FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2001
Behrend plays host to conferences
Campus takes turn at hosting state wide
psychology conference
by John Federowicz
staff writer
The Reed Commons certainly
appeared to be "shrinking" on
Saturday, April 21, as the spacious
room became thronged with psy
chology majors eagerly display
ing posters and presentations rep
resenting months of meticulous
research.
Students from western Pennsyl
vania were given a chance to dis
play their hard-begotten work to
the public last Saturday when the
29th Annual Western Pennsylva
nia Undergraduate Psychology
Conference rolled into town.
Since 1972, the Northwestern
Pennsylvania Psychological As
sociation has been lending the
means for undergraduate psychol
ogy students in the area to show
their research to colleagues and to
inquisitive outsiders in an attempt
to share ideas and encouragement.
By order of rotation, Behrend
became the venue of this year's
event; Dr. Dawn Blasko, head of
Behrend's psychology depart
ment, and Drs. Eric Corty,
Victoria Kazmerski, Charisse
Nixon. and Carl Kallgren made up
the conference committee that
was at the heart of the organiza
tional proceedings for the conven
tion.
For the convention, there were
two options for showing off un
dergraduate
work. Students could opt either
to display their research on paper-
Campus honors
says farewell to
by Jenny Zhang
staff writer
The 40th annual Honors and
Awards Convocation was held on
Sunday in Erie Hall. Awards were
distributed to worthy students, fac
ulty, and staff. The ceremony also
served as a farewell for some to Dean
Lilley, as many students won't have
the opportunity to see him after the
semester ends.
The award recipients, faculty, staff,
family and friends filled Erie Hall by
2 p.m. Dean Lilley made the wel
come remarks, followed by the pre
sentation of awards. The awards were
categorized: Student Life Awards,
Athletic Awards, Academic Awards,
Special Service Awards, and Faculty
and Staff Awards.
Student Life awards are designed
to recognize students for their out
standing services In the college com
munity to better the student life, in
cluding Intramural athletes of the
year. Ken Miller, director of Student
Affairs, Chris Rizzo, director of Stu
dent Activities, and Rob Wittman,
Intramurals coordinator, presented
these awards to recipients respec
tively. Among the Student Life
Awards winners, Brandi Hovis won
two of the seventeen awards: Most
Outstanding Student Organization
Officer and Student Government As
sociation President's Award.
Athletic Director Brian Streeter
presented Athletic awards to the ath
letes to recognize their outstanding
athletic achievement and scholarship.
Following were the Academic
Awards that recognized students' aca
demic excellence in writing; students
in the Behrend Honors Program; and
students that earned a perfect 4.0 cu
mulative grade point average in each
class.
James Rusinko, a first year non-tra
ditional student, won the President's
Freshman Award for his 4.0 cumula
tive grade point average and Out
standing First-Year Student Award for
his demonstration of outstanding
promise of character, scholarship,
leadership, and citizenship through
board poster and engage in dis- fering - to the particularly relevant
cussion with roving inquisitors in to the Behrend student -- "Are
the Reed Commons, or, as an al- First-Year Seminars
Students and professors observe poster presentations in the
Wintergarden during the 29th Annual Western Pennsylvania
Undergraduate Psychology Conference.
tentative, they could present their
findings in an oral recitation to a
faculty member and a closed room
of thirty people.
The topics entered into the con
vention ran the gamut of the
physiological and sociological
such as "The Relationships Be
tween Shyness and Headache Suf-
achievements in his or his first year
of study. "I am very surprised that I
actually won both awards. I hope I
can set an example for the freshman
class," said Rusinko.
Among all the winners in Special
Service Awards, Jennifer Miles was
the winner of Thomas H. Turnbull
Award, recognizing her service to the
student body as the Student Govern
ment Assocation president.
There were also two unique people
who won the John W. Oswald Award,
which recognizes graduating seniors
throughout the entire University who
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Meeting Their Goals - which
was a timely project for this cam
pus in that the work delved into
the efficacy of certain campus
curriculum.
Amy Brown, a student at
Behrend and one of the compil
ers of research on the First-Year
Seminars project interjected that
outstanding students;
Dean Lilley
college community
Roger Owens and Mr. Robert
Chamber both were the winners of the
Benjamin A. Lane Oustanding Ser
vice Award. Owens has been in the
college Maintenance Department for
35 years and has to be reminded to
take a vacation. Ile will retire after
this year. "It is a thrill to me to re
ceive this award after being here for
35 years. It makes me feel very re
warding and honored," Owens said.
At the end of the ceremony there
was a heartfelt moment for Dr. [Alley
who is leaving Behrend after 21 years
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"the conference offers us a chance
to show off work that might even
prove to he a valid study to affect
change in Behrend curriculum."
The conference had approxi
mately 275 attendees and was a
valuable tool for Behrend psy
chology majors who were re
quired to attend.
The keynote speech of the day
came from James S. Nairne, PhD,
and professor of psychological
sciences at Purdue University in
West Lafayette, Indiana.
Nairne, who received his under
graduate training at the University
of California at Berkeley and his
PhD in psychology from Yale
University, capped off the day
with a discussion of the miscon
ceptions surrounding our every
day notions of how memory func
tions.
Taking a contrarian,
counterintuitive stance on how
cognitive imprinting works,
Nairne discussed how memory is
not necessarily the storage of
recollective "copies - but a recon-
struction of sensory data that is,
at times, prone to error. Dr.
