Marlowe Froke, a retired PSU journalism professor, died this past Tuesday, February 23 at Mount Nittany Medical Center. He is survived by his wife, Marliene, and their two daughters, Paula and Dana.
Having grown up in the small, rural town of Vienna, South Dakota, Froke always saw the important role television could play in educating the masses, and he worked hard to accomplish this throughout his entire career, especially during his time here at Penn State. “His vision was instrumental in the early development of cable television, and in how cable television developed locally, regionally and nationally,” said Telecommunications Professor Patrick Parsons.
In 1959 he joined the PSU staff as an associate professor of journalism and developed the school's first broadcast journalism curriculum. After being named Penn State’s director of broadcasting, he created WPSX (you might know it as WPSU) and took the lead in the early days of cable and public TV to establish networks of connections among Pennsylvania stations and cable operations that preceded today's Public Broadcasting System.
Find out more about Froke's life and accomplishments after the jump.
A recent study,entitled, “Look at us: Collective Narcissism in College Student Facebook Photo Galleries” by Andrew Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, professors at Temple and University of Illinois (respectively), found that college students’ - specifically underclassmen - “central objective …on Facebook was the recording and posting of their participation in the social rituals of college.”
The pair looked at 20,962 photos and 13,543 comments on 333 Facebook pages, examining the subject matter in the photographs, the behavior of the subjects, the aesthetics of the images, the organization of the photographs, comments on the photos, and even what was missing from the photographs. Social and sporting events were the primary local of the pics, parties being the most common.
The study also found that families and academic related activities were notably absent. The two researchers believe that the main point of photos posted was to show others your ideal college life style and the tagging and commenting serve to “reinforce group cohesiveness and closeness.”
Read on for my take on the study.
TONIGHT! There will be a special presentation presented by the PSU chapter of the NAACP. “Keep ‘em Flying: Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen” is a celebration of the first black airmen. Tuskegee airmen themselves will be telling some really incredible stories about their experiences.
These men had to overcome unbelievable discrimination and racism in America and in the army, but they still flew with distinction. Tonight’s function will also feature performances by Essence of Joy, Spoken Word and Poetry, and the Delta Theta Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. along with a catered dinner, photo opportunities, and live music.
The event takes place at 4pm TONIGHT in Alumni Hall in the HUB. Tickets are $8.00 for students and $15.00 for the general admission, which is a pretty great deal to be able to see such illustrious, brave men talk.
As I walked around in the near fifty degrees weather this weekend listening to the chirping of birds and watching the mounds of snow shrink away to reveal green grass, I couldn’t help but think, “Could it be? Could spring be around the corner?” Visions of bringing sweaters home for good over spring break and retiring my ugly, but warm, men’s trapper hat danced around in my mind. But alas, those dreams have been shattered.
A major snow storm of “historical proportions” is scheduled to hit the North East and Mid-Atlantic this Thursday and Friday. While most of our home towns are just recovering from the last storm, this is said to be the one we’ll all remember. Complete with 74mph winds and blinding snow falling at a rate of an inch per hour, this storm has been deemed a “snow hurricane” rather than a blizzard.
Want more details about the severity of this snowstorm? Read the full post!
The money THON raises has increased almost three fold in the past decade from around $3 million in 2000 to close to $8 million this year, and some people wonder what has caused such a dramatic increase in donations. Most wouldn’t say students are working harder (because they’ve always worked hard). Maybe more students have gotten involved in the past ten years. But how can one explain why, despite the recession, during which one study says 94% of non-profits reported negative effects on fundraising, THON has managed to raise its donations?
Daniel Victor, a Harrisburg area newspaperman, thinks that the use of Facebook might be at least a contributing factor, as evidenced by a February 21st tweet in which he wrote, “Theory: Could #Thon's economy-bucking success since 2005 be correlated to rise of Facebook? Maybe it created more consistent peer pressure?”
Read on after the jump for some more details.
We sat down with a member of Altoona's THON Team, Ethan, to find out a little more about this group.
Check it out!