On Wednesday, Radio Free Penn State interviewed Professor José Texidor. If you haven’t heard, Texidor has quite a controversy surrounding him, which was the subject of his interview.


The whole thing started in July 2007 when Texidor received a letter from John McCarthy, head of the department of sociology and crime, law and justice questioning the difficulty of two of Texidor’s classes (CJ 100 and CJ 451).


Read on for more about the controversy.

Marlowe Froke, a retired PSU journalism professor, died this past Tuesday, February 23 at Mount Nittany Medical Center. He is survived by his wife, Marliene, and their two daughters, Paula and Dana.


Having grown up in the small, rural town of Vienna, South Dakota, Froke always saw the important role television could play in educating the masses, and he worked hard to accomplish this throughout his entire career, especially during his time here at Penn State. “His vision was instrumental in the early development of cable television, and in how cable television developed locally, regionally and nationally,” said Telecommunications Professor Patrick Parsons.


In 1959 he joined the PSU staff as an associate professor of journalism and developed the school’s first broadcast journalism curriculum. After being named Penn State’s director of broadcasting, he created WPSX (you might know it as WPSU) and took the lead in the early days of cable and public TV to establish networks of connections among Pennsylvania stations and cable operations that preceded today’s Public Broadcasting System.


Find out more about Froke’s life and accomplishments after the jump.

A recent study,entitled, “Look at us: Collective Narcissism in College Student Facebook Photo Galleries” by Andrew Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, professors at Temple and University of Illinois (respectively), found that college students’ – specifically underclassmen – “central objective …on Facebook was the recording and posting of their participation in the social rituals of college.”


The pair looked at 20,962 photos and 13,543 comments on 333 Facebook pages, examining the subject matter in the photographs, the behavior of the subjects, the aesthetics of the images, the organization of the photographs, comments on the photos, and even what was missing from the photographs. Social and sporting events were the primary local of the pics, parties being the most common.


The study also found that families and academic related activities were notably absent. The two researchers believe that the main point of photos posted was to show others your ideal college life style and the tagging and commenting serve to “reinforce group cohesiveness and closeness.”


Read on for my take on the study.

TONIGHT! There will be a special presentation presented by the PSU chapter of the NAACP. “Keep ‘em Flying: Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen” is a celebration of the first black airmen. Tuskegee airmen themselves will be telling some really incredible stories about their experiences.


These men had to overcome unbelievable discrimination and racism in America and in the army, but they still flew with distinction. Tonight’s function will also feature performances by Essence of Joy, Spoken Word and Poetry, and the Delta Theta Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. along with a catered dinner, photo opportunities, and live music.


The event takes place at 4pm TONIGHT in Alumni Hall in the HUB. Tickets are $8.00 for students and $15.00 for the general admission, which is a pretty great deal to be able to see such illustrious, brave men talk.

As I walked around in the near fifty degrees weather this weekend listening to the chirping of birds and watching the mounds of snow shrink away to reveal green grass, I couldn’t help but think, “Could it be? Could spring be around the corner?” Visions of bringing sweaters home for good over spring break and retiring my ugly, but warm, men’s trapper hat danced around in my mind. But alas, those dreams have been shattered.


A major snow storm of “historical proportions” is scheduled to hit the North East and Mid-Atlantic this Thursday and Friday. While most of our home towns are just recovering from the last storm, this is said to be the one we’ll all remember. Complete with 74mph winds and blinding snow falling at a rate of an inch per hour, this storm has been deemed a “snow hurricane” rather than a blizzard.


Want more details about the severity of this snowstorm? Read the full post!

The money THON raises has increased almost three fold in the past decade from around $3 million in 2000 to close to $8 million this year, and some people wonder what has caused such a dramatic increase in donations. Most wouldn’t say students are working harder (because they’ve always worked hard). Maybe more students have gotten involved in the past ten years. But how can one explain why, despite the recession, during which one study says 94% of non-profits reported negative effects on fundraising, THON has managed to raise its donations?


Daniel Victor, a Harrisburg area newspaperman, thinks that the use of Facebook might be at least a contributing factor, as evidenced by a February 21st tweet in which he wrote, “Theory: Could #Thon’s economy-bucking success since 2005 be correlated to rise of Facebook? Maybe it created more consistent peer pressure?”


Read on after the jump for some more details.

We sat down with a member of Altoona’s THON Team, Ethan, to find out a little more about this group.


Check it out!

Ohana’s one of the coolest independent organizations around. You can spot them with their Fish hats. We got a chance to sit down with Meghan Czajka (IntraRelations Executive) and Alison Wolf (IntraRelations Executive) and ask them some questions.

Read on for the full interview.

