LA Times April 2008 Issue

Dean's Message

Strategic Thinking

We are beginning the final lap of the academic semester. Many tasks remain unfinished but significant progress has been made on many others. I am particularly pleased to have received (most of) the final drafts of departmental strategic plans, and will be responding again to each department. Most final drafts were responsive to my suggestions made on the drafts from last fall, and your collective thinking should position us well for the coming few years.

Placement of our Ph.D. students continues to be an important issue in the strategic planning of all of our Ph.D. granting departments. Each year, we carefully analyze placement results, looking both at individual departments and at overall trends in the humanities and the social sciences. Department heads have their departmental data; the overall analysis can be found here. In general, our more recent graduates are being better placed than those of a decade ago, but career cycles are apparent too, in that many graduates improve their job status as they move from initial placements. Most particularly, roughly one third of the 1996–2001 graduates who started in fixed-term positions have moved into tenure-track positions. Still, it is disconcerting that 16 percent of our humanities graduates of that era and 12 percent of our social science graduates remain in fixed term positions in 2007. A significant number of those starting their careers with post docs (mostly in the social sciences) do move to research institutions, though the majority have not yet done so.

Of course, I am interested in more individual successes too. Just to take one example from senior faculty dossiers I have been reviewing, between them, Stephen Browne and Roxanne Parrott in CAS have recently placed their students at Michigan State, Ohio State, Illinois, Washington, and into post-docs at Harvard and Penn, a major accomplishment for them and their department. But my general conclusion from these overall data is that while our Ph.D. placement is improving, there is much more to be done. A key part of every department’s strategic thinking should focus on how the department can attract the best students and place them in top jobs. Most departments do a good job of preparing students for the actual job hunt, but my strong sense is that we can still do more in terms of the curricular emphases of the graduate program as well as in the recruitment, education, nurturing, and challenging of individual students.

As we think strategically about the future of the College, another important consideration is leadership, both at the College and departmental levels. Leadership cannot only come from deans and department heads, nor even only from other officially designated leaders such as graduate and undergraduate directors. For a department to advance, it has to have a core of senior faculty who are committed to the department’s progress and willing to devote some of their time and thought to that advancement. In an effort to provide information and training that would help more senior faculty become more effective leaders, Ray Lombra has organized a series of workshops for about thirty senior faculty nominated by their department heads and invited to participate. The workshops focus on how leadership makes a difference in areas such as hiring, developing top graduate students, promotion and tenure, budgeting, and planning. Our desire is to provide basic information on how these processes work and more importantly to stimulate thought about how processes such as recruitment, planning, and tenure decisions collectively can advance or hurt departmental quality and how senior faculty can help secure outcomes that advance the department. If successful, we intend to repeat this workshop series in future years.

With best wishes as we collectively try to finish all those tasks we aimed to do this academic year.

Regards,

Susan Welch

Faculty News

Rural Schools Targeted in Research

Two professors in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences are developing substance-use prevention curricula for rural, Pennsylvania middle schools under a $3.2 million, 5-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The lead researchers on the project are Michael Hecht, Distinguished Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Crime, Law, and Justice, and Michelle Miller-Day, associate professor of Communication Arts and Sciences.

As Hecht and Miller-Day gear up for the next phase of research, they hope to identify rural schools in Pennsylvania and Ohio willing to participate in the study. Schools that participate will receive a drug resistance program tailored to the school’s needs and based on the cultures prevalent in rural schools. The aim is to deliver a program that is culturally grounded and customized to meet the challenges unique to rural communities.

The programs will be based on Hecht and Miller-Day’s keepin’ it REAL curriculum, which has become a national model. The core of the program is the REAL strategies for resisting drug offers: Refuse, Explain, Avoid, and Leave.

Anyone with information about rural schools that might be interested in participating in the study is asked to contact Professor Hecht.

College News

Spring 2008 Community Read

Throughout the spring term, Penn State’s Center for American Literary Studies, in partnership with the Penn State University Libraries and the Penn State Institute for Arts and Humanities, is sponsoring a Community Read of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel, A Farewell to Arms. The Community Read features a number of Hemingway-related lectures and discussions of the book that will take place through April of 2008. See the schedule of events here.

A Farewell to Arms was chosen as the book for the 2008 Community Read by Penn State Professor of English Sandra Spanier, a world-renowned Hemingway specialist and editor of the ground breaking Hemingway Letters Project, which will result in the first complete edition of Hemingway’s more than 6,000 extant letters. When asked why she chose the book, Spanier stated that A Farewell to Arms remains her favorite Hemingway novel. “The style approaches poetry,” she said. “The book remains timely eighty years after it was written.”

