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Alec, one of the lead dancers in the Bolshoi Ballet troupe, stretches his
muscles during a rehearsal at
The Bryce Jordan Center on the University Park campus. The troupe performed
at University Park April 8.
Photo: Greg Grieco
Mark your calendar for the 1998 Faculty/Staff Computer Expo from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, April 20, in The Nittany Lion Inn Boardroom on the University Park campus.
This event, sponsored by the Microcomputer Order Center (MOC), is designed to give faculty and staff an opportunity to meet with computer hardware and software vendors and to see the latest products. Vendors such as Dell, Apple, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Adobe, Epson, Digital and 3COM will be on hand. Attendees can register to win prizes, and refreshments will be served.
For more information, visit the MOC Web site at http://moc.cac.psu.edu or call (814) 865-2100.
An information session and application workshop on the 1999-2000 Fulbright grant program for faculty will be held at 5:45 p.m. Monday, April 20, in 104 Thomas Building on the University Park campus.
Gary Garrison of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, which administers the Senior Fulbright Program, will discuss application procedures. Joining Garrison will be recent Fulbright recipients, who will share their experiences.
Fulbright grants enable faculty to pursue scholarly, research or lecture projects outside the United States. They are appropriate for scholars at all stages of their careers, and can be easily integrated into a sabbatical project.
The workshop is open to all faculty. Some faculty at other Penn State locations plan to participate by teleconference. Applications and information packets will be distributed at the workshop.
For more information, contact Janet Haner at (814) 863-7011 or jah@psu.edu, or John Keller at (814) 863-1603 or jmk13@psu.edu.
"The Penn State Travel Fair '98," an opportunity to talk with the University's travel suppliers, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 23 at The Nittany Lion Inn Ballroom on the University Park campus. The first 100 people attending will receive a door prize. There also will be drawings for airline tickets, rail passes and other items. The event is sponsored by Penn State Travel Services. Employees of the Office of Business Services are not eligible for drawings.
The University Women's Club members and their guests may attend to the Annual Spring Luncheon at the Elk's Club in Boalsburg on Thursday, April 23. A reception will begin at 11:30 a.m. followed by a noon luncheon. The program will feature a unique fashion show. To make your reservation, call Susan Klein at (814) 237-3850 by April 20.
Women seeking educational and career information to help them deal with changing life circumstances may attend the upcoming Women's Education, Career and Life Planning Seminar Series sponsored by the Center for Adult Learner Services, Career Services and the vice president for student affairs.
This three-part series is designed to help women learn more about themselves, their career interests and options, and the educational programs offered at Penn State. The seminar will be held on three Saturday mornings, May 9, 23 and 30 from 9 a.m. until noon. Participants must be able to attend all three sessions. The registration fee for this program is $20 and the registration deadline is Friday, April 24.
Tineke Cunning, Career Services counselor, and Betsy Baird, assistant director of the Center for Adult Learner Services, are the program directors. To register or for more information, call the Center for Adult Learner Services at (814) 863-3887.
The McCoy Natatorium on the University Park campus will offer its six-week session of competitive age group swimming for ages 6 and up starting April 27. For more information, call Jon Larson at (814) 863-3945.
Sophomore students are invited to apply for the Sylvia Stein Memorial Space Grant Scholarship. One scholarship recipient will receive $7,500 for the 1998-99 academic year. The deadline for applications is April 27. Information and applications are available from The Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, 101 S. Frear, University Park, (814) 863-7688, or on the Web at: http://www.psu.edu/spacegrant
Head Football Coach Joe Paterno will be profiled on a new PBS special called "Ageless Heroes," airing at 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, on WPSX-TV. The one-hour special captures the spirit, vitality and potential of men and women who have achieved success and continue to do so beyond the age of 65.
Paterno is currently in his 48th year as a member of the Penn State football staff and in his 32nd year as head coach at one of the nation's powerhouse football institutions. He has a career record of 289 wins, 74 losses and three ties, and ranks fourth on the all-time college career victory list.
Among the other heroes saluted are singer, dancer and actress Eartha Kitt; journalist Helen Thomas; modern dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham; and civil rights activist and former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young.
All faculty and staff members who have been actively and directly involved in outreach activities at the University for a minimum of two years are eligible to apply for the 1998-99 Penn State Outreach Internship Program. The application deadline is May 1.
Sponsored by Outreach and Cooperative Extension, the new internship program will provide participants with an enhanced understanding of Penn State's outreach mission; greater knowledge of the sponsoring organizations and their relationships to each other and to other outreach programs throughout the University; and a broader vision of potential expanded relationships between each intern's work and other outreach units.
Twelve internships, each one week in length, will be awarded for the 1998-99 academic year. Internships may be based at University Park, at one or more Continuing Education or Cooperative Extension locations across the state or some combination of these locations.
