With last week's Penn State spring break, students were able to put down their textbooks and take a break. However, it seems that relaxation was contagious.
For many years, the State College Area School District had its spring break aligned with Penn State's, but this year things were different. The two breaks only partially aligned.
The Centre Daily Times reported that from Wednesday to Friday last week between 17 and 19 percent of students at State College High School were absent, more than 3 times the average rate. With approximately 12 percent of students filling out educational trip forms to explain their absence, the halls of State College High were 450 people emptier than usual.
The school district was expecting this, though perhaps not to the degree it actually happened. With so many faculty children and siblings of Penn State students in the State College Area School District, families had been complaining for months that they would be unable to use spring break to vacation together.
Jeff Kern of the CDT seems to think so. In his most recent column, he suggests that, like a good parent, Penn State needs to crack down on its wayward charges. Apparently Penn State has been codling students, reducing 8 a.m. classes and allowing 21-year-old students to have alcohol in their dorms.
A former Borough Council member, Mr. Kern cares about the State College community, and in the wake of recent events, he has decided Penn State needs to start punishing its student body for their bad behavior. Forget the fact that a majority of these students do not engage in risky behavior, you have to go after the whole lot to get your message across.
College should be like work, Mr. Kern suggests. Make classes early and mandatory, just like the office work week. Keep students who can drink legally from having alcohol in their dorms, because that will keep the underage kids, who are real problem, from drinking.
Read on for my thoughts.
To delve deeper into the underlying motions and teaching of golf, the Golf Teaching and Research Center opened last November. The GTRC uses motion-capture technology to accomplish this task.
You can saunter down to 5 Keller and don one of these motion-capture suits once reserved for the likes of movie productions with multi-million-dollar budgets and Tiger Woods having his swing captured for use in EA Sports' golf video games bearing his name (mistresses sold separately).
Read the full post to find out some of the more intricate details of this system.
This summer, the Collegian's general manager, Gerry Hamilton, made a power play by firing news advisor John Harvey for insubordination. The move didn't last. Shortly after the Board of Directors reversed Hamilton's decision, not for the huge outcry from Collegian alumni but because he didn't provide evidence of Harvey's insubordination, Hamilton announced that he would be resigning.
The Daily Collegian is now looking for a replacement for Hamilton, who held the position for 35 years. If you think you can match that level of experience in managing an esteemed media outlet, check out the Collegian's application for the position.
This year's spring festival's former name, "Last Call," was vetoed, according to UPUA President Gavin Keirans via his Twitter page. Keirans also said that the new name would chosen via a student body vote. To vote for the best name, go to the UPUA's website or the poll on The LION's site.
The voting deadline is next Tuesday, so hurry up!
Instead of lounging around their parents' house (what seems to be the spring break destination of choice this year), students in Comm 498B International Reporting spent the week "studying" during a class trip to Shanghai, China.
This is the second year the class has taken a spring break trip, last year visiting Mexico City. The purpose of the class is to give students hands on experience reporting from the field. Part of this experience was keeping a blog updated throughout the trip. While there isn't much hard hitting reporting, there are some great pieces about the culture of Shanghai.
Unfortunately, only two days of posts have been updated on the web site, so coverage is a bit light. Hopefully we'll see more when the class publishes their in-depth pieces later on in the year.
If you're interested in taking the class next spring, it is open to all journalism majors. You may want to start preparing your application now, though. Of 60 applicants, only 15 were chosen, and the course is only growing in popularity.