I Friday, Oct. 22, 2010 TMi I) \fl. A Collegian Elizabeth Murphy Lthior m ( hid kelsev Thompson liimncs\ Mmuiiicr About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are pub lished by Collegian Inc., an independent, nonprofit cor poration with a board of directo'S composed of stu dents. ‘acuity and profes sionals. Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both papers and solicit advertising foi them. Dunng the fall and spring semes ters as well as the second six week summer session. The Daily Collegian publish es Monday through Friday, issues are distributed by mail to other Penn State campuses and subscnbers. Complaints: News and edi torial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be pre sented to the business man- Who we are The Daily Collegian's edito rial opinion is determined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final responsibility. The letters and columns expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of The Daily Collegian or Collegian Inc. Collegian Inc., publish ers of The Daily Collegian and related publications, is a separate corporate institu tion from Penn State. Members are: Lexi Bel culfme Caitlin Burnham, Paul Caselia. Kevin Cinlli. Beth Ann Dov.ne,. Amanda Elser. Zacnar, Feldman. Ashley Gold. Stephen Hennessey. Allison Jackovitz. Kevin Kline. Samantha Kramer. Bill Landis, Andrew Metcalf. Nate Mink. Elizabeth Murphy. Laura Nichols, Michael Oplinger, Edgar Ramirez. Heather Schmelzlen. Caitlin Sellers. Laurie Stern. Katie Sullivan. Jessica IJzar. Aubrey Whelan, Alex Weisier, Somer Wiggins, Steph Witt and Chris Zook. Letters We want to hear your com ments on our coverage, editorial decisions and the Penn State community. ■ E-mail collegianletters@psu.edu ■ Online www.psucollegian.com ■ Postal mail/ln person 123 S. Burrowes St. University Park. PA 16801 Letters should be about 200 words Student letters should include class year, major and campus. Letters from alumni should include year of graduation. All writers should provide their address and phone number for verification. Letters should be signed by no more than two peo ple. Members of organiza tions must include their titles if the topic they write about is connected with the aim of their groups. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters. The Collegian cannot guaran tee publication of all let ters it receives. Letters chosen also run on The Daily Collegian Online and may be selected for publi cation in The Weekly Colle gian. All letters become property of Collegian Inc. Ranking jump not high enough The United States was recently ranked 19th glob ally in gender equality. The ranking, which is based on economic partic ipation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival, rose from 31st last year. Though the jump into the Top 20 countries in the world dedicated to elimi nating gender inequality shows progress, there clearly is a lot of work to be done on the issue. For a country that puts so much emphasis on being the land of the free and equal, there are still gaps between equal pay jf4tL ’LEDgf DRIVE Seat benefits students, community By TJ Bard This past week has been an eventful one for not University Park Undergraduate Association, but also the entirety of the Penn State and State College commu nities. We as md historic inlv the MY OPINION students now have a stable and powerful seat in the decision making process for our local govern ment. This week marks a milestone in the creation of an everlasting form of communication between the State College Borough Council and the Penn State stu dent bodv. Clearly, I am referring to the recent passing of the resolution forming a non-voting student representative to the State College Borough Council. As the Governmental Affairs Chairman for UPUA, I have worked very closely with this proposal from the start. This ini tiative about the inclusion of a non-voting student representa tive has been one that I have pur sued passionately since the end of my freshman year. I was previously a non-voting student member in my home town and helped to establish similar models throughout my community's governing bodies. Coming to Penn State, I quickly saw the apparent need to bridge the overwhelming gap between students and the State College Borough. I was encouraged when UPUA President Christian Ragland and and equal work Along with economic issues, women only make up a small percentage of our nation’s political leaders in Congress. And when female leaders do run for political office, the public and the media seem to focus more on her emo tional state or her latest haircut than her actual political policies. Penn State is not exact ly a microcosm for gender equality either. There has never been a female pres ident of Penn State, and though the university seems to be equal when it comes to women in stu dent leadership positions / // mke that CALL TOPAY 1 Vice President Colleen Smith included this initiative on their platform, and subsequently pur sued it after being elected. I believe this position could become the most influential and historic position for any student at Penn State to obtain as an undergraduate. It is hard to realize the sheer magnitude and importance that this decision has carried. Now, we as students have a perma nent voice on the borough coun cil. We are able to formally voice questions, concerns and opin ions on all matters occurring in State College. This means that the student body is guaranteed to be considered in every facet of a borough council decision. I believe, though, that it is more than just the student body of Penn State that benefits from this historic decision. I have always spoken to that fact that this position allows for communi cation to be a two way street. The non-voting student representa tive position should not only be utilized by the student body. This seat should be a resource for the borough council and entire State College community. It is imperative that the com munity uses the position as a way to directly connect to the student body. I hope that the community can voice their con cerns or ideas at the council meetings with the confidence that the non-voting student rep resentative will take that infor mation back to the student body. This position is far more than just an extra seat at a meeting. This position will be an opportu nity it will be an opportunity' to form relationships, strengthen bonds, voice concerns and con- such as UPUA, THON and other organizations, the administration leader ship is lacking in female numbers. Breaking the stereo types of women in Ameri ca from how they should dress to how they should behave and what positions they should or shouldn’t