Each intern will have an opportunity to design an individualized program focusing on one or more areas or issues of interest within the broad scope of outreach and cooperative extension at Penn State. More information and application forms are available from Staff Development, 307 Agricultural Administration Building, University Park; phone at (814) 865-1209. Nominations are encouraged; an application form will be sent to the nominee.
A town meeting is planned for 3 p.m. May 14 in Dean's Hall at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel on the University Park campus to update the community on Penn State's five-year construction program. More details will follow at a later date.
On the final evening of its spring membership campaign, Penn State's public broadcasting station, WPSX-TV, Channel 3, surpassed its $140,000 goal. Nearly 1,600 pledges were made during the drive, which raised a total of $140,182.
During the course of the broadcast year Channel 3 will spend $1.5 million to purchase, produce and broadcast programming. Of that amount the station must raise 55 percent from individuals in the viewing area. The remainder comes from area businesses and other sources.
Channel 3 has more than 15,000 members. The service is supported by a partnership of families, individuals, foundations, corporations and government.
Two new brochures are available from the Office of University Relations. Penn State Is ..., a 16-page booklet, contains general information about the University's mission, faculty and student body, structure and governance, finances, and academic accomplishments. How Penn State is Funded, updated from last year's edition, explains the various sources of income that make up the University's total operating budget. To request copies of either publication, call (814) 863-1073 or e-mail als5@psu.edu.
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Two engineering professors, Gary H. Koopmann and John M. Tarbell, have been selected to receive the title of Distinguished Professor.
The distinguished title is awarded to a limited number of outstanding professors in each college. The title is bestowed in recognition of their exceptional records of teaching, research and service to Penn State.
Koopmann, distinguished professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Acoustics and Vibration (CAV), has helped make the College of Engineering a better place to learn and work, and his research at Penn State has helped raise the University's national reputation. His undergraduate courses are in high demand and his students rate him highly for his mentoring and commitment to their education. His graduate students are in exceptional demand by industry and academia for their excellent training and skills. In supervising his students, he goes beyond academic matters, nurturing their entire well-being.
Koopmann is well-known internationally for his pioneering research in noise control and acoustics which has made a substantial impact across numerous technologies. He is a Fellow of the ASME and ASA, and has received numerous awards for his research and professional service. After receiving a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Catholic University of America, Koopmann held appointments at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research in Southampton, England, and the University of Houston before joining the faculty at Penn State in 1988.
Tarbell, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, has provided important and valuable service at all levels of the University for more than 20 years. His national and international reputation in biomedical research is well known. Even though Tarbell teaches several difficult, core undergraduate chemical engineering courses, students consider him one of the department's top teachers. He was voted the top chemical engineering faculty member in 1992, and has been honored with other teaching awards.
Tarbell's biomedical research in fluid mechanics problems associated with blood flow places him among the top investigators in the United States in this field. He recently received a Whitaker Foundation Award to establish a graduate program in biomolecular transport dynamics. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and has received numerous awards for his research and professional service.
Saundra D. Johnson, director of the College of Engineering's
Minority Engineering Program, has received the award for Outstanding Contribution
by Minority Program Administrator from the National Association of Minority
Engineering Program Administrators.
The award recognizes individuals who have distinguished themselves by making exemplary contributions to the minority engineering effort.
Johnson has served as director of the Minority Engineering Program since 1994. She has developed numerous programs for underrepresented engineering students at the pre-college, undergraduate and graduate levels.
Johnson has assumed a leadership role in the college and University in minority affairs, serving as the chair of the Council of College Directors of Minority Programs from 1994 to 1996; a member of the Advisory Council for Educational Equity Programs; and a member of the College's Continuous Quality Improvement Committee for Minorities in Engineering.
Before coming to Penn State, Johnson worked as an engineer for Bechtel Power Corp. from 1987 to 1994. She served as a corporate representative on many of the college's advisory committees from 1989 to 1993 before her current appointment.
Johnson earned her B.S. in civil engineering from Penn State in 1986. She holds memberships in numerous professional organizations.
Laurel Terry, a member of the faculty of The Dickinson School
of Law, has received the second Fulbright Scholarship of her law teaching
career in connection with research in the area of international and comparative
regulation of lawyers.
Specifically, Terry will spend her sabbatical studying multidisciplinary partnerships between lawyers and accountants, a relationship that is permitted in Germany but is banned almost everywhere in the United States. Terry received her first Fulbright research grant in 1991-92, during which she did a comparative study of Austrian and American legal ethics.
Penn State ranks third in the nation among the 900 participating universities in the number of Fulbrights received by its faculty. Louis F. Del Duca, Law School associate dean, also is a two-time Fulbright recipient.
