CATA’s lack of support for cash-strapped Graduate students here at Penn State has started to get on some bus rider’s nerves.


Two of those Graduate students, Crista M. Livecchi and Emma Gaalaas Mullaney, have started a Facebook group called “PSU Grads for Transportation Equity,” calling for CATA to give them the same kind of financial break it gives full-time Penn State staff members. According to the group, Penn State staffers are currently eligible for CATA’s Ride for Five program, which offers a bus pass for $5 a month as opposed to the regular rate of $49 a month.


The Grad students, on the other hand, who don’t have two pennies to rub together, have to pay the full monthly rate.


To an outsider like me, this seems like a humongous load of crap, but, as I said, I’m on the outside looking in. Fortunately, both creators of the group were kind enough to offer me some insight on the situation, explaining things much better than I ever could. Read on to find out what they had to say.

It’s a shame, really.


Every Saturday morning, young entrepreneurs in college are waking up with visions of starting the next Cisco or Microsoft. Lifting their heads up from their pizza box pillows, they brush off the Dorito crumbs, struggle to their feet, and stagger out through the graveyard of Natty to announce their new ideas to the world.


But alas…these new ideas often don’t make it past conception in colleges today, as they get dragged down and suffocated in a quagmire of legal issues and technical hang-ups.


This problem was recently detailed in the article How College’s Can Better Nurture Startups. Interestingly, the article explained how the start-up scene in Silicon Valley has “become based on trust and community,” escaping the formal straight-jacket college can put entrepreneurs in. Proposed remedies for this formal quick sand included colleges creating a venture lab run by an experienced visionary (who also has the Benjamins to throw behind new ideas) and simplifying the crippling “spin-off process.”


Read on to find out what resources Penn State has to offer.

Gender studies in college has become a hot-button topic recently. Single college ladies, you can be sure you’ll put a ring on it some day thanks to a new study put out by Newsweek.

“For women, financial stability used to be the most important reason for marriage,” the article reported. “Today, educated women are a lot less concerned about how much their husband earns, and more interested in whether he is willing to share child care and housework.”

The study’s main focus is to disprove the long-standing idea that “smart women finish last,” placing emphasis on the fact that more women now attend college than men. In the study, Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that “In 1950, less than three quarters of white college-educated women went on to marry by age 40 [compared with 90 percent of high-school graduates]. But today, 86 percent marry by age 40, compared with 88 percent of high-school grads.”


Read on to find out what else the study says about women and even men!

Penn State recently released its annual research report and, in contrast to almost everything else these days, the numbers are trending up.


According to the report, Penn State has seen a 74% increase in research expenditures since 2000 and last year totaled a record $765 million cold hard clams for research purposes. Federal agencies contribute $445 million which is a 95% increase since entering into the new millennium.


The numbers have fallen slightly in terms of industry funded research, which the report blames on the bad economy, but Penn State is still ranked #3 nationally in that category. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania contributes exactly $83,765,000 to Penn State’s research funds.


The number of applicants to Penn State’s Graduate School hit the highest number it has reached in the last 10 years with 17,071 applicants in 2009. This is compared to the only 13,101 who applied in 2000.


Another part of the report included an article on the study of turning waste water into a renewable form of hydrogen. Read on to find out how!

A new social networking site called ineedcollege.com has recently come into our lives… and it’s about as useful as a rusty fork jammed between your toes. 
Well O.K., maybe it’s not quite that bad but these folks are trying to pull a Lloyd Christmas and tape the head back on a dead bird, then package it to us like nothing is wrong as we sit petting it like poor, unsuspecting, Billy the blind kid in 4C. I started an account on the site to see what wondrous new innovations ineedcollege has brought to the world of social interaction; I ended up disappointed.
The site is just …

When Sly Stone of Sly & the Family Stone shouted “I wanna take you higher,” he probably wasn’t thinking about financial aid for college students. But that line can indeed describe Penn State’s substantial aid received from the U.S. Higher Education Act (HEA), which was passed in 1965 by Lyndon Johnson. It must be re-passed by Congress every five years, a measure taken to better allow for improvements. More specifically, Penn State is a major beneficiary under Title IV of the HEA, which deals with federal student aid programs. In fact, according to information released this month by the U.S. Department of Education, Penn State is the top ranked 4-year public school in Title IV funding, raking in $549,308,028 in total funds.