The Center is also sponsoring a Community Read essay prize for Penn State undergraduates. The first prize of $500 for the best essay about A Farewell to Arms will be awarded at the gala. All events for the Community Read are free and open to the public. For more information, see the Center for American Literary Studies Web site or contact Professor Hester Blum.

April Community Read Highlights:

On Wednesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Foster Auditorium, Jonathan Bank, the Artistic Director of New York City’s Mint Theater, will give a talk about Hemingway’s little-known play of the Spanish Civil War, The Fifth Column.

On the evening of April 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Foster Auditorium, Dr. Susan Beegel, the editor of the Hemingway Review, will present a multi-media presentation about the World War I context of A Farewell to Arms.

The Community Read will culminate with a gala lecture on April 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Atherton Hotel in downtown State College. The gala will feature Professor Sandra Spanier, who will offer her interpretation of A Farewell to Arms, as well as responses by distinguished Hemingway scholars Professor Debra Moddelmog (Ohio State University), Professor Robert W. Trogdon (Kent State University), and Professor Susan Beegel (University of Idaho).

Comparative Literature Luncheon

The Comparative Literature Luncheon is a weekly, informal lunchtime gathering of students, faculty, and other members of the University community. Each week there is a short presentation, usually about 20 minutes, by a visitor or a local speaker on a topic related to any humanities discipline. A schedule is provided below.

Jonathan Eburne is the coordinator for the series this semester. The lunch group meets Mondays at 12:15 p.m. in 102 Kern. You can bring your lunch or buy it at Kern Cafeteria next door. Coffee and tea are provided at no charge. The speaker will begin around 12:30 p.m. Including a few minutes allotted for discussion, the lunches conclude in time for classes that meet at 1:25 p.m. All students, faculty, colleagues, and friends are welcome to this free event. More information is available here.

Speakers are:

Monday, April 21, 2008
Irene Makaryk (Vice-Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Ottawa): "Modernism, the Berezil Theatre, and the Paris Art Deco Exhibition of 1925."

Monday, April 28, 2008
Michael Taylor (The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art): "Body Matters: Marcel Duchamp's Etant donné Revisited"

WebEvents Calendar

The WebEvents Calendar features lectures, talks, and conferences sponsored by the College. If you have something that you would like posted to the calendar for your department, please send entry submissions to Katy Heltman.

Liberal Arts Parking Hours

If you need to obtain or exchange parking permits, please come to Room 106 Sparks Building, Monday through Friday, from 9 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. only. Please remember to bring your license plate number(s) with you when you register for your permit. Once you have a permit, please be sure you report new or changed license plate numbers to Chris Hort by e-mail or by phone at 863-8328. As a reminder, if you are leaving the College, you will need to return your parking permit to 106 Sparks Building.

Staff News

Staff Member Earns Degree

Michelle Aitkin, from Outreach and On-line Education, will be graduating from St. Francis University in May 2008 with a B.S. in organizational leadership. Congratulations, Michelle.

Staff Endowment Awards Announced

The College is pleased to announce the award recipients from the Liberal Arts Staff and Children of Staff Program Support Fund. Selected staff recipients are listed below.

Jennifer Gilbert, staff assistant VII, Departments of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and Jewish Studies and Religious Studies Programs. Jennifer is working toward her associates degree in Letters, Arts, and Sciences which she hopes to complete in spring 2010.

Leigh Tinik, research support associate in the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Leigh is working part-time toward a master’s degree in Sociology and she has completed 24 graduate credits.

The selection committee included Michelle Aitkin, Christine Laur, Michele Moslak, and ex-officio member, Marilyn Byers.

From the children of staff portion of the endowment, funds were awarded to Kelley Edwards, daughter of Barbara Edwards (Rock Ethics Institute). Kelley is a 6th semester advertising/public relations major in the College of Communications.

Applications for the 2008–2009 staff enrichment and children of staff funding will be accepted after July 1. Applications are available here.

If you are interested in making a contribution or have questions, please contact Marilyn Byers.

Congratulations to the recipients and thank you to all who contributed to make these awards possible.

Staff Honored

We honored our staff award winners at a reception on February 27 at The Nittany Lion Inn. Thank you to the Lost Faculties’ band members David Almeida (HD&FS), Paul Amato, Sharon Felson, Richard Felson, and Wayne Osgood who provided wonderful entertainment for everyone.