PSMA is putting together a free concert with help from UPAC on Thursday, March 18th at 8pm in Alumni Hall. That’s right, I said free!


You may think that because it’s free it’d be some chump musicians. But no! It’s Mike Posner, an up-and-coming-recently-signed hip–hop artist, rapper Big Sean, and mash-up superstar E-603 (If you’re still uncertain of the quality, you can check out some tunes on the event’s Facebook page).


Tickets will be available March 3rd in the HUB from 10-4 with a PSU id, and, if there are any left over, March 16th from 10-2. Did I mention it’s free?

Ms. Queen Nworisara Quinn, a graduate of Penn State, was recently names a Gates-Cambridge Scholar. The scholarship was created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in cahoots with Cambridge University to help students interested in using their superior leadership and intellect to help society study at the prestigious university.


Ms. Quinn plans to obtain an MPhil in Innovation, Strategy & Organization and then pursue a PhD in Management. She states her career ambitions as follows:

My career aspiration is to develop research which helps to improve the competitiveness of African firms and entrepreneurs. I also aspire to teach students about entrepreneurship and hope that my research would prove beneficial in educating a new class of investors about investment opportunities in Africa.

Sadly, while Ms. Quinn mentions our beloved PSU in her profile, she fails to mention it under “Universities Attended” in her bio box. I understand Harvard is a tad more impressive, but there’s room for both.


If you have aspirations to serve the world community and are interested in applying for a Gates-Cambridge Scholarship (and mentioning PSU in your bio box once you receive it!) look no further than the University Fellowship Office.

A freshman from of Pinchot Hall in East Halls has been diagnosed with a probable case of meningococcal meningitis and has been receiving treatment at Mount Nittany Medical Center. Those close to the student have also been offered prophylactic medication as a precaution. While meningitis is not easily transmittable – it’s spread through saliva and routine, close contact – but the CDC does state that college students living in dormitories are at increased risk for the disease.


Meningitis is a bacterial infection and can be treated with antibiotics like penicillin, but since it usually presents itself like a less serious infection (lots of flu-like symptoms), the disease is usually not detected early, and one in ten die from the disease, with others infected for life.


I know what you’re thinking: “But Caitlin, didn’t UHS require us to get vaccinated before arriving at Penn State?” The answer: sort of. More on that after the jump

Valley, Penn State’s life and style mag, recently launched its new home on the interwebs.


The design is simple and everything is easily found, but I’d expect something chicer from a life & style magazine. Old issues of Valley are accessible on the site, and blog posts with fashion tips and lifestyle observations are published on a fairly regular schedule. In our opinion, it’s worth a subscription in your RSS reader!

The Official Penn State Facebook Page is sponsoring a Valentine’s Day contest. Just post your best PSU love story and you could be enjoying dinner with your honey at the Nittany Lion Inn! The competition is pretty fierce so far – if you want to win you’ll have to compete with lots of marriages, blind dates, love-at-first-site encounters, an Old Main proposal, and even a McLanahan’s home pregnancy test.


Submissions will be accepted until 5pm on Monday, February 15th, so get your story up!

The beloved associate dean of the Schreyer Honors College, Dr. Ozment, will be resigning from her post at the end of the semester, after seven years of service. Students and faculty alike are upset and worried by the news, questioning if the replacement of Doc Oz (as she is affectionately known) will be able to fill her shoes.


But Dr. Oz is handling it with the class and optimism those around her would expect from such a lady, saying, “Some people are panicking, and I don’t think they need to panic…I have a lot of hope for who follows me in this role. Change is difficult, and when you get used to someone being there, it troubles people.”


There has been little explanation surrounding Dr.Ozment’s leave. Read on to find out what the future has in store for her and Penn State.

The Deli Restaurant’s Z Bar brings back it’s Meet the Brewery series starting this Wednesday at 8pm and continuing all the way through April.

Tickets are on sale now for $10 at The Deli. What does your $10 get me, you ask? The event includes four to five selections of the representative brewery’s finest, rarest, and specialty beers along with family-style appetizers and prizes! Seems like a good deal to me. So pick your favorite brewery, or the one with the strangest name, or just go to all of them.

Feb 10: Troegs
Feb 17: Spaten &franziskaner
Feb 24: Samuel Adams
Mar 3: Victory Brewing
Mar 10: Bavarian Barbarian Brewing Company
Mar 17: TBA
Mar 24: Magic Hat
Mar 31: Dogfish Head
Apr 7: Harpoon Brewing Company
Apr 14: Weyerbacher
Apr 21: Smuttynose
Apr 28: Sly Fox

Bonus question: If we were to hold an Onward State meet up at one of these events, which brewery would you prefer?