Hair for a Month, Impact Here Forever

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

IUP’s Greek fraternities raised $1,500 for the national Movember project, which promotes awareness of men’s health issues, especially prostate and testicular cancers.

No, that wasn’t a typo.

“Movember,” a.k.a. November, is named to reflect both the month and the activity. During November, men at IUP were encouraged to grow a mustache (or “mo”) in support of the project and men’s health.

Some 30 IUP men, most in fraternities, grew mustaches and participated in a “pack the house” event for the November 14, 2011, men’s basketball game, staged a bowling tournament, and held several other fund-raising events throughout the month, plus the Movember Gala early in December.

There were prizes–for teams and for individuals–including the “Man of Movember” award, won by Mike Stough from Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

A very nice way to end the semester.

Art in Public

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

Art in Oak Grove, full view Students in Robert Sweeny’s art class are REALLY putting themselves out there.

For their final project, students were asked to take something personal that they do and put it on public display. One group decided to showcase its personal interests right in the Oak Grove.

Nicole Keebaugh, Asia Sanchez, Emily Manno, and Jake Good set up a tent to showcase an interest in camping (Good’s interest).

Other students in the group are in the tent doing things that they do in their personal lives. Manno is knitting, Keebaugh is texting, and other students will be “on display” later today.

The students hope to be in the Oak Grove throughout the day today, for as long as weather permits (50 degrees in December definitely makes the project much more comfortable). “It might rain later this afternoon, so we’ll have to see,” Manno said of the ending time for the project.

English Class Project Marks World AIDS Day

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

Veronica Watson‘s Topics in English class has designed a public humanities project to coincide with World AIDS Day.

“The students have done everything from conceptualize the project to arrange all the logistics to bring it to the world, to all of the publicity and media you might see around it,” she told me.

And, not only has this involved posters, fliers, other publicity materials (including a Facebook page), students have worked to collect poetry, memoirs, and photography to do a “story trail” in the Oak Grove. They will be installing the pieces this afternoon in the Oak Grove, and the story trail will be up through December 1.

Tonight from 4:00 to 7:00 in Folger Hall, the group will stage an awareness game called “Who’s on Fire.” On November 29, it will show the award-winning film Philadelphia at 5:30 p.m. in the Crimson Event Center in Folger Hall. After the film, people will be invited to offer personal testimonies. Information about AIDS also will be available.

My colleagues and I agree that one of the best things about working at a university is seeing the passion and commitment that our students have for important causes. Watching them take what they’ve learned in the classroom–and seeing how well our faculty members encourage them to take classroom experiences into real-life projects–makes me even more proud to be part of this university community.

P.S. Other AIDS awareness events on campus include the World AIDS Day Awareness Event on December 1 in the Ohio Room of the Hadley Union Building, sponsored by the IUP Office of Health Awareness and the African American Cultural Center. The event opens with an open mic session at 7:00 p.m. and continues with a presentation at 8:00 p.m. with Dr. Linda Frank, associate professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, who will provide an update on HIV. Dr. Frank also is the Principal Investigator and Executive Director of the Pennsylvania-MidAtlatnic AIDS Education and Training Center.

There also will be information tables in Stapleton Library November 29 and November 30 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. offering more information about AIDS.

IUP Honors Veteran Killed in Persian Gulf with Scholarship

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

IUP works to honor and remember those who lost their lives in service to our country. The memorials on campus recognizing our veterans were the subject of a special IUP Magazine story titled “Honoring, Remembering Our Own” in 2010.

Recently, the IUP College of Education and Educational Technology remembered a very special young woman from our community who never got the opportunity to attend IUP.

Beverly Sue Clark, a native of Armagh, was one of thirteen Army reservists killed in a scud missle attack during the Persian Gulf War in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Clark, an employee of Season-All in Indiana, had planned to enter IUP’s education program and become a teacher upon her return from the Persian Gulf. In her honor, friends and family members established the Beverly Sue Clark Scholarship for students preparing for a career in teaching, with special consideration given to military personnel and veterans of the war in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan and their family members.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of her death.

The Beverly Sue Clark scholarship is is just one of several scholarships established in honor of those who have lost their lives in service to our country or who are veterans of military service.

The memorials and these memorial scholarships remind us that these special individuals are remembered and appreciated–not just on Veterans Day, but throughout the year, especially by those who have received these scholarships.

In the case of Beverly Sue Clark, her dream of touching the future through teaching comes true through the generosity of her family and friends and by all who have received her scholarship. What a wonderful way to add to her already very special legacy.

Good Reasons to Prepare for Zombies

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Emily Smith

So you’re just trying to live your normal little life, when out of the blue vampires and zombies start their own battle for global domination. What’s a poor human to do?

