Faculty climbed aboard the bus bright and early -- some
clutching cups of coffee -- at the start of last year's Road Scholars Tour.
This year's tour starts May 9. For the itinerary, click here.
Photo: Greg Grieco
Faculty climbed aboard the bus bright and early -- some
clutching cups of coffee -- at the start of last year's Road Scholars Tour.
This year's tour starts May 9. For the itinerary, click
here.
Photo: Greg Grieco
By Alan Janesch
Public Information
At 2:15 p.m. Sunday, May 9, President Graham B. Spanier and two busloads of new faculty members will depart on a two-and-a-half-day spring road trip that will make stops at five Penn State locations, the Hershey Foods Corp. chocolate plant, the state Capitol Building and the historic miner's village where much of the 1970 movie "The Molly Maguires" was filmed.
Also on the tour are stops at the estate once belonging to a former Pennsylvania governor, now being used as a treatment center for alcoholism and chemical dependency; a company that makes devices for the automotive and other industries; and a facility that manufactures glass components for color television sets. The five Penn State locations on the tour are Penn State Hazleton, Penn State Geisinger in Danville, Penn State Worthington Scranton, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, and The Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle.
The upcoming trip will be Spanier's fourth annual "Road Scholars" tour. Initiated by Spanier in 1995, the tours take new faculty members to various parts of the state to experience first-hand Penn State's wide-ranging impact and influence on the Commonwealth.
The tours also provide participants with an opportunity to meet faculty
outside their disciplines. Each year participants visit
different regions of the state, stopping at University campuses, centers,
research facilities and local businesses and corporations, along with stops
at various points of interest.
Frances Galliano Hollman, an assistant professor of marketing in The Smeal College of Business Administration, liked the trip so much last year -- and the opportunities it provided for collaboration with other Penn Staters -- that she's going again this year. (Under the rules, faculty who have been at Penn State for two years or less are allowed to take part in the tour up to two times.) There's no cost to faculty members to take part in the tour. Transportation, meals and lodging are provided by the president's office.
Through last year's tour, which made a stop at a powdered-metal firm in St. Mary's, Hollman met Jude Stauffer, a Penn State DuBois program leader with a background in the industry -- and the two subsequently began to work collaboratively on a study of the decision-making process in business.
"My work is in developing a general theory of decision-making," Hollman said. "I was looking for a group in industry that would be willing to participate in testing my theory in the field, and it just so happened that their needs and my needs just meshed."
Barbara Bird, an assistant professor of communications who previously taught at Northwestern University, is a first-timer for the tour. But she's sold on the idea, too. Bird is joining the tour because she wants to get to know her new home state better and seeks opportunities for interdisciplinary work with other faculty.
"I've been working very hard since I got here, saying yes to everything I can possibly say yes to, and I haven't really gotten to see much of the state," she said. "So I'm interested in doing that."
Having just recently designed an interdisciplinary capstone course that combines journalism, film, advertising/public relations, media studies and telecommunications, Bird hopes "that different things like that may be in the offing" during the Road Scholars tour.
The May 9-11 trip includes visits to:
* Penn State Geisinger, Danville, 4 p.m. Sunday, May 9. The Penn State
Geisinger Health System, which serves more than
3 million Pennsylvanians in 40 counties, is the country's largest rural
health system.
* Penn State Hazleton,
8:30 a.m. Monday, May 10.
* Harris Semiconductor, Mountaintop, 10 a.m. Monday (bus 1 only). Harris produces devices used in anti-lock braking systems, power windows, door locks, audio amplifiers, inductive cooking systems and other products.
* Techneglas, Pittston, 10:15 a.m. Monday (bus 2 only). Each year Techneglas
manufactures
13 million glass components for color televisions.
* Penn State Worthington Scranton, Monday, following a
1 p.m. lunch.
* Marworth, 3:20 p.m. Monday. Marworth, once the family estate of former Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton, is now a leading treatment center for alcoholism and chemical dependency.
* Penn State Wilkes-Barre,
6 p.m. Monday.
* Eckley Miner's Village, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 11, hosted by Harold Aurand, professor of history at Penn State Hazleton. The village, with more than 50 residents and 58 buildings, preserves a typical company town of the anthracite coal region.
* Hershey Foods Corp., about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, following lunch. Hershey is the leading North American manufacturer of chocolate, nonchocolate confectionery and chocolate-related grocery products.
* State Capitol Building, Harrisburg, 3:30 p.m. Following the tour, at about 4:15 p.m., state legislators will meet with tour participants.
* Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, Carlisle, 7:15 p.m. Tuesday.
The tour will arrive back at University Park around 10 p.m. Tuesday.