Terry has been a member of the Law School faculty since 1985. She teaches courses in civil procedure, professional responsibility, advocacy and cross-border legal practice, one of the few courses of its kind offered in the United States. She is vice chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility and a frequent lecturer on topics relating to legal ethics. In June, she will speak at the Southwestern Legal Foundation's International and Comparative Law Center Symposium on Private Investments Abroad. Her topic will be the "Future Role of Merged Law and Accounting Firms."
Farhan Gandhi, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, has been awarded an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award.
Gandhi will research the "Use of Aeroelastic Couplings and Multi-Point Optimization to Design Damperless, Aeromechanically Stable Helicopters."
During the operation of a typical helicopter rotor, the blades undergo a variety of motions such as flapping, lead-lag and pitching motions due to the inertial and aerodynamic forces experienced by the blades. The blade motions can interact with the motions of the helicopter fuselage, leaving the aircraft vulnerable to violent instabilities. The most common solution is using lead-lag dampers on the rotor. The solution has its drawbacks, however. The dampers lead to an increase in rotor hub complexity and aerodynamic drag, maintenance requirements and significant degradation in performance in certain conditions.
Gandhi's work seeks to develop helicopter rotors that are inherently stable without the use of auxiliary dampers. Gandhi received his B.S. in aeronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. His honors include the U.S. Army Rotorcraft Fellowship and the American Helicopter Society Vertical Flight Foundation Fellowship.
Gandhi holds memberships in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Helicopter Society, where he serves as the deputy chairman of the Aircraft Design Technical Committee.
Philip Keeney, professor emeritus of food science and a researcher
so identified with ice cream that he is known nationwide as "The Emperor
of Ice Cream," has been named a 1998 Penn State Distinguished Alumnus
-- the University's highest alumni award.
Keeney is renowned within the ice cream industry for his breakthrough research on how fat emulsions affect the structure of ice cream during freezing. He also made significant contributions to research on the textural properties of corn syrups and developed microcrystalline cellulose as a texture and structural agent in ice cream.
After serving as a U.S. Army Air Corps B-24 bombardier from 1943-1945 in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, Keeney entered the University of Nebraska, earning a B.S. in dairy technology in 1949. He earned an M.S. in dairy technology from The Ohio State University in 1953 and earned his doctorate in dairy science from Penn State in 1955.
Keeney joined the Penn State faculty in 1955 as an assistant professor of dairy science. He was promoted to associate professor in 1962 and became a full professor in 1966. He became a member of the food science department when Penn State designated the dairy manufacturing major as part of the food science program in 1975. He served as food science department head from 1980 to 1985.
Keeney was director of the Penn State Ice Cream Short Course from 1955 until his retirement in 1985. Keeney continues to help teach the course every year. He also directed Penn State's research on the chemistry of the cocoa bean and other chocolate-related projects from 1962 until his retirement.
Keeney is a life member of the Penn State Alumni Association and is serving his third, three-year term on the board of directors of the association's Centre County chapter. He also serves on several national boards and is a member of numerous organizations. Since his retirement, he has helped form the Ice Cream Consortium, a forum that brings together independent ice cream companies from around the world to exchange information.
David Morrow of State College, professor emeritus in Michigan
State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named an Alumni
Fellow by the Penn State Alumni Association. Morrow is now a consulting
veterinarian and owner-manager of Arch Spring Farm, Tyrone.
Morrow graduated with high honors from Penn State in 1956, earning a B.S. in dairy science. He received his D.V.M in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1967, both from Cornell University.
A former faculty member at Cornell and Michigan State universities, Morrow has published more than 200 professional and technical articles and spoken at more than 200 state, regional, national and international agricultural and veterinary meetings. He is past national president of the veterinary medicine honor society Phi Zeta; charter diplomat of the American College of Theriogenologists; and a member of the Society of Theriogenology, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.
Morrow is active in many facets of Penn State. He is a member of the university's Board of Trustees, elected by agricultural societies. In addition, he is past president of the Penn State Alumni Association and a member of its executive board, past president of the College of Agricultural Sciences Alumni Society, and member of various societies and groups. He has received several honors and awards, including the World Dairy Expo's Industry Person of the Year Award in 1997.
In connection with the Alumni Fellow honor, Morrow will visit campus this fall to interact with faculty, staff and students.
The Alumni Fellow award, the highest award presented by the Penn State Alumni Association, is administered in cooperation with the academic units. The Board of Trustees has designated the title of Alumni Fellow as permanent and lifelong.
Several faculty and staff members at Penn State Harrisburg were recently honored for their contributions. Receiving special recognition were:
* Betty Fortner, associate professor of education and reading, who received the Faculty Service Award;
* Rie Gentzler, assistant professor of sociology and community psychology, who received the Kay Towns Women's History Award;
* Simon Bronner, distinguished professor of folklore and American studies, who received the Faculty Research Award;
* The Excellence in Teaching Award was given to Janet Greenlee, assistant professor of professional accountancy; and
* Wayne Mills of the Mail Communications Processing Center received the Staff Service Award.
