Friday, April 3, 2009 AN EXPANDING CAMPUS A COMPREHENSIVE LOOK BEHREND IS GROWING By Connor Sattely managing editor cisso6o(a psu.edu This is the first part of a four article series examining the ways in which Behrend is growing. Throughout the rest of the year, the Beacon will exam ine changes on-campus from four aspects: physical expan sion and renovation, admis sions and personnel, technology, and academics. It seems a foregone conclu sion that Behrend has grown massively over the past decade. Freshman classes are jostling for the record of the largest at the school. Any teacher who has been part of the university for more than five years seems to have an "I remember when" story. It is in this environment of proud, expansive growth that the modern Behrend student is assailed with statistics. This is the first of a four-part series. Fo more in- formation or to catch up on other articles, check out www.thebehrendbeacon.com Erie County to establish a community college By Jennifer Juncosa perspectives/news editor jdjso6lca psu.edu County Executive Mark Di- Vecchio is making positive strides towards establishing a community college in the city of Erie. Through surveys, the residents of Erie County have expressed huge interest in a community college that would offer affordable educational op protunities. The ideal range for tuition is $2,000 to $2,500 a year. The col lege would provide a place for workers to update their specific trades. It would also be a place for students to start their four- BRACKET INS PAG Contact Us Newsroom: 898-6488 Fax: 898-6019 Visit us on the web! wwwthebehrend beacon.com E-mail: rcrsos7@psu.edu a? Behrend's admissions are growing by such and such a percent, there are new build ings popping up on every cor ner. The Beacon, over the next four weeks, will look at how the campus is changing and how those changes will affect the average student. The first, and perhaps most immediately noticeable change in the campus is its physical expansion and renovation for current facilities. The book store renovations are planned for completion this fall; con struction on that has already begun, so students are aware of the changes. Many other projects, though, are flying under the radar amongst the student population. With individual projects aside, the question asked by many Behrend students deals with the idea of the future. Where will Behrend end up? In fifty years, will the city of Erie see a campus as large as Uni versity Park? The answer, says Associate Dean David Christiansen, is no. "Simply put," he says, "we want to be Behrend. We don't want to become University Park. We feel that we offer a high quality education here, in an intimate setting. There's no large lecture classes, and un like at University Park, the ma jority of classes here are not taught by graduate students." According to Christiansen and the Admissions Depart year degrees at one-fourth or one-eighth of the cost of attend ing a four-year college or uni versity. Community colleges also tend to see adult and re turning students who hope to train for a new career path. Starting up a new school is a long and complicated task. The process for establishing a com munity college consists of 100 one-on-one, hour-long, meet ings with community leaders, and eight regional forums with community leaders, according to the director of Economic De velopment, Bob Spaulding in news conference in Feb. Although the community col lege does not yet have a set lo- A Penn State Behrend Student Publication AT HOW, WHY, AND WHERE INTO THE NEW DECADE ment at Behrend, the univer sity plans to hit a "sweet spot" of about 5,000 enrolled stu dents, plus or minus a few hun dred depending on interest from commuters and world campus students. Physical expansion and ren ovation, says Christiansen, will follow enrollment. However, the prospect of a Penn State campus as large as University Park seems unlikely, even decades in the future. So, in the meantime, Behrend will continue to reno vate and improve existing facil ities, and construct new buildings or wings as necessi tated by the student base. Chancellor Jack Burke, who will be entering his last year at Behrend this fall, says the time is ripe to start construction projects. "Right now, we're see ing the best bid atmosphere since the early eighties," he says. Behrend certainly has no short list of things that it wishes to accomplish over the next decade. Projects that are set to commence and have ei ther not received bids yet or are aiming towards construc tion shortly include the current renovation to the bookstore, a renovation of Dobbins Dining Hall, the new Metzgar Admis sions and Alumni Center, a retrofitting of the chemistry labs in Science, and renova tions to Reed. Each item that is set to begin cation, DiVecchio and others working to establish the college are expecting 700 students in the first year. The college's first year is expected to cost six mil lion dollars. Despite the cost of running the college for a year, the tuition will be affordable for Erie residents even taking into consideration the fact that Erie has the highest poverty rate in the state of Pa. DiVecchio said that the students would pay one-third of the tuition; the state and county will pay the other two-third of the tuition. DiVecchio believes that an af fordable education is what will help the community get a post secondary education and ulti mately reduce the number of those living in poverty in Erie. Over 2,100 Erie residents took part in the online survey to determine if a community col lege would be a good idea. "We have never seen such a commu nity response, in surveying, like this," said Spaulding. Seventy five percent of the parents that took the survey said that they would like their child to con sider a community college. Two- thirds of the students that responded to the survey said that they would like to stay in Erie and go to a community col lege because it would be acces sible and affordable. According to Spaulding, the response from the community shows that Erie would support a community college. Only 16 percent of Erie residents have a post secondary education and the surrounding schools Gan non, Mercyhurst, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, and The site of the Metzger Centel construction or a bidding process must first undergo a feasibility