The Week In Review is a new feature where I get to serve up the best of a week’s worth of Onward State stories. The following stories have been chosen both by their popularity by readers along with staff favorites between January 16th and 22nd.


The top post from this week was 10 Questions With Russ Rose. Take a look at the interview to find out about Coach Rose’s ‘look’.


One of the more popular Questions of the Day was this week’s question on themed parties. There are some pretty cool parties mentioned in the comments, it’s worth taking a look.

We featured some Google Streetview imagery back in late December of downtown State College. Finally, Google has posted up their imagery that was taken of the Penn State campus from a slightly different photo-taking platform. At last, I can look back at my Freshman Dorm (Pinchot Hall) or the building I spent so much time in, for many years to come. Click this link to see a map of Penn State. Drag the man shaped icon from on top of the zoom bar to the area you want to see the Streetview imagery for. Read on for some sweet highlights.

A new simulation lab has opened at Hershey Medical Center that more than doubles the existing facilities at a staggering 8,000 sq. feet. Reportedly costing around $6.6 million and taking over 20 years to develop, the new lab is the cutting edge in healthcare education.


The lab features mannequins that healthcare professionals can use to hone their skills in performing a variety of procedures, a practice that pays off in real situations, according to lab director Elizabeth Sinz. It also has a sweet virtual reality room. Surgery-by-wire, here we come!

A job listing of sorts has gone up on Penn State Live in the hopes of recruiting a new Dean for the College of Information Sciences and Technology. Here is a summed up version of what the University is looking for in the new Dean of IST:

Have an intense understanding of the concepts that are taught and researched at the College of IST.
Have the credentials to be a tenured professor.
Be able to fundraise like crazy.

The committee in charge of choosing a new Dean is led by Honors College Dean Christian Brady. The committee will be accepting applications starting February 15 and will accept applications/nominations until the position is filled.


As a student of the College of IST, I’m looking for a few things from the new Dean:

1. Update the IST and SRA degrees to be current with today’s technology and issues.
2. Create an Emergency and Disaster Management degree with focuses on prevention, response, and collaboration during crises.
3. Invest in more collaborative space in the IST Building.
4. Reduce class sizes across the board, even if they have to move IST/SRA classes outside of the IST Building.
5. Hire more faculty to teach new and improved courses.

Some of you will be disappointed when I tell you that I’m not going to talk about the childhood game Foursquare in this post. I am, however, talking about the internet service called Foursquare that “gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city.”


It turns out that Harvard has teamed up with the company to create a index of ratings and reviews of local businesses as well as to promote collaboration between the different people living in and around the University.


I’ve seen a handful of people get into Foursquare, especially via Twitter. It seems like a pretty cool service and looks like it could take off, particularly in a college setting. It would definitely help spread the word about State College gems like Herwig’s, Margarita’s Pizzeria and the State Theatre, among others.


With enough users in State College, the service could create a veritable listing of awesome places to hang out, eat and drink study. Of course, this listing would be limited to the citizens of State College that are more technologically-minded at first. But if Foursquare grows to include many demographics like Facebook and Twitter have, the service would become infinitely more useful.


You can get signed up here. Let us know what you think of the service with a comment below.

Penn State’s Computer Store has been around for a lot longer than you might think. Its twentieth birthday will be celebrated on January 20th in the HUB Showroom from 10 AM to 2 PM.


It looks like there will be some pretty sweet prizes to be won, and you can even meet This Squirrel. I have also received information stating there will be cupcakes to be had at the joyful celebration.


1990 was a awkward year for computers. Microsoft had yet to create Windows 95, but it released the first versions of Microsoft and Excel that we all know and hate love. A computer with a 250 MB hard drive, a 3.5″ floppy drive and 1 MB of RAM sold for $1,260. In today’s money, this system would have cost $2,085.51. Also in 1990, the basis for the internet we enjoy today was laid when a researcher came up with the hypertext system. This hypertext system led to fantastic internet gems.

