Yel y on ¢ PENNSTATE Delaware County Vol. XXX, No. 8 Eye Penn State University, Delaware County Campus March, 1999 to Promote City Life By Jenna Montgomery Assistant Editor Ever been to the River Rink or Boathouse Row? What about the Philadelphia Art Museum, South Street, or Fairmount Park? Philadel- phia has all this and more to offer. These points of destination are un- der-exploited. The city has a market- ing problem and needs more public- 1ty. Philadelphia’s slogan is “The City That Loves You Back.” And that is exactly what sentiment Mayor Edward G. Rendell is so desperately trying to convey to college students. Rendell, along with other government officials, has formed the Philadelphia College Student Reten- tion Committee. Their aim is to en- hance Philadelphia’s image by pro- moting it as a college town. And to entice students to remain here after graduation, they will increase aware- ness and access to career opportuni- ties. The committee’s first goal was to create a Student Congress with representatives from all the region’s schools. These students meet regularly with leaders and offi- cials to examine this critical issue and further the campaign. That begins with luring stu- dents into town. Students who live in dorms tend to stay on campus and they never connect with the city. Underclassmen remain tightly clus- tered in cliques and do not broaden _ their horizons socially. Some universities have set- up new-student orientation programs to ease the transition to life in a dif- ferent city and make them feel wel- come. At Chestnut Hill College, freshmen are required to take a course that helps them develop con- nections with Philadelphia. Real city ~ experiences dispel student’s fear and their safety concerns. They soon dis- cover the brighter side of Philadel- phia. Students have a four-year test-drive of the city and region. By reaching out and making them feel a part of the larger community, their years as a college student are en- riched. ‘If they have a good experi- ence, they are more likely to stay. Approximately 220,000 col- lege students in the five county Phila- delphia region leave after graduation. Very few remain in the area and the (Continued on page 5) New Scholarship Credit Eases Pain at Tax Time By Aimee Stone Editor-in-Chief The Internal Revenue Ser- vice deadline of April 15 for all tax returns is slowly approaching. Many changes have occurred in the tax law system throughout the past year that is an advantage to the majority of college students. Many students get student loans in order to pay for tuition and books. On some loans students must pay the interest while still attending school. A new tax law created from the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 al- lows a deduction for the interest paid on qualified education loans (REG- 116826-97). The Hope Scholarship Credit was created from the Taxpayer Re- lief Act of 1998. The credit provides students that attend a community college at least half time while sus- taining a B- average, a maximum of $1500 tax credit for the first two years (REG-106388-98). Another tax deduction was created from the relief act. A $10,000 tax deduction for tuition and fees was created for the parents and/or stu- dents each year. The law allows a deduction for incomes claimed indi- vidual between $50,000-70,000, and claimed combined income between $80,000-100,000 (REG-106388-98). There are many specifica- tions to the tax deductions and cred- its. A tax specialist should be con- tacted before the claims are made to avoid a fraudulent tax form. The 48 hour Dance Marathon happened this past weekend up at University Park. The dancers from our campus, Dana Conroy and Jennifer Pimpinella, survived and danced the entire 48 hours!!! Congratulations and many thanks to them for representing our campus. Penn State Delco’s various activities raised approximately $3500, which is a drastic improvement over the $200 that was raised last year. Thank you to all the students who participated in the fundraising activities and to the campus community for their generosity. Rachel Hurwitz checks out her options before approaching the hoop in the Lady Lions’ CCAC East playoff win over Penn State Abington. The win propelled the team to the CCAC Final at University Park. Results in next month's issue. Campus Struggles to Reach Compliance as Y2K Nears ~ By Ed Blackburn Lion's Eye Staff Writer The Year 2000. The new ‘millenivm. Both have a sci-fi-ish ring to ‘them. They bring to mind a super- advanced society, space stations and star wars. Technology so advanced, we won’t even have to drive cars or ride SEPTA, we’ll just kind of teleport to point B. Or we’ll scoot from place to place with tiny anti- gravity backpacks and cars like in The Jetsons. Wars will be fought in space, and the threat of nuclear war will be nothing compared to the threat of satellites frying enemy countries with laser beams or revers- ing and reflecting the Earth’s grav- ity toward them. Computers and ro- bots will be able to learn things (and hopefully not turn against us), even- tually doing all of our hard labor for us. : But before we get that ad- vanced with computer-driven soci- ety, we have a small problem to fix. Actually, a big one. Society as we know it is in danger of collapse very, very soon. In nine months to be ex- act. As millions of people throw all-out Year 2000 parties on the com- ing December 31%, drenching them- selves with alcohol and lighting up the streets with home-made fire- works, computers (which we depend on for far more than you may think) will malfunction. Not all, but enough. Banking systems will crash, electric and water will cease work- ing, airplanes won’t fly for fear of crashing, and those who think that computers only affect geeks will get religion fast. Droves of people are already fleeing to the mountains (as if that would save them), buying tons of bottled water, canned food, emer- gency generators — and arming them- selves with shotguns. Shotguns! As you can imagine, millenium proph- ets everywhere, as well as religious leaders are coming out of the woodworks proclaiming the nearing end of the World. This isn’t Holly- wood, folks, this is the real deal. “Why is this happening?’ you may ask. When early programmers were inputting data into their com- puters, memory was really expensive (as opposed today’s low cost). Pro- grammers wanted to save space, so they figured out a cheap solution: they reasoned that if they only stored the last two digits of the year, instead of all four, and made the 1900s the default century, they’d only have to use half the space. So, 1975 was . stored as 75; 1976 was 76, and so on. It was therefore always assumed by computers that every year would be in the 1900s — they weren’t taught how to advance to the next set of hundred when they passed 1999. ‘Why can’t we just tell the computers it’s a new century?’ you probably wonder. Some computers will actually recognize that there’s a (Continued on page 2) A GLANCE INSIDE: Page2 ...... Route 1 Clean-Up Page 3 .The New SGA Page 5 .. .People Poll in Review
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers