Posts tagged ‘Facebook’
July-August Issue On Its Way
Alumni Association members should be getting their copy of the July-August issue soon—our office copies arrived yesterday, which is always a sign that the magazine is in the mail.
Our cover story is a photo essay made up of shots of University Park taken by Andy Colwell (a student who shoots for Penn State Live) and me from the air. This past April, I hired a helicopter from a company called Cherokee Helicopter in Ford City, Pa., invited Andy to join me, and up we went. Quite possibly the most fun assignment that either of us has ever done!
Click on the opening spread above to see it bigger. That’s one of Andy’s photos, and it’s great.
You can see some of the same photos we used in the story, as well as quite a few that we weren’t able to include, by going to the magazine’s Facebook page and clicking on the Photos tab. (If you click the “Like” button at the top of our Facebook page, you can become our fan and get regular updates from us.) And you can see about a dozen of Andy’s shots at Penn State Live.
We hope to follow up with some aerial photos of other Penn State campuses in a future issue—possibly next spring.
Tina Hay, editor
Here Comes State Patty’s Day
A week from tomorrow, thousands of Penn State students (and more than a few alumni) will celebrate what has become the University’s newest — and most controversial — tradition: State Patty’s Day. Started by students a few years ago as a sort of replacement holiday after St. Patrick’s Day fell during Penn State’s spring break, “State” Patty’s Day has quickly evolved into a raucous and popular holiday of its own. But its popularity is hardly universal.
As a Penn State alum, I can understand the sense of pride in an event that’s exclusive to your school — in that, State Patty’s Day is similar to THON or the Beaver Stadium student section, something students at other colleges can envy. Where State Patty’s Day differs, of course, is the impact it has on the community, and as a taxpayer and father of young children, I’m not a fan of the costs — in terms of property crimes and extra police and emergency workers — or the spike in arrests and ER trips associated with what is, for many, nothing more than an excuse for a green-clad, day-long drinking binge.
Lately, the controversy has generated a lot of discussion — and maybe even some action. The University Park Undergraduate Association has joined other student groups in promoting a “Safe and Responsible Actions” pledge to encourage safer, smarter partying on State Patty’s Day. Some are going further: Dennis Shea, the head of the health policy and administration department in the College of Health & Human Development, is calling on fellow faculty to work toward stopping the event altogether. He told the Daily Collegian about one local resident whose church postponed a fundraising event scheduled for State Patty’s Day because its members were afraid to go downtown.
Inevitably, the conversation is active online — there are competing Facebook groups for and against State Patty’s Day. If nothing else, I hope the discussion helps temper the worst aspects of what is, for better or worse, a very visible part of Penn State student life.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Your Helpful Alumni Association Staff is Ready to Greet You….
Uh, Bob, can you get some touch-up paint on that goalpost before Thursday?
This week is a big deal around the Alumni Association. No, not because it’s Magazine Deadline Week (which, alas, it is), but because it’s time for Traditional Reunion Weekend.
Starting Thursday, we’ll be welcoming back 800-plus grads from 1959 and assorted other years for four days of reunion activities. It’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck thing for Association staff; we all help in some way, whether it’s staffing the registration tables or coordinating library tours or helping load the buses to Saturday’s All-Class Luncheon.
Among the most popular of the activities are the tours of Beaver Stadium, and this morning a bunch of staff headed up to the stadium for a run-through and a briefing. Apparently Bob Barlock from our Membership unit must have been one of them, as you can see here from the picture he immediately posted on his Facebook page.
Tina Hay, editor
Dr. Jay Parkinson Runs With Fast Company
You might remember the feature in our March/April issue on Jay Parkinson ’02 Hershey, the innovative Brooklyn doctor who is taking a high-tech, consumer-friendly approach to revolutionizing health care. We weren’t the first to notice what Dr. Jay was doing, and it looks like we won’t be the last: Parkinson is featured prominently in the new issue of Fast Company, which looks at how advances in both technology and philosophy are changing the way people get (and stay) healthy.
The feature is written by occasional Penn Stater contributor Chuck Salter, who also blogs about the “Facebook-like medical platform” that Parkinson and his partners at Hello Health and Myca (click here to see video of Parkinson and colleagues talking about the inspiration behind their work) are using to handle records and appointments and communicate with their patients. It all sounds like very promising stuff.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Dancing All The Way to L.A.
Last week, Becky Farmer ’03 A&A posted a note on the Alumni Association’s Facebook page asking fellow Penn Staters for help. She was designing costumes for the “Design A Dance” contest on the ABC hit Dancing With The Stars, and she needed online votes to help her cause. Based on the email Becky sent in over the weekend, it looks like she got the votes she needed:
“With your help I won the Dancing with the Stars Costume Design competition and I’m going to HOLLYWOOD!!!”
Becky tells us she’ll be flying out to Los Angeles soon for a taping, where she’ll see a couple outfitted in her designs dancing on a show scheduled to air May 18.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
A Little Face Time with Meredith Vieira
On the one hand, Farnoosh Torabi ’02 lost her job last month. On the other hand, she got to talk to Meredith Vieira about it on the Today show yesterday.
We first learned about Farnoosh last year when she wrote a book called You’re So Money: Live Rich, Even When You’re Not (Three Rivers Press) and was working as a correspondent for TheStreet.com. I picked her to be the moderator for our roundtable on the economy, which ran in the July-August issue of our magazine. I hadn’t been in touch with her after that, until yesterday, when a friend on Facebook posted a link to her interview on the Today show. Turns out Farnoosh was laid off from TheStreet.com about a month ago. She talked with Meredith Vieira as part of the show’s “Get a Job” series, offering some good suggestions for her peers—younger workers—about how to make use of things like Twitter and Facebook to network your way back into a job.
Here’s the video clip of the Today interview.
Tina Hay, editor
How Come I’m Always in Zone 4?
Here’s a question I ought to pose to Ben Mutzabaugh ’97, the USA TODAY air-travel guru whom we featured in our November-December issue: What’s up with this boarding-by-zone thing that the airlines have become so fond of? And, more to the point, why am I always in the last zone to board?
It doesn’t matter, really, although sometimes if you’re in the last zone and the plane is small, all of the overhead storage bins may be full by the time you get on. That happened to me coming back from San Francisco the other day, and I had to check my carry-on bag, which by definition held all of the stuff I didn’t want to check, like my laptop and my camera equipment. And, of course, when I got to State College, guess which one of my bags didn’t make it? I got it the next day, but sweated a lot until it arrived.
I wonder how the airlines assign the zones. I posed that question on Facebook the other day and Rob Biertempfel ’87 had an amusing theory: “I am convinced no one ever is assigned zone 1,” he said. “They just announce it and see who has enough guts to walk up to the gate in a bald-faced lie.”
But seriously, I’m curious. Do they board the people in the window seats first, then the aisle seats? That would make sense. Or do they board back to front? That could work too. Or do the people who paid more for their tickets get to board first?
I have no idea. Do you?
Tina Hay, editor
Clearly I Need to Get Out More
Somehow I managed to miss the fact that Penn State Berks has a labyrinth! I visited the campus some years back, but this is a more recent addition—completed in 2004.
I mention this because my colleague and Facebook buddy Lisa Weidman, director of university relations at Berks, mentions on her Facebook status update today that they’re having a spring equinox festival at the labyrinth garden tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. The event will include everything from an astronomy lesson to a discussion of “greenman folklore” to bulb plantings.
Hey Lisa, I hope you’ve got a photographer at the event….
Tina Hay, editor
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