Celebrating Chemistry at Carnegie Science Center

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

For many years, IUP students and employees have enjoyed Wiener Wednesday in Weyandt Hall.

However, hot dog lovers might not have realized that the sales of hot dogs and related items by the IUP American Chemical Society student chapter is creating great opportunities for chemistry education.

Each year, the IUP student chapter–which was recently recognized by the national American Chemical Society as an Outstanding Student Chapter–donates $1,000 to area high school chemistry programs to promote science education and to interest students in studying chemistry. And, not only do the students and their advisor, Nathan McElroy, make the donation on site, they do “cool” chemistry experiments–complete with goggles, beakers, and foamy or “steaming” liquids.

Want to see them in action?

Seven IUP students and faculty member Justin Fair will be continuing their outreach efforts at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh on Saturday, October 22, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The program is free to those who pay admission to the center and open to all. So, if you’ve wondered what fluoride REALLY does to tooth enamel or how breakfast cereals are fortified with iron, here’s your chance to find out.

In addition to the fund-raising efforts, the students do free chemistry tutoring four nights a week for IUP students and do demonstrations throughout the community at local science fairs and recruiting events. All of these efforts have resulted in four national awards for excellence, counting this last recognition.

On Monday, the students will celebrate Mole Day. No, not the little squinty-eyed rodent, the basic measuring unit in chemistry, Avogadro’s number (6.02 x 10²³), with a bake sale at Weyandt Hall. Not to ruin the surprise, but I hear there will be cupcakes with atomic symbols. I won’t have a clue about the symbols, but a cupcake with icing can NEVER be wrong.

Dr. McElroy has an unusual understanding of the IUP Department of Chemistry–he is a very proud IUP Chemistry graduate!

But, he gives all the credit for the chapter’s success to the students.

“The Outstanding Chapter Award by the national ACS is a great honor for the club. I couldn’t be more proud of these students and of the exceptional work that they do for the department, the university, and the local community.”

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.

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.

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.

The Importance of Building a Culture of Philanthropy

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Regan Houser

You probably noticed the signs and sidewalk chalk messages during the first week of school. They were part of an educational campaign the Annual Giving Office sponsors to help students understand the impact of gifts from alumni and friends of IUP. It’s part of an effort to build a culture of philanthropic giving on campus. Students who understand how private gifts affect their education are more likely to understand why we ask them to give when they become alumni–and then respond by giving.

Activity like this is essential to the fund-raising process, and schools like IUP–state-owned institutions–have an additional hump to overcome, because of a misperception that we are fully funded by the commonwealth. Earlier this year, the New York Times ran an article that included interviews with administrators from numerous public universities. It described the misperception well:

When the State University of New York at Geneseo surveyed its alumni three years ago as part of a plan to increase fund-raising, the initial response was heartening. Former students described their time there with words like “love” and “the best four years.” Then came what one administrator, Michael J. Catillaz, called “the cold shower.” Asked if they would donate, almost all said they thought the university was financed entirely by the state. The state’s contribution was actually 25 percent, and it has been dropping ever since.

“Inviting alumni in large numbers to actively support the college is a foreign notion,” said Mr. Catillaz, the vice president for college advancement.

In truth, some of our current students have been inspired to give or facilitate philanthropic action on behalf of the university. The IUP Ambassadors, for example, conducted numerous fund-raisers to name a room in the new Kovalchick Complex. Members of the IUP History Club work tirelessly to make sure the Eric Slebodnik Memorial Scholarship, housed in the Foundation for IUP and established in memory of a student who died in the line of duty in Iraq, continues to help a deserving student. These same students also raise money for the Jack Kadlubowski Scholarship, established in memory of a late faculty member. There are other examples, but the point is that instilling in students the importance of the impact private gifts have will, we hope, reap long-term rewards after they leave us for the greater world.

Stories about student and alumni philanthropy that we can share with funding agencies and large-gift prospects often inspire them to also give. When members of the campus community give, they are expressing their belief in the institution. That’s a powerful thing. After all, charity does begin at home.

IUP-TV Crew Dazzles CBS Sports Crew

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Regan Houser

IUP received great publicity when CBS Sports Network broadcast last night’s home football game (September 15). There were at least two alumni watch parties in distant places, and alumni from across the country gave us likes and comments to promotional announcements we made on IUP’s Facebook page. IUP nearly upset nationally ranked Bloomsburg.

What you may not have heard: The students of IUP-TV came to the CBS crew’s rescue. CBS forgot to bring along a particular cable–an essential piece of equipment needed to use IUP-TV’s editing system. The students and station technician Chris Barber juryrigged some equipment to make it possible for the crew to use the system. The CBS crew was impressed again by the students’ ability to edit the footage shot of campus and of Indiana that was shown during the broadcast. IUP-TV students also worked in various paid support positions during the broadcast. All great stuff for aspiring broadcast industry professionals.

Here’s a sample of the IUP-TV sports crew’s ability, produced after the home opener against East Stroudsburg.

When Students Meet Alumni

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Regan Houser

Some say who you know is as important as what you know. If that’s true, what do you do when you don’t know someone? My colleagues in the Alumni Relations Office are working with the staff of the Career Development Center and IUP’s academic areas to make sure our students make connections in the working world.

Next week, students from Eberly College of Business and the Computer Science Department will travel to Pittsburgh to attend a reception the Alumni Relations staff has planned with employees of PNC Bank. The idea is to give students the chance to make contacts with alumni within the company; those contacts could in turn lead to internships, cooperative experiences, inside knowledge, and, maybe a job after graduation. Mary Jo Lyttle, director of Alumni Relations, asked me to acknowledge the alumni from PNC who have volunteered to serve as the event’s host committee: Davie Huddleston ’69, David Williams ’79, Brady Wise ’95, Joanna Ender DiCiurcio ’02, Gary Greenwood ’06, Jennifer Butter ’07, and Benjamin Pollock ’09.

Alumni Relations and others in University Relations are working on a similar event in New York City in December for students studying business, Fashion Merchandising, and Hospitality Management. More on that later.

Around the Oak Grove

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Category Archives: Student Opportunities