Friday, October 19, 2007
Behrend to support the less fortunate
during Hunger and Homelessness Week
By Molly Bonivita
staff writer
mabs3s6@psu.edu
Students may have noticed the
increasing amounts of signs that adver
tise a "Cardboard City" or
"Canstruction," but how does it all go
together? The answer is Hunger and
Homelessness Awareness Week.
This nationwide program had its
beginnings in 1972 at Villanova
University in Pennsylvania. The stu
dents there used the power of education
of hunger and homelessness in America.
Thus they began the first Hunger Week.
It is designed to build campus and com
munity awareness and more than 500
campuses take part in it each year.
Hunger and homelessness affects
people from all walks of life and the sta
tistics can be startling. Thirty-six mil
lion Americans are at risk of going hun
gry each year with 13 million of them
being children; that's one out of every
three. And out of the 36 million, 39.1
percent are male and 60 percent are
female. Each year 3.5 million people
experience homelessness. 35 percent of
the homeless are families with children,
25 percent are U.S. military veterans, 25
percent are children under 18 years old,
30 percent have experienced domestic
violence, 20-25 percent suffer from
mental illness, and in urban communi
ties, people experience homelessness
for an average of eight months.
There are many factors that con
tribute to the statistics. The cost of liv
ing is higher than it used to be and low
wage jobs do not make up for that dif
ference of cost. Also with high unem
ployment rates, many Americans find
themselves making a choice between
paying utilities and paying for food.
This is where the term "food insecurity"
creeps in. Food insecurity is defined as
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Cities made out of cardboard, like this Nintendo console, are part of the activities
that are scheduled for Hunger and Homelessness Week at Behrend Oct. 22-27.
a lack of access to enough food to fully
meet basic needs due to lack of financial
resources
These problems can be faced through
the Awareness Week that is held here at
Behrend from Monday Oct. 22 through
Saturday Oct. 27. "The two main organ
izations we are donating to this year are
the Second Harvest Food Bank and the
City Mission," says Reality Check
Advisor Christa Morris. Also there will
be two days to participate in Habitat for
Humanity work days.
The main idea behind the Awareness
Week is to, "give students the opportu
nity to learn about hunger and home
lessness in America and how it can
affect anyone," insists Morris.
The groups that are involved with the
program include Reality Check, Alpha
Pi Omega, Delta Sigma Pi, APO, IVCF,
Matchbox, ODK, and Bio Club.
The scheduled events for the Hunger
and Homelessness Awareness Week are
as followed:
Collegiate Golden Harvest Food
Drive (10/22-10/27) - Food drive bene
fits Second Harvest Food Bank.
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Texas Hold 'Em Tournament (10/22)
-Donations of non-perishable food
items are suggested as fee to play.
Cardboard City (10/23-10124)
Groups will construct cardboard houses
and stay in them for 24 hours (11 a.m.-
11 a.m.) Money raised will go to the
City Mission.
"Canstruction" Canned Food
Sculpture+ Contest (10/26) Groups
will be asked to create structures from
canned food that is collected. It will
take place in the Commons from noon
-3:00 p.m.
Service Roundtable (10/26) —Student
organizations are invited to send repre
sentatives to the Smith Chapel to dis
cuss any upcoming or past service proj
ects.
Habitat for Humanity (10/20 &
10/27) Reality Check and Delta Sigma
Pi have scheduled Habitat for Humanity
work days. Anyone interested can con
tact Megan Katic or Daniela Campana
to sign up.
It is not too late to sign and if anyone
is interested, they can contact Christa
Morris at the Smith Chapel at 814-898-
6171 or by email at cdbl2o@psu.edu
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Nobel Prize winner speaks at Behrend
By Molly Bonivita
staff writer
mab53560 psu.edu
A full McGarvey Commons marked the
presence of a novelist speaker Thursday
evening. John C. Mather's public talk was
entitled, "From the Big Bang to the Nobel
Prize and onto the James Webb Space
Telescope." His talk certainly encom
passed all of those subjects and included
enough information to make one feel that
they too could be a physicist.
On the subject of the Big Bang theory,
Mather stated that, "Everything, even your
chin, is made of exploded stars. I don't
think people appreciate that the way they
should." He then proceeded into dis
cussing the center of the universe and the
ories that there really is no center of the
universe. "If the tortoise and the hare were
running a race with IKm/h space between
them, the center of the universe is not nec
essarily on them as the picture here is
drawn with no grass, - he joked with the
audience. Mather then discussed the fact
that the galaxies condensed 13.7 billion
years ago and that was when the universe
was created after the Big Bang. Because
the Sun and the Earth were only created
4.2 billion years ago, "Our local spot in the
galaxy is fairly new."
With all that talk on the Big Bang theo
ry completed, Mather then discussed the
research that he did to win him the Nobel
Peace Prize. He relayed to the audience
that while he was in graduate school at the
Health and Wellness offers flu shots
By Michelle Quail
staff writer
nlys(X)l Ca'psti.edu
A series of campus-wide immunization
clinics for meningitis and flu shots are
being offered by Behrend's Health and
Wellness Center throughout October, and
should be a "must do" activity for all stu
dents, especially those who live in the res
idence halls. Many wise students are
already eager to line up for the annual flu
shot walk-ins taking place this month.
