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Veteran journalist Mel Elfin, former executive editor of U.S.
News and World Report's 
"America's Best Colleges,"
will speak at Penn State Erie, Behrend College, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct.
20. Elfin will address the question, "Does It Still Pay to Go to College?"
His lecture, which is free to the public, will take place in the Reed Union
Building Commons.
Educated at Syracuse University and Harvard, Elfin worked as a reporter for the Long Island Daily Press after the Korean War. He became Washington bureau chief of Newsweek in 1965, and remained there for 20 years. He moved to U.S. News and World Report in 1985. His annual "America's Best Colleges" issue sells more than a million copies, outpacing sales of the magazine's ranking of hospitals and mutual funds.
Elfin admits that the early years of the rankings were not objective. Initially the rankings were simply based on college presidents' opinions about other colleges. After 40 college presidents lambasted him in 1988, Elfin and the magazine revamped the survey, balancing popularity against hard data.
Elfin's brusque style and provocative views make him both fascinating and infuriating, especially to academics. Academics claim that the survey measures everything except the most important point: How much does a school teach, and how well?
Elfin's presentation continues the 1997-98 Penn State-Behrend Speaker Series. His lecture also will be broadcast live by the college's radio station, AM1450/WPSE. For more information, call (814) 898-6171.
The 1997/1998 Department of Art History Lecture Series, "Picturing Knowledge: Art, Science, Cognition," begins Oct. 22. All lectures will be held in the Palmer Lipcon Auditorium at the Palmer Museum of Art on the University Park campus. The following talks will all be followed by a reception for the speaker:
* Wednesday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m.: Peter Parshall, professor of art history and humanities at Reed College, Portland, Ore., and the author (with David Landau) of The Renaissance Print 1470-1550 (Yale University Press, 1994), will present "The Art of Memory and the Passion."
* Tuesday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m.: Paolo Berdini, assistant professor of art history at Stanford University, will talk about "Women Under the Gaze: A Renaissance Reading of Genesis 3." Berdini writes on and teaches Renaissance, Baroque and modern art and architecture. His book, The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano: Painting as Visual Exegesis, was published this year by Cambridge University Press.
* Tuesday, March 3, 1998, at 7:30 p.m.: Mimi Cazort, curator of prints and drawings at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, will discuss "The Anatomy of Eve." The respondent will be Londa Schiebinger, professor of history and women's studies at Penn State and the author of studies on Italian Renaissance drawings, and botanical and anatomical images.
Cazort recently organized the exhibition "The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four Centuries of Art and Anatomy," for which she wrote the catalog.
* Tuesday, March 31, 1998, at 7:30 p.m.: Claire Farago will talk on a topic to be announced. Farago is an associate professor of art history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and has published widely on Leonardo da Vinci. Recently, she edited the widely acclaimed Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Latin America and Europe 1450-1650.
Cell biologist James E. Rothman will speak on "Intracellular
Protein Transport and Synaptic Transmission" in the Life Sciences Consortium's
Colloquium on Oct. 29. The colloquium will be 
videoconferenced
from Lecture Room B, The Hershey Medical Center, to 104 Thomas Building
on the University Park campus and to several other campuses at 4 p.m. that
day.
Rothman is chairman of the cellular biochemistry and biophysics program at the Sloan-Kettering Institute of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 1994, he was appointed a vice chairman of the institute, and is responsible for fostering its relationship with the industrial sector. He also holds the Paul A. Marks Chair in cellular biochemistry and biophysics.
Rothman received his Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard Medical School in 1976. Before coming to Memorial Sloan-Kettering in 1991, Rothman was the E.R. Squibb professor of molecular biology at Princeton University.
He is renowned for his work in clearly explaining the biochemical basis of protein transport in cells. An experimental system developed by Rothman has made it possible to analyze in detail the way in which proteins move from the internal cell structures where they are synthesized to the surface for export out of the cell. These advances opened a new area of research.
Rothman is currently exploring how protein-carrying 'vesicles' form and how they are directed toward specific parts of the cell.
Rothman has receive numerous awards and honors. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993, as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994 and to the Institute of Medicine in 1995.