hold seems like the first step in push ing our gender equality ranking higher. Ranking 19th out of 136 other countries isn’t too bad, but not too bad is not the sentiment that the U.S. strives for on many other issues. This should be no different. POFUAJD MPR/f tribute to the overall governance of State College. This entire process has been a testament to the willingness of the borough to work with stu dents. I was so enthusiastic and pleased about the welcoming I received from the council mem bers during my almost two months of individual meetings that I conducted to discuss this resolution. I promise that the council is excited about the students and genuinely wants them to be involved. I commend the council members for being so open minded and truly taking a leap forward in the improvement of relationships between students and their elected officials. The unanimous passing of the resolution sends such a strong message of cooperation and compromise. The creation of this position was nothing short of monumental for everyone involved. This was a collaborated effort between the borough council, residents of State College, the UPUA assembly and the execu tive board. But more importantly, this will be a position that serves the entire community for decades to come. I have always advocated that UPUA should be the voice of Penn State students. This time we were able to create a position that does just that. It is the voice and will continue to be the voice of the student body where it proves to matter most. TJ Bard is a sophomore majoring in economics and political science. He is the UPUA Governmental Affairs Com mittee Chairman and is The Daily Col legian's Friday guest columnist. His e mail is trb2o4@psu.edu. Team giving, coaches failing After reading Wednesday’s letter “Fans are not entitled to wins,” I was extremely surprised by the author’s response. In criti cizing Mr. Herman’s statement of wanting a reimbursement for season tickets, she com pares it to a professor giving a student an E A professor doesn’t give a student an F just because the professor wants to and the par ent’s who complain expect the students to do their best. The same is expected of the football team the entire team, players and all. We expect the players to go out there and do their best. We also expect the coaches to call plays that benefit the team. Only calling seven throwing plays in an entire game does not do that. I do not blame Mr. Herman for wanting his money back. If a student went to class and tried their best, got good grades on all tests and the professor still failed him then the student should want their money back. That is the situation that these football play ers are in. They are giving their all and the coaches are fading them literally and fig uratively. Maybe Mr. Herman is wrong is throwing the "get rid of JoePa'' card out their, but I think all fans will agree that something needs to change. PSU football still a business 5 6 In response-to Wednesday's letter "Fans are not entitled to wins." Ms. Teeple must be one of those "Kool-aid drinkers" that believes that we should just accept medioc rity and allow' JoePa to stay forever because of the legend's past and not whether he is truly capable of running the current pro gram. pfV ti P JO 1 3 r I stated that comparing this program to the 1964 turnaround was like comparing apples to oranges. I hope that you do under stand that you run a business to succeed and mediocrity and less is not acceptable. Whether you want to believe it or not. foot ball at major universities is big business. Take it away, or even cut the rev enue that it brings in. and watch the ripple effect on the university. That being said, the CEO of the program (head coach) has the responsibility of making sure that the "business" is sue cessful as that is what the stockholders (season ticket holders) expect with their investment. JoePa states that he has dele gated much of the coaching responsibilities to his assistant coaches. There is the answer. The assistant coaches are demon strating that they cannot get the job done and JoePa is demonstrating that he is no longer able to perform all the functions that the "CEO" position requires. When the CEO can no longer achieve suc cess with the "business" then it is time for a new CEO. There will never be another JoePa, but that does not mean that there is not someone out there that, in his own way. will bring new excitement and success to Penn State football. Let the new era begin ASAP Engineers need ‘soft skills’ In response to Thursday s article "PSU engineering ‘highly regarded," Mr. Wintner accurately captured the value and increas ing importance to engineers of so-called "soft skills" — which are critical to project and product success Regardless of where engineering students learn the technical aspects of their trade, they would be wise to invest some time in learning and mastering interpersonal skills. Programs like those at Penn State and MIT and the other partic- ipating institutions at this meeting are preparing young engineers leaders to become effective engineering leaders. Bruce R. Mendelsohn director of communications and outreach at MIT Change is good Hey. all. Welcome back to the Collegian's ever-evolving new website I'm Paige Minemyer. one of the online managers responsible for maintaining content on our site. It seems like we just got settled into the new look of our freshly overhauled website, the baby of the web staff. However, you know what they say... you can't please everyone. So, we met with the newsroom to dis cuss the things they'd like to see hap pen on our website ..and boom. We changed it. just like that, because we want the Collegian's site to be as effec tive as possible for conveying the news to Penn Staters. Though the changes you see now may be small, they repre sent our effort to move even closer to integrating the look of our broadsheets with that of our homepage. The main home layout will also gain a new sense of consistency with updates. The layout you see will generally only change in content, not in design. And it’s my job as an OM to keep an eye on the design and to see that visitors are being exposed to different stories and features during the day without losing grasp of the big stories and important content everyone needs to know. What do you think of the updates? What would you like to see on the site to make content more accessible and explorable?... Read more of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucolleglan.com/blogs. The Daily Collegian Manal Khalil Class of 2010 Rick Herman Class of 1975 Paige Minemyer Online Manager
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