Friday, September 14, 2007
Bush announces new strategy
By Christopher LaFuria
Editor-in-chief
cslsooso'psu.edu
President Bush has recently
announced a new strategy for the return
of troops serving duties in Iraq. Bush
stated that he will call for a gradual
reduction of soldiers based in the
progress in Iraq. In his address at the
Oval office on Thursday, Sept. 12, Bush
said, "The principle guiding my deci
sions on troop levels in Iraq is: return on
success. The more successful we are, the
more American troops can return
home."
Immediately after the address, many
political figures began to feverishly
debate the president's decision, claim
ing that there was no direct answer to
the end of the war and that Bush has
been very ambiguous about his plan.
Sen. Jack Reed (D, RI) spoke for the
Democratic side of the debate. As a for-
Turnbull Hall: home sweet home for psychology lab
By Molly Bonavita
staff writer
miths3s6(wpsu.edu
Brain wave studies, behavior experiments, and develop
ment studies are only a few areas that the psychology stu
dents study, but already they do not
have enough space to study these few
things in a lab setting.
For the past fifteen years, the psy
chology department labs have rented
space from Lawrence Hall below the
common area of the dorm. The lack
of space can be noticed by anyone
who simply walks in the door and
sees that access to the space is limit
ed. Also due to the various amounts
of stairs in building, it is not ADA
(American Disability Act) compliant,
which requires lab buildings to pro
vide different options to access
buildings such as an elevator and
ramps. Because of that, some of the
studies that would like to be done
that involve elderly people cannot
happen due to limited accessibility.
This makes it difficult for
Psychology majors to complete their
required study with few options for
different kinds of studies.
At long last, the wishes of the psy-
expand with it. So as the excitement
chology department have been
builds for the big move, which is sched
answered and the psychology labs uled to take place in January before the
will have a new home in Turnbull Turnbull Hall will now house the spring semester starts so that it will be in
Barn. "The new central campus loca- new Psychology Lab on campus. use by the start to the new semester, the
tion is undergoing some transforma-
whole campus can be excited for the
tions such as new ramps, special rooms for the department's change for a greater students involvement and hope to be
part of a new study that may one day affect our own lives.
newer equipment which includes a machine that reads brain
Behrend tennis courts get summer face lift
By Brittany Sexton
staff writer
bass I 89@ psu edu
What can a quarter of a million dollars
get you at Penn State Behrend? A quar
ter of a million dollars can get you a
state of the art tennis court! In this case
Behrend spent that large sum of money
on new tennis courts for campus.
This past summer, Brian Streeter,
Director of Behrend Athletics, and his
colleagues decided to renovate the ten
nis courts here on campus. The project
started in May and concluded in August
right before the fall semester started.
The last time that such renovations were
made was over a decade ago, in the early
1990'5. Most tennis courts should get a
new paint job every five years and new
flooring every 10 years, so these courts
were in dire need for repair. One of the
main reasons for restoring the courts
was the basic fact that
difficult to play on,
and it was unsafe, the
cracks in the floor
could cause anyone to
break an ankle or a
leg, so it was crucial
that this University
had to do something
to fix that
The financing for
repairs came from the
University. The
restoration for the
courts included
milling the pavement;
after milling the work-
mer army ranger, Reed felt it was neces
sary to find a more solid answer from
the administration. "Once again, the
president failed to provide either a plan
to successfully end the war or a con
vincing rationale to continue it," he said.
Following up Bush's plan to reduce
troops, he administration has planned to
send over 5,000 troops home by the
winter holidays. Gen. David Petraeus,
who has worked with Bush on the issue
of reducing troops has recommended
that Bush send five combat brigades
(approximately 21,500 forces) home by
next July. Bush's administration
announced that they will approve
Petraeus' recommendation.
Bush, who still has strong interest in
Iraq, said, "Some say the gains we are
making in Iraq come too late. They are
mistaken. It is never too late to deal a
blow to al-Qaida. It is never too late to
advance freedom. And it is never too
late to support our troops in a fight they
ers resurfaced all of the courts which
included four different layers of product
to prevent future cracks.
Not only did the
University resolve the
flooring for the courts
but they also added a
new lighting system.
These lights are more of
a convience because the
old ones were more of a
spot light whereas the
new high-tech lights
improve evening play.
The lights are censored,
so when the sun goes
down the lights turn on,
but when actively playing the students
or who ever using them will need to use
a light switch to turn them on every 90
minutes, and they will immediately shut
off at 11 p.m. The installment of these
lights are what caused the most time in
tennis courts were reconstructed durin
- NEWS
can win
He has repeatedly made a call to each
political party to join forces and come
together in support of the troops activity
in Iraq. "Whatever political party you
belong to, whatever your position on
Iraq, we should be able to agree that
America has a vital interest in prevent
ing chaos and providing hope in the
Middle East," Bush said. "Let us come
together on a policy of strength in the
Middle East."
