Welcome, Citizens!

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I always enjoy the annual International Education Week events and presentations, especially the panel of students talking about how study abroad has made an impact on their lives. It’s very gratifying to hear from IUP students–many from tiny little towns here in Pennsylvania–who have had entire new worlds opened up to them due to study abroad opportunities.

But this year, we will be hosting something REALLY special and different.

On Friday, October 14, at 11:00 a.m. at the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex’s Toretti Auditorium, 102 people from forty different countries will officially begin their lives as American citizens.

Last month, Michele Petrucci, director of IUP’s Office of International Education, was contacted by the Pittsburgh field office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“Would IUP be interested in hosting a naturalization ceremony?” they asked. “We are thinking about Friday, October 14,” (which just happened to be the final day of International Education Week. So perfect).

Dr. Petrucci checked with university leadership, and the answer was an enthusiastic “yes!”

In fact, David Werner, IUP’s interim president, agreed to welcome the candidates and offer remarks during the ceremony.

This particular ceremony will also have a very special meaning to one of our own. Pooja Rishi, originally from Madras, India, and a faculty member in the IUP Department of Political Science, will be naturalized Friday. She also will take part in the ceremony as a candidate speaker.

“It’s a sense of permanency,” she said of her upcoming citizenship. She and her husband are the parents of a young son, and she said that she also wanted to be a citizen for family reasons. “I’m here, in this community, raising my child. I have a stake in this community, and being a citizen is important to me.”

Becoming a citizen is not as easy as it seems. You cannot become a citizen simply by marrying an American citizen (I had that one wrong), and it takes years to complete the process. For Dr. Rishi, it took four years from the beginning of the process until the ceremony tomorrow, and she considers herself “very, very lucky” to have completed the process that quickly.

I’ve not been to a naturalization ceremony before–only seen them on television shows and in movies. I know how proud I am of my citizenship, which I way too often take for granted, so I can only imagine what it means to internationals who have worked hard to complete paperwork and pass the citizenship exams. (I understand that a lot of “born here in America” Americans would have some trouble passing that exam!)

The ceremony is open to the public and to media. If you have the time, come join us in welcoming some of American’s newest citizens. What a great end to IUP’s International Education Week.

Lost in Translation

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

IUP Department of Foreign Languages Spanish associate professor Marjorie Zambrano-Paff presented a paper titled “Mediated Humor in the Legal Setting: The Construction of New Identities,” at the 2011 International Society for Language Studies conference.

Okay, kind of an esoteric title. But a lot of times, the actual content of these academic papers is really intriguing and thought-provoking. When I read more on the Spanish Department’s website, I realized that her research and conclusions needed to be told.

My translation of her work? Well-credentialed Spanish professor + study of the fairness of immigration hearings = media interest. Especially in those states that are dealing with so many of those issues (Texas, Arizona, California).

I contacted her for a copy of the paper. Long story short, I sent out information to media with my own title (a little more casual and less academic): “Humor in Immigration Courtroom Not So Funny to Defendants.”

Here’s the general idea of what she found–my words, not hers–when judges try to be funny, even with good intentions of relaxing the defendant, it doesn’t really translate. I get that. I’m reading a book by Kelly McDonald, a marketing expert in Texas, who keeps stressing that you can’t just word-for-word translate colloquialisms from one language to another. For example, “Got Milk?” in English does not mean the same thing as “Got Milk?” in Spanish. I don’t remember the Spanish words for it, but in Spanish, this phrase means, “Are you a nursing mother?” Yikes.

Not long after I sent out the information on her research, a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times e-mailed me, asking for more from Dr. Zambrano-Paff. Not sure when the story will run, but when it does, it means that 317,274 subscribers will know how interesting IUP faculty are!

Being an Ally Can Be a Lifesaver

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

Tomorrow, we celebrate National Coming Out Day. It’s part of a national observance in October, which is National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History Month. It’s been observed in America since 1994.

