Tf iLi jr t'l ■ f : 3 ir kj n 11 * I 1 ?L« t . IX %m 0 * B 1 April 12,2002 16 Pages, 2 sections VoI.XLIX No. 27 *A, \ -sM State FP-: 1 .; - .iCATION* pennState EpErie spring 2002 Friday’s forecast: Rain Likely High: 69° Low: 45° Check page 2 for the weekend weather outlook, NEWS Behrend students will unite on Wednesday to protest rape and violence. Read about the event and about opinions concerning this problem from various people in the Erie commu nity. See page 2 for more details. Every year, the English department holds a ban quet to honor graduating Literature and Creative Writing majors. This year’s dinner will be held at the Marketplace Grill on Mon day. Read more about it on page 3. The Returning Adult Stu dent Organization (RASO) will raise money for the Butterflies for Kids Children’s Garden on April 22. Students will also have the opportunity to win prizes from local retailers. See page 3. Behrend A/e ws... 1-3 SGA..4 Editorial...s Nat’i Campus Ne ws... 6-8 Humor... 9 Calendar.. AO Features.. .11 A&E..A2 Sports.. .1-4 B NEWSROOM: 898-6488 FAX: 898-6019 E-MAIL: behrcolls@aol.com Offices are located downstairs in the Reed Union Building Communications Convocation features Erie mayor, PHOTOS BV ERIN McCARTV/ BEHREND BEACON Behrend professor Tina Mengine (left), communication director for Mayor Rick Filippi (right), speaks during Saturday s Communications Con vocation about her unlikely path to her current position. Filippi discusses his plans for the city of Erie and the importance of communicating with the public. by Erin McCarty news editor “We need to make a commitment to have brain gain rather than brain drain,” said Erie Mayor Rick Filippi during his address to students attend ing the Communications Convocation on Saturday. The remark was in response to a question regarding the difficulty of keeping college graduates in Erie. This objective was a major reason for holding this four-hour event, which was coordinated by Behrend profes sors John Kerwin and Dr. Clare Porac and Mercyhurst professor Richard Welch. Representatives from Behrend, Mercyhurst, and Gannon discussed the benefits students can derive from the communications de partments at each of the colleges, while local business people in com munications shared their expertise on how to break into the field and what opportunities are available in Erie. The convocation began in Roche Hall, where attendees were greeted by Robert Kennedy Jr. denounces local polluters, eco-terrorists by Kevin Fallon assistant news editor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke to a full house at Behrend’s McGarvey Commons on Wednesday and talked about environmental issues, many of which involve Erie. Kennedy’s speech titled “Our Environmental Destiny” hit Erie close to home. Kennedy condemned eco-terrorism at a Wintergreen Gorge construction site located near the Behrend campus. Kennedy said although civil disobedience is a legitimate tool in democracy, this case was terrorism because the vandals did not stay to accept the consequences. “(This was) an attack on democracy and will not protect our environment,” Kennedy said. Kennedy also commented on General Electric, which is a major supporter of Behrend and part of Knowledge Park. Kennedy claimed that GE is a corporate polluter that dumped PCBs into the Hudson River and left behind a $2 billion clean-up local professionals j table stacked with juice and dough nuts. After ample time to mingle and munch, Welch introduced the pro gram. Kerwin took the microphone to describe an journalistic experience demonstrating the "fine edge of com petition" inherent in the business. After giving each college’s represen tatives a chance to speak, Kerwin nose once more to introduce Tina Mengine, the communications director for Filippi. "My mother told me last weekend, 'lf you had told me when you were I 0 that you would be the communi cations director for the mayor of Erie, I never would have believed you,’” Mengine confided, describing her shyness as a child that extended into her college years. She graduated with a degree in business and took her first job as a salesperson for a radio sta tion. Although it was very difficult for her initially, she warmed to her work and spent the next 12 years working in radio. From there, she spent six years at an ad agency. "The key is to have a message and PHOTO BY ERIN McCARTY / BEHREND BEACON Robert Kennedy Jr. speaks Wednesday in the McGarvey Commons on the subject “Our Environmental Destiny.” to stay on it,” Meugine said. She pre ferred creating ads for political can didates to ads for products, and last year she ran successful ad campaigns for three candidates, one of whom was Filippi. He offered her the newly created position pf communications director, and she accepted, not real izing fully what the job entailed but catching on quickly. “The most frustrating part of the job was dealing with the media,” she said. Although she had anticipated media relations