Just before the start of spring break, Penn State announced the creation of a second university-controlled Twitter account, @penn_state.


This new account is in addition to the longstanding @pennstatelive account that has become a popular addition to Penn Stater’s feeds. Intrigued as to why the University would create a second account when it already had a popular one to begin with, I contacted the Penn State Department of Public Information to find out more.

Follow the break to see what I discovered…

I just returned from a family vacation in Portugal. It was the first time that all 4 children in my family had the same spring break, so we decided to do something neat. I had a great time on the other side of “the pond” and now I want to know,

What did you do that was exciting during Spring Break?

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to sit down with THON 2010 Overall Chairperson Caitlin Zankowski to talk about her experiences heading up the world’s largest student-run philanthropy. Sitting around a table in 210 HUB, where so many crucial decisions regarding THON and its direction are made, we talked about her experiences as Overall Chair and where she would like to see THON go in the future.


Read on for the full interview.

Less than a week after the debauchery of State Patty’s Day ended with some of the highest crime rates in years, students are looking to create another drinking-centric holiday. Luis Ramos (Sophomore – Civil Engineering) and Gustavo Caldeira (Junior – Finance) cited on the Facebook group that they created the fact that Cinco de Mayo falls during finals week as another reason to create a fake holiday and get drunk. They’re asking students to “get your sombreros, mustaches, ponchos and margaritas ready, should be a good day no matter where you drink.” As of writing, the group has over 1000 members (and was growing rapidly).


Read on for my take on this idea, as well as a sweet Five Second Film.

Yesterday in Washington, D.C., Congressman Glenn Thompson [R-Pennsylvania 5th] sponsored a resolution to congratulate the Penn State Dance Marathon (THON) for a record-setting fundraising total.


Thompson gave a brief description of THON in front of the House of Representatives and congratulated the dancers, volunteers, and participants of the dance marathon. The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Kathleen Dahlkemper [D-PA3], Charles Dent [R-PA15], Jim Gerlach [R-PA6], Tim Holden [D-PA17], Tim Murphy [R-PA18], Joe Sestak [D-PA7], William Shuster [R-PA9], and Frank Wolf [R-VA10]. It just goes to show that supporting THON is truly bipartisan.


Here’s the video of his speech.

Sunday was an auspicious day for the Daily Collegian. It marked the first time that readers were able to comment on articles (as distinct from blog posts). The system works by utilizing a comment system called Disqus and requires users to authenticate with either a Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, OpenID, or Disqus account.


Editor-in-Chief Rossilynne Skena stated on her official blog that the authentication system is in place “to avoid the spam and hostility so often associated with anonymous comments.”


We want to congratulate the Daily Collegian on taking its next big step in the scary world of online media. I am surprised that it took them this long, though I suspect it had something to do with credibility worries. Good luck with keeping the commenters civil!

I wonder if Andrea Miller knows what she’s getting herself into.


Only a few weeks after Pat Howley pledged to donate $1 for every follower that @AbolishCancer got on January 29th to THON, Miss Miller is choosing to do the same. Pat Howley (a junior at Penn State) wound up with a $1700 pledge to back up after the THON twitter account exploded with popularity. An outpouring of support from students, alumni, even IFC/PHC resulted in Pat’s pledge ballooning to over $6000 being donated to the philanthropy.


Today’s the day to help THON by way of Andrea Miller. For every follower that @AbolishCancer gets today, Miss Miller has pledged to donate $1. According to Abolish Cancer’s website, Miss Miller is a recent Penn State grad who decided to participate in the pledge program because she feels that “no child should ever have to experience cancer.” Miss Miller has pledged to sponsor up to 200 followers, but here’s to hoping that she’s able to receive a few matching donations, a la Mr. Howley.

This evening Caitlin Zankowski, THON Overall Chair, emailed all Organizations’ THON Chairs notifying them of some significant changes to the canning procedures for this weekend.


Because of the snow, all canning must be done in front of stores and other businesses. Any organization found violating these procedures will not have their canning total be credited to their organization, in addition, violators will see their pass lists revoked for the entirety of THON weekend. In the event of serious breaches of procedure organizations could have their total canning amounts uncredited, their dancers removed or their entire fundraising total uncredited.

Everybody knows Penn State rarely cancels classes at University Park because of snow. We’ve been told this since before enrollment and it’s been repeated since. Yet, like clockwork, every time a snowstorm comes into Happy Valley, the students start clamoring for classes to be canceled. The Office of the Physical Plant works very hard to ensure that campus walkways and roads are safe for students to traverse, same can be said for the State College Department of Public Works. Now, I’m not going to discuss whether or not I think classes should have been canceled, I am going to discuss the issues that Penn State had with their Facebook account regarding the snow.


First off, stop complaining on Facebook, I’m tired of my feed being filled with people moaning that they have to get up and go to class, as if they haven’t been doing that since age 5. It’s State College, it snows, buy some boots and deal with it. Secondly, posting angry profanity-laced messages on Penn State’s Facebook page isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. While moderately unfair that several of the commonwealth campuses got their classes canceled, complaining on Facebook isn’t going to change anything. It’s immature, unnecessary, and inappropriate.

Did you enjoy all the snowfall we got over the weekend? Good, because State College is about to get whacked again. The National Weather Service is reporting that a snowfall will enter Happy Valley tonight and deposit another 5-10 inches of snow by Wednesday. Sound exciting? It should, there’s a possibility (however slight) that if the storm hits late enough Wednesday morning (2-3am) that Penn State might experience something even more rare than a winning season for the basketball team, a snow day.

Click through to see your chances.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of days, the Wienermobile is here on campus. Or I should say one of the Wienermobiles is here (there are 6 total). The 20-foot long hot dog is in town to recruit new Hotdoggers, the recent graduates who drive the vehicles around the country. Every year, around 1,500 people apply to become Hotdoggers and twelve are chosen. Penn State has been pretty successful in getting graduates into the program, with a Penn State grad being part of the program almost every year. This year there are 2 Penn State grads in the program. One of them, Mary Kate DeCoursey (Class of ‘09) is here with her colleague John Dobson (from the University of Missouri) to hold an information session for interested parties. I was able to sit down with them yesterday and ask them a few questions about their experiences driving a giant hot dog around the country.


Want to see what hard-hitting questions I ask these Hotdoggers? Read on to find out!

I’ll be frank – I hate State Patty’s Day. I feel as though it’s an unnecessary excuse to partake in destructive decisions. That does not, however, mean that I am opposed to the actual Saint Patrick’s Day, which as a person of Irish decent, I am required to celebrate.


State Patty’s Day was created four years ago when Saint Patrick’s Day fell during spring break, which, I will admit, created an issue. However, since 2007, the holiday has safely fallen after Spring Break, allowing for us to dress in green, line up at bars for poor quality alcohol with green food dye in it, and pretend to actually like gingers. Personally, I think that one of those days is enough, and the Town of State College will agree with me.


Read on to find out more.

Anybody who has a Twitter account probably knows about the big day that the THON Public Relations committee had on Friday. For the unenlightened, THON PR has been tweeting celebrities for the past few weeks asking them to help get the word out about THON. Their hard work paid off on Friday when Khloe Kardashian, of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, first tweeted about THON. She then promised to tweet back anybody who donated to the philanthropy. Jay Sean and Lindsay Lohan also helped out the cause be retweeting Kardashian’s comments. Not surprisingly, this had a huge impact on the number of followers THON had on Twitter as well as hits on THON.org.


I was able to get a hold of Elyse Adams, PR Overall, who gave me some information about how Khloe helped out THON. “It’s extremely exciting to have the support of someone like Khloe. She is helping us spread awareness about THON and pediatric cancer,” Adams wrote in an email. She elaborated by saying that, “on Friday, January 29th, @THON gained 1001 followers on Twitter between the hours of 1:29 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. (plus a few hundred more on Saturday)! Our makeshift video to thank Khloe received more than 6,000 hits in one day. And our YouTube channel received more than 5,000 hits.”


Read on after the jump for some more statistics from the day.

Jeff Dunham and his posse of puppets brought the house down on Friday night at the Bryce Jordan Center with their Identity Crisis Tour. Deftly mixing classic jokes with new material, Dunham had the crowd roaring throughout the entire show. His cast of puppets created a wide variety of jokes ranging from redneck jokes, to a bit about Angelina Jolie’s breasts, to Asian jokes.


Featuring an almost certainly unscripted section with Dunham’s opening act Guitar Guy, the show slowed down a bit, but Dunham was able to incorporate that into later parts of his show, with great success. Dunham stated during his encore, after discovering that the audience knew all of the punchlines to his jokes with Bubba J., that the show was “one of the weirder shows we’ve ever done.” Weird in a good way.


Dunham’s style has been criticized for being too politically incorrect, but still had the BJC filled and the crowd in hysterics. Dunham appears to enjoy performing here and the BJC seems to like having him. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes another appearance here in the upcoming years. My recommendation: If he comes back, go see it, you won’t be disappointed.


Check out pictures after the break.

Last night, each of THON’s fourteen committees sent forth a pair of Captains to compete in the first ever Mr. and Mrs. THON pageant, held in HUB Alumni Hall. The event, true to the spirit of THON, raised money FTK– $613.42 to be precise– but more than that, it showcased the contagious enthusiasm that will permeate the BJC in just three short weeks.


Based on the opening dance and their talent performances, three Captain pairs were chosen as finalists. The Captains from the Hospitality, OPPerations and Family Relations committees were named as the final three pairs. Steve Dodge and Jeannine Bradbury (OPPerations) were chosen as runners-up, and Jony Rommel and Dave Belliveau (Family Relations) were crowned Mr. and Mrs. THON 2010.


The contestants were judged by a panel consisting of Evan Royster, starting running back for the Nittany Lions; Lou “the mic guy” Defazio from the cheerleading squad; Justin Ross, Blue Band President; and Homecoming King and Queen, Greg Tallman and Cri Cri Henry. Overall Chair Caitlin Zankowski and THON Advisor Barry Bram hosted the event. The pageant also featured performances by the Overall Committee and a speech by a former Four Diamonds child turned Penn State nursing student and Morale committee member.