Ann Mullins, managing principal of Civitas Inc., a landscape architecture
firm in Denver, will be the second speaker in this year's John R. Bracken
Lecture Series.
The lecture, "Creating Connections: Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Design," is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in 101 Joab Thomas Building on the University Park campus. The lecture is sponsored by the College of Arts and Architecture's Department of Landscape Architecture.
Through her knowledge of design and business aspects of the firm, Mullins has helped Civitas become a leading urban design and landscape architecture firm.
A registered architect in Massachusetts, Mullins received her master's in landscape architecture from Utah State University.
Before joining Civitas, Mullins performed several environmental studies in Washington and Utah and designed corporate headquarters, streetscapes and residential projects throughout the country. Her past accomplishments include the detailing of the award-winning urban plaza for the First National Bank Plaza in Chicago.
The lecture is free to the public.
Jay Rosen, public journalism proponent and associate professor of journalism at New York University, will present the 1997 Robert M. Pockrass Memorial Lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in Carnegie Cinema on the University Park campus. Rosen's lecture, "You Don't Know What Public Journalism Is; And Neither Do I," is sponsored by the College of Communications.
Since 1990, Rosen has been associated with the reform movement known as public journalism, which calls on the press to take an active role in strengthening citizenship, improving political debate and reviving public life. He is the immediate past director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, funded by the Knight Foundation.
In addition to his position with NYU, Rosen is a member of the Penn National Commission of Society, Culture and Community. He also is an associate of the Kettering Foundation and a press critic and essayist, writing frequently for such publications as the Columbia Journalism Review, Harpers, The Nation and The New York Times. In 1994 Rosen was a Fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and from 199091 he held a fellowship at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University, now the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center. He has a Ph.D. in communication studies from NYU.
The Pockrass lecture is free to the public. For more information, call Kristen Kaminski at (814) 865-8801 or visit the Web at http://www.psu.edu/dept/comm.
Is governmental impact on business and the economy a blessing or a curse?
A panel of three experts from the education, public and private sectors will address this question and others during a public roundtable discussion in Penn State Harrisburg's Olmsted Auditorium at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23.
The roundtable will feature N. Northrup Buechner, associate professor of economics at St. John's University, Clifford I. Jones, former Pennsylvania secretary of Commerce, Labor and Industry, and Environmental Resources, and W. Kirk Liddell, president and CEO of Irex Inc., in Lancaster.
The format for the roundtable will include informal discussion from 6-6:30 p.m., and a panel discussion from 7-8:15 p.m. The evening will rely heavily upon audience participation.
Buechner holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia and specializes in microeconomics and methodology. Jones has had a long career of public service in Pennsylvania, serving four governors in cabinet positions, as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission and chair of the Republican Party, while Liddell heads a construction and supply organization with 80 offices and 2,000 employees nationwide. He is a graduate of Princeton University with a degree in economics.
For registration, contact the Penn State Harrisburg School of Business Administration at (717) 948-6140.
A presentation by social worker and film director Margaret Gilpin at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22, continues the Feminist Scholar Speaker Series at Penn State Erie, Behrend College. Gilpin will present a screening and discussion of her documentary film, "Mariposas En El Andamio" ("Butterflies on the Scaffold"). The screening, which takes place in the Reed Union Building Lecture Hall, is free to the public.
The film portrays a marginal community in Havana, La Guinera, and the transvestite movement which grew up there and has expanded all over Cuba. The documentary deals with the social, human and cultural transformations in this small town, and details the transvestites' efforts to create a space for themselves and gain their neighbors' respect through their creative work as entertainers in local cafés.
"Mariposas En El Andamio" has won numerous awards. Gilpin, who also is one of the United States' leading experts on the Cuban health care system, will take questions on the making of the film following the screening.
For more information, call (814) 898-6108.
The first Learning Disability Conference will be held at Penn State Beaver from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, in the Study Learning Center Auditorium.
The theme for the conference is "Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Total Student." Keynote speaker for the conference will be Larry B. Silver of the Georgetown University Medical School, a noted national authority and author of 130 publications on learning disabilities.
