The Penn Stater Magazine

The Penn Stater Daily — Nov. 21, 2013

November 21, 2013 at 11:09 am Ryan Jones Leave a comment

Kicking things off: The men’s soccer team opens NCAA tournament play tonight at home against St. Francis (N.Y.). It’s been a fun season watching these guys—they’ve shown a knack for dramatic finishes, and from the year-long inspiration of Mack Brady’s memory to senior defender Akil Howard’s comeback from what looked to be a career-ending heart defect, there’s an undeniable feel-good factor to this team. Here’s hoping they can carry that over the next few weeks.

Amid proposed change, trustees meet again: The Board of Trustees kicked off committee meetings on Thursday morning, with day-long sessions scheduled today and Friday. The board’s latest meeting comes a day after two Pennsylvania state senators, Republican Jake Corman ’93 of Centre County and Democrat John Yudichak ’93, ’04g of Luzerne County, announced a proposal to reduce the board’s membership from 30 to 23 voting members and prohibit the governor and other state officers from serving on the board. Our senior editor Lori Shontz ’91 will post coverage of the meetings here over the next two days.

At the push of a button: I’m in the middle of wrapping up a feature for our January/February issue on the tech-centric 21st century library, which focuses mostly on the amazing Knowledge and Media Commons at Pattee and Paterno Libraries. Maybe the Commons’ single coolest feature is the One-Button Studio, a Penn State innovation that allows students with next-to-no technical knowledge to produce professional-level videos for class projects with, literally, the push of a button. Well, there’s now an app for that. With the One-Button Studio app, anyone—it’s geared toward other institutions, but individuals can do it, too—able to collect the right hardware can replicate the studio. Very cool stuff.

Bearing down: The tornadoes that tore through the Midwest last weekend have inspired a variety of relief efforts, including some very cool work by a couple of former Nittany Lions. Current Chicago Bears placekicker Robbie Gould ’05 and former Bears lineman Anthony Adams ’04 traveled to Coal City, Ill., on Tuesday to deliver relief supplies and help with clean-up. Nice work, fellas.

Ryan Jones, senior editor

Entry filed under: Board of Trustees, The Penn Stater Magazine. Tags: Akil Howard, Anthony Adams, Jake Corman, John Yudichak, Knowledge Commons, Mack Brady, One-Button Studio, Robbie Gould.