Michael Mann, the Penn State professor at the center of the “Climategate” controversy, is set to be scrutinized by a small team of Penn State faculty. This committee has 120 days to delve into the details of the accusations that Mann falsified information and provided misleading evidence to support climate change.


The committee investigating this situation is made up of three people including Henry Foley (Vice President for Research), William Brune (Mann’s boss in the Meteorology Department) and Candice Yekel (Director of the Office of Research Protections).

Statistics have rolled in showing that the Capital One Bowl matchup between Penn State and LSU was the fifth most-watched bowl game this season. An astounding 7.8 million households watched our Nittany Lions beat those lame Tigers.


There are some other cool TV statistics for Penn State Football after the jump.

After seeing textbook rentals become wildly popular with online services like Chegg, Barnes and Noble is trying to get in on the game. Since our official bookstore in the HUB is a Barnes and Noble-run bookstore, I was hoping that we’d get the chance to take advantage of the savings that come with textbook rentals.


Turns out we can’t.


Of the around 25 participating Barnes and Noble University bookstores, Penn State is not on the list. Our rivals to the west, Ohio State, offering Barnes and Noble textbook rentals, as are those Gamecocks from down at South Carolina.


I’d imagine that Barnes and Noble will be looking to expand their textbook rental program to other schools. Given the fact that we’re such a big school, it is likely our official B&N bookstore will be participating in the near future.

I’ll tell you what, I love the State Theatre downtown a whole helluva lot. And when they announced that they’d be showing the Capital One Bowl live, I loved it even more. Here are the details:

The screening is in high-def.
Theatre staff is going to start letting people in around noon.
The game starts at 1:00 pm.
Seats are first come, first serve.
Admittance is free.

.As another heads up, the State Theatre is also showing ‘The Big Lebowski’ in mid-January as well.
[Photo]

Google’s impressive and sometimes invasive Streetview imagery has come to downtown State College. The imagery was collected by one of these vehicles with a 360 degree camera mounted on the roof. From what I can tell by the shadows, the general green color of the flora, and the lack of people on the street, the imagery was taken during late May or early June in 2009 on a weekend at around 10 or 11 in the morning. The photos aren’t of the greatest quality, but it’s still pretty cool.
Below you’ll find a couple gems I found during my virtual trips …

I just came in from shoveling 22 inches of snow from my driveway in Pennsylvania’s friendly Commonwealth to the south and I was wondering:
How much snow do you have at home?
.Also, tell us what town/zip code you are in.
.

Early December is upon us, and the videos for the Sparky Award we talked about earlier this semester have been submitted. One intrepid section of English 202C produced a slew of videos for the contest. Here’s what is at stake for the winners of the contest:
Top winners of the international competition receive a $1000 check, while the runner up and “People’s Choice” winners receive $500. The local Penn State contest winners have the following lined up for them according to the contest website:

A special showing at a catered event at University Park in Spring 2010
Special prizes such as gift certificates …

When University of Michigan students decided that normal musical instruments were too boring, they looked to the almighty iPhone for inspiration. A class that focuses on designing musical instruments on the iPhone platform will be culminating in a concert on December 9, 2009.
Students harnessed the technology inside the diminutive device, such as the microphone, speaker, accelerometer, GPS, compass, and touchscreen, to make virtual instruments that are only limited by the designer’s creativity.
Don’t expect to see the next catchy hit by Lady Gaga or Owl City to be played with virtual instruments, but the interest in this niche of music is …

It’s that time of year again… time for SRTEs.
The dreaded and boring Student Rating of Teacher Effectiveness is making its rounds throughout classrooms across Penn State. The program was started all the way back in 1985, just about the time some of us college students were thinking about being born.
According to a document found on the program’s website, SRTEs are used by departments as an evaluation for promotion and tenure as well as an evaluation for annual performance reviews. Faculty are reported to use the SRTE as an evaluation for themselves as well as to drive personal improvement in teaching.
My …