While the conference is geared toward teachers and school health professionals, it is applicable to parents, psychologists, mental health professionals, speech and language pathologists, and anyone with an interest in learning disabilities.
Advanced registration is required by Monday, Oct. 20. The cost for the conference is $45 per person. The fee includes morning refreshments and lunch. For more information or to register, call Carleen Dinello at (412) 773-3824 or Stacy Koutoulakis at (412) 773-3882.
Scott Schweigert, a graduate assistant in the Department of Art History, will give a gallery talk at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, in the Christoffers Lobby of the Palmer Museum of Art on the University Park campus.
The free lecture, "Four Centuries of Portraits at the Palmer Museum," will focus on works in the Palmer Museum's permanent collection.
Laurel S. Terry, professor of law at The Dickinson School of Law, will present "2 Yen, 4 Francs, 6 Pounds, a Dollar: Lawyers Abroad, Stand Up and Holler!" at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at The Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus.
Terry will explore how the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union have affected the increasing number of U.S. lawyers who provide international services. She also will discuss her research on legal ethics provisions and regulations in the United States and abroad, as well as compare U.S. and international approaches to partnerships between lawyers and accountants.
Terry's free presentation is part of this fall's "Huddle with the Faculty," a Penn State Alumni Association continuing and distance education service featuring presentations by top Penn State faculty before every home football game.
For more information on upcoming speakers in this year's Huddle with the Faculty series, contact Mary Jane Stout, Alumni Continuing Education, at (814) 865-LION (5466).
Robert Ginsberg, professor of philosophy, will be the guest speaker of a "Meet the Editor" session on Thursday, Oct. 23, from 2:30-3:30 p.m., in the John D. Vairo Library at Penn State Delaware County. He will speak informally and answer questions about his career in the editing of philosophical books. An exhibit of his work as series editor, titled "The First Hundred Books," is on display in the Vairo Library during the fall semester. The exhibit and talk are free to the public.
Penn State's Intellectual Property office will, for the first time, sponsor the Venture Investment Forum (VIF) of Central Pennsylvania on Oct. 23 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. The VIF provides an opportunity for inventor and investor to connect and interact.
Venture capitalists, bankers, attorneys and investors from Hershey and Harrisburg will converge at Penn State to meet with entrepreneurs, Penn State faculty members and local community investors. Between 30 and 50 people are expected to attend the forum. Welcoming addresses will be given by Michael Shoemaker, VIF president, and Rodney Erickson, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School.
During the event, entrepreneurs will give presentations about their property. For more information on the VIF contact: Ronald Huss, The Intellectual Property Office, Penn State, 113 Technology Center Building, University Park, Pa. 16802; (814) 865-6277 or by e-mail at IPO@RTTO.psu.edu.
Pravin Varaiya, the James Pife professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will talk about "The Automated Highway System: A Transportation Technology for the 21st Century" at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in 26 Hosler Building on the University Park campus.
As the current vehicle-highway system reaches a plateau in meeting the demand for moving goods and people, new transportation systems will have to be devised. Varaiya will discuss a design for an automated highway system that could triple capacity and reduce travel time, guarantee collision-free operation in the absence of malfunctions, limit performance degradation in the case of faults, and reduce emissions by half. He also will talk about the design's feasibility and how the proposed automated highway system can be adapted to different urban and rural scenarios.
Varaiya, who is the distinguished lecturer for Penn State's Department of Mechanical Engineering, received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of research and teaching include stochastic systems, communication networks, power systems and urban economics.
Choosing among an ever increasing and complex number of investments, whether for retirement planning or personal investing, can be frustrating and overwhelming. To help simplify today's complex financial world for individuals so that they can make sound investment decisions, Penn State will broadcast "The Art of Investing: Tips from America's Experts," a free live satellite teleconference on personal investing. The teleconference will be held from 3-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Kern Auditorium on the University Park campus.
Asset allocation, investment risk and reward, mutual funds and retirement plans will be some of the subjects discussed. Panelists will include well-known financial planning experts and nationally syndicated personal finance columnist Jane Bryant Quinn. The program is sponsored by TIAA-CREF.
No advance registration is required; seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have any questions, please call Wanda Scaife at (814) 865-7922.
