4 I TUEDAY, SEPT. 14, 2010
PAKISTAN
Students
fundraise
for relief
By Eddie Lau
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
While millions of Pakistan's
flood victims celebrated Eid al-
Fit the end of the holy month
of Ramadan at relief camps on
Saturday, Pakistani students at
Penn State are doing their part to
contribute.
'lb help the flood victims, Yasar
Awan, president of the Pakistani
Student Association, said a
fundraising dinner will be held at
6 p.m. Saturday in the Paul
Robeson Cultural Center's
Heritage Hall.
Awan (senior-science) said tick
ets will be sold on the ground floor
of the HUB-Robeson Center from
Monday to Friday for $l5.
Awan said the funds raised
from the dinner will be donated to
UNICEF, a United Nations organ
ization that works to help children
and provide disaster relief.
Izzah Khan (freshman-English
and public relations) said she wit
nessed how the flood damaged a
large part of her country. When
the flood hit the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa an area of north
west Pakistan, she was in
Karachi, the southern region of
the country, visiting her relatives.
Though her home in Karachi
was not affected by the floods,
Commons
By Matt Scorzafave
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
A new Knowledge Commons
that will provide students with a
number of technology services is
currently under construction in
Pattee Library a major renova
tion that will be available for stu
dents by the next academic year.
"We had wanted to do it for a
long time since a number of major
research universities have insti
tuted similar spaces," said Daniel
Mack, the Tombros librarian for
classics and ancient
Mediterranean studies and head
of the arts and humanities library.
The new space will definitely
PSU receives research grant
By Brendan McNally
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Penn State recently received $3.6 million
frOm the U.S. Department of State to
research security enhancements that will
be used in U.S. embassies and other gov
ernment facilities abroad.
The Penn State's Thomas D. Larson
Transportation Institute will use the funds
to study anti-ram barriers, specially
designed gates meant to stop vehicles
traveling at high speeds, which could be a
security threat, said Zoltan Rado, director
of the Penn State Crash Safety Research
Facility
The College of Engineering will collabo
rate with the College of Information
Sciences and Technology to evaluate secu
rity risks for different government build
ings and to determine what security meas
ures will provide the most effective protec
tion, said Daniel Linzell, director of the
Penn State Protective Technology Center.
Part of the research will be dedicated
toward designing aesthetically pleasing
and unobtrusive anti-ram barriers that will
still provide adequate protection for U.S.
personnel and buildings, Rado said.
"The intention of the work we are doing
is not only to protect our interests and peo
ple, but to do it in a way that is as palatable
as possible," Linzell said.
Rado said the U.S. doesn't want the bar-
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A Pakistani girl reacts as another cuts the line while waiting for food
distribution at a camp in Pakistan. The Pakistani Student Association is
hosting a dinner on Saturday to raise money for flood victims. •
Khan said she saw many students
traveling around Pakistan to
fundraise and deliver food dona
tions in the wake of the disaster.
Khan said because of the flood,
a lot of Pakistanis were not inter
ested in celebrating the most
important festival in the Islamic
calendar Eid al-Fitr. She said
the festival is near equivalent to
Christmas in the United States in
terms of importance.
"A lot of people lost their homes
water is everywhere," Khan
said. "It is not a situation to cele
brate Eid."
The Pakistani government also
urged its citizens to avoid festivi
ties at Eid and to celebrate it with
simplicity, according to a press
release issued Friday.
In a typical year Pakistanis
would have started the morning
with Eid prayer, Khan said, and
then enjoyed the rest of the day
with their relatives and friends.
But in the aftermath of the
floods, no one is in much of a
mood to celebrate, Khan said.
focused on technology to be built in Pattee
come in handy to students who
use technology in their work,
Mack said.
The Knowledge Commons will
feature a number of resources for
students, including video produc
tion areas, podcasting facilities,
service kiosks, study areas and
integrated help desk areas.
University Libraries began con
struction on the project last
spring, and Mack said the project
will be completed by 2011.
Catherine Grigor, manager of
public relations and marketing for
University Libraries, said the proj
ect has been coming in stages.
Initially, the maps library was
moved from Pattee Library to
riers to the U.S. embassy in Paris, for
example, to look like a fortress, whereas
barriers might be designed to be appear
more obtrusive and secure in places that
are more hostile to the U.S.
"You might want some of these buildings
to be open deterrents," Rado said. "Like,
`Hey, don't even try here.'
Rado said Penn State's Crash Safety
Research Center a facility that allows
researchers to crash cars and trucks at
high speeds will use the grant to test
the effectiveness of different anti-ram bar
riers. The facility allows researchers to
collect data about the impacts and the
effectiveness of the barriers, Rado said.