Tonight, the IUP Six O’Clock Series will host a presentation by Faisal Alam.”Hidden Voices: The Lives of LGBT Muslims,” which will be offered in the Hadley Union Building Ohio Room and is cosponsored by IUP’s GLBT Commission, the Office of International Education, Pride Alliance, and the Department of Religious Studies. This program is designed to highlight the struggles and challenges facing sexual and gender minorities within the Muslim world. Tonight’s program is also part of IUP’s celebration of International Education Week, October 10-14.

IUP is vocal in its support and acceptance of GLBT lifestyles. We have joined our colleages across the nation to encourage acceptance of GLBT students at colleges, and we all mourn for the families of those students who have suffered and who have lost their lives as a result of harassment and bullying.

IUP has several groups that address GLBT issues. Recently, I asked Todd Cogar, chair of the GLBT Commission at IUP, to offer information for parents whose children are members of the GLBT community as a release for media to use in back-to-school publications. IUP’s GLBT Commission is an advisory group to the Office of the President that works to improve the climate for diversity within IUP.

“One of the most important things parents and families can do for their students–and other family members–is to never assume that anyone is heterosexual,” he said.

Cogar is an assistant director in the Center for Student Life and Office of Student Conduct and an advisor to Pride Alliance, the LGBT student group at IUP.

“One doesn’t have to agree with those who identify as LGBT, but it is so important for individuals who do identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning, to hear that they are supported by their loved ones. Parents and families can impact harassment and bullying in simple ways by addressing inappropriate jokes, by supporting students when incidents occur, and by helping students appropriately address bullying and harassment.

“Students are always looking for those individuals who identify with the community as allies. An ally is someone who is not LGBT, but who is a supportive individual who accepts the person. Being an ally can be a life-saving role for people in the LGBT community. Allies can work with the community for equal rights and fair treatment; they can assist in the coming-out process, and are huge voices of acceptance and respect.”

Cogar also advised students to “get involved” at their college.

“College students are always encouraged to get involved in campus life. Students who are involved on campus gain great leadership skills, make the most of their college experience, meet new friends, and often do better academically,” he said.

For LGBT students at IUP, for example, there is Pride Alliance, a student organization that has as its goals fostering a safe and supportive academic and social environment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and ally community of IUP.

IUP also has an active Safe Zone program. This group strives to improve the campus climate for LGBT individuals by providing a visible sign on campus to indicate a safe place for students to go for support. The program provides training to members of the IUP community so that members are knowledgeable and sensitive to LGBT issues. Members pledge to challenge homophobic and heterosexist comments or behaviors in an educational and informative manner.

As part of efforts to raise awareness of issues, last October, the IUP GLBT Commission sponsored an “Anti-Bullying, Anti-Homophobia Vigil of Remembrance” in the Oak Grove on campus, drawing more than two hundred people.

In addition, for the past two years, IUP students, staff, and faculty have participated in the “Only Love” photography awareness program. This event was created by R.C. Stabile, a graduate student in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program.

Here’s what Stabile says on the “Only Love” website: “There is so much hate spread through bullying, bashing, and violence. … We, as college students, the future of America, believe that everyone deserves a chance to love and be loved.”

Hard to argue with a message promoting acceptance and love.

Students Generally Accepting of Muslims, but Knowledgeable? Not So Much

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I grew up in Indiana. I loved my childhood, and I love my hometown then and now, but I certainly realize that it is a pretty homogeneous community. I believe that Indiana does offer more diversity (in the interest of full disclosure, this is NOT scientifically or statistically proven) over other towns of its size because of places like IUP and Indiana Regional Medical Center, which tend to draw individuals from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

I also appreciate that the university truly values diversity and has a dynamic and active Office of International Education that does extensive outreach throughout the year, including International Education Week (October 10-14 this year). I’ll be talking more about the week, which includes a naturalization ceremony, a first for IUP, in a future blog.

