Posts filed under ‘Penn State Altoona’
Going Green for Flight 93
Photo by Marissa Carney
On April 20, about 150 volunteers—including five faculty members and 15 students from the environmental studies and honors programs at Penn State Altoona—planted 3450 trees over five acres. These trees will help lessen the impact of strong winds for visitors at the Flight 93 National Memorial, parts of which are still under construction. Organizers plan to reforest the 120 surrounding acres with more than 150,000 donated saplings over the next six years.
The effort also had an educational component: Joe Pizarchik ’79, director of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE), spoke to the students about the challenges of minewater-drainage–-including the drainage problem Pizarchik helped resolve in 2003 to make way for the Memorial’s construction.
Check out this cool video of Pizarchik and the students in action.
Mary Murphy, associate editor
Tap Dancing for His Tuition
The “City Room” section of the New York Times specializes in stories that find the individual humanity amid the often faceless, fast-moving masses of New York City. Today’s story comes with a compelling Penn State angle.
Joshua Johnson is a Penn State undergrad — the story doesn’t say, but we think he might attend the Altoona campus — who, like many students, is working to pay his way through school. It’s his job that’s unusual: Johnson, a Harlem native, tap dances for tips on New York City subways. The story details Johnson’s challenging family background and includes a short video, with highlights of his subway routine. It’s absolutely worth checking out.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
It’s Game Day in Tuscaloosa
I got down to Tuscaloosa at about 10 this morning, and town and campus were already rocking. Finding my way (slowly) to the media parking, I got out, immediately lost half my body weight in sweat, and waded into the heart of on-campus tailgating.
As mentioned, the scene here is very different than what folks are used to on game day in Happy Valley. With so many tents lined up side by side, almost all of them covering folding tables and chairs, it almost feels like you’re on a giant covered patio — a hot, steamy, crimson patio. As I walked through The Quad in my sweat-soaked blue t-shirt, a Bama fan leaned out from under his tent and asked, “Hey brother, how you like our cool fall weather?” Clearly, the locals like it, both because they’re used to it, and because they know we — and our team — mostly aren’t.
It’s also fun seeing the undergrads walking around in their signature game-day gear: The young men in khakis and blue blazers, floppy hair cuts bobbing over their foreheads, and the girls in cocktail dresses. They’re very much dressed for their big Saturday night out. How the guys deal with those outfits when it’s only noon and a sweltering 90-plus, I have no idea.
Most of the Penn Staters — myself included, at the moment — stick out in our cargo short and blue or white t-shirt combos. I found a few of them on The Quad, surrounded by crimson as far the eye could see, and dropped in to say hello. There I met Mat Stoudnour ’01, who works in development at Penn State Altoona.
There’s been plenty of friendly ribbing — I heard plenty last night when Penn Staters completely took over the front patio of Buffalo Phil’s, one of the main bars on The Strip — but I think Mat’s experience has been shared by most Penn Staters down here. The combination of Southern hospitality and respect for a similarly storied program has made for a great welcome.
Here’s Mat and the rest of his group, with a Bama fan from the neighboring tent snapping their photo. “Gonna add this one to the scrapbook,” she said.
If only their football team would be so accommodating tonight.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Second Thoughts
In the course of creating a single issue of the magazine, we make hundreds of decisions, large and small—whether to run this photo or that, what order the feature stories should appear in, which stories to trim to get everything in the Pulse section to fit, and on and on.
Sometimes we make decisions that have impacts we could never have anticipated. Here’s a poignant story from Therese Boyd ’79, who, along with her dad (John ’55), submitted memories of Penn State Altoona for our “move-in day” feature—and who wishes we had made a different choice about which stories to print.
Tina Hay, editor
And in Food News…
One of our freelance writers, Mike Weinreb ’94, mentions on his Twitter feed that the Washington Post has an interesting story today about D.C.-area convenience stores: specifically Sheetz vs. WaWa. Who knew that you could get a 3,000-word magnum opus out of convenience stores? But it’s an interesting read.
Sheetz is a Pennsylvania-based chain but has since spread out over the mid-Atlantic states. It was founded by Penn Stater Steve Sheetz ’69 (who, with his wife, Nancy, recently gave a record-breaking gift to Penn State Altoona).
Also today, a colleague over in the College of Engineering, Curtis Chan ’94, called my attention to yet another story in today’s Washington Post. This one is on Penn State entrepreneurs Casey Patton ’03 and David Mazza ’01, who are getting some nice attention for their new restaurant, called Taylor Deli. They renovated a rundown old building and turned it into something beautiful. You can see some of the other media attention Patton and Mazza garnered by checking out their blog.