It’s fun to mentally compare the strengths and weaknesses of both monsters, as was done at the recent Six O’Clock Series event, “Vampires vs. Zombies: The Debate.” Two authors of books that discussed how to survive their respective favorite creature outbreak squared off to support their choice of the winner. Scott Bowen (The Vampire Survival Guide) and Matt Mogk (Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Zombies) have appeared on Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior, which featured an episode that attempted to demonstrate who would win. Claws were compared to bites, and intelligent yet emotional killing machines were compared to a horde of unstoppable and mindless abattoirs on feet.

The winner on Deadliest Warrior was vampires, but by an extremely narrow margin (the Six O’Clock Series audience’s vote was decidedly in favor of zombies). The comparisons were fun, and the examples, though gruesome, were light-hearted because, after all, we’re talking about fictional creatures and an impossible scenario. But there was one point, almost idly mentioned in passing, that carries serious relevance: The Centers for Disease Control has created printed publications and a website on how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign has become an effective way to help people think about disaster preparedness. As the website notes, “If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse, you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack.”

When hordes of the undead start menacing society, people may start thinking more about protecting their families than going to work. Roads may become impassable, and, as services begin to break down, there would be shortages of food and water. Deliveries of critical supplies, such as gasoline, oil, and medicine, would slow down or stop. Power outages would become an issue, as would lack of sanitation. The results of a disaster would be similar no matter the cause: zombie horde or terrorist attack, natural disaster (volcano or earthquake) or manmade (nuclear accident or biological contamination).

Be Prepared warning from the CDC When vampires and zombies wage war, or when any catastrophe occurs, humanity will feel the results. In the end, it doesn’t matter which of the monsters win. It’s all about how we handle the situation and what we do to save ourselves.

So learn how to survive a zombie attack. Be ready for when the battle rolls onto your lawn. Let’s hope catastrophe will never strike home in your lifetime. But knowing that you are prepared, in at least some small measure, will help you fall back to sleep easier when you hear that mysterious bump in the night.

Hair, Hair…All for Men’s Health Awareness

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

It’s going to get a little hairy around campus this month.

For the second year in a row, IUP’s fraternities are taking over November and creating “Movember,” much to the dismay of those who like a clean-shaven man.

During Movember, men are encouraged to “grow their mos” (mustaches) as part of the national Movember men’s health awareness program, which focuses mainly on two men’s cancers, testicular and prostate.

Think of it as the manly version of the famous pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness.

Tonight, the Hadley Union Building atrium will take on a very different feel, as some thirty fraternity members take part in the “shave off” to begin the Movember project.

Later this month, there will be another men’s health awareness project, in which the fraternities will “pack the house” for the men’s basketball game against Thiel College on November 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex. Messages about men’s health and these cancers will be prominently displayed and presented during the game.

Then, on November 28, the furry-faced fraternity brothers will stage a bowling tournament (open to the community) at Mohawk Lanes. This is one of several fund-raising events for Movember. Last year’s event–the first at IUP–raised almost $2,000, which was donated to the national project fighting testicular and prostate cancer.

Early in December, men will go mustache-to-mustache for an event to judge the most iconic mos. According to Betsy Sarneso, director of Student Leadership and Greek Life, last year’s Movember mustaches (say THAT three times fast) were grown in the style of Mario (of video game fame) and samurai warriors.

While the growing of mustaches is all in fun, these cancers are very serious. They are hard to talk about, but awareness and education are a great start.

So, the next time you see a young man with a mustache, think about what kind of important message that furry upper lip is sending. And here’s another bonus: Many of these fraternity men will have an easy and very inexpensive gift for mom for the holidays: a clean-cut son!

Celebrating Native American Heritage

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

There’s a beautiful photograph in the president’s office at IUP, taken by retired Communications Media professor Richard Lamberski.

The photo, titled “We Have Survived,” is of a dance at the 2009 Tipton Powwow.

On November 12, it will be formally presented to IUP by Clifton Pembleton, chair of the IUP Native American Awareness Council, as a “cultural trust to the president of IUP with grateful appreciation from the IUP Native American Awareness Council.”

The presentation begins the fifth annual celebration of American Indian Heritage Month on campus, scheduled from noon to 5:00 p.m. in the Hadley Union Building Delaware Room. It’s free and open to the community and will feature a variety of performers, including Mathew White Eagle Clair, Bill Crouse, Drums of Native Sisters and Michael Jacobs.

Anyone who has had a longtime affiliation with IUP knows Clifton Pembleton and his wife, Sandy, who both recently retired from IUP, and how active they have been with the council and the work of creating more awareness about Native American culture.

Clif and Sandy are joined by several IUP faculty members on the Native American Awareness Council: Sarah Neusius, Anthropology, vice chair; Holly Boda-Sutton, Theater and Dance; James Dougherty and Melanie Hildebrandt, Sociology; Robert Millward and Monte Tidwell, Professional Studies in Education; Theresa Smith, Religious Studies; student Germaine McArdle (Oglala, Lakota Sioux); and Jennifer Soliday, Dan Mock, and Kinorea Tigris (Cherokee, Creek, Oglala, Lakota and Sioux).

IUP’s celebration of Native American Awareness Month came after Ms. Soliday, then an undergraduate, wrote to the IUP president, “I feel that it would be in the university’s best interest to demonstrate IUP’s sensitivity to American Indian culture and formally recognize this November, and every November, as American Indian Heritage Month.”

The president agreed, as did the IUP Council of Trustees. Talk about a great legacy and how one voice can truly make a difference.

Five years later, not only is the event gaining in popularity, but the NAAC is continuing its efforts to build awareness about Native American culture and to enhance and build Native American programs at IUP, including exchanges and educational events.

Sands of Compassion…Take a Peek

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Ms. Michelle S. Fryling

Imagine millions of grains of sand from Indiana, Pa., traveling throughout the world, with the mission of creating compassion wherever the streams, rivers, and oceans take them.

Stuart Chandler, a professor of Religious Studies and chairperson of the department, is responsible for the visit this week of ten Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery. The monks are creating a mandala of compassion in the Hadley Union Building. It’s fascinating to watch, and visitors also get a chance to build a community sand art project, using the same tools used by the monks.

And just in case you think it’s simple, or casual, think about this. The monks go through two years of training, memorizing hundreds of mandala designs, and must be chosen for this work. I wish I had a better word than “work”; it is not work in the way that we think of the term in America–it’s a way of life. Dr. Chandler told me that the head monk was born in Tibet and smuggled out of the country as a child, becoming a monk at the age of five. He never saw his family again. The monks all have a special role to play: some chant, some dance, some are the mandala creators.

I strongly encourage you to visit the program. During the mandala creation, the monks are silent unto themselves (for the seven hours per day that they work). They are in the HUB working from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. today, Thursday, and Friday; from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday; and from noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday.

But if you can’t get to the HUB, you can still be part of the project. There is a live webcam capturing the work being done on the mandala. The intensity of their concentration is evident, even over the Internet. (We are showing the live webcam on this entry, too. Refresh to update the picture.)

On Monday, the mandala will be completed–just for an hour, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.–and then will be swept up, with bags of sand being distributed to visitors. The rest of the sand will be carried in a vase by the monks down Philadelphia Street and put into a stream, to find its way into the ocean.

“It’s about filling the world with compassion,” Dr. Chandler explains.

The monks travel for two years and then return to the monastery in India. They have been to many colleges and universities throughout the United States and have been at the Smithsonian. IUP hosted the monks for a mandala construction in 2003 and 2006. These appearances also were arranged by Dr. Chandler, who has been at IUP since 2000. His area of concentration is the religions of China and Japan, especially Buddhism, and he has also conducted research closer to home. His “Eastern Religions Come to Western Pennsylvania” exhibition in 2005 at the University Museum reflected his study on the evolving religious landscape of Pennsylvania. His current project is the translation of the memoirs of Oishi Junkyo, a geisha, artist, and Buddhist nun in early twentieth century Japan.

When I think of the term “renaissance man,” Dr. Chandler comes to mind. In addition to his “day job,” in summer 2006, he bicycled 2,000 miles across the northern United States and Canada with his son Evan, and he also is a musician in the Indiana-famous Dad Band.

On Saturday evening, the monks will be at the Performing Arts Center’s Fisher Auditorium as part of the Lively Arts programming. “The Mystical Arts of Tibet: Sacred Song Sacred Dance” is a mixture of traditional dances, Tibetan multiphonic chanting, and other music to channel inner spirituality and enlightenment.

A pretty amazing week at IUP.

Borrowed Babies, Revisited

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Regan Houser

Home Economics House 1953.jpg I was delighted to receive this photo from Theresa McDevitt, a Libraries faculty member, a few weeks ago. She sent it as a homecoming greeting, but she also knows that in 1995 I wrote a story for IUP Magazine about the Home Management House.

The story was called “Borrowed Babies,” and you can read it, thanks to an effort by the Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives Department. Harrison Wick and colleagues have made a decent effort to scan IUP publications of the past and make them accessible through Archive.org.

But, you probably chose to open this post because of its title, so let me explain. From the early 1910s to the 1960s, Home Economics majors at IUP had a semester-long immersion experience in Home Management House, which was located on a street that no long exists near Cogswell Hall. In addition to keeping the house in operation in the spirit of any modern-day domestic engineer, the students also cared for a baby lent to them by a nearby orphanage. Hence, the reference in the photo to Rodger–the baby who resided in Home Management House in fall, 1953 (Rodger says, “It’s time for a change. Beat California”). After the story ran in the magazine, we received many letters to the editor from alumnae who had nothing but wonderful things to say about the experience, who wondered what had happened to the babies they cared for, and who wanted to share their memories with others. Still, isn’t it difficult to believe?

Fast forward to 2011, and we all know things are quite different today. We no longer have a Home Economics Education major, per se, but instead several majors entailing Family and Child Studies and Family and Consumer Sciences Education, both housed in the Human Development and Environmental Studies Department. All you have to do is take a look at that website to know we focus on modern issues, employ modern techniques, and that we’re a long way from Home Management House.

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.

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