But with diversity comes challenges. The tragedy of September 11, 2001, changed the way that we look at the world (that’s not news to anyone) and placed the Islamic culture and religion in the spotlight in ways that it had never been before.

That’s why I felt that the results of a study by Parveen Ali, an assistant professor in IUP’s Department of Developmental Studies, on “Perception of Islam and Muslims among College Students” would be both interesting and important to reporters.

The good news? Dr. Ali found that most students have an overall satisfactory attitude toward Muslims and Islam.

The not so good news? Most students have a misperception about where the majority of Muslims live, and some still associate Muslim with “terrorist.”

Any guesses about what was top-of-mind for students when they were asked for reactions to the word “Muslim”?

Forty-four percent responded with “normal people.” Twenty-one percent responded with “terrorist”; forty-four percent with “Arabs.” (They could choose more than one answer.)

And clearly, IUP students need to bone up on their geography. Eighty-four percent of surveyed students believed that the region where most Muslims lived is the Middle East.

Wrong answer.

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of all of the world’s countries (15.6 percent), and Asia and the Pacific have 61.9 percent of the Muslim population, compared to 20.1 percent in the Middle East.

There is an increasing presence of Muslims on U.S. college campuses. That’s just a fact, Dr. Ali says.

That said, what’s the take away from this study?

“It is crucial to create awareness about Islam in college campuses in order to prevent discrimination, intolerance, false myths, and prejudice toward its believers.”

Well said.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear about Greek Life

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

There are certain words that come to mind when you say “fraternity” or “sorority.”

You know them. I know them.

Parties. Wild behavior. Animal House.

However, if you’re not aware of this by now, I need to tell you this: you really CAN’T believe all that you see on television and the movies about university students.

Let me suggest some other words, and these are ones that I can absolutely prove to be fact about IUP’s Greek organizations:

Community service
National philanthrophy
Networking
Study hours
Academic standards
And this past week, pomps and pickup–garbage pickup, that is

While you were on your way home to dry out after this year’s wonderful (albeit wet!) Homecoming parade, after enjoying the amazing floats built by members of IUP’s fraternities and sororities, some three hundred fraternity and sorority members were busy VOLUNTEERING to clean up the Indiana Borough streets. Not quite the Homecoming “party” most expect of our Greeks.

Betsy Sarneso, assistant director for Student Life, oversees Greek life on campus. It’s a big job–there are about eight hundred students at IUP in one of thirty social sororities or fraternities. She coordinated the cleanup, among many, many other projects and programs.

“Every Greek organization is required to do service or contribute to a philanthropy, local or national, and sometimes they do both,” she explained. The Homecoming cleanup is just an extra.

Often, these students get excited about projects and move forward to DO THEM without notifying her office, so we don’t always get the word out. I can’t really fault them for that–the commitment to a good cause isn’t, for them, about getting credit or being in the newspaper. That’s kind of a refreshing thing in a world where it’s too often about people doing things for the recognition.

For example, we just learned of a project happening today and Wednesday–the annual “Rocking the Grove” fund-raising event, sponsored by the Panhellenic Association. Members of the Greek community will be in rocking chairs in the Oak Grove today from 4:30 to 11:30 p.m. and from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Wednesday. Funds raised go to the Alice Paul House, a shelter for survivors of domestic violence and their children here in Indiana County.

Then, on Friday and Saturday of this week, sororities and fraternities will be doing a food drive at the Fourth Street Bi-Lo for the Indiana County Community Kitchen. This event, done in conjunction with the Office of Service Learning, will involve students from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. both days.

The Community Kitchen, the recent beneficiary of a special fund-raising event sponsored by the Bridge Corps, works to fight hunger in Indiana County. Since its creation in 1994, the Community Kitchen has served more than 150,000 meals. They get no government or state funding–it all comes from donations.

For some fraternities and sororities, this is a “been there, done that” kind of thing, as they’ve already done food drives for the community. We just don’t always hear about it.