study, which looks at a project's usefulness, cost, and likelihood of completion. Cur rently, Behrend is exploring the possibility of a turf soccer field and a track, which is currently in the middle of a feasibility study. Projects that fall under "pre feasibility" are generally ideas that are being seriously consid ered but not acted upon offi cially yet. This list includes a convenience store and a recre ation center, as per the Student Facilities Fund (SFF) proposal. which was proposed to the chancellor last week. It called for feasibility studies on many different improvements to the campus, the most popular of which was a new convenience store on-campus. see HEADLINE on page 7 Edinboro are unaffordable to the people in Erie. According to DiVecchio, only 18 percent of Mercyhurst students are from Erie and Gannon only has 22 percent. However, there are still some doubts floating around the community. Some concerns have been made apparent through letters to the editor in the local newspaper. The pri mary concern is the extra strain it would put on taxpayers, along with worries that there is no need for another college in a community with four already established colleges and uni versities. The next step for DiVecchio and those working with him to establish a community college is to send out an application in June of 'O9 to the state. The ap plication is expected to prove that Erie needs the community college so that unqualified Erie residents can become con tributing members of society. The application must project the first ten years of the college and show sustainability. DiVecchio believes, that in ten years, the admissions will be 7,000 students in a degree. diploma, or certificate program. "The governor has the ultimate decision," said Spaulding. "He will support it, he will make a line in the budget for it, or he will not. It's our job to make sure the application is strong enough and contains enough information within it to sell the college ." Lady Lions dominate in double- header By Christine Newby sports editor censos6 psu edu The Lady Lions remain un defeated in the AMCC with a record of 5-0 as they were vic torious against the Pitt-Brad ford Panthers in two games on Tuesday and added wins to their overall record 11-4. "I feel that we came out ex tremely strong for the game." said senior pitcher, Julie Koman. "Everyone performed very well in both offense and defense. This carried over into the second game as well. It is typically hard to come hack into the second game and con tinue to hit and field as well as we did the first game, but we refocused and were able to do In the bottom of the second inning, senior outfielder Katie Whitby singled which loaded the bases. The Lady Lions put the first points on the score board when senior outfielder Allison Babish drove in a run to make the score I-0. Hitting proved to he conta gious in the bottom of the fourth for the Behrend Lions. The team hit three consecutive singles. Whitby and Babish both reached first by hunting. Freshman third baseman Ash ley Gruber hit a hard grounder up the middle into center field which drove in Whitby and moved Babish to second. Sophomore Maddie Wieser stepped to the plate and added Baseball team wins back-to-back games By Shawn Annarelli contributing writer smasls9 „ psu.edu Penn State Behrend's base ball team has comfortably coasted into conference play by sweeping their first three double header match-ups against rivals Frostburg State University. Medaille Univer sity, and, most recently. Mt. Alovsius. Their most recent contests against Mt. Aloysius (11-10, 2) patted their overall record to 13-2 and continued their un defeated streak in conference play to 6-0. The first game of the double header against Mt. Aloysius was a battle on the mound as Mounties pitcher Chad Mattis and Lions senior Dave Koerbel matched each other pitch for pitch, stifling batters on each team. Koerbel, though, would go on to have the last laugh of the pitcher's duel as he pitched a one run complete game. He held Mt. Aloysius hatters to just six hits, forced several double plays to prevent being in jams, and struck out eight batters. The Lions got an early 1-I) lead in the second inning due to their middle infielders bats News 1-7 Perspectives 8-9 Arts 10 Sports 11-13 Local Dining 14 Vol. LV No. XXIII Senior pitcher Julie Kornai) two RBIs for herself -as she drove in two runs to put the Lions up 7-0. The Lady Lions defense in the top of the fifth inning made two outstanding plays. Fresh man right fielder Nicole Ganster snagged a difficult catch and then threw the ball to second base for the double play. Senior catcher Lindsay Baughman made a diving catch in foul territory for the third out of the inning. Pitt-Bradford only scored one run against the Lions which was in the top of the seventh. Senior pitcher Julie Koman pitched a complete-game with six strikeouts and earned a 7- 1 win. "I thought the team did a great job from bouncing back with the hitting from this past weekend," said head coach Stacy Pondo. "They worked as a team both on the offense and defensive sides. As for the sec ond game, we talked to them to make sure that they were still up for the second game and to stay focused from start to finish, and this is what they did. Our team plays best when they are relaxed." The Behrend Lions did not hesitate to start see LADY LIONS on page 13 and brawn. Short-stop junior Josh Fyffe got on base with a two out single and then stole second for the lone stolen base of the game. Second-baseman junior Ryan Liddle followed Fyffe's lead as he swung away for a two-out RBI double. After the early lead the Lions' bats cooled off, but their pitcher just kept getting hotter. Koerhel and the Lions' defense held off the Mounties' bats for the first six innings before things turned sour in the sev enth and final inning. The Mounties' Dan Clark led off the inning with a double. The next batter attempted to bunt Clark to third, but popped out to the Lions' fresh man catcher Ryan Geibel. With one on, the Mounties' Matt Cornetti hit a game tying RBI single off of Koerbel. Ko erbel responded to the come back by picking off Cornetti on first and striking out the final Mounties' batter. He contin ued his individual undefeated streak and now has a 4-0 record and a miniscule 1.40 ERA. see BASEBALL on page 12 Contents o,lllllhuled