THE BEHREND BEACON Friday, September 22, 2006 “We always make sure people who come to our parties have a safe way home.” Students concerned with difficulty crossing” Jordan Road By Lenny Smith staff writer Penn Slate Behrend students are having difficul ty crossing roads on campus due to new develop ments. The Research and Economic Development Center (REDO forces students to cross Jordan Road, and the University Gate Apartments create loot traffic across Station Road and the Bayfront Connector. Sophomore Biology major. Brittney Noss. lives m the University Gate Apartments and she believes crossing Station Road is difficult after an incident on her way to classes one morning. Noss. who was running across the street during the safe cross time, tripped in the middle of Station Road during her rush to make it to the other side. '“They (the traffic signals) definitely don't give you enough time to cross the road. You'll be in the middle of the four lane highway when the orange hand comes up!" Noss has her own ideas on how to solve the prob lem. "Well, for starters, they could give you more time to cross the streets, but I think in the long run they should invest in some sort of walk way bridge like they have over at the Behrend Fields. It would be a lot safer, espe cially when winter comes around and there is black “They fly down the street, you really have to watch out!” - Mark Westerlund New humor magazine published at Behrend By Scott Muska staff writer In current times, newspapers report the grim, solid facts, and they are often harrowing and depressing. Articles are frequently written about deaths, war, and other terrible tragedies, and the news is brought to readers lacking one very crucial ele ment to the human condition: laugh ter. That is where Behrend’s new humor magazine, Thalia, comes into play. With stories that make light of serious topics, the publication has the potential to uplift readers’ spirits and supply them with side-splitting laughs and an amount of relief from the depression that is found in the news of the present. Thalia is in its first year of publica tion at Behrend, and one of the founders and main contributors is former notorious humor writer for the Behrend Beacon, Jerry Pohl. Jerry passed up a possible opportuni ty as the Beacon’s humor editor to begin this publication. “I founded that Thalia , instead of applying for Con tents News 1-3 Editorial 4 Humor 6 Student Life 7-8 Sports 9-10 1 unfrtci t.. ; s Newsroom: 898-6488 Fax: 898-6019 E-mail: editorinchief@psu.edu Our offices are located down stairs in the Reed Union Building. - Adam Wilson With the addition of large numbers of students and traffic, people trying to cross Jordan Road find themselves waiting, due to no crosswalks. This Behrend student waits for his turn to cross the busy Behrend road. ice (on the roads).” A lot of cars speed on Jordan Road and are then when students see these cars speeding towards forced to stop very quickly once they reach the them, they begin to hurry, which could cause them crosswalk to REDC, which is where the majority of to trip, like Noss, and possibly get injured. Beacon humor editor, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I didn’t want the writers, including myself, to be censored. With a sep arate publication there’s more opportunity for students to get pub lished and get involved.” The beginning of Thalia came with a sample issue that was released in late April of last school year. It was a Beacon Humor Page draft that was rejected by the edi tors. There is no censorship whatsoev er in Thalia. The group takes on such controversial subjects as Lance Armstrong’s Live Strong bracelets and their possible link to the cause of cancer, and an analysis of the impact that various movies released earlier in the summer had on various religious groups and fans. The brave contributors to Thalia, however, are not swayed or worried about possible friction that their publication could bring about with the public. When Pohl was asked about possible cause for worry Thalia founder Jerry Pohl looks for support at last week’s Club Rush. Pohl and about those objecting to their con- his staff have established Behrend’s only comedy magazine on campus troversial subject matter, he said that “There’s always the possibility that someone will choose to be offended. If and when someone has a complaint, I will handle it.” Thalia’s willingness to reveal themselves and shy away from pseudonyms is a very different approach than their predecessor, BUDPOT, which was a humor magazine that em ulated on the Behrend campus for a semester in 2001. “I don’t feel that anonymity would give us any additional freedom,” said Pohl when asked if they felt that they could write even more freely about subjects than they already do. Pohl wrestled with the idea to launch a