In addition to rocking, members of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority are part of a breast cancer awareness event, Bras for a Cause, organized by the Indiana Business and Professional Women’s Club. (This project I know about…I was a celebrity bartender last year, complete with pink sweater, scarf, and hair!) The decorated bras are on display in front of Stapleton Library until tomorrow, so come out and vote for your favorite (that’s how the project raises money). All proceeds go to Birdie’s Closet at Indiana Regional Medical Center, a place for women diagnosed with cancer.

And those are things being done just THIS WEEK by our fraternity and sororities THAT WE KNOW ABOUT. I am certain there are many more things that we’ll never hear about, and that will never make the news.

However, the recipients of the funds raised or service offered will know.

Maybe that’s all that matters.

Rape-Myth Attitudes Are Still about Gender, IUP Criminologists Find

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I keep coming back to the IUP Criminology Department for feature stories and experts.

First of all, these professors are so accessible. They are busy teachers and researchers, but they are willing to talk with me and to talk with the media when reporters have questions about current issues in criminology.

Second, the work they do is just plain interesting. They ask questions that I might never have thought to ask, and these studies almost always have relevance to reporters and writers.

Criminology professor Jennifer Roberts (who recently was promoted to the rank of professor–congratulations, Dr. Roberts!) did research with one of her doctoral students, Laura King, to try and determine if hometown types have an impact on how people think about rape. She surveyed a sample of IUP undergraduate and graduate students for her study.

You’d think that urbanites, who probably have more exposure to news about crimes like sexual assault, would have a different opinion about these crimes than people from small towns, where the crime rate is lower and there are fewer media reports on sexual assault.

Not so, they found. It’s not about the hometown, but it is about gender. Men were still more likely to accept rape myths than women.

Dr. Roberts and Ms. King’s “Traditional Gender Role and Rape Myth Acceptance: From the Countryside to the Big City” was published in the 2011 Women and Criminal Justice Journal, showing that hometowns have little to do with the acceptance of “rape myths.” Rape myths are stereotypical beliefs about rape.

Dr. Roberts and Ms. King explain that rape myths traditionally blame the victim, excuse the perpetrator, and minimize the severity of the attack based on a number of situational and background characteristics.

Okay. Interesting, but it begs the question: Why does this study matter to the media (which means you and me)?

Here’s why: Accepting these myths influences how survivors are treated AND contributes to the underreporting of this crime, Dr. Roberts says.

That’s the big headline for this story.

But there is some good news in this research to add to the headline. The overall rape myth acceptance within the pool of students she surveyed was lower than in similar studies conducted decades ago.

There is still much more to be done, Dr. Roberts stresses. Unfortunately, the acceptance of rape myth is still prevalent enough to warrant additional attention through things such as educational programs focusing on myths about rape and dating violence.

Safety Protocols Everywhere, and No One Paying Attention?

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I don’t really think much about safety in the workplace. Maybe because the most dangerous thing that could happen to me in my third-floor office in Sutton is that I get overly caffeinated (I love coffee and have my own personal Keurig).

But thankfully for people at job sites that have dangerous chemicals and machinery, there are people who do think very strategically about workplace safety.

I really enjoyed a recent meeting with Jan Wachter, associate professor of Safety Sciences. Dr. Wachter has a very diverse past, including study at a theological seminary. He’s not your typical safety professional, but he’s incredibly knowledgeable and has extensive experience in many different work sites. What intrigued me about his current work was that he was looking at safety from the perspective of the worker, not management.

Dr. Wachter got a $90,000 grant from the Alcoa Foundation to study “worker engagement” in the safety process.

WAIT! Don’t click away just yet. I promise, it’s interesting.

Here’s what that means. If workers have an accident, even if it’s because of a mistake that they make, it might not really be their fault, Dr. Watcher argues. It might be that they just aren’t buying into safety protocols and guidelines.

So the fault, dear reader, is not in their stars, but with management.

Here’s what he says: “While human error has been associated with the majority of incidents in the workplace, motivation and worker engagement may be the keys to human-error reduction.”

