Campus Life: March / April 2026

SEASONAL HUES: Pink blossoms frame the Old Main clock tower for no more than a couple of weeks each spring. But the thought of those cool pastels goes a long way toward getting us through the Happy Valley winter.

Everyday People: Dor Gidon Amran

Mandolin maestro Dor Gidon Amran adds a master’s degree in orchestral conducting to his repertoire. Read the full profile by Amy Strauss Downey '04 Lib.

Amran conducting in an empty theater with hundreds of empty red chairs behind him by Cardoni — *Cardoni.*

Club Hopping

Eminence Modeling Troupe

illustration of various models by Joel Kimmel — *Illustration by Joel Kimmel.*

FOUNDED: 2023
CURRENT MEMBERSHIP: 50
MISSION: To provide knowledge of all forms of modeling to the student body and to provide skills for the members to use when pursuing a modeling career.

As a freshman, Kourtney Pryor founded Eminence Modeling Troupe (EMT) with then-graduate student Omogbolahan Awofiranye ’23, ’24 MBA Bus in response to a lack of modeling organizations at Penn State. The group, which meets multiple times per week, focuses on the techniques of runway modeling but also gives tips to members on modeling photoshoots. EMT collaborates with other campus organizations, including the National Association of Black Accountants, the African Student Association, and the Caribbean Student Association, for fashion shows. Pryor, who directed the NABA fashion show last year, has been pleased to see fellow members direct similar shows, and graduates of the club participate in fashion shows in New York and Los Angeles. “I think this has sparked an interest in people of wanting to take things to a professional level,” she says.

What's Up With That?

Q: What was the first commonwealth campus?

exterior of a building at Penn State Lehigh Valley, courtesy — *Penn State Lehigh Valley.*

A: That’s a tricky question, and the answer is reflective of the varied language used to describe the campuses over the years. The current Mont Alto campus was founded in 1903 as the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy. It was one of three forestry schools in the nation at the time; first-year students were required to bring a horse to the academy with them. However, the school did not become part of the larger university until 1929, when it became Penn State Mont Alto, and it did not obtain formal commonwealth campus status until 1963. In 1912, the Allentown Branch School—the predecessor of the Lehigh Valley campus—opened in the attic of an elementary school in Allentown and offered evening courses in engineering to employees, becoming Penn State’s first permanent branch location. The evening courses expanded and eventually became a one-year daytime program designed for returning World War II veterans. In 1933, “freshman centers” were established in Sayre, Towanda, Bradford, and Warren, and a year later four centers for first- and second-year education, complete with full-time instructors, were established in Sayre, Unionville, Hazleton, and Pottsville and became the first official branch campuses. In 1959, 14 branch campuses were placed in the charge of a central coordinator and became known as the Commonwealth Campus system, with the number of campuses growing to 19 by 1967.

Got a campus mystery you want solved? Email us at heypennstater@psu.edu.

Reminiscing

What was your favorite study spot?

“I would find one of the desks that sat at the large windows of the stacks in Pattee Library. It was guaranteed to be quiet. If my eyes got tired from studying, I could take a break and look out the window at the pretty northwest campus.”
Nancy Tallman Jury ’87 Agr

illustration of a cow in a field before a tall full tree by Joel Kimmel “Being from farm country in Western PA, my favorite place to read was under a tree along the edge of a cow pasture. Living in East Halls, it was just a short walk north, and the cows never even seemed to notice me.”
Rex Wasser ’80 Lib

“I loved to study in the Rare Books Room at Pattee Library. It was very quiet with no distractions except the beautiful objects on display.”
Dianna Goehring Wright ’79 Agr

“I was as much a serious extrovert as I was a serious student. My go-to study spot was the lobby outside the elevators of east Pattee. There were comfy chairs and tables that were never occupied, and I was sure to see folks come and go and feed my social soul while in-between getting some studying done.”
Beverly Redler ’85 Lib

“Freshman/sophomore years: Corner Room, at the bar, coffee and stickies. GPA reflected that choice. Junior/senior years: Pattee basement stacks. GPA reflected that choice.”
David Silver ’83 Bus

Illustration by Joel Kimmel.

Then & Now

The Daily Collegian

black and white photo of Collegian staffers in office by Penn State Archives

The staff of The Daily Collegian has covered Penn State with diligence and distinction for more than a century, including from its former offices in the Carnegie Building in 1964 (top) to its current open newsroom space, which it shares with fellow Student News Consortium members CommRadio, PSN-TV, the Centre County Report, and the Lion 90.7 FM, in the recently upgraded Willard Building media center (bottom).

Common Wealth

Highlights from four Commonwealth campuses.

DUBOIS
The Information Technology Club raised $1,430 for THON efforts at the campus during its final Video Game Day in November. The 155 attendees ranged in age from elementary-school gamers to adults, many of them alumni who have participated in the event for years. The 42nd and final installment of the annual event featured multiplayer competitions and classic and modern gaming systems.

HERSHEY
Penn State College of Medicine students organized the college’s inaugural global health case competition in October. The campuswide contest, modeled after the annual Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition, was designed to give more students the chance to practice real-world public health problem-solving. The winning team of Grace Wilkowski, Marissa Lippinkhof, Anton Aluquin, and Kruthika Doreswamy earned the opportunity to present their solution —Compañeras en el Parto, a doula education and community pipeline program—at the Penn State Global Health Conference this spring.

LEHIGH VALLEY
A team of researchers led by D. Edward Malinzak, assistant teaching professor of biology at Penn State Lehigh Valley, discovered that a 75-million-year-old fossil classified as a different dinosaur is its own massive, duck-billed species. Working with the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, the team named the newly identified species Ahshiselsaurus wimani as a nod to the area in which it was found in 1916. The newly identified species is part of the herbivorous duck-billed hadrosaurid family. The team conducted an anatomical and morphological comparison of the specimens against other fossils in the genera and species to make this determination.

SCRANTON
Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Alan Peslak was named the 2025 Computer Educator of the Year by the International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS). Peslak, who also serves as professor in charge of Penn State’s information technology degree program and as information sciences and technology discipline coordinator for commonwealth campuses, was selected for his national and international impact on information science education and scholarship and honored during the IACIS annual conference in October. His research explores the societal and ethical implications of information technology, social media, and AI.