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.
In 2007, the National Study of Student Hazing found that 68 percent of women in Greek life experience hazing before joining their sororities. Penn State is not immune from this barbaric behavior. Serious reports of hazing have recently been reported at Penn State Altoona.
ABC News reports that "Joanne" pledged a Penn State Altoona sorority and suffered from severe hazing. Her potential sisters made her clean the kitchen floor with her fingernails. They screamed about her worthlessness, threw her against brick walls, and forced her to drink black, dirty water. When Joanne finally quit, the girls keyed her car and left scathing messages on her Facebook profile.
Along with most colleges, Penn State Altoona strictly prohibits hazing, yet it happens nonetheless. Hazing frequently includes labeling areas of fat on girls' bodies with marker and "boob ranking," in which girls are rendered topless and ordered by their breast sizes.
Obviously, this is awful behavior, and the fact that it occurs causes me to question the decency of my fellow college students. Hazing has probably occurred for a long time, but why have young women recently become so violent and hateful? I look to overzealous feminism and the bawdiness of reality TV for answers.
Sororities should bond through unity and accomplishment, not mental trauma. To any hazers out there, remember the moral pillars that support your establishments.
Sam Settle, who we interviewed in a series of four videos posted last spring, spoke this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference on the Stars of the Future panel about the Climategate scandal and its relation to Penn State via Professor Michael Mann.
But the most interesting thing in his short address was not his comments about the supposed "whitewashing" Penn State did of the scandal. Rather, it was his characterization of the difference between conservatives and liberals as being the difference between right and wrong
The simple fact is that when we are right and they are wrong, we should say so. And for those of you who have been paying attention, when we are right and they are wrong is basically all the time.
Check it out and let us know what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/v/iT1KeQOA3H4&hl=en_US&fs=1&
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Girl I see at 3pm on campus most days - m4w - 23 (PSU)
I know we never talk, because you'd probably never talk to me. But in all fairness I went through a lot of trouble finding out where you live and I've been parked outside with binoculars for like 12 straights hours, can you at least pull your blinds up or something? Hope this isn't a problem but I feel like I deserve something for all of this effort.
Also could you bring me some hot chocolate if you see this? Gas is expensive and I had to turn the heat in my car off a few hours ago. It's quite unpleasant in here. Temperature-wise that is. Dave Matthews Band helps pass the time, no complaints there.
The good old stalker trick. Never grows old. What if you followed the wrong person home? What a waste of gas.
We danced, cried, and suffered from sleep deprivation, but we did it all For The Kids. Our dancers, committee members, canning specialists, and everyone in between amassed $7,838,054 to fight pediatric cancer. Amazing work, folks.
Onward State THONward State documented the tidal waves of emotion for over 46 hours. Coincidentally, we wrote over 46 posts during that time. Read on for some posts that may have gotten lost in the commotion.
Right after the electric Go-Go-Gadjet set, I managed to interview Andrew McGough, one of the founders, and finance executive chair for FOTO. He was kind enough to leave his team in the final hour of THON and answer my questions.
Read on...