Dr. Wachter hopes that the outcomes of this research, once instituted in the workplace, could reduce lost workdays due to accidents by 20 percent.

The key difference in this study, as opposed to other research on safety in the workplace, is that Dr. Wachter will investigate how well–or how poorly–workers are engaged, or buying into, a shared accountability for identifying at-risk situations and responding to them.

There’s more about Dr.Wachter on the Research at IUP website, and I encourage you to stay tuned. I expect some very out-of-the-ordinary results from his research.

Nursing Simulation Lab Makes Music Video Debut

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

IUP’s Nursing and Allied Health Professions degrees are some of our most rigorous programs, and for good reason–the things that the students learn there ARE a matter of life and death.

The faculty work very hard to create real-life experiences for students, so they are well prepared for work in hospitals and other health care settings. In September 2010, faculty members Lisa Palmer and Julia Greenawalt were successful in receiving amost $300,000 to create a simulation lab, which mirrors the home of a rural patient with a common chronic illness. The lab is designed to help train nurses for home health care especially and includes telehealth monitors used by home health care agencies. Dr. Palmer explained that with the shortage of nurses, more and more patients are being treated in their homes, and this laboratory offers a significant advantage to IUP students who go on to work with home health care agencies.

This new home health care simulation lab adds to the department’s current simulation laboratory, established by the department in 2007 and renovated in 2009. This lab includes manikins of all “ages,” including an infant, two simulated hospital rooms, and IV and other training devices.

While this laboratory gets very heavy use by students and faculty and will undoubtedly help future nurses save lives, it was the site of a very unusual project this summer.

David Altrogge, a 2006 IUP art studio/graphic design graduate, is making a name for himself as a cofounder and creative director of Vinegar Hill, a full service production company and creative agency based in Indiana. IUP has used his company for projects, and he has used IUP and Indiana places and spaces for several of his productions.

David recently was contracted by Centricity Records to produce a music video for Aaron Shust’s My Hope Is in You. The story is about a couple waiting as their daughter is treated in a hospital following an accident. I won’t give away the ending, but you might want to have a few tissues handy while you watch it.

If you’ve ever visited Johnson Hall (home to the department), and the “hospital” in the video looks sort of familiar to you–well, that’s because it is. IUP’s Nursing and Allied Health Professions Department’s simulation lab is the hospital, and the hospital lobby is the lobby of the Nursing department in Johnson. The video features several IUP Nursing graduates, including Megan Wallwork (doing chest compressions), Janelle McCombie, and Kristi Altrogge. The Bennets, of Indiana, are the grieving parents.

While IUP is proud of David’s work, we are also proud to know that the simulation lab did exactly what it was supposed to do, albeit in a fairly unorthodox setting: It offered a very real hospital environment, with a realistic patient and believable injuries. A win-win for all involved.

A Million Reasons to Thank an IUP Student

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I don’t normally like to generalize about IUP students, because the more students I meet, the more I realize that they are very different from one another.

However, I don’t think that I’m too off the mark when I suggest that 98 percent of IUP students are probably snuggled up to their pillows on Saturday mornings and enjoying dreamland. (I have two twenty-year-old sophomores, so I also feel fairly informed on the habits of this particular species.)

But, this past Saturday, September 17, some 150 IUP students blew that stereotype. And it wasn’t for cereal and cartoons, but to benefit community agencies in Indiana.

Last Saturday was the fall Into the Streets event, organized by IUP’s Office of Service Learning. Students volunteered for this national day of service at seven sites in Indiana County. Students did everything from painting curbs to helping with the United Way demolition derby fund-raiser to cleaning up around Indiana Borough with borough employees.

The Into the Streets project is in its ninth year at IUP. It happens every fall and spring, and, in spring 2011, there were 300 students who volunteered for service at 13 different community sites. In fact, there were so many students interested in participating that the Office of Service Learning had to go back out to community agencies to ask for more volunteer opportunities. That makes me very proud of our students. The spring event is the bigger of the two, as there tend to be more service opportunities at that time of year, Service Learning officials tell me.

