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Friday, January 18, 2008
Behrend celebrates
the King holiday
;y •nny m
news editor
Irsso46@psu.edu
The birthday of a man that would change the way
many people view the world will be celebrated this
week at Penn State Behrend. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. would have celebrated his 79th birthday on
Jan. 15. However, his life was cut short in a 1968
shooting that claimed his life.
Multi-Cultural Council President Adell Coleman
thinks that the celebration of King's birthday is very
important. "It is an appreciation for the life and lega
cy of him," she said.
The highlight of the week-long list of activities
will be on Jan. 24 when the Rev. Al Sharpton speaks
at Behrend.
At 7 p.m. in Erie Hall, Sharpton, president of the
National Action Network, has been involved in
political and social issues for many years. A
Democratic Presidential Candidate in the 2004,
Sharpton has had a major impact on the political
issues in the United States. The New York Daily
News called Sharpton, "the most prominent civil
rights activist in the nation" in Feb. 2007.
The celebrations began on King's birthday.
Members of the Multi-Culture Council handed out
free birthday cake to students outside of Bruno's.
On Jan. 21, Key Arts Productions will host a two
and a half hour multi-media event, scheduled to
being at 11 a.m., to celebrate the life and legacy of
King. According to Behrend's website, "King's
Dream: A Live Concert Multimedia Presentation
Dedicated to an American Legend," will include
songs, live narrative, and powerful film footage
reveal the historical roots and the social implications
that led to an era of social unrest in America during
the turbulent 60's. A 50 minute, musical presenta
tion will begin at noon.
The Philadelphia-based group began in 1987 and
has since performed in places like Europe, South
America, Japan, and more. The group transforms
historically significant events into innovative, multi
media productions.
Sarafina!, a movie-musical starring Whoopi
Goldberg, will be shown at 7 p.m. in Reed 117. In a
time of segregation in South Africa, Sarafina, a stu
dent in a South African school dreams of a better
life. Teacher Mary Masembuko, played by
Goldberg, inspires Sarafina and the rest of her class
to not simply accept life, but to examine the struggle
for freedom.
Members of the Association of Black Collegians
and Behrend Alumni will sponsor a fun, trivia game
called, "Say Word." The game will test players'
knowledge of the Civil Rights movement, along
with other facts on Jan. 23 from 7-9 p.m. in Bruno's.
A night of expression, full of poetry and other per
sonal works, will be shared on Jan. 25 from 8-10
p.m. in Bruno's before the week ends with a service
project on Jan. 26. Students will be taking part in a
Habitat for Humanity event in Erie. "We hope peo
ple will come out and help us a build homes for the.
misfortunate here in Erie," Coleman said.
Behrend facilities earn
national recognition
By Sara Breese
contributing writer
slbsl69@psu.edu
Some may complain about "dreary Erie," but
Penn State Behrend continues to shine into the
spring semester. While the city of Erie has been
accumulating snow, Behrend has been racking up
national recognition.
In three national publications, Penn State Behrend
was acknowledged for three schools and two build
ings on campus. One of the newest buildings on
campus, the REDC, earned recognition as a "2 for 1"
deal.
In the Oct. 2007 issue of the American Society of
Engineering Education's Prism magazine, the Sam
and Irene Black School of Business and the School
of Engineering, both housed in the REDC, were
honored for creating a collaborative, "2 for 1" learn
ing experience.
The benefit of combining the two schools within
one building proves to be beneficial to many stu
dents on Behrend's campus. Senior Anthony Spoto
has been studying engineering throughout his career
at Behrend and has reaped the benefit of having his
engineering classes in one building.
"The REDC has great lab facilities that are acces
sible to upper level engineering students whenever
we need to use them," Spoto said.
See Recognition on page 2
News 1-2 Entertainment 5
Opinion 3 Student Life 6
Humor 4 Sports 7-8
Contents
A Penn State Behrend Student Publication
'lt was worth it'
Behrend student travels to
Africa to work at orphanages
Amy Sahlmann poses with a group of boys from an orphange she volunteered at in Nyeri, Kenya
By Lenny Smith
news editor
1r55046@ ~ u.edu
Amy Sahlmann, a junior biology major at Penn
State Behrend, left on Dec. 30 for a two week jour
ney that took her from Erie, Detroit, and Amsterdam
before she finally arrived in the African country of
Kenya 18 hours later.
Obsessed with living her life to the fullest,
Sahlmann knew that needed to include charity work.
"For a long time, I wanted to do some type of inter
national volunteer work and then finally one day I
said, 'You know what, I'm gunna do it,"' she said.
Over the last several years, Sahlmann has been
diligently saving money from her paychecks,
Christmas presents, and birthdays to fund the trip
that cost approximately $4,000.
To prevent spending the money, she hid all her
savings in a dresser drawer.