Some members of Congress say that
this release by the Bush administration
has nothing to do with new plans.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl
Levin (D, MI) claims that the reduction
of troops is a natural occurrence. "The
reduction to a pre-surge level is not a
change in course," said Levin. "It's
something which will happen anyway,
just because of the rotation of our troops
and the limit of 15 months for that rota-
waves, and we're even having an elevator installed" head of
the psychology department Victoria Kazmerski exclaims.
The new building will be ADA compliant so more studies
can be done. This means that more studies can be done, and
a greater involvement with the students can take place as
more volunteers can help with the studies. Psychology
majors will be able to complete their
studies, and even more students will have
the opportunity to present their studies to
local and national conferences.
Also the labs have a better atmosphere
for students to control and manipulate
specific variables in their experiments.
Along with new lab space, Turnbull hall
has room for the department to grow in,
and there will be extra space for more
equipment to be gained in the future.
"The central location of the space makes
it easier for the professors to access as
well because professors don't like climb
ing the hills just as much as the students,"
Professor Jennifer Trich Kremer points
out. She also said, "Not all the
Psychology professors' offices are in the
same building; some are in Kochel, The
Carriage House, and still others are in the
far science buildings." As the Behrend
campus expands, the Psychology lab can
proudly say that they have the room to
finishing the project.
Many of the tennis players are ecstat
ic for these new courts. Last year, due to
the sad state of the courts, the
The last time
that such ren
ovations were
made was
over a decade
ago, in the
early 1990'5.
that are in the making to help
the campus a better place to
stay. Such ideas include a new admis
sions Welcoming Center, a theatre for
performances, a soccer complex and
more renovations to the campus book
store. In order for these projects to con
tinue Brian Streeter and others involved
must first propose and
plan for the idea, then
pass that along to his
boss, John Reeme,
Director of
Operations, who then
furthers the ideas to
the summer break
team had to rent out courts at
an indoor facility close by,
which in turn cost more. Brian
Streeter is one of the many
people who proposed the idea
of bettering the Behrend com
munity. He is one of the rea
sons why the tennis courts got
renovated in the first place.
He and his colleagues have
some more upcoming projects
the University person
nel for Behrend and
University Park. The
process for any work
on campus takes very
long; the very fact that
the tennis project was
proposed about six
years ago is proof
enough.
Six years later,
remembers continued
become more paranoid than safe since
then. Ellenberger stated, "People are now
more paranoid and
politicians have
received a good ral
lying cry from these
events; it's still being
used today. -
Many places have
improved in terms of
security. Johnson
stated, "Security in
airports is a lot
tighter, it takes forev
er to get to your final
destination. The
measures taken since
September 11 th are
probably part of the
cause for this delay. -
Not all of the after
math lies within the
United States. These Two beams of light shine where the twin
attacks towers once stood in memoryof Sept. I I
terrorist
caused President attacks of
Bush to deploy troops to the Middle East. September 11, hut one thing is definite:
This has spurred further hostel feelings most will not forget them, and they are
from the people of the Middle East still a predominant issue today.
Behrend to house region's
first confocal microscope
By Rachel Reeves
staff writer
FO - 50570 psti.cdu
Coming to Behrend is Eric's very first.
long anticipated and very expensive con
focal microscope. The grant was finally
secured by the Lake Erie Research
Institution, and beginning the summer of
2008 this quarter of a million dollars,
state of the art piece of machinery will be
available for every undergraduate student,
faculty, scientist and physician in the
region. Until this point, the nearest confo
cal microscope was located in Pittsburgh,
which was very inconvenient for anyone
who needed to use it. Erie's own micro
scope will be housed in Behrend's Bensen
building, where it can have the necessary
vibration-free workspace and adequate
ventilation.
A confocal microscope is expensive
and high-maintenance for a reason. It uses
multiple lasers to illuminate layers of a
sample at a time. Then it can collect the
images and stack them up to make a
three-dimensional representation of that
sample. This way, biologists and
chemists can see the inner workings of an
entire cell, which is a huge advantage in
the biomedical realm. Since Erie is sup-
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Pictured above is an example of a confo
cal microscope, like the one that Penn
State Behrend will soon house.
mermian
The Behrend Beacon I 3
nation
towards Americans
other way as well.
posed to have a promising future in bio
logical science, this microscope can mean
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hut it worked the
Dzikiy stated, "It
worsened our rela-
Lions with the
Middle East;
Americans today
tend to assume that
because someone
is from the Middle
East they are asso
ciated with some
kind of danger.
Also, people from
the Middle East
dislike Americans
because we keep
meddling in their
affairs when they
don't want our
Evidently,
people hold a range
of views when it
conies to the