Penn State women’s volleyball coach Russ Rose likes smoking his Cuban cigars outside Rec Hall. He’s not sure if he’s allowed, but frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.
It’s these kind of off-the-wall quirks that characterize Rose, who was recently featured in an article by the New York Times. ”He’s like that black-sheep uncle,” a volunteer assistant coach said in the article, which also reported on Rose’s love of sweats (as opposed to suits) and swearing like a sailor in casual conversation.
There’s one other thing that defines Rose, though…his insanely dominating coaching record!
Rose has been at Penn State for 31 seasons, racking up these incredible stats:
The …

With Old Man Winter parking his frigid ass back in State College, a trip down to sunny Orlando, Fl. to see PSU play in a bowl game sounds pretty enticing…even if it is just the “we’re so freakin’ lucky to even be here” bowl.
The Penn State Alumni Association is offering some super sweet deals to Penn State students and fans alike as part of the “Official Penn State Bowl Tour.” Here are some details of the main student package listed by Penn State Live:
*The “Lion Student Tour” includes a game ticket, two nights lodging at the Rosen Plaza Hotel, and ground transportation to …

Students in the College of Education are currently volunteering their time collecting books for underprivileged students in Africa.
According to Penn State Live, the African Book Project Inc., a non-profit organization based in New Orleans, has been collecting books since 2000 for distribution to children around the world in need of literary material.
Two student groups – interns in PSU’s Professional Development School (PDS) and students in a PDS freshman seminar – are sacrificing their time and efforts for the cause. Their goal is to collect 2,000 to 3,000 books, and one student, Michael Gottfried, has already collected 1,100 books by himself. They have also seen …

Parents will be able to better keep tabs on their kids like a hawk over nervous field mice with Penn State’s new “Parents Program.”
It’s reported by the CDT that the university will create a single office to handle (or deal with) parental concerns of all kinds. A director will be put in place to act as a contact person for students’ families, and most likely, face a cavalcade of questions like “why is little Timmy’s B+ not getting bumped up to an A?”
The new single office will congeal responsibilities previously handled by Student Affairs, Undergraduate Education, and the Alumni Association. With so many social media outlets, computers and cell phones around for …

Penn State has a strong international presence on campus – and rightly so, as there has been a recent spike in the enrollment of foreign students all over the U.S.
According to Penn State Admissions, there are 4,011 international graduate and undergraduate students currently enrolled at Penn State. This number coincides well with the fact that  international students enrolling in a U.S. school has jumped for the first time from 8.3% in 2005/06 to 15.8% in 2008/09.
There is a total of 200,460 international students enrolled in U.S. schools today, according to the Institute of International Education. The increased enrollment over the past two years has gotten higher than Willie Nelson’s tour bus in these …

As if getting wiped all over the football field (and the soccer field!) wasn’t already painful enough, now Ohio State has bested us in yet another category!
Time Magazine has dumped more salt into an open wound with the recent release of its “The 10 Best College Presidents” list, which has Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee at number one. Well that’s just fan-freakin-tasic that the biggest nut of all the Buckeyes gets anointed king of the college castle, but here’s the worst part: Penn State president Graham Spanier didn’t even make the list!
Are you kidding me!? Spanier is a spectacular president and he …

Happy Valley usually lives up to its namesake with football games, parties, and good times all around, but there’s one dark mystery that still haunts this place to this day.
Betsy Ruth Aardsma was stabbed to death in the Pattee Library on November 28 1969 and as the 40th anniversary of the murder approaches, her killer remains unknown. The mystery surrounding the murder would be enough to conjure up a “CSI:Penn State” episode that would send chills down your spine. The story goes something like this:
*After taking a bus back to school from seeing her boyfriend, the 22-year-old Aardsma decided to head to the library to finish an English paper that was …

This week the Collegian ran a story about how borough and university members met to discuss the definition of a fraternity here at Penn State.
Are you bored yet? So was I after reading the first paragraph or so. When I wake up in the morning I like to read news that causes me to spew fruit loops all over my bib, not make me fall asleep face down in my breakfast.
The main point that could be drawn from the article was that suspicions might have arisen about the borough and the university trying to re-invent the definition of a fraternity so defunct frats can’t rent out their property to …

Ohio State weekend has come and gone, and all we are left with is a vicious hangover and a feeling of disappointment like our dog ran away from home and got pancaked in traffic.
After all the hype, the burning desire for vengeance against a Penn State hatin’ Terrelle Pryor, the two freaking T-shirt controversies, and getting picked to beat the Buckeyes for once, Penn State shows up and doesn’t deliver.
I’m not the most diehard Penn State football fan on earth, I’ll admit, but maybe this affords me a wider perspective on how the loss affected things.
First of all, the sheer number of people that made the trek to …