"I was able to do it because I could physically see
that the pile was growing higher and higher," she
said. "I went to Wal-Mart to do a money order to
send it all off and it was like sending away my baby."
After a trip to the Congo over the summer was can
celed due to civil war, Sahlmann's mother, Jann
Bowman said that Sahlmann would need to organize
her trip through an organization. After researching a
list of volunteer organizations, she found the Global
Volunteer Network. "They seemed to be the least
expensive, which was definitely a factor," she said.
"I felt better than in the summer when she wanted
to go to the Congo," Bowman said. "I kept getting
teary eyed."
Do too much of nothing over winter break?
Find out what went on in the world while
we were away from school.
Page 3, Opinion
That was before Bowman finally heard about the
rioting in Kenya. "We were so busy getting her ready
that we didn't even know about the presidential elec
tion or anything," Bowman said. "At that point you
just hope that everything you've said to them and
taught them in their lives has sunk it. And that it was
enough."
Upon arrival in Nairobi, Sahlmann's plans imme
diately changed. Originally planned to volunteer at
an all-girl's orphanage near Nairobi, Political unrest
after last month's presidential election forced
Sahlmann and her group to move.
"When I got to Nairobi we had to wait for three
hours for someone to pick us up." she said. "When I
go to the airport (in Nairobi), . , ”as freaking out
because it's complete chaos over there."
Sahlmann and the rest of the volunteers were
moved to the safer city of Nyeri. "At that point, five
or the 10 volunteers decided they were going to go
back to the States because they thought it was too
unsafe."
In Nyeri, Sahlmann stayed with a host family and
quickly learned their views on women are a lot dif
ferent from the United States. "Women are below
your animals, it was hard for me to see that. Women
[in Kenya] are expected to get married, have chil
dren, and are homemakers."
When the father of the host family asked
Sahlmann what she was going to school for, he could
not comprehend that she wanted to go to medical
school. "He kept looking at me like I was crazy," she
said.
PHOTO
See Sahlmann on page 2
holp (-etch
day, Rev. Al Sharpton is slated to sped!, oil
Thursday, Jan. 24 in Erie Hall.
More on Sharpton on page 2.
Vol. LIV No. XVI
Faulty ANGEL
service disrupts
finals
By Matt Schwabenbauer
assistant news editor
mjss3B7@psu.edu
Students expecting to use the Angel Course
Management System faced many complications
during finals week. The online system was not pre
pared to handle the large amount of users accessing
the resource. As a result, many students were
unable to access many of the features they needed
for their upcoming tests. Many professors post stu
dent assignments. notes and grades on Angel, so
being separated from such a crucial resource was
detrimental to many students during the busy finals
week.
The first sign of problems with ANGEL began
on Monday, Dec. 17. Users found they were either
unable to load the Angel page entirely. or the use of
certain features would result in an error message.
Later in the day, there was a post on the front page
of ANGEL, which gave a few details about the
problems, "Beginning around 5:30 p.m. today,
ANGEL again began experiencing intermittent
periods of slowness with errors on some pages. -
Throughout the span of the week, there were
numerous Information Technology Services (ITS)
alerts notifying users to expect problems. most
ending with the same claim, "The ITS team is cur
rently investigating this issue and working to
resolve it as quickly as possible." Although ITS
claimed to have researched the issue. student found
that ANGEL continued to be unreliable and incon
sistent throughout the week.
With so many students relying on ANGEL to
study for or take their finals, the outages were quite
problematic. "When I tried logging onto Angel
Tuesday morning nothing would work and I could
n't access my account," recalls freshman James
Svolos. "I needed to study for one of my finals. and
my notes were on Angel, so 1 wasn't able to prop
erly pfepare for the test."
Such limitations were all the more devastating to
the many commuters that attend Behrend.
"ANGEL wasn't working for me at home, so I was
forced to find computers on campus to check if it
was working or not," said freshman Bill
Frackowiak.
ITS posted a response on the main page of
ANGEL on Jan. 10, which detailed how they are
trying to prevent further complications with Angel.
The post contained a number of bullet points which
attempt to give insight into the efforts of ITS in try
ing to remedy the situation. From the post: "We
have doubled the number of Web servers for trans
actions. Additionally, we are in receipt of a larger,
faster database server and will begin acceptance
testing as soon as we possibly can. - The post ended
with examples of how users can speed up their
ANGEL experience.
Despite their admittance of solving the prob
lems, ANGEL was still experiencing problems on
Monday, Jan. 14 when students returned for the
spring semester. From the front page of ANGEL:
"Angel is currently experiencing performance
problems..." the post concluded with a list of cer
tain features that were disabled in order to correct
the issue.
Some students are disappointed with the service
on the whole. Students with technology-oriented
See ANGEL on page 2