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The Society of Professional Journalists announced its Region 1 Mark of Excellence Award winners in New York this month and the Daily Collegian sure cleaned up. Collegian reporters achieved more than 21 individual awards and two big overall awards in the competition, which received more than 3600 entries. Collegian members swept all first, second, and third place slots in the Feature Photography and Radio In-Depth Reporting categories. More on this after the jump.

The 2005 Senior Class Gift, which for the past year has looked more like a construction zone than a piece of fine art, is nearly complete.


The installation– formally known as the Student Life Promenade– consists of five cement pillars lining a sidewalk on the side of the HUB facing College Ave. The pillars depict various images of student life at Penn State from over the past 150 years of the University’s existence.


The entire project is set to be completed by Friday, April 23 for Blue & White weekend but the nagging question still remains…what took so long?

Think you know your stuff about the College of Liberal Arts, Penn State, and current events? Prove it!


In celebration of Liberal Arts Week 2010, the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council will be sponsoring a team trivia night on Thursday, April 1 from 7-9pm in 129 HUB.


Dinner and entertainment and dinner will be provided, and there is no registration free. If you’re feeling down for the challenge, email your name and the names of up to four of your friends to LAWeek@psu.edu. Groups can’t be bigger than five people, but you can sign up alone if you think your trivia skills are mightier than the combined fortitude of five ordinary men (or women).


Trivia Night, however, is the grand finale of Liberal Arts Week 2010. Here are three events leading up to next Thursday:


Monday, March 29 – Student and Professor Debate in 102 Chambers from 7-8pm


Tuesday, March 30 – Undergraduate Research Panel in 321 HUB from 7-8pm (Food will be provided!)


Wednesday, March 31 – Cultural Fair at Heritage Hall from 7-9pm (Food will be provided!!)

Penn State's Pride Week 2010 kicks off today, and Onward State has the full list of events for all wishing to participate. Here's the week's full itinerary: Monday - HUB Takeover from 12 to 2pm in the HUB and GAYME Show 7pm at 325 in the HUB. Tuesday - Teatro Chicana book signing from 1-3pm at the Allen St. Grill and Open Mic from 6-8pm at the West Lounge. Wednesday - Pride Rally at 12pm at Old Main, Lt Dan Choi keynote speech at 7:30pm in the HUB auditorium, and Webster's Social from 9-11pm at Webster's Cafe. Friday - BNY Mellon career info meeting 11:30-1pm in 101 Boucke, Pride Parade at 4pm between the Life Sci and Chemistry buildings, and Pro Drag Show at 10pm in HUB Alumni Hall. Saturday - LGBT Alumni Interest Group Reception (for graduating seniors) from 3-6pm. There will also be a Safer Sextravaganza the Tuesday after Pride Week at 7pm in HUB Alumni Hall. Anyone wishing to find more information on Penn State's LGBTA organization or anything pertianing to the events for Pride Week can check out the official site.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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’ [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

It takes some pretty big balls for a guy to get up in front of an art class and pose naked…although the folks doing the drawing probably could have told you that. This week,N the New York Times ran a story on a Penn State sophomore named Sam who holds this exact unique occupation. Sam poses as a nude model [...]

Author Dave Barry once said: “Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.” Truer words have never been spoken. Beer is the magical amber elixir that helps grease the [...]

It’s true, there is a possibility that Penn State could play Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl this season, but as it stands, the chances of me dressing up like Gumby Saturday night and bringing home Eva Mendes are looking better. As if the BCS wasn’t already 10 times harder to understand than that calc test you failed, here [...]

The Daily Collegian has begun experimenting with new media, but it still doesn’t seem to have found the best way to incorporate it into the newspaper’s general structure. A couple setbacks to the Small World blog: Visual Appeal This thing wouldn’t win any America’s Next Top Model competitions; it has curves in all the wrong places. That is, [...]

Well sock us sideways, if the P.A. State Legislature didn’t finally pass a budget that was over 100 days overdue – and Penn State doesn’t get to see a dime yet! We’ve been waiting longer for this budget to pass than Forrest Gump did for that sleaze Jenny to wander back home and we’re no closer to seeing any green than a [...]

Penn State has a kick ass meteorology program…period. It utilizes the end-all-be-all of weather centers and even has the “Largest, completely student-run Campus Weather Service in the nation,” among other cool stats. One of the best meteorology programs in the country doesn’t reach that level by tinkering around in a shanty garage with a pink flamingo rain gauge and [...]

Forget the white out people, green is becoming the most important color in State College. At least that’s what State College mayoral candidate Elizabeth Goreham is hoping. According to The Daily Collegian, the environmentally conscious Borough Council President dropped by Penn State’s Eco-Action meeting on Tuesday to spur involvement in and bolster support for a greener State College. Goreham’s [...]

If you dig a hole and plant your laptop in it you won’t find any green sprouts poking up come spring time and your computer will be just plain dirty, or ‘dirtier’ depending on how you’ve been spending your time lately. Luckily, Dell Computers, in cooperation with Penn State, has found a way to combat [...]