comprising 20 to 30 percent of her job, it actually takes up about 90 percent. Although the media extensively covers affairs of the city, it tends to focus more on the negative occurrences. “Nobody cares that we fixed the problem,” she said. “Everybody cares that we didn’t do it right the first time.” After Mengine’s speech, the group moved to Bruno’s for a free lunch buffet, where everyone was encour aged to meet people who had come from other institutions. After lunch, the convocation continued in Nick w:tft two panel discussions featuring local professionals with careers in communications. Behrend student Megan McNamara conducted the discussion on Advertis ing, Public Relations, and Marketing. The featured panelists were Dave Waples, National Fuel; Shari Robinon, Bensur Advertising; Michelle McKean and Jeff DeMarrais, General Electric; and John Oliver, Erie Con vention and Visitors Bureau. Mercyhurst student Shivani Suri led the discussion on Media: Radio, Tele vision and Print. These panelists in cluded Shari Mcßride, Starlo4; Stan Zlotkowski, Z 3 Concepts; Mark Soliday and Raychel Vendetti, WICU TV; Bill Welch, former city editor of the Erie Times; and Bob Williams, Corry Journal. Each panelist discussed his or her occupation and accepted questions CONVOCATION continued on page 3 bill after it abandoned factories. He said corporations have polluted Lake Erie, a lake that should belong to the people, not big business. Kennedy said the people of Erie have a right to the lake and “that right has been stolen from Erie.” Kennedy was the final speaker in Behrend’s 2001-02 Speaker Series, “Creating the Global Future." Kennedy reputation as a defender of the environment comes from his fight to protect New York City’s water supply and the Hudson River. Kennedy acts as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University’s law school. Kennedy has also won settlements for the Riverkeepers organization which fights against corporate polluters. The speech focused on protecting nature not for nature’s sake but because it enriches humanity. He said economic prosperity equals economic prosperity and polluters abuse Yeung concludes speaker series by Erin McCarty news editor On Tuesday, Dr. Chuck Yeung. Associate Professor of Physics at Behrend, presented “Balls, Springs, and Tubes: Computer Simulations in Polymer Physics” the final lecture in the Provost Speaker Series. Yeung was the recipient of the 2001 Council of Fellows Faculty Research Award, which is given to the faculty member who best ex emplifies die role of inspired, dedi cated researcher. After an introduc tion by Interim Provost and Dean Dr. Jack Burke, Yeung proceeded with a power point demonstration of how computer simulations can be useful in trying to predict how polymers behave. He began by defining polymers as large-chain molecules with many repeating constituent parts, and mentioned familiar examples including naturally occurring poly mers such as cellulose, starch, and DNA and synthetic polymers such as polyethelene, and polystyrene (styrofoam). .The properties of a particular polymer are greatly in fluenced by its constituent parts. Homopolymers, which consist of many identical repeating blocks, vary significantly from copoly mers, which contain blocks of dif ferent types. Yeung introduced the concept of simulation, with the following joke: A fanner’s cows were not giv ing any milk, so he enlisted die aid of some local experts. An agricul tural expert and an engineer both came but were unable to solve the problem. Then a theoretical physi cist arrived and announced that he knew how to fix the situation. "First,” he instructed, "let’s assume spherical cows.” Yeung explained that simula tions require a certain number of assumptions; this can prove to be a disadvantage because one can never be certain that what is hap pening in the simulation is what would actually happen in reality. Another major drawback to com puter simulations is that the simu lations only last a very short time (for example, a simulation that runs for several months on a cluster of a dozen computers might only rep resent a couple billionths of a sec ond of real time). However, there are advantages which outweigh the disadvantages. Simulations are relatively inexpensive, can be set up to measure any quantity desired, and provide a clean test of theories. Additionally, the researcher knows all of the elements going into the simulation, whereas an experiment using real materials will usually yield a mixture of many com pounds, in addition to the one be ing studied and this can confound the results. Yeung went on to explain that his simulations involve modeling polymers as strings of beads, and then using the basic principles of classical .Newtonian physics (“freshman physics”) to calculate the force acting on each bead. With tens of beads in each simulated polymer string, and hundreds of YEUNG continued on page 3
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