Speaking of Twitter, you can follow me on Twitter and catch lots more Penn State-related nuggets that don’t always show up on our blog.
Tina Hay, editor
September-October Issue Coming Your Way
Our pal the UPS guy showed up at lunchtime today with boxes of the September-October issue of the magazine—our office copies. That means readers should start getting their copies today as well. How soon you get yours depends on where you live: If you’re in the mid-Atlantic states, watch your mailbox in the next few days; if you’re on the west coast or Florida or across the Atlantic, well, it might take a little longer.
(And if you don’t get the magazine at all, perhaps you need to join the Alumni Association!)
Our cover story is a collection of tales submitted by readers about their very first day at Penn State. We’ve got three other features besides that one:
—A feature-length profile about Penn State’s new wrestling coach, Cael Sanderson.
—A photo essay featuring some really ethereal photography from Paul Duda ’89.
—A very engrossing story by our ace freelancer Vicki Glembocki ’93, ’02g about Betsy Aardsma, the grad student who was stabbed to death in the Pattee stacks 40 years ago this fall.
Our “My Thoughts Exactly” is an essay by a young alumna, Amanda Berkey ’07, who’s doing a Teach for America gig in inner-city Philadelphia … our “Everyday People” profilee is Rick Johnson ’82, the newly hired horticulturist for the Penn State Arboretum … our lead story in Penn State Pulse is a profile of Penn State Altoona prof Athleen Stere, who has retired (sort of) at the age of 88 … and the athlete profile that leads off the Sports section is Jason Yeisley, an oft-injured soccer player who is finally back on the field for the Nittany Lions.
This is our fattest issue ever: 104 pages. We’ll look forward to hearing your feedback on it.
Tina Hay, editor
A Penn Stater in Charge of Surface Mining?
The Obama administration yesterday nominated a Penn Stater to head the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Joseph Pizarchik ’79, who started at Penn State Altoona, was a pre-law major and currently is director of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, part of the Department of Environmental Protection.
His nomination is drawing some fire from environmental groups, as this Associated Press story describes.
Tina Hay, editor
Ron Mallett’s Time-Travel Quest
Physicist Ronald Mallett ’69, ’70g, ’73g has been obsessed with the idea of time travel for decades. He kept the motivation behind his research a secret for many years—he wanted to go back in time to save the life of his father, who died when Mallett was only 10.
The opening spread of The Penn Stater's July/August feature about Ronald Mallett.
Nowadays, Mallett is getting a lot of publicity for his work on the physics of time travel, and his poignant life story. Spike Lee is working on a movie about him, and Good Morning, America, is scheduled to broadcast an interview with Mallett this Saturday. (The show airs on ABC from 8 to 9 a.m.)
In our July/August issue, look for Vicki Glembocki’s feature story about Mallett and the hopes that have driven and haunted him.
Chas Brua, contributing editor
Time Travel in Altoona (and Elsewhere)
Ronald Mallett
You might have heard of Penn State grad Ronald Mallett ’69, ’70g, ’73g, who has spent the better part of his career trying to build a time machine—and whose story has attracted the attention of filmmaker Spike Lee.
Mallett was 10 when his father unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack, and ever since then, Mallett has been obsessed with seeing his father again. He wanted to go back in time to warn his dad about the dangers of his two-pack-a-day smoking habit and thus maybe change the outcome. Sounds crazy, huh? But today Mallett is a very respected physicist—he teaches at the University of Connecticut—and has shown that time travel is not as far-fetched as once thought. He was named an Alumni Fellow of Penn State a year or so ago and wrote a book called Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, which Spike Lee is turning into a movie for release in 2010.
The reason I mention all of this is twofold. One is that Mallett will be speaking at Penn State Altoona (where he attended before finishing at University Park) next week. He’s scheduled to appear Monday, February 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Slep Student Center; he’ll read from his book, talk about his work—and about being the subject of a Spike Lee film—and sign books. The event is free and open to the public.
The other reason I mention it is that we’re planning a feature on Mallett. We sent Vicki Glembocki ’93, ’02g up to Storrs, Conn., to hang out with him yesterday, and she came back raving (in a good way!) about the experience. Mallett is a great interview, she says, and she got to see the prototype of the time machine, which, she reports, “is in a lab in a building far from campus, back in the woods, next to what’s known as The Puppet Museum. It’s like UConn was like, ‘We’ll just keep the time machine and the puppets WAY back here, where no one EVER goes, so no one will ever know….’”
I can’t wait to get Vicki’s story. It will probably run in either the May/June or July/August issue.
Tina Hay, editor
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