Do you want a one stop page for all your Penn State needs, with links to custom news feeds, movie listings and a handy link to a major search engine? I suggest you try iGoogle or Yahoo. Do you want a cheap attempt at creating a new advertising platform by offering an unneeded service? CampusLIVE may be the site for you.
CampusLIVE, a company that creates college specific web portals has recently created a new page for Penn State. On it you'll find absolutely nothing interesting. It's basically an AP feed, Google search bar and links to all the sites already found on Penn State's own portal.
If you couldn't tell already, I'm kind of insulted at the attempt. Though supposedly made by Penn State's campus rep, it doesn't even have links to Penn State specific sites such as LionMenus for its menu listings, instead offering a short list phone numbers for a few locations. They also apparently emailed several random Penn State email accounts, meaning they also relied on spam to advertise their service.
The company itself is headed by a bunch of students from UMass, so I have a feeling this whole thing is a class project that evolved into something else. At least Penn State students are creative when they do this. If you're really desperate to find a place to find Penn State related links, try the top of the page you're reading right now. There aren't even any ads!
Got some something to say about State Patty's Day? Think the drinking age should be 18 instead of 21? Concerned about alcohol abuse on and off campus? You should check out the CDT's ongoing series on drinking culture entitled Focus on Excessive Drinking. The series contains many interesting viewpoints on a variety of drinking issues.
One column that caught my eye proposed new ways to control the mayhem that is State Patty's Day. Another concerned itself less with describing the problems of drinking abuse and focused on finding appropriate solutions.
Check out some of the columns and let me know what you think; especially with drinking, everybody has an opinion.
You've all heard about "Climategate" (in fact, we blogged about it earlier this week!). Penn State professor Michael Mann has been linked to emails that suggest research was falsified to support the claim for man-made global warming. In response, Penn State began an inquiry committee to look into the matter. After a few weeks of inquiring, the committee has decided to begin investigating instead.
But what is the difference between an Inquiry and an Investigation? Both are outlined in University policy RA10, "Handling Inquiries/Investigations Into Questions of Ethics in Research and in Other Scholarly Activities". This lengthy, yet accurately-titled, policy sets out the procedure to looking into situations such as Mann's.
Find out more after the jump.
Those in attendance last night at the UPUA meeting may not have been expecting anything interesting to happen, but they were in for quite a treat.
Drama ensued partway through the marathon session when DJ Ryan, CCSG Liaison to UPUA, resigned his position, effective immediately. The resignation was not a personal decision of Mr. Ryan, but of CCSG as an organization. CCSG, after attempting to collaborate with UPUA on many issues of importance, decided that they were not interested in continuing a formal relationship with a group that did not want to work with them.
No, they didn't literally maul the crowd. But they sure did play some solid tunes! Last night, Minus The Bear played to a sold out crowd in State Theatre, offering shelter to people who wanted to go to a concert last night but didn't like Puddle of Mudd for whatever reason.
Want to hear about Minus The Bear? Or maybe you're more interested in their openers, Phantogram and Maps and Atlases. Perhaps you're just curious about the picture to the left. In any event, read on for the full story.
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.