While I’m pleased that 150 students took part in the event this fall and I believe that number is noteworthy, it’s really just a very small part of what our students do each year.

In 2009-2010, 8,752 students volunteered for some kind of community service. That is 58 percent of the IUP student body. And it wasn’t just a one-shot deal for most students: Those IUP students performed 136,810 hours of community service during that academic year. (Totals are still being compiled for 2010-2011.)

So, that means that MORE THAN HALF of IUP students volunteered for their home community in a nine-month period, most in a sustained kind of way. Measured by the current national minimum wage, these work hours would be valued at $991,872.50. That’s just short of A MILLION DOLLARS.

What did they do? Food drives; books for the Community Guidance Center; selling daffodils for the American Cancer Society; helping children learn to read better; cell-phone drives for women in domestic violence situations; being a “big heart” for children in the Big Hearts Little Hands program.

I got a call from the former director of Big Hearts Little Hands (formerly Big Brothers Big Sisters) not too long after I started at IUP. “I want to talk to you about your students,” she started, and I braced myself. “Oh, no, what happened?” I asked, really not wanting to hear the answer.

“Without IUP students, this program couldn’t exist,” she said. “These students are wonderful. It’s a big sacrifice to give up your free time when you are a student and to care about someone else’s child, but they are amazing. I am proud of each and every one of them. Thank you.”

Enough said.

Raindrops, Sure…But Probably Not Satellite Parts (Falling on My Head)

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

I am old enough to remember the celebration surrounding America’s first lunar mission and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. (“One small step for mankind” is part of my heritage.) I also remember the ORIGINAL Apollo 13 mission (not just the movie with Tom Hanks), and I was one of the many people who were extremely impressed to have former astronaut Jim Lovell here at IUP for the First Commonwealth Lecture Series. To my generation, astronauts like the late Patricia Hilliard Robertson (a 1985 IUP Biology graduate) are heros, and space travel and NASA still have a major wow factor.

I also remember Skylab and how worried everyone was about the possibility of being hit by space junk falling from the sky. It did sort of tarnish the space program for me, mostly because it was such fodder for late-night comedians and the show Northern Exposure. (Who else remembers that was how Maggie O’Connell’s first boyfriend died?)

Fast forward thirty-two years, and here were are again. “Satellite the size of a school bus poised to fall to Earth at an undisclosed location,” television news reporters state with the appropriate look of concern. But I think Americans have a lot less panic and a lot more amusement over this satellite than Skylab.

Ken Coles I know what I think, but I’m more interested in what our faculty experts have to say about current issues. Kenneth Coles, associate professor of Geoscience, did not disappoint on the subject of NASA’s UARS satellite and the “threat” of it hitting something–or someone–here on Earth.

“Thousands of old satellites, rocket boosters, and pieces of debris orbit the Earth. Many are in orbits that eventually decay due to friction with the very thin uppermost atmosphere,” he explained.

“When they lose enough energy to fall to Earth, smaller objects burn up in the
atmosphere, but very large ones can make it to the ground. NASA and NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) track a lot of ‘space junk’ and give as much warning as practical of such events.

“Compared to the other perils of everyday life (such as riding in a car) the hazard is very minor for us on the ground, but space junk is a much greater problem in orbit, where collisions can cause considerable damage to a satellite or spacecraft.”

Even NASA experts are pretty calm about the possibility that you could be hurt by a falling piece of satellite. They predict that twenty-six parts of the satellite will survive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and the odds of getting hit by one of those pieces is 1 in 3,200.

So, while I am not a statistics expert, considering that Pittsburgh has an average of 152 snowy or rainy days each year, maybe I should do my own television news story: “This just in: Residents of Western Pennsylvania have a 41 percent chance of getting wet from snow or rain on any given day!”

Wonder if that will make Good Morning America? I’m ready for my closeup. …

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