
Yesterday, the Blue & White Society held the Blue & White BASH at Hintz Alumni Hall.
Read on to see what all the fuss was about.

By now, we’ve all heard about Penn State’s recent decent drop down the party-school ladder (which is something to bep proud of), but what you may not know is how the fall came to be. While it’s definitely a mixture of things, the administration’s introduction of new policies is definitely a large component.
We’ve already experienced the introduction of frat bouncers and heightened security on the infamous State Patty’s Day, and now we can expect to see even more deterrents to the crass drinking culture here.

A few special interest THON orgs met at Central Parklet today. Dan Levy of Atlas said the idea behind the picnic was for all the independent THON groups to meet up after a summer away.
Find out more about the event after the jump.

Dear Freshmen,
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Penn State seems to have a “hit-the-ground-running” philosophy when it comes to move in. There’s not much of an orientation, no team building activities, no fun events designed to introduce you to new people (for the most part, anyway).
Despite this, however, there are tons of ways to get involved in University Park. Read on to find out how.

Updated 5:11pm, August 23: The on-campus memorial service for Tom will be held Saturday, August 28th at 11 am in Eisenhower Chapel.
Funeral arrangements have been finalized for Schreyer Scholar Tom Richards who passed away earlier this month while on a Leadership Jumpstart retreat to Camp Blue Diamond.
The viewing will begin at 8:30 am, Saturday August 21 at the Lenape Valley Presbyterian Church, 321 West Butler Avenue, New Britain, PA., and the church service will follow. The family asks that contributions to the Thomas J. Richards Memorial Scholarship Fund be made (P.O. Box 12, Line Lexington, PA 18932) in lieu of flowers.
Read on for more about Tom and plans for an on-campus memorial service…

We all know college is expensive, but just how expensive is Penn State? According to a Gawker article highlighting a study by the Education Department, Penn State ranks third in student debt for non-profit schools.
Penn State is certainly not the only public school (as may be expected from its status as most costly public university) or even the only Big Ten school. Ohio State, Michigan State, Minnesota, and Purdue all made the list along with state schools in Arizona, Texas, and New Jersey.

Earlier this month, the new and improved Book Exchange 2.0 was launched just in time for students to buy their fall semester books. This new site features a similar layout as the first book exchange, but the sole programmer, Ian Kellogg, a junior in electrical engineering here at PSU, says he started over from scratch to make this 2.0 version superior.
Find out the major improvements after the jump.

The demolition process began on the former Phi Delta Theta house, which was recently bought by the University, earlier this week. The area around the property was permanently closed on Tuesday in order to make way for the flattening of the dilapidated house. Demolition will continue over the next several months, maybe more.
Read on to see what university and greek community members had to say about the demolition…

After months of negotiations the Spring Creek Canyon area has been parceled off and purchased, and Penn State is now the legal owner of more than 450 acres off of Benner Pike. The state Game Commission, the Fish and Boat Commission, along with Benner Township also got their own slices of the former-prison-land pie when the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 199-1 to approve legislation authorizing the sale.
Read on to find out the details…

It’s Arts Fest time! The festival is so jam-packed with stuff to do, things to buy, bands to listen to, and performances to see that even the most determined won’t be able to do or see everything. So we here at Onward State decided to help a brother out by giving you the highlights.
Get the full run-down after the jump.

U.S. News & World Report is one the foremost authorities on college rankings, which most of you probably have an old, thumbed-through edition from your senior year. But, the go-to-guide is adding some changes for this upcoming year’s placements.
Click through to find out the changes…

THON was named one of the most efficient charities by the American Institute for Philanthropy this week. In order be deemed “most highly efficient” 75% of the money raised by the charity must got to its cause. THON surpasses this requirement by a large margin: 94.6% of proceeds go directly to the Four Diamonds Fund.
Read on to find out how THON manages to be so efficient.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved a $3.8 billion dollar interim budget for the 2010-2011 school year at its meeting last week. An interim budget is adopted each year so the University has an approved operating budget from the beginning of its fiscla year on July 1st to whenever the Board of Trustees can approve an actual budget. This year’s interim budget is basically identical to last year’s, meaning it contains no changes to tuition adjustments.
Yay! No tuition increase! Right?
Unfortunately, that’s probably not what’s actually going to happen.

The former Phi Delta Theta house was intensely vandalized during graduation weekend and the damage was discovered Monday morning. The house was to be formally turned over to PSU this Friday after its $1.75 million purchase in March from the the organization’s alumni corporation.
The CDT reported that the house had several broken windows, light fixtures ripped from the ceiling, holes in the walls, garbage strewn inside and out, and graffiti including boobies and a message that read “Graham Spanier kills little kittens.” Food was left rotting and the recently-made decrepit, century old house was said to smell like urine, old food, and alcohol.
Penn State commencement weekend can be described as many things: sad, happy, exciting, or quite possibly embarrassing depending on your parents. No matter what, though, it is certainly busy. We’ve put together this handy-dandy list of individual college graduation times, places, and speakers so you know what’s up.
Find out what’s going on where after the jump.



