Over 100 Housing and Food Services employees from seven eastern commonwealth campuses met at Penn State Schuylkill for technical service training. The regional daylong event was an effort to provide training for employees while exercising cost saving initiatives.

Event speakers included Schuylkill chancellor Keith Hillkirk, Auxiliary and Business Services (A&BS) safety/workers' compensation manager Ed Dobo, A&BS human resources director Jennifer Wilkes, Food Services executive chef Mark Kowalski and several more.

"We were excited to prepare this program which focused on job-related and job-specific training and giving our employees a more hands-on approach," Jonathan Kukta, director of Penn State Schuylkill Food Services and Penn State Hazleton Housing and Food Services said. "We also were able to have all Penn State employees serve as our presenters/trainers, which was great."

Article from Penn State "Live"

Dr. Jones earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees in Student Personnel Services from The Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor’s degree from Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.

In addition, Dr. Jones will serve as president of the Pennsylvania Black Conference on Higher Education, Inc., from March 2008 through February 2010.

Choirs from six Penn State campuses will “Raise the Song!” in a free public concert Oct. 28 at the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg.

The landmark event for the University and Penn State Harrisburg will be at 7:30 p.m. in the Sunoco Performance Theater. Tickets and information are available by calling 717-948-6470.

Hosted by Penn State Harrisburg and its School of Humanities, the performance will feature Penn State choirs from University locations at Harrisburg, Altoona, Berks, Schuylkill, University Park and Erie. Master of Ceremonies will be Anthony Leach, Penn State’s 2009-10 laureate, associate professor of music and music education in the College of Arts and Architecture, and director of Penn State’s “Essence of Joy” choir.

The performing arts partnership is a first for both the University and Penn State Harrisburg.

“This will be the first event of its kind in the history of the University and our college," said O. David Deitz, director of Penn State Harrisburg’s choir and the driving force behind the multi-campus participation in the concert. "It is all part of an effort to entertain, display the high level of talent at our locations and promote Penn State’s performing arts programs and opportunities.”

Deitz said each participating student organization will perform individually for 10 to 15 minutes with all choirs joining together at the conclusion of the event to sing Mendelssohn’s "Verleih uns Frieden" (Grant us Peace) and the Penn State Alma Mater, from which the “Raise the Song!” concert title is derived.

In a related outreach effort the morning of Oct. 28, student choral groups and their instructors from five area high schools will attend a workshop with Deitz and University Park concert choir director Lynn Drafall.

The 10 a.m. to noon workshop will include groups from Hershey, Central Dauphin East, Lower Dauphin, Cedar Cliff, Middletown, and Palmyra high schools in the Capital Union Building on the Penn State Harrisburg campus. The sessions will be open to the public.

As part of the Cultural Events Series, Gabriella Garcia-Medina will perform at Penn State Schuylkill on Wednesday, October 7th at 9 pm in the Morgan Auditorium on campus.

Gabriella Garcia-Medina is a graduate of UCLA’s School of Theatre Film and Television with a major in Theatre and a minor in Chicana/o Studies, merging her classical training with her cultural knowledge and political consciousness to enhance the empowerment potential of her poetry, her performances, her art, and her workshops. She is an international spoken-word artist and award-winning poet. She has performed at colleges, festivals, and conferences all over the world. From the World Social Forum, Brazil to the Havana Jazz Plaza, her poetry has taken her to places such as South Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Switzerland, and all over the United States.

Elinor Madigan, assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State Schuylkill and a professional associate of management development, has been awarded a grant from Amazon Web Service (AWS). The grant will be used in her IST 421 class -- "Advanced Enterprise Integration: Technologies and Applications" -- and will allow students to access AWS's infrastructure Web service platform in the cloud.

Madigan's students will be working with data mining, uncovering data patterns and integrated systems that share data from a variety of data sources. AWS is providing access to their massive computing capacity and storage facilities.

Meika Pauley was born in Boston and raised in Kentucky, Colorado, and South Florida. School brought her back to Boston where she makes her home. She started singing as a child and studied classical voice and piano. In high school she sang in alternative rock garage bands and Motown funk bands and in jazz, classical, and church choirs. In high school she taught herself guitar on an uncle’s old acoustic, then cut her teeth in college playing on the street corners of Harvard Square.

Performance will be at Noon on Thursday, September 3rd in the Hidden Stream Cafe in the Student Community Center.

The offices that will be open are:  CE, Bursar and Financial Aid Office located in the Administration Building and the Advising and Registrar Office located in the B-Building.

Mohammed Amer is a forthcoming brilliant personality in the world of Comedy. Originally a Palestinian, Mohammed fled his birth country of Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War while he was 9 years old. His family eventually settled in Houston, Texas. Mohammad’s family was persuaded that he was going to become a Doctor; however destiny had a different plan. Mohammed had a comical side which started out by impersonating family members and developed it over a few short years to become the youngest comedian on the Muslim Comedy Tour; Allah Made Me Funny.

Performance will be held at Schuylkill Campus on Wednesday, August 26th at 9:00 pm in the Morgan Auditorium.

Join us for an Information Session regarding the Penn State multi-campus system, admissions process, academic programs, financial aid and student life.  This program is the perfect way to discover all of the opportunities that Penn State can offer you. 

Please register for this FREE program by calling 570-385-6252.

Penn State Outreach has announced that Michael R. Gallis, assistant professor of physics has been selected as faculty lead of the Physics Asset Project.

The project centers around the development of curricular materials based on Gallis' animations for high school and introductory college level physic courses and disseminating these materials via the world wide web. The emphasis will be on addressing state and national standards.

Michael Gallis, Penn State Schuylkill Campus, has created over 200 animations for his courses at the undergraduate level. They can be seen at the project main page at http:phys23p.sl.psu.edu/phys_anim/Phys_anim.htm and a searchable index is available at http://phys23p.sl.psu.edu/CWIS/index.php.

The animation project also has its own YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/mrg3.

Penn State Public Broadcasting (PSPB), will work with Gallis, a focus group of physics and Earth space high school teachers and professionals at WGBH's Teachers'  Domain to transform these animations into high school ready content. Some of the materials will be recast for teachers to include in presentation software such as Power Point, Blackboard and WebCT. Other materials will be redisigned to be manipulated by students, allowing them to change various parameters to see the effects.

WGBH's Teachers'  Domain is a nationally distributed digital library that has registered users in 64 percent of K-12 public schools in America and 176 countries around the world. PSPB has a partnership through Teachers' Domain called Keystone eMedia. Through this localized site, PSPB helps ensure that all materials meet Pennsylvania state academic standards as well as national science standards. PSPB's Keystone eMedia can be viewed at the following site;  http://www.wpsu.org/education/development/emedia.html.

Penn State Schuylkill will hold an Honors Day ceremony on April 23, 2009 at 5 pm in the John E. Morgan Auditorium. 

Honors Day is intended to recognize members of our campus community, including students, faculty and staff who have distinguished themselves through accomplishments in teaching and learning, scholarship and research, and service to the campus community.

Light refreshments will be served immediately following in the Student Community Center lobby.

Penn State Schuylkill will be holding graduation on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 10:00 am on the Campus Green.  Dr. James T. Gallagher, Superintendent, Pottsville Area School District will be the keynote speaker.  Musical soloist will be Janelle Hoenich and Banner Bearers will be Dr. Gordon Nelson and Dr. Michael Gallis.  In case of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in the John E. Morgan Auditorium.

During a career in education that has spanned 36 years in the Pottsville Area School District, Dr. James T. Gallagher taught accounting and mathematics at Pottsville Area