Posts filed under ‘Alumni Association’
Alumni Ask Questions; President Erickson Answers
Rodney Erickson and moderator Patty Satalia took questions from Pittsburgh-area Penn State alumni for about 90 minutes on Tuesday night.
Rodney Erickson promised “openness and communication.” He promised them twice, in fact, during his opening statement Wednesday night at a town hall meeting with alumni in Pittsburgh. He called those values his “guiding principles and watchwords,” ones he learned growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, and he said they’ve served him well during his career in higher education, the past 34 years at Penn State and the past nine weeks as the University’s president.
“I know there’s a perception that we at Penn State have not always done as well as we could to be open, to respond to questions and to be as transparent as possible with all of our constituencies—alumni, faculty, staff, our students, and the public and the media who report on our great university,” he said. “We will do better in the future based on those guiding principles of openness and communication that I just stated. I’m here this evening to begin to demonstrate these values.”
He promised, also, to listen to whatever the more than 600 alumni who attended the town hall had to say about the Sandusky scandal and its aftermath. (And anything else.) Those alumni took Erickson at his word. They were polite, but they didn’t hold back.
The first speaker introduced herself by saying that she’d brought her baby daughter and son home from the hospital in Penn State sleepers “because (more…)
In Other News …
Jim Stengel ’83g is one of the biggest names in the marketing world. For years he was the top global marketing guy at Procter & Gamble; Advertising Age named him the No. 1 “Power Player” in marketing four different times, and Brandweek magazine named him “Grand Marketer of the Year” in 2005.
He retired from P&G in 2008—the same year the Alumni Association named him a Penn State Alumni Fellow—and since then, he’s been working on an intriguing new book. Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies will be released on Dec. 27, and already it’s getting some nice attention in the media.
Stengel writes about 50 companies—from Pampers to Louis Vuitton to Jack Daniel’s to the Brazilian oil company Petrobras—that outperform the competition. What they have in common, he says, is a concept called ideals.
The gist of the book is explained nicely in this story at CNN.com:
What propels a successful company is not cutthroat business sense but an understanding of the purpose that drives its brand. In other words: If you make your customers’ lives better, they’ll return the favor.
I’ve been following Jim’s career for a while, and I had a chance to meet him briefly when he was here in 2008 to receive his Alumni Fellow award. He’s a genuinely nice guy. One of my Alumni Association colleagues was giving him a tour of the alumni center, and when I was told “This is Jim Stengel,” I immediately said, “Jim Stengel! I have a Google Alert set to your name!” He thought that was pretty funny.
He’s also very grateful for his Penn State experience, as you can see if you watch this video of his acceptance speech at the Alumni Fellows ceremony.
Tina Hay, editor
Adam Taliaferro Comes Home for Homecoming
It’s nothing like the freak snow storm we had two years ago, but the rain has done its best this week to put a damper on Homecoming 2011. Everything up here is pretty well soaked, but did that stop students from camping out for prime parade-watching spots on College Avenue before the sun came up Friday morning? Of course not — and it didn’t stop a great time Friday afternoon at the Hintz Family Alumni Center.
Adam Taliaferro '05 greets the Homecoming crowd
The alumni center was packed Friday, thanks to the presence of the homecoming court and Alumni Blue Band, untold gallons of Creamery ice cream, and a very special guest: 2011 Homecoming grand marshall Adam Taliaferro ’05. Now working as a lawyer in southern New Jersey, Taliaferro is in the midst of an exceptionally busy fall. When he gets home next week, he’ll be in the stretch run of his first political campaign (this short video has more on how he got into politics). I caught up with Adam for a quick interview shortly before the start of the parade.
I’ve seen you back on campus a few times over the years, and every time you get the same overwhelming response from everyone who knows your story. Does that ever get old?
AT: No, it’s amazing. The support I’ve gotten over the last 11 years has been second to none. It’s an honor to come back, see a lot of familiar faces, and I’m thankful that (more…)
Meanwhile, Up at the Palmer Museum…
Our Executive Board—part of the Alumni Association’s all-volunteer governing body called Alumni Council—was in town for meetings last Thursday and Friday, and on Friday evening they finished with a tour of the Palmer Museum of Art. Some of us on the staff tagged along. And I think everyone, volunteers and staff alike, was glad they went.
