EACO?_LXO
ALE%
10 A PENN STATE ERIE STUDENT PUBLICATION
f.
Aioe
TODAY : Partly Cloudy
Check page 2 for
weekend forecast
PAGE 7
The Debate of the Week takes
sides on one of television's most
popular, but controversial
spectacles.
PAGE 8
Behrend student Stephanie
Falcone's road trip to Minnesota
kicks off the Beacon's Cruisin' 4
Cash.
PAGE 10
A breakdown of the
season's top music
PAGE 11
The Behrend soccer teams
dominate own tournament
to open season
,< t,
.<"~
~~~~
NEWS
Pe
t a,
EDITORIAL
! l-J.M ! OH lAI
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
• It iz
FEATURES
• -3! • cs
3 LAI
SPORTS
P,! NO ‘:1'01Z
NEWSROOM: 898-6488
FAX US: 898-6019
Offices are located downstairs in
Reed Union Building
XLVIII No. 3
Technology catching up with enrollment
High 79
Low 61
A student utilizes the newly renovated MIS computer lab in the Nick Building
tables, larger monitors, and upgraded work stations.
In addition to the numerous
construction projects that are
currently tearing Behrend apart, many
more improvements are being made
that are easily taken for granted, as
they are not as obvious to the public.
Over the summer many departments
on campus have made various
upgrades that are making great strides
to keep Behrend up-to-date in the
world of technology.
In recent months many of the
computer labs have been drastically
altered so that they may he more
accessible to the student body, as well
as to faculty. Several labs have had
complete makeovers, and many more
have had aesthetic renovations
completed. Almost every student
computer terminal on the campus has
had some sort of upgrade.
In the Computer Center in the
Brandi Chastain will be speaking on campus on
November 16.
,
•,,,•-• • 4. ...`•
•
5 4:!' •
' .
by Liz Hayes
news editor
Hammermill Building, the main lab
(H 135) has had all computers
upgraded to new 650 mHz Pentium
111 processors. Also, larger 17"
monitors have replaced the older
versions
A smaller lab off the main lab has
been reborn into a Collaborative
Learning Lab. Until this semester,
H 139 was specifically a School of
Science lab. Now, while students in
the School of Science are still given
preference, anyone is welcome to use
the new facility. Before renovations,
the lab was rather traditional looking
long tables set up in rows with
several cramped stations at each table.
In its new form, the lab is now geared
toward collaborative group work.
There are now seven large
workstations that will each
comfortably accommodate a small
group. Large 21" monitors have been
installed so that all members of a
group will have maximum visibility.
September 8, 2000
MEM
o~.,~.: ~ ~:~:
Several of the workstations can also
be combined to form even larger
stations
It is the thought of Ron Hoffman,
manager of network and information
systems, that this lab can also be used
for small class workshops. The lab
will accommodate a group of about
12 people. A new overhead projector
has been installed with this in mind.
As in most of the computer labs,
new ceilings and lighting have been
installed. In H 139 in particular, a new
form of automatic lighting has been
added. The lights have a sensor that
recognizes when people are in the
room. When someone walks in, the
lights turn on automatically. After
there has been no movement in the
room for a short time period, the lights
will turn off.
Another lab that has been renovated
in the Hammermill Building is Hl3O,
just down the hall from the Computer
Center. This lab, which Hoffman says
Speaker Series to feature American Dream
by Michael Frawley
managing editor
This year a new speaker series
makes its debut on campus
"Speaker Series: The American
Dream in the New Millennium." This
series will bring to Behrend a variety
of speakers to appeal to the broad
variety of people and interests on
campus. The theme for this year's
series is people who have succeeded
personally and professionally and
have inspired others to follow. Two
speakers are planned for each
semester, with Donna Shirley and
Brandi Chastain in the fall and Ellis
Marsalis and Cornel West speaking in
the spring.
Donna Shirley, who will kick off the
series on Wednesday, September 13,
served as the manager of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory's Mars
Exploration Program. She was the
t A 7
v
' • •
as new recesse
leader of the team that built the Mars
Sojourner Rover which landed on Mars
on July 4, 1997. Shirley's lecture will
share the struggles and the triumphs of
the Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover
teams and the continuing story of the
Mars Global Surveyor.
Sure to be a student favorite will be
the November 16 speech by Brandi
Chastain. Chastain, a soccer superstar,
is best known for her winning penalty
kick against China in the 1999 World
Cup, and her celebration afterwards
which gained her worldwide attention.
Currently she is the assistant women's
soccer coach at Santa Clara University,
her alma mater. She is also a member
of Team USA and will be competing for
the gold in the 2000 Summer Olympic
Games in Sydney, Australia.
Kicking off the spring semester will
be Ellis Marsalis on January 15.
Marsalis is an internationally renowned
musician and jazz pianist. Marsalis is
is very popular with many of the
faculty because of its large size of 28
workstations, is now equipped with
the fastest systems on campus
800mHz Pentium 111 processors. The
old machines, which ran at 300mHz,
have replaced the computers in the
26 e-mail kiosks around campus,
which formerly ran at 130 mHz.
In the Nick Building, N 156 has
also been remodeled and upgraded.
This lab, which gives preference to
MIS courses, is the largest individual
computer lab on campus. The 41
stations in this room were updated to
650 mHz Pentium 111 processors, and
have also been reequipped with 17"
monitors. Also changed in this room
are the actual tables the computers sit
on: new recessed tables have been
installed, which allow the monitors
to sit down at a better viewing angle.
The lower monitors also enable
students to more easily see the
professor, blackboards, and projector
BY LIZ HAYES
screens. Hoffman hopes that he will
soon be able to outfit other lahs with
these recessed tables, particularly
Hl3O.
Over the summer, all Behrend
stations were upgraded from the
Windows 4.0 operating system to
Windows 2000 which makes
Behrend the only campus in the
University system to he running this
new version on all public computers,
according to Hoffman.
All labs and kiosks are now running
on a data switch, which allows for a
quicker response to the central server,
providing a 10-fold increase in speed
to the individual machines. The
University also provided a new T 3 line
to University Park's server, which will
also greatly increase the connection
speed. And this fall Hoffman is hoping
to have special ports hooked up in the
Library and Reed Union Buildings and
Technology cont. on page 2
currently the head of jazz studies at the
University of New Orleans and a board
member of the National Endowment
for the Arts.
The final speaker in this year's
speaker series is Dr. Cornel West, who
will be at Behrend on February 28. Dr.
West is a professor of Afro-American
Studies at Harvard University. He has
been called the "pre-eminent African
American intellectual of our time." He
is currently only one of 14 university
professors at Harvard, out of a staff of
2,200. He also is the co-chair of the
National Parenting Association's Task
Force on Parental Empowerment.
The wide variety of speakers from
various walks of life seems to appeal
to the Behrend Student body. Karl
Gressley, president of Commuter
Council, said, "This year's speaker
series provides an array of diverse
topics that should satisfy all of the
interests of the student body."
14 pages
New baseball and
softball fields /
The ARC
Logan House
renovations,
Chapel and Bell
Tower, Knowledge
Park
The next S years