College students are at a high risk for both
the influenza virus and meningitis disease
compared to the average healthy person
because they live in such close quarters.
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) and the American
College Health Association (ACHA) rec
ommend that all first-year students living
in residence halls be vaccinated against
influenza and meningococcal disease.
Other college students under 25 years of
age who wish to reduce their risks may
choose to be vaccinated as well. Most stu
dents have already been vaccinated for
meningitis, but not the flu. Those who
know how miserable the flu can be wel
come the opportunity at hand. Robert
Beauseigneur, a sophomore at Behrend,
feels it is important for students to get flu
shots saying, "I'll be first one in line for a
flu shot. When I get a chance to avoid
something that terrible, I take it. My mom
always took me to get them growing up, so
New conference
By Rob Davis
staff writer
rkdso23psu.edu
On Thursday, Oct. 11, a ceremony
was held to honor the opening of the new
Samuel P. "Pat" Black 111 Conference
Center. Informally it will be called the Pat
Black Conference Center. The room is a
large lecture and conference facility, locat
ed in the north side of Behrends Research
and Economic Development Center
(REDC). It will hold 201 people with
power and data ports at each seating along
with wireless connectivity, amplified
sound, and projectors that can simultane
ously broadcast three separate images to a
screen covering the length of the facility.
The podium has a touch screen that oper
ates DVD and VHS players along with a
computer. Pat Black the is president of
Samuel P. Black & Associates insurance
agency and chairman of the investment
firm Erie Management Group. Black's
late parents gave a gift of $2O million to
Behrend which remained anonymous until
their passing. After the origins were
revealed, the Penn State Board of Trustees
voted to rename the conference center in
honor of the Blacks. Jack Burke, Penn
State's Chancellor, said, "Pat has a passion
for Erie; a vision for this city's future cen
tered on the commercialization of emerg
ing technologies. Pat and the Black fami
ly invested in Erie and in Penn State
Behrend through their transformational
The Behrend Beacon I 3
University of California, Berkeley. he
noticed that the data on microwave back
ground, in regards to study on the Big
Bang, was incorrect. Thus he began study
ing and finding a new way to gather infor
mation about the universe and keep the Big
Bang theory a valid theory. With success
in 1992 and with the help of NASA's
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
satellite team, Mather and his partner
George F. Smoot announced that they had
mapped the primordial hot and cold spots
in the cosmic microwave background radi
ation. This meant that Mather and Smoot
proved the idea of the Big Bang theory to
be not only correct, but also proving that
the universe is still expanding at a very fast
rate. Mather stated that it was when one of
his colleagues told him that. "this discov
ery is the discovery of the century if not of
all time." He knew that he had made an
important discovery which he can be
proud of for his lifetime. This discovery is
what won Mather and his partner Smoot
the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The big question for Mather to face
would be "What's Next?" Well, in his talk
he discussed his plans for the James Webb
Space Telescope (JWST). The telescope
will use infrared light to compare other
planets to our own. This is the next step in
finding if there is any other life out there.
If there is good data supporting this theory,
then this is not the last time we will hear
John Mather.
I know the procedure is pretty painless."
The flu generally lasts a few days and
includes a fever, cough, headache, sore
throat, chills, fatigue, and muscle aches.
In other words, when you get the flu, you
also go through the works when it comes to
feeling under the weather. Even more
unfortunate are some of the facts given by
the Health and Wellness Center. They say
that because the flu affects the body's abil
ity to fight other infections, many people
become sicker. Some catch pneumonia and
even endure serious heart and breathing
problems. An average of 226,000 people
are hospitalized every year from the flu,
and 36,000 die. "I even encourage my
roommates to get vaccinated. It's the con
siderate thing to do for the people who live
with you. In fact, I have a hard time under
standing why anyone would resist a flu
shot offered to them" adds Beauseigneur.
Other illnesses with similar symptoms are
mistaken for the flu, and vaccination offers
people a way to acknowledge what they
are protected from, and what they are not.
The staff of the Health and Wellness
Center encourage every student to get a
vaccinated for meningitis and the flu, and
offer immunization clinics in two different
locations. The cost for each student will be
$25. Health and Wellness Center in the
Carriage House is offering flu shots on the
remaining Mondays of the month, Oct. 22
and 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
center dedicated
gift to our School of Business. The Pat
Black Conference Center is another such
investment." The REDC itself just opened
last August and the new Conference
Center will be used primarily for regional
and national conferences, and for upper
level business and engineering education.
The college's undergraduate and graduate
admissions, an Academic Sports League
competition for high school students, the
Western Pennsylvania Undergraduate
Psychology Conference, the Richard J.
Fasenmyer Engineering Design
Conference, a workshop on globalization,
and the Society of Plastics Engineers are
currently scheduled to hold conferences in
the new center. Also, in "The Princeton
Review", the Sam and Irene Black School
of Business was included once again for
the fourth time as one of the 290th best
business school. Currently offered at the
Black School of Business are one associate
degree, nine baccalaureate programs and
two graduate degree programs, and two
certificates in financial planning and SAP.
Even further, it is the only business school
in the region that has been accredited by
the AACSB International, or the
"Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business." AACSB is the top
accrediting agency for bachelors, master's
and doctoral degree programs in business
administration and accounting.