Nairne's zeal and quest for truth
in his psychological research
neatly epitomized the spirit of the
day for all the convention partici
pants at the 29th Annual Western
Pennsylvania Undergraduate Psy
chology Conference -- it was a
quest for psychological truth that
was, distinctly, the theme for the
day at Behrend.
of leadership to pursue his new posi
tion as the President of University of
Nevada, Renos. There was a stand
ing ovation when Dr. Burke made the
announcement of Dr. Lilley's leaving
after his years of leadership.
"In the last 21 years, John brought
a lot of changes to the college. It is
truly a college now, compared with
before when we had less than half of
the students that we have now," said
Burke. am very delighted to see all
the student's accomplishments being
rewarded."
Disaster Preparedness
Conference set this weekei
by Jake Boring
staff writer
Why will there be fire-trucks and
ambulances at Penn State Behrend at the
end of this spring semester? It's for the
seventh annual Disaster Preparedness
Conference scheduled for Saturday and
Sunday at Penn State Behrend's Reed
Union Building.
The Disaster Preparedness Confer
ence is designed to educate those who
have responsibilities relating to cata
strophic emergencies. This includes fire
fighters, EMS (Emergency Medical Ser
vice) workers, law enforcement work
ers, nurses, and also school board mem
bers. The conference is designed to
teach procedures used in different cata-
strophic emergencies.
Richard Roble, chairman of the con
ference and the Fire Chief of Erie Inter
national Airport, said, "We hope that
those who attend the conference will
come away with an understanding of
how to plan for this type of (cata
strophic) emergency and respond effec
tively when necessary."
The speakers for the Disaster Pre-
The Undergraduate Research Conference was held in the Ac
Building last Saturday. Undergrads from all four of Behrend's
academic schools presented their research projects.
Carl Sagan honored in
year-end Open House Ni
by Mike Francis
staff writer
As the semester draws to a close,
the Behrend Open House Nights in
astronomy are preparing for the
summer sessions.
The final Open House Night of
the season on April 19 paid special
tribute to great astronomer Carl
Sagan, who dedicated his life to
observing the universe. A half
hour presentation was put together
in honor of his passing. The Shores
of the Cosmic Ocean, a short film
narrated by Sagan, explained time,
the earth's origins, and its place in
the universe.
Sagan compared the evolution of
the universe to a calendar. The first
seconds of January 1 are when the
universe was born. Each month is
the equivalent of 1.5 billion years
of evolution and each day is about
40 million years. Using this
calendar, the whole human
existence would be in the last few
minutes of December 31.
In the lecture that followed, Dr.
Darren Williams discussed the
topic, "Target Earth." Target Earth
is the event of an object striking
the Earth and causing catastrophic
and extinction level events.
Williams, an assistant professor of
physics, gave some examples of
the types of things that could cause
such an event, such as comets or
asteroids. He pointed out that the
size of the object was very
important and relevant to the
destruction and devastation it
might cause on impact.
A well-known case of such an
impact occurred around 65 million
years ago, an impact that is
theorized to have killed the
dinosaurs. In this case, the size of
the asteroid was about six miles in
diameter. "A tiny speck that you
couldn't see on a globe can cause
such an incident," said Williams,
describing the massive power
created by one of these objects.
Other threats to Earth are comets,
mostly made of ice and rock.
Comets are easier to see, however,
because of their long brilliant tails
that form from the ice melting and
paredness Conference I re lu
the country and represent urui
cut fields. The speakers
Piringcr from the Fire and Reser
ing Institute of the I'M -
souri at Columbia; (Henn dill
Winner EMS Education.l) h
Terry Nlassie,l).M.l)„
1 1 ,
from the l'niversity of Pitt-hup,
Ormsby from the Of lice of
ligcnce; Raymond
Pittsburgh's Puhlie Salet:, I )( p
and John Rinard ho ‘.l .
tor from Blinn Colle,_;e in I
If interested in ,iue;hlii;! 61,
ence, students should 1:;
Moon at (814)03 (W.;
istcr or receive on 1111k);111:,'I
Registration for the conk .n. l
$35, which includes a Saw ,
a Sunday brunch, and all 1); n
rials for the conl
:CI - Clice :'
receiving a certificate,
gain continuing ckiticati ,, H
well.
exploding oft the tiui I:iL
most common of they.. f:(
Haley's, roughly the slit
which rushes by our p1.,11
86 years
The lecture column
evidence of th
occurred on other planci.
Earth. In 1994, the
telescope took pictuic
asteroid breaking into
and plummeting into I
atmosphere. Here on I ;
crater that supposedl y
dinosaurs is located in ti c
peninsula and is 150 hiloi
diameter. This crater
way toward prov ing
is not immune to the
of the solar system, V\
Williams went on It) dc.
possible effects to the
climate after such an im
could cause an eartluiti
would be hundreds of time
than 10 on the Richte
Worldwide fires could N.
from burning debris falli
the sky. The planet's sui la
be covered with dust ani
dark for two years, killin
and animal life within nu
The energy released fro
these impacts is in
Williams made reference
and the Hiroshima detonat
Hiroshima explosion w as
15,000 tons of TNT. Th
released in the explosion k
dinosaurs was probably
one billion megatons of 1
"I don't want anyone wa
of here worrying about
tomorrow," st..;l
chances of an object t
hitting the Earth arc vci
It is estimated that it happ
every 100 million )eats.
safe for now.
After the lecture. th.
parted and the stars and p
out in the depths of sp
revealed. From the
Observatory, observer
Jupiter, the largest planet,
of her moons, thank
telescope's seven-inch