madigan Learning Resources Center.
This is a wonderful tribute to the great support that Roger and Peggy have given to Penn College, and our congratulations go to Roger for this very special recognition.
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I want to next bring your attention to a couple of student accomplishments. First of these is that two Penn State students were recently announced as Marshall Scholars. Nicholas Hartman, a Schreyer honors student majoring in chemistry with minors in biochemistry and molecular biology, and Annina Burns, a Schreyer scholar majoring in nutrition and media studies, have won Marshal Scholarships to study in the United Kingdom.
Nicholas and Annina are the first to win from Penn State since the mid 1990s and only the fifth and sixth Penn State students to win Marshall Scholarships since the scholarship program began in 1953 as a gesture of thanks from the British government for the United States' assistance in rebuilding Europe after World War II.
Each year, 40 scholars from across the United States are selected to spend two years in graduate school at a British University, with all fees, living expenses, books, cost of thesis and research, fares to and from the United States, and daily travel paid by the British government.
This is a great recognition for our Schreyer scholars and the nationally competitive work that is being done by the students in that program.
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Finally, I wanted to remind members of the Board that the Dance Marathon is just a month away. The Dance Marathon is the largest student-run philanthropy in the country, and last year they raised more than $3.5 million to support the Four Diamonds Fund at Hershey, and its work on childhood cancer.
Since 1973, the Dance Marathon has raised over $20 million, and if you have not had a chance to witness it first-hand, I really urge you to try to attend. It will be held February 21-23 at Rec Hall, and it is one of the most inspiring, emotional activities that you will ever witness. Nothing will make you more proud of Penn State than what our students do in the Dance Marathon. I hope you will be able to drop by and see for yourself what an extraordinary event this is.
That concludes my report. I would be happy to now answer any questions that you might have.
