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The Fourth Wall
page 7
Many students view
professors as people who
provide them with
information, test their
knowledge and sometimes
require them to write papers.
Rarely do students realize the
varied activities of a professor.
The role of a professor
changes depending on if they
are teaching, involved in service,
or conducting research.
service activities allow
professors to travel to exotic
places. For instance, last spring
Dr. Bohun, Assistant Professor
of Math, was invited to attend
a conference in Hong Kong
followed by a special meeting
in China concerning the role of
industry in academia. Dr.
Bohun'’s experience at industrial
problem solving workshops
made his input at the China
meeting extremely valuable.
Recently Dr. Bohun was
invited overseas to South Africa
to participate in their annual
industrial workshop. This is the
third year that South Africa will
be hosting an industrial
problem solving workshop
using the Oxford model
guidelines. The role of these
workshops is to create
opportunities for industrial and
academic representatives to
collaborate on a variety of
industrial problems.
The main focus at these
events is to solve problems
brought by industry in a
problems are presented on the
Monday morning and by the
afternoon, the faculty and
student participants break into
groups of about 6-10 members
for each problem. Work on the
problem continues from
Tuesday through Thursday
and by Friday a solution or
partial solution is presented to
the entire group. Because of the
time constraints each group is
also assigned a faculty mentor
to ensure that the academics are
making progress towards a
solution and that the
industrialists understand any
progress that is being made.
Following the presentations,
each group must write a paper
outlining their research and
indicating any solutions. All
the papers are then published
as the proceedings for the
event.
mentor and also assist students
with the research. He has also
been asked to help edit the
proceedings. What makes his
input so valuable is that he has
the unique perspective of first
attending the meetings as a
student, then becoming a
participant with some expertise
in a particular field, and finally
becoming a mentor and
involved with the organization
of these events.
As students, we do not
think about professors except
as teachers when typically this
is only a small part of their
daily activities. This is just one
example of how one of our
professors is active in research
and providing a service to his
profession. He is also fortunate
in that his research activities
allow him to travel to many
different parts of the world.
Ao]
El
Phone: 814-234-0333
Fax; 814-234-0474
southgateapartments
@hotmail.com
Beth Herbert
Hi all!
I am writing to tell everyone
of a group I have been
involved in at school, called
THON. THON is the world’s
largest, student run
philanthropy in the world,
raising money for kids at Penn
State Hershey that have cancer.
clubs and
organizations sponsor families,
raising money throughout the
year to help this family pay for
medical bills, etc. The money
is split among things like that,
and the other half of it goes
towards research at Hershey.
Last year alone, PSU raised
$4.1million. My organization
is sponsoring Krystian Bell, a
freshman in high school who
has battled cancer her whole
life. At THON, each
organization has either two or
four “dancers.” These dancers
stand for forty-eight hours (no
sleep), to show their support for
the kids. Family, friends, and
the THON family all attend to
support the dancers on. Itis a
very emotional weekend,
hearing a lot of unfortunate
stories. Anyway, I have been
chosen as a dancer for Mont
Alto. This letter is for a couple
of purposes. First, so people
can realize the good that I am
doing. Second, if anyone
would like to make a donation,
please write.. Third, dancers
are encouraged to have people
send them mail, packages, etc.
to help motivate them on 48
hours of standing with no
sleep.
The address to send mail to is:
Attn: Mail Call
Dancer # 166A
Beth Herbert
220 Hetzel Union Building
University Park, PA
16802
Thank you for your support
everyone! Also, the THON
website is www.thon.org
please check it out!
“For the Kids,”
Beth