Potential designs for the barriers are
studied using computer simulations in
conjunction with tests at the facility
"We do a lot of computer models of the
proposed crash test to get an idea of how
things will perform," Linzell said.
The simulations are compared to actual
results.of the facility's tests, which allows
researchers to create an accurate comput
er model of how the barriers will react in
different situations.
Michael Casper, information specialist
for the Larson Institute, said the U.S.
Department of State could grant more
money in the future depending on the suc
cess of Penn State's research.
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"This year's Eid festival is
being celebrated on such a
moment of history, when a large
part of country is under the dev
astation caused by pre-Ramadan
floods," Pakistan's Prime
Minister Yousuf Ftaza Gilani said
in a speech to his country
Khan said those who choose
not to attend the dinner can still
help by donating money to help
the flood victims.
- You went to a football game for
$75 you can definitely give $lO
to save a life," she said.
The worst floods in Pakistan's
history began in late July after a
monsoon struck and swamped
one-fifth of the country. The mon
soon killed more than 1,700 peo
ple and left more than two million
homeless, according the latest
U.N. report.
Pakistan's disaster officials
have said the death toll is likely to
rise "significantly" when the
missing are accounted for.
Paterno Library Grigor said. The
Foster Auditorium was also
moved from Pattee Library to
Paterno Library, with the original
auditorium becoming a new read
ing room, Mack said.
Grigor said a public website
with the Knowledge Commons'
design will launch this week
Mack said the project was set
into motion after a $2.5 million
joint donation by Anne and Peter
G. Tombros and Jean and John R.
McWhirter last February
"We're able to do things like this
from amazing alumni. Without
them, we wouldn't even consider a
project like this," he said.
Though the project had been an
To e-mail reporter: bwmsl47@psu.edu
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To e-mail reporter: tolslos@psu.edu
Alumni to host gala
in NYC for THON
By Vera Greene
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Penn State quarterbacks coach
Jay Paterno will travel to New
York City in January to be the
master of cere
monies at a
THON benefit.
For the third
year in a row, a
group of newly
graduated Penn
students
host the
THON Hope Gala Patemo
in New York City
at the Capitale banquet venue,
with proceeds benefiting the
Interfraternity Council/Panhell
enic Dance Marathon.
During the past few weeks,
Hope Gala organizers have given
clues to Penn Staters in the NYC
area at local bars and via
Facebook about who the emcee is
this year.
Halley Apter, Class of 2007 and
communications chairwoman for
the fundraiser, said the gala start
ed out as four people active in
THON during college getting
together after they graduated so
they could stay involved with the
organization.
- Last year the emcee was foot
ball player LaVar Arrington,"
Apter said. "We're really excited
for Jay Paterno to come."
Since there is a large alumni
network in the Big Apple, Tina
Clabbers, Class of 2008, said the
idea for quite some time, Grigor
said the project really got under
way after the donation. "Unless
you have money, you cannot move
forward. The money has to be in
place to get approval," she said.
Anne Tombros and Jean
McWhirter have been longtime
friends and members of the
Libraries Development Board. As
a result, they've become familiar
with the libraries' aspirations,
Grigor said.
For the past two or three years,
library officials have continued to
benchmark what other university
libraries were doing and how they
could mimic that success, Grigor
said.
,
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Hope Gala is beneficial because it
taps into a big alumni resource
that was virtually untouched
before the gala was created three
years ago.
Apter, who was a public rela
tions captain and danced her sen
ior year at Penn State, said the
event is a continued success,
attracting between 250 and 300
attendees each year.
"Last year we made over
$25,000," Apter said, "We're hop
ing to top it this year"
The gala consists of a silent
auction, a cocktail hour and a
three-course sit down dinner dur
ing which a featured THON fami
ly speaks. Kicking off the evening,
the silent auction has been
known to include items such as
signed Penn State athletic memo
rabilia, VIP tickets to the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade and
tickets to fly out to Los Angeles
and see comedian Chelsea
Handler.
Clabbers, another communica
tions chairwoman, said the event
has had mostly young attendees
in past years, but this year, organ
izers are trying to gear the invita
tions toward more prominent
alumni within the city
"We want to spread the word to
the older crowd," Clabber said,
"So next year, they will already
know of this event and already
have it budgeted and put into
their schedule."
To e-mail reporter: vhgsoo3@psu.edu
The new technology that will be
incorporated into the library
comes as no surprise to many stu
dents who spend most of their
studying time on the computer.
"I use computers way more
than I use books. I'll definitely be
more willing to use the library
than I do now," Wendy Kaufman
(freshman-graphic design) said.
Mack said the reason behind of
the project is to really focus on the
students.
"People think libraries are dead.
They're not," he said. "It's all
about the resources that are avail
able to students."
To e-mail reporter: mrss429@psu.edu
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