Friday, October 15,2004
By Bradley Stewart
Was the career fair a useful job developing tool?
"I think it was very useful.
There were a lot of people
there that were in my par
ticular major. "
Dave Gomo,
MET 07
English professor wins award
By Lisa Lamendola
staff writer
George Looney, assistant professor of English and
creative writing, recently won the White Pine Press
award for his collection of poetry titled “The Pre
carious Rhetoric of Angels.”
“It’s a collection of poetry that explores the fic
tions we use to deal with grief. It’s about grace and
redemption,” said Looney.
Looney, who has five manuscripts currently cir
culating for various competitions, said he's been
second place in many previous contests.
“I’ve been a finalist four times a year. I finally
got over that hurdle with ‘The Precarious Rhetoric
of Angels.’”
He explains why it is hard for poets to get a pub
lisher.
“Most publishers have five or six poets and they
aren’t too anxious to sign on new writers. That’s
why I participate in many contests.”
Looney is also the program director of the new
B.F.A. creative writing program. He is responsible
for formulating the curriculum as well as the cre
ative writing program at Bowling Green State Uni
versity in Ohio.
“The goal was to set up an order for an unorga
nized set of classes,” said Looney. “I realized it
was necessary when none of the students who were
ready to graduate had read postmodern authors.”
The goal of the program is to provide a broad
span of knowledge for students and have them be
well equipped when they graduate. The program
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major."
offers a balance of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction
courses
“We’ve taken what was there and built upon that
so students are better prepared.”
Every member of the staff is a practicing writer.
Also, every student enrolled in the program is re
quired to go to an advising session one hour a week.
“We’re not only teachers, but also mentors,” said
Looney.
He accredits the success of the program partially
to the fact that there are no graduate programs at
Penn State Behrend in Humanities. Without such a
program, Behrend students are often ahead of other
undergraduate students at different colleges when
rivaling for spots in graduate programs. Often
Behrend students are doing things that are consid
ered to be at a graduate level.
“The Pennsylvania College English Association
has given their award for creative writing to a Penn
State student every year it’s been in existence. No
one else has ever won,” said Looney.
Looney feels the program is an important one to
have at Behrend. He believes part of the reason the
program is such a success is because of Dr. Jack
Burke, campus executive officer and dean of Penn
State Erie.
“Jack Burke has been a strong supporter of the
program from the beginning.”
Although Looney says there are several great
programs at Behrend, he said he is “proud and hope
ful for the future of the program.”
Looney’s book will be available in the fall of
2005.
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''Yeah, for me it was because I
was looking for another
internship. I got to contact a
lot of companies."
Greg Seese
PLSTC 07
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Aboretum beautifies Behrend
By Bryan Spry
staff writer
On Tuesday Penn State Erie will be holding
a ceremony celebrating its one-year anniver
sary of becoming an official arboretum. Al
though Penn State Behrend was not designated
as an official Arboretum until 2003, the arbo
retum at Behrend began to form over five de
cades ago and continues to develop.
Over five decades ago, Ernst and Mary
Behrend began to collect trees from exotic re
gions where they would vacation. The
Behrends would then plant these exotic trees
on their Glenhill estate property. In 1948,
Mary Behrend donated her estate with the in
tention of building an educational institution
that would be preserved in the natural beauty
of the environment.
An arboretum is defined as a place where an
extensive variety of woody plants are culti
vated for scientific, educational and ornamen
tal purposes. This is the intent of faculty and
students that continue to develop the arbbre
tum at Penn State Behrend.
Behrend’s arboretum covers a massive seven
hundred and twenty-five acres. This arbore
tum contains over two hundred different spe
cies of trees, making Behrend the largest col
lege or university arboretum in the region. In
this broad variety of species, all of the fifty
state trees are included Pennsylvania’s being
the eastern hemlock, or to those scientists, the
Tsuga Canadensis.
The Penn State Behrend Arboretum has three
main aspects. The first is the educational ap
proach to the arboretum. The arboretum serves
not only the student body and faculty, but the
community as well. It acts as an educational
tool on how to help preserve the environment.
Second is the experimental aspect of the ar
boretum. It serves the students of Behrend
with the ability to experiment and test the uses,
if any, of the trees and shrubs native and ex
otic to our region.
The final aspect of the arboretum is the out
reach component it provides. People from the
community, along with the schools from other
invoice on any
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The Behrend Beacon |
“I talked to eight different
companies and gave out
six resumes and with me
being a senior I think it
was a good career fair."
Lindsay Patton
CMPSC 07
regions, are able to come to the Behrend cam
pus and enjoy the natural aspect while walk
ing along the miles of mapped pathways
around campus.
Dr. Thomas I. Wortman, the assistant for aca
demic administration and executive director of
the arboretum at Penn State Behrend, said, “We
would obviously like to grow,” Wortman said.
“We would like to host schools as well as dif
ferent groups from around the region. We
would like to educate them on the different
variety of species of trees and allow them to
enjoy the beauty that the arboretum at Behrend
has to offer. We have a partnership with the
Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park and are
actually connected to them by the walkway that
goes along the bayfront connector.”
Wortman said, “We would like to concen
trate more on the educational and research as
pects that the arboretum gives.”
Students from Behrend also appreciate this
intriguing landscape. Freshman Ben Morris
said, “The arboretum at Behrend makes the
campus more scenic. I also think other stu
dents enjoy it as well. I see people sitting along
the walkways drawing pictures of the scenery
this campus has to offer.”
Brian Misterovich, INT B 07, said, “The ar-
boretum creates a more interesting landscape
and exposes the student body to a greater
awareness to the dynamic tree species.”
If you are interested in celebrating this
achievement, there will be a tree planting cer
emony to commemorate this one year anniver
sary of the arboretum. It will be held Tuesday
at 11:30 a.m. on the walkway just north of the
Lilley Library.
If you are interested in seeing this amazing
arboretum for yourself, pick up a pamphlet at
the information desk in the Reed Union Build
ing. The pamphlet includes a brief history of
the arboretum and a numbered map of tree
names and where these trees are located on
campus. You will be able to see over 70 dif
ferent species of trees along with a sign below
them which gives you their scientific name and
any other interesting facts relevant to that par
ticular tree.