CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Penn State’s mission includes improving the well-being and health of individuals and communities through teaching, research and service. Penn State Lehigh Valley faculty regularly present, serve on panels and share their research with people and institutions outside of the University.

Over the last few months, Penn State Lehigh Valley faculty’s off-campus engagement included:

Barbara Cantalupo, professor of English, accepted the invitation to give a talk at a seminar dedicated to writer Edgar Allan Poe at the Universidad de la Rioja, Spain, on March 29. Cantalupo’s presentation is titled "Poe's Confounding Heroics."  

Nichola Gutgold, professor of communication arts and sciences:

• will present a talk on the power of rhetorical situations to AAUW on March 29, at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
• shared her research on women politicians as a guest on the Gerry Cammy Radio Show on the WEI Network on March 13, and again on April 9.

Jacqueline S. McLaughlin, associate professor of biology and director of Penn State CHANCE, is presently serving as a member of the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation (STC) within the Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) in Washington, D.C. She leads a range of STC activities that promote and protect American leadership in science, technology, innovation and advance U.S. foreign policy interests.

Maung K. Min, assistant teaching professor and director of business programs, presented on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on March 5 at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras (UPRRP) to UPRRP faculty, and University of Puerto Rico and Penn State Lehigh Valley students. Min discussed how CSR practices need to be aligned with corporate strategy, while satisfying the ever-growing list of stakeholders and add value to the corporation.

Jeffrey A. Stone, assistant professor of information sciences and technology, delivered a talk titled “Assessing the Impact of Sustainability-Themed Programming Assignments” on Feb. 28 at the 2019 ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This talk highlighted efforts to assess student learning and behavioral changes in Stone’s introductory programming courses. Students in these courses are given a series of sustainability-themed programming projects.