A detail from the Kenneth Hayes Miller painting "The Little Coat and Fur Shop" (1931).
I must confess it had been three years since I’d visited the Palmer; that was when I interviewed curator Joyce Robinson for a feature for the magazine. On Friday I was surprised (though I realize I shouldn’t be) at how much had changed since 2008.
The very cool figurine from the Ming Dynasty was still there, as were the Baroque-era painting “St. Sebastian Healed by An Angel” and the Henry Dexter bust of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But there were plenty of works I hadn’t seen before, as well as a new exhibition of works by School of Visual Arts faculty that will be up there through Dec. 11.
And a Dale Chihuly glass piece that wasn’t on display when I last visited was available this time. (I remember Joyce telling me that only a small fraction of the museum’s holdings are on exhibit at any given time.)
In addition to the two photos you see here, I took photos of a dozen or so works that caught my eye; you can see those at the magazine’s Facebook page.
The Palmer Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 4:00. On Fridays during home football weekends, the museum stays open a little later, until 6:00 p.m. I highly recommend a visit.
By the way, we’re tentatively planning to do a photo essay in our Jan-Feb issue on an exhibition called Painting the People: Images of American Life from the Maimon Collection, which runs Jan. 31–May 13 at the Palmer. Lee Maimon ’56 and his wife, Barbara, have collected some very interesting paintings from the 1920s and ’30s and are lending them for the exhibition. More on that another time.
Tina Hay, editor
It’s a Nice Day for a Blue and White Wedding
Back in early June, our editor Tina Hay stumbled across a wedding ceremony at the gazebo outside the Hintz Family Alumni Center. The lovely photos of Emily Haworth ’11 and Ben Finch ’10 drew lots of attention—including some from engaged couples who contacted the Alumni Center hoping to book the alumni gardens for their own weddings.
Well, good news and bad news: Weddings aren’t officially permitted on the Hintz lawn (or in the Alumni Center itself), but there are plenty—and we mean plenty—of other spots on campus where lovebirds can tie the knot or hold a reception. A sampling of options:
Tables set for dinner during a wedding reception at the Mt. Nittany Club in Beaver Stadium.
Given Beaver Stadium’s gargantuan size and sentimental appeal, it’s unsurprisingly a popular wedding venue. For receptions, the Mt. Nittany Club is the largest available space in the stadium, seating 176 with a head table and dance floor. The Letterman’s Lounge features high-top tables and leather chairs, suitable for a cocktail reception of about 65 people, with room for a dance floor and buffet table. The President’s Suite, which seats up to 104, is popular for its view of both the field and Mt. Nittany.
When it comes to the ceremony itself, Eisenhower Chapel is an obvious first choice. Thousands of couples have tied the knot at the intimate venue since it was built in (more…)
Of Magazines and Ducks
A couple of my colleagues on campus have a podcast they call the U Report, in which they go behind the scenes at various Penn State locations, from the Ice Pavilion to the airport to the Hort’s department’s vegetable cellar.
(Not familiar with the vegetable cellar? It’s just across from Eisenhower Auditorium, and in the summer they sell veggies that were grown in the hort farms at Rock Springs.)
Anyway, a week or so ago the U Report trio came over to interview me about the magazine, and that interview is now available online.
The U Report is a hobby of sorts for its creators, John Dolan ’89, Christina McNeill, and Shannon Ritter ’90, all of whom (more…)
It’s Been a Busy Morning for Civil War Buffs
Growing up, my brother was the ultimate war buff. Though his interests have since fluctuated (guitar, outdoor sports, astronomy, back to guitar), he once collected trivia as if World War II and Vietnam were favorite bands or NFL teams, rattling off the number of casualties in the Battle of Gettysburg—51,112—like a football score. Despite his enthusiasm, I was never quite able to understand the allure. It seems, however, plenty of Penn Staters do understand.
At 8 a.m. this morning, tickets for the Alumni Association’s 19th Annual Battlefield Study Tour in Gettysburg on Sept. 22-25 went on sale. Less than ten minutes later, the event had sold out.
Granted, tickets were first made available to those who’ve attended previous tours (the Association led groups through Manassas and Vicksburg in (more…)
US News Ranks the Diets
US News is out with a new ranking of the best diets, according to this story by Angela Haupt ’09, a Penn Stater who covers the health beat for that publication. A diet you may not have heard of, called the DASH Diet, turns out to be the best overall; it was developed by the National Institutes of Health and stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.
The US News panel of nutritionists also liked the Mediterranean Diet, Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig, to name a few. Among those getting at least 3.5 stars out of a possible 5 was the Volumetrics Diet, developed by Penn State professor Barbara Rolls.
The experts rated the diets based on such factors as ease of following the diet, nutritional quality, safety, and effectiveness not only for weight loss but also against diabetes and heart disease.
There are other Penn State connections to the story: Penny Kris-Etherton, a distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State, was one of 22 experts on the US News panel. So was Sachiko St. Jeor ’80g, who got her Ph.D. at Penn State and is now at the University of Nevada-Reno.
Angela has a couple of related articles: one on how to stay on a diet (if you figure out how to do this, please let me know!) and one on the importance of including exercise in your weight-loss efforts.
Tina Hay, editor
An Hour With Gerry Abrams
Members of the Penn State Class of 1961 are in town this weekend for their 50th reunion, and yesterday several hundred of them crammed into an assembly room at the Nittany Lion Inn to hear one of their more famous classmates speak.
Gerald Abrams ’61 has been a television producer for more than four decades, with credits like Nuremberg, Florence Nightingale, Flesh and Blood, Found Money, and The Gift, among many others. (He’s also getting to be equally known for being the father of J.J. Abrams, director of Mission Impossible, Star Trek, and now Super 8.) Abrams was joined in the session by Matt Jordan, an assistant professor in the College of Communications.
Jordan first took the audience on a little tour of the history of television, then played the role of James Lipton and lobbed a few questions at Abrams. After that, Abrams’ classmates got to ask him some questions as well.
Here are couple of the questions from Jordan and the audience, along with Abrams’ answers:
How did Penn State prepare you to work in TV? “It didn’t. There was no television curriculum when I attended. The television curriculum today in the College of Communications is so sophisticated. They’re now teaching things like how to produce interactive game shows, for students who might be interested in that field.”
What can be done about the decreasing quality of television programming in our country—profanity, sex, etc.? (more…)
A Wedding in the Gazebo
I was minding my own business in my office this afternoon, gnashing my teeth over some copy I’m struggling to write for our July-August issue, while out in the alumni gardens a couple of Penn Staters were getting married.
I was oblivious to the goings-on until my coworker Linda Whitlock, who works upstairs from me in the Hintz Family Alumni Center, popped her head into my office to tell me that a wedding was in progress in the gazebo.
I grabbed my camera, hustled downstairs and out the door, and sure enough, there was a small, informal wedding taking place right there in the gazebo. What a lovely setting, and a beautiful day, for a wedding, even if the choice of a Thursday afternoon may seem a bit odd.
I took some photos of the ceremony from a discreet distance, trying to be unobtrusive. (Well, I did wade into the bushes next to the gazebo at one point in hopes of getting a better angle.) I was hoping the folks in the wedding party wouldn’t mind my presence and chase me away.
After it was over, I introduced myself to everyone; it turns out that the bride and groom are Emily Haworth ’11 and Ben Finch ’10, and they were happy to let me post some photos of their wedding.
In fact, since they didn’t actually have an official photographer for their wedding, they asked if I would mind taking a few photos of all of them. Which, of course, I was happy to do:
The guy in white is local goldsmith Erroll Wilson, who served as the officiant—and made the wedding rings too.
Congrats and good luck to Emily and Ben!
Tina Hay, editor
P.S. One of our most popular blog stories ever is this one, about a snowy New Year’s Eve wedding a few years ago in the same setting.
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