The Behrend
Er
Beacon
Penn State
reaches record
high enrollment
By Shannon Weber
staff' writer
l'here has been a 4.3 percent in
crease in enrollment this fall semes
ter at Penn State Erie. The Behrend
College. There has been a 10 percent
growth of upper division students who
have chosen to remain at Penn State
Erie for all four undergraduate years.
The number of junior and senior level
students at Penn State Erie was 985
last year. I'his year that number has
increased to 1,084.
■'Growth in the upper-illusion lev
els is a ventral eoul ol the eolleue.
sanl pio\ ost am! dean I Jr. John [alley
"so we are \er> pleased with l
pcCt ol our lIKIVUsC."
Although the number o! !\n
What's
Inside
Page-2
Police and Safety:
Frozen Food
Robbery
E.age-1
SPC Movie:
Dead Man on
Campus
Calendar of
Events
Page .4
Editorial: Holiday
Hassles
Page 5
Campus News:
Female Football
Player
World and Nation:
Pet Problems in
Paris
Page 6
Review: Jimmy Z’s
Page 1
Athlete of the
Week
Page 8
Basketball Preview
Erie, PA 16563
full-time students has increased, the
number of associate degree students
and the number of part-time students
have decreased. This change has been
evident for the past five years At the
graduate level enrollment went from
153 to 159. There has also been a
slight increase in the out-01-state stu
dents.
For all Penn State locations, fall
enrollment this year is 80.787, an in
crease of 1.831 from last year. "We
are growing, but we’re growing at a
managed rate. And we re also hiring
more faculty and redesigning many
of our ptograms so that we can better
meet the high education needs of all
Penn Slate Students, no matter where
tlies live or which Penn State loca
tion dies want to attend." said Gra
ham Spanicr. Penn Slate president.
Citizens demonstrate concern for rehab center
Gateway Program ’s zoning appeal decision delayed
By Anne Rajotte
editor in chief
Signs reading "Gateway Gu Home"
and "Keep our Kids Sale Say No to
Gateway” lined the walkway to the
Harborcreek Municipal Building at
Tuesday night’s meeting of the zon
ing board.
Over 100 citizens came to the meet
ing to hear the Gateway Rehabilita
tion Program’s appeal ol the revoca-
Provost’s
discusses
By Will Jordan
news editor
"So many molecules, so little
lime." Dr. Mary Chisolm, Associate
Professor of Chemistry, lectured yes
terday in Reed about the "Batfling
Dr. Mary Chisholm, Behrend chemistry professor
November 19, 1998 Volume XLVII No. 13
The former Kanty Prep building located on 38th Street
tion of their zoning certificate. This
would have allowed Gateway to open
a substance abuse treatment center in
the former Kanty Prep building on
38th Street. The zoning board will
hand down a decision on December
15.
A majority of the citizens at the
meeting were present to show their
opposition to the proposed facility.
Debbie Goodman, a Wesleyville resi
dent and member of the Wesleyville
speaker;
“The Baffling Sense of Smell”
Sense of Smell.” Dr. John Lilley, pro- award that she was asked to speak in
vost and dean, introduced her. She the provost speaker series. Dr.
was the first speaker of the provost Chisolm received her doctorate from
speaker scries for this semester. He the University of London. She was
spoke about her research and several hired to work at Behrend in 1 968.
awards that she has won. One of the Dr. Chisolm opened her lecture by
awards was from Behrend for her thanking several of her colleagues and
research. It was because of this her husband. She also slated, "I think
pennState
Neighborhood Watch, stated, “we
have been working to make our com
munity safe and this is very disturb
ing.” Emily Dickson, another
Wesleyville resident, said that the
Department of Corrections should,
“treat them in prison.” She suggested
that a rehabilitation center should be
built as part of the Albion Prison.
Zoning board member Richard Fry
addressed the crowd at the meeting:
“We will not make a decision on the
senes:
photo by Andrea Zattino
number of people standing in support
of something... Being in favor or
against what someone says — you
can’t cheer or boo.”
Gateway originally applied for a
zoning certificate earlier this year. In
a letter from Gateway’s vice president
Steven Roman to Rick Hall,
Harborcreek’s zoning administrator,
Gateway described their chemical de
pendence rehabilitation and work re
lease programs. They also specified
Dr. Mary Chisholm
that the people who do research here
do make a difference.” Dr. Chisolm
said that she tries very hard to be a
good teacher and to get students in
volved in research. She classified
herself as an experimentalist and said
that they are very rare here at Be
hrend. The goal of her lecture was to
“show how fickle the sense of smell
is.” Dr. Chisolm had a lot of audience
participation and a computer image
projector to accompany her lecture.
She had a couple of people pass small
viles around which contained an odor
that National Geographic had used in
an experiment. In National
Geographic's experiment approxi
mately 1.5 million people partici
pated. She reenacted the experiment
with the approximately 100 people in
attendance. The odor which was used
in the experiment had a different scent
to different people. In the National
Geographic experiment, one third of
the people thought that the scent was
pleasant and bearable, one third of the
people thought that it smelled very
strong and disgusting, and the other
one third of the people didn’t smell
anything. When the audience was
asked to raise their hands for what
they thought it smelled like, the re
sults were very similar to the results
in the National Geographic experi
V,
* . <.
that the participants in the program
would be referred from the Depart
merit of Corrections. The letter stated
that the program would have “mini
mal impact on the community.”
On July 17, Hall sent Roman an
other letter awarding him a zoning
certificate, but two months later Hall
revoked the certificate stating that the
See Gateway Page 2
Dr. Chisolm went on to speak about
“aroma interactions” and "flavor per
ception.” There were three categories
under "flavor perception.” They were
aroma, taste, and trigeminal, which is
being able to tell if something is hot,
spicy, soft, or sharp. "Smelling some
thing through the nose is different than
if it goes through the mouth.” Chisolm
said. Odor is associated with the nose
and aroma is associated with the
mouth. Dr. Chisolm said that odor has
a spectrum much like color does.
In her research. Dr. Chisolm stud
ies several different molecules that
produce different scents. She breaks
the molecules down into parts per bil
lion (ppb) to see how strong a scent
they have. “Its like throwing a sugar
cube into an Olympic size pool and
the cube breaking down,” Chisolm
said. Dr. Chisolm trains her students
to be able to smell certain molecules
or scents. For this, she uses a tlavor
wheel. The students use a computer
with a piece that looks similar to a
microphone. The piece that looks like
a microphone gives off a scent and the
students data is based on how long
they smell a certain scent. Dr. Chisolm
said that one of the most asked ques-
See Smell Page 2
z • m
photo by Andrea Zaffino