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