magazine as opposed to becoming A Penn State Erie Student Publication _ _ _ , “You always have a WHO S starter race. Everyone INSIDE and editor for the Beacon over a long period of time. “For me, the defining moment, so to speak was when I first saw the Thalia logo by Zack Mentz. “There’s always the possibility that someone will choose to be offended.” After I first saw the logo Zack made I knew there was no way this wasn’t happening.” At first glance, Thalia seems like a wise-cracking publication that is just students cross. This is very dangerous because Mike Sharkey/THE BEHREND BEACON being put together for the sheer enjoyment of it, but when it comes down to it, it is much more than that. It’s a great deal about giving. “When I got involved in the humor page over a year ago it was an oppor tunity for me to get published, to grow as a writer, and to gain valuable experience,” says Pohl. “Now I can give others that same opportunity.” The Thalia staff seeks to get peo ple involved, being that a source of their pride is in the ability to include many people in their publication. Any writers, cartoonists, or other possible contributors can reach Jerry Pohl through e-mail at jbpls3@psu.edu. Thalia is here to stay, and it can be picked up in many areas of the campus, so if the normal news has you feeling down and out, -Jerry Pohl pick up an issue of Thalia , and it can give you a brief reprieve from the daunting news stories of the day. will iqiprove from here.” F ' i r '-0 2005 walk from the University Gate Apartments to Mike Sharkey/ thk bhhrend beacon campus and across Jordan Road to the REDC, students will simply have to stay aware of speeding drivers as they cross the road. Students hope it doesn’t take a serious accident to have something done. Vol. LIII No. IV Could the drivers do a better job yielding to the student pedestrians? Mark Westerlund, a freshman, certainly thinks so. “I almost got run over!” Westerlund recalls. Danielle Wilson, a freshman psychology major, agrees, “They fly down the street, you really have to watch out!" The majority of the students seem to have the same thing to say. Freshman Kayla McLaughlin acknowledged the fact that “the drivers do not yield (to the pedestrians).” Wilson echoes the fact that “the kids who drive down the street never slow down.” Several of the solutions that have arisen are quite simple. First is for drivers to slow down. Just by slowing down, crossing the road will be much safer. Secondly, posting a pedestrian crossing sign would advise drivers to the highly traf ficked area. Another solution would be to place a stop sign on Jordan Road, forcing the drivers to slow and yield to the pedestrians. Until something is done about the cross- New system for job search launched By Jeff Thoreson staff writer Penn State University has launched a new online employment system designed to allow students and alumni to search and apply for jobs and upload resumes for employers to find them. From the con venience of any computers, students and alumni of Penn State Behrend can search for full-time employ ment or upload their resume to the system, called Nittany Lion Recruiting, or NLR. “NLR is designed to aid in the job search and career advancement efforts of students and alumni,” says Carrie Payne, assistant director of the Career Development Center at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. Payne says that NLR will connect students and alumni from 16 Penn State campuses, including Behrend, Altoona, Beaver, Berks, Delaware County, Dußois, Harrisburg, Hazleton, Lehigh Valley, McKeesport, Mont Alto, Schuylkill, University Park, “NLR is designed to aid in the job search and career advancement efforts of stndihts and atamni ” -Carrie Payne system will be updated monthly, but students and alumni who visit the website at https://psu-behrend csm.symplicity.com/students/ can sign up for weekly email updates of job postings. However, NLR offers several other no-cost servic es, including employer resume searches, announce ments, career fairs at University Park, and employer information sessions and presentations. In addition, on-campus recruiting and interviewing opportunities will be made available to students and alumni for the entire 2006-07 school year. For this service, there is a one-time fee of $l5 for students and $4O for alumni. The campuses at Behrend, Altoona, Berks, Harrisburg, and University Park have plans to adver tise on-campus recruiting an interviewing opportuni ties through NLR. -Brad Ruffo Wilkes-Barre, Worthington Scranton, and York, with job list ings from employers who work with the six teen schools in the Penn State system. Nittany Lion Recruiting replaces the emails the Career Development Center used to send. Postings of full-time jobs on the
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers