Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum announced yesterday during a Republican National Committee conference call that he was considering running for President of the United States in the upcoming 2012 election. He stated
“the dynamic has changed. A lot of folks who might not have thought about running against an incumbent president” are now considering it.
Now normally when somebody mentions that they might be running for president, the public goes “okay” and continues on with the rest of their lives. What makes this quasi-announcement noteworthy, to the Penn State community especially, is that Sen. Santorum is a Penn State Alumni. He holds …

Zachary. Photographed outside the Nittany Bank on College Ave.
In the triumphant return of the Natty Nittany, I present you with Zachary. I ran into Zachary looking exceptionally sharp outside the bank. At first I didn’t take him to be a college student, but when I asked him, I discovered that he’s a graduate student working towards his MBA in Smeal. I noticed that he had a great look on for September, herringbone is perhaps one of my favorite fabric patterns and is perfect for fall. Who cares that fall doesn’t start until September 23? I wore a sweater today comfortably, …

When we think of Penn State football, the first person that comes to mind almost universally is the man, the myth, the legend, Joe Paterno. He is without question the reason why Nittany Lion football, and Penn State University as a whole, are viewed as one of the best programs and schools in the nation. He has been the foundation for which Penn State football has been built. But what about his foundation, what keeps him grounded as the face of Penn State University? The answer is Sue Paterno, JoePa’s wife of 47 years.
Sue Paterno has been so much more …

Yesterday evening at approximately 7:00PM a grey Hyundai collided with a motorcyclist on Shortlidge Rd. in front of the Business Building. The driver of the motorcycle was taken away in a stretcher. Their condition at this time is not currently known.
Update: We heard but have not confirmed that the motorcyclist is named Paul George.

Last night, popular downtown nightspots Lulu’s and Tony’s reopened after over a month (check out the original Collegian article) of being closed when a Centre County judge reinstated Sammark Inc.’s appeal to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board regarding the PLCB’s decision not to renew the company’s licenses following repeated liquor law violations.
The legal fight over whether or not Sammark Inc. can keep its establishments open doesn’t only have an effect on the number of options for students to obtain alcohol, but it will have a major effect on the music scene in the town. Tony’s hosts several house DJ’s that …

If you’ve ever wonder who came up with the idea to play “Kernkraft 400″ (aka “Zombie Nation”) following big plays, or who thought that a full stadium white-out would be a good idea, then this post is for you. Guido D’Elia, Director of  Communications and Branding for Penn State football, is one of the primary reasons why Penn State has “the Greatest Show in College Football”.
Guido D’Elia has been credited with reviving the Penn State football experience that had grown stagnant during the dark times that were the early 2000’s. Combine poor football squads with a dull stadium experience and …

An interesting thing to come out of this month’s Board of Trustees meeting, other than the proposed tuition hikes, is the news that Penn State received the second highest amount of donations ever for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
Penn State received over 300,000 separate gifts from over 77,000 alumni, totaling $180 million in donations, reported Peter Tombros, volunteer chair  of the University’s capital campaign. The $180 million received was surpassed only by the $190.3 million donated in the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
The University’s capital campaign, known as For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students, has raised over $750 million since …

Penn State announced today that they plan to enact the lower of the two tuition scenarios approved by the Board of Trustees last week. Penn State spokesperson Lisa Powers said that support from Pennsylvania’s congressional representatives and state legislators influenced the University’s decision. Out-of-state students will see a tuition increase of 3.7% while in-state students will see a 4.5% increase.
The decision comes following an announcement from the Department of Education stating that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell will have to resubmit his application for federal stimulus money to include appropriations for Pennsylvania’s four state-related institutions.
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The Department of Education announced today that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell will have to resubmit a federal stimulus funds request for Pennsylvania higher education schools, and will not be able to leave the four state-related schools (Penn State included) out of the $42 million that Rendell requested.
This announcement comes on the heels of numerous protests to the Department of Education from 14 of the state’s 19 U.S. Representatives.
Early last night, Representative Glenn Thompson (R- Centre County) received a phone call from the Department of Education saying that Gov. Rendell will have to reapply. Thompson told the Philadelphia Inquirer,
“Frankly, the governor …

Happy Independence Day from everyone here at Onward State!
If you’ll be in the State College area today, make sure you head over to Beaver Stadium/ Medlar Field/ Bryce Jordan Center to take part in 4thFest 2009. 4thFest is an annual celebration of America put on by the town of State College and Penn State University. Events will include pyrotechnics demonstrations, military equipment displays, hot air balloon rides, all leading up the the main event, the fireworks display. You can see the whole schedule of events here.
The 4thFest fireworks display was rated the 3rd best 4th of July fireworks display in …

Penn State Athletics finished 19th nationally in the 2008-2009 Director’s Cup standings for Division I programs. The final results were released yesterday by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
The Director’s Cup is awarded to the school whose athletic program is successful in all NCAA acknowledged sports, with equal weight placed on all sports. That means that Football and Men’s Basketball are equally as important as the sports that get less national coverage (Women’s Water Polo, for example). Each school may have up to 20 sports count towards their score (10 men’s and 10 women’s).
Penn State finished with a …

A new study came out last week ranking the Smeal College of Business’ Supply Chain Management department as first nationally among universities that offer the program.
The study surveyed 126 companies in an industry survey and asked 19 universities for data regarding their programs. The study then broke down the responses into three catagories:  Industry Value, Depth of Program, and Scope of Program.
Penn State finished first in both Industry Value and Depth of Program, and was tied for second in Scope of Program, with scores of 14 out of 15, 19 out of 20, and 15 out of 20 (respectively) for …

This past December, a website came into existence that offered procrastinators yet another tool for getting deadline extensions.
Corrupted-files.com does exactly what the URL would suggest. For the small price of $3.95, corrupted-files.com will sell you an unreadable Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. The idea is that you rename the file to whatever your assignment is, and then submit the corrupted file to your professor. The professor assumes something went wrong during submission or download, and a few days later asks you to submit the file again. By this point you should have hopefully finished the actual assignment.
However, the Chronicle of …

As if the Penn State/Centre County community needed any more reason to worship Joe and Sue Paterno, Thursday morning they announced that they were donating $1 million to the Foundation for Mount Nittany Medical Center to help fund current and future expansion projects. The Paternos join other prominent Penn State benefactors Lloyd and Dottie Huck (Huck Institute for Life Sciences), who donated $1.5 million.
All together the foundation has raised $9 million so far in their efforts, known as the Commitment to Distinction: The Campaign for Mount Nittany Medical Center.
The East Wing expansion, currently entering the final stages of construction, …