Congratulations to this year’s staff award winners! The inaugural winners of our LASER (Liberal Arts Staff Employee Recognition) Award were: Wendy Harter, administrative assistant, Department of Communication Arts and Sciences and Department of Philosophy; Kim Keller, administrative assistant, Department of English; Avis Kunz, Director, Outreach; Connie Moore, administrative assistant, Department of Psychology; Robin Robinson, coordinator of records, undergraduate studies; and Brad Winters, information technology specialist, ITLA. The new LASER award is designed to recognize, reward, and retain exceptional staff employees on standing appointments within the College.

From left: Dean Welch, Avis Kunz, Connie Moore, Wendy Harter (Clark), Brad Winters, Robin Robinson, Kim Keller

The winners of other awards were: Rising Star, Katy Heltman; Exceptional Service, Tracey Melnick; and Esprit, Tanya Hockman and Bonnie Rossman.

From left: Bonnie Rossman, Tanya Hockman, Katy Heltman, Dean Welch, Tracey Melnick

There were two awards committees this year, one for LASER - Amy Barone, Barry Lee, Tracey Melnick, Lynn Sebulsky, and Jennifer Shultz - and one for EXCELLENCE - Rebecca Cross, Greg Halpin, Paul Harvey, Christine Laur, and Kathy Rumbaugh. In addition, Jennifer Morris served as an ex-officio member of each committee.

Also honored were our ten-year and thirty-year service award recipients, whose names and photos are shown below.

Ten-year Service Award Honorees
Front row: Naomi McNulty, Toni Mooney, Amy Dietz, Karen Sones
Back row: Katelyn Perry, Sherri Gilliland, Ed Dumond, JoElle DeVinney, Tanya Hockman, Chris Gamble
(Missing from photo): Wendy Fultz

Thirty-year Service Award Honorees
From left: Sandi Lucas, Melody Lane, Vicki Blazer, Sally Arnold, Ed Dumond

Thanks to the committee members and congratulations to our winners.

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, sponsored again this year by the Office of Human Resources, the Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity, and numerous other university offices, will be held on Thursday, April 24. This year more than forty-five career sites are participating at University Park. This will allow girls and boys in grades 6 through 12 a chance to explore career options. Participants can select three sites to visit during the half-day program. For more information contact Carol Griffin by e-mail or by phone at 863-6188 or visit the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day Web site. The registration form and fee must be received by April 11, 2008.

Professional Development Opportunities

We are pleased to announce the April 2008 professional development workshop, which will be held on Monday, April 21 in Room 124 Sparks. If you are interested in attending, please register by sending an e-mail to Betsy Will no later than 5 p.m., Wednesday, April 16.

WHAT: Global Diversity: Developing Intercultural Awareness and Acceptance
WHEN: 8:30–10:30 a.m. Monday, April 21, 2008
WHERE: 124 Sparks Building
WHO: Presenter: Suzanne Adair, human resources specialist, Affirmative Action Office
WHY: This program addresses the realities of living and working in an increasingly global society where understanding other cultures is often an essential component of organizational success. Participants are encouraged to explore their feelings and perceptions about non-U.S. cultures in an effort to develop effective strategies to promote intercultural awareness and acceptance. Specifically, participants in this program will:

Gather accurate information about other cultures;
Examine issues associated with acclimating to life in the United Sates, and
Develop strategies to work more effectively with those whose cultures are different from their own.

This is the second installment of the five-part series on diversity. Future dates and topics for the remainder of the series are listed below. All programs will be from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in 124 Sparks. Separate descriptions and calls for registration will be advertised prior to each scheduled program. If you have suggestions for additional workshops, please let Betsy know.

Thursday, May 22: Wisdom of the Ages: Applying Generational Concepts at Work

Monday, June 9: Still Talking 9 to 5: Gender Communication in the Workplace

Wednesday, July 16: Sexual Orientation in the Workplace: Can We Talk Yet?

Labor Studies and Employment Relations Alumni Days

The Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations annual alumni days will be held Thursday, April 10 and Friday April 11. View the schedule of events here.

New Colleagues

Haiou Hu, project associate, Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission

Wendy Shaffer, staff assistant VII, English

Stephen Tuttle, multimedia specialist, Outreach

Promotions

Katy Heltman, college advancement assistant, Alumni Relations and Development

Heather Summerlin, information technology consultant, ITLA

Departures

Shirley Irvin, staff assistant VII, political science

Jodi McGuire, information technology specialist, ITLA

Retirements

Karen Connelly, administrative assistant II, Office of the Dean

Sandra Lucas, staff assistant VI, economics