I’m recently back from Steel City where Research On The Road gathered on a rainy Wednesday evening, April 30, for a quintessentially Pittsburghian night out: a talk by Penn State professor of kinesiology and history Mark Dyreson on the history of baseball.
Continue reading Pittsburgh, Baseball and Penn State Research…A Perfect Combination
Research On The Road headed back to Washington, DC, recently for our fourth event with the good folks from the Penn State Alumni Chapter of Greater DC. The speaker? The multifaceted political science faculty member Pete Hatemi, whose research on politics and genetics has been showcased on NPR, the BBC, and other outlets.
My hometown — Tyrone, Pa. — has one favorite son: Fred Waring.
The man who taught America how to sing — and how to make a margarita more efficiently — is, by far, the most famous person to come from the small central Pennsylvania town of about 5,000 people that’s a little over 25 miles south of State College. There are some others: D. Brooks Smith, well-known as a federal judge and not as well-known as my cousin; Ethan Stiefel, a former principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, and actress Emme Marcy Rylan, of Bring It On 3 and soap opera fame, all have Tyrone connections. Continue reading Penn State’s Hidden Treasures: How my hometown saved civilization
The first lectures that a few thousand newly arrived Penn State students receive each year when they arrive on the University Park campus usually cover the stories and traditions of the campus. The students’ friends, fellow classmates and upper classmen typically administer these Penn State 101 lectures.
Some of these stories are even true.
But a lot of the tales told in dorm rooms, discussed on the Old Main lawn and passed around the HUB-Robeson Center are part of a much grander university tradition: campus legends. Like their urban legend counterparts, campus legends are slightly twisted tales about the campus, its buildings and its people.
Here are a few for your April Fools’ Day enjoyment:
Continue reading Nittany Lyin’ Tales: Penn State’s grand tradition of campus legends and tall tales
Sitting in a room full of nurses last week, I found myself listening to a group of people who spoke passionately about making a difference in people’s lives. These nurses, along with other health researchers, were trying to figure out how they could better collaborate across the commonwealth and how their research results could be applied in the real world — in places like clinics, hospitals, and nursing homes.
I was attending the Horizons and Opportunities Conference that the Center for Nursing Research and the Social Science Research Institute organized for Penn State health researchers. It was fascinating to learn about some of the health research currently being conducted on Penn State campuses, as well as the research that Penn Staters are eager to pursue. Continue reading Horizons and opportunities for nursing research
