Spanier Speaks University Status Report By Paula Marinak Capital Times Staff Writer Turnout for the annual State of the University address last Friday was weak at PSH, but one thing was clear to the dozen people who gathered in Olmsted's auditorium to hear President Graham B. Spanier speak: the university remains strong. Spanier earned high praise from his col leagues even before he stepped to the podium in University Park's Eisenhower Auditorium. Ted Junker, chairman of Penn State's board of trustees applauded the university's 16th president for "the ener gy, vision and commitment he has shown since he began serving here five years ago." During his remarks, which lasted about an hour, Spanier displayed obvious pride in ttie progress Penn State has made. But he also knows the entire university community can and must work harder to prepare itself for the coming century. The president charged every member of the audi ence to work with him in his mission to develop students' character and combine teaching, research and ser vice to make Penn State one of the leading universities in Pennsylvania and the country. He challenged his listeners to avoid becoming entangled in the often divisive web of university politics and to work toward even greater involvement. "It is not a land of University Park versus the commonwealth campuses or faculty ver sus students," said Spanier. "To govern is to choose, and we need to choose all of Penn State as a priority." He pledged to raise university standards in "virtually all endeavors" during his tenure. "We are moving forward at a time when higher learning is in great demand," Spanier said. "One out of two households in the state has someone involved in some type of Penn State program." Spanier said that some of the school's greatest strengths lie in its numbers. This past year marks a record for Penn State in several areas, especially enrollment. The university received a total of 78,000 applications for admission. The greatest increase came in the upper divisions of the Commonwealth College, which includes all 12 undergraduate locations. Applications to the Dickinson School of Law surpassed last year's totals by 36 percent. Spanier's commitment to diver sity has paid off over the last year. Enrollment of minority students in all Penn State academic programs has steadi ly risen each year for the past decade. The university has additionally seen dramatic improvements in its new school of information sciences and technology. In its second year, the program attracted 1,000 new students. The World University, which serves as a model for distance education programs at other schools, gained 3,000 students in its second year of operation. The faculty at University Park also the university's educa tional experience. Penn State also had a record-setting year in terms of monetary awards. The school received an additional $47 million for research. Another $7OO million has been added to the university-wide building pro gram for the next five years. PSH reaped some of these rewards with the new library, which was dedicated in March. Spanier reported that the university just completed its ninth consecutive record setting fund-raising year. Penn State has reached yet another finan cial milestone. The university's endowment has topped the $1 billion mark. M. Susan Richman, associate dean of academic affairs, explained what this means for PSH students. "Half the interest on that goes to fight infla tion, and the other half is available for what ever it is needed for," she said. Even with all of Penn State's recent financial successes, Spanier said tuition hikes will continue even if they outpace inflation. He cited the struggle to balance demands for access with demands for educational quality as the reason for tuition increases. "We can't choose one or the other," Spanier said. Therefore, he will continue to work to increase the number of undergraduate schol arships and graduate fellowships available. Though Penn State enjoyed success- in many different areas over the last year, Continued on Page 4 had a banner year. Several professors in disciplines such as archaeology, engineer ing and biology were honored for their work. The continued improve ment in scientific study is especially important since Spanier referred to the approaching century as "the century of life sci- ences." The president said University Park will continue to strengthen its research ties with Hershey Medical Center to ensure that the facility remains a vital part of Why the Band(width) Plays On (NAPSA)-According to industry experts, there will soon be about a billion people online. This can mean a trillion dollars in computer sales and another tril lion invested in providing the electricity all those computers will need. A billion PCs on the Web represents a global elec tric demand equal to the total electricity generation of the United States today. Everything from refrigerators and automobiles to vending machines and air conditioners are acquiring "intelligence" through soon-to-be-übiquitous low-cost chips and connecting to the Internet. Millions more devices of various kinds linked to the 'Net will create enormous demand for bandwidth, that is the space through which electronic signals can be sent. It will also increase the equipment and electric demand of the Internet. Consider this: Recent technology has created a digital x-ray machine. It lets doctors, hospitals, perhaps even emer gency personnel send high-quality trans missions of x-rays to any physician on the planet. That can greatly accelerate the demand for more bandwidth. The good news, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, the cost of processing data will drop by about 99 percent by 2005. This kind of cost reduction will vastly increase the use of networks. Considering that the aver age amount of electricity used per device on the Network will remain more or less the same, the implications are a lot more electric power is going to be necessary, no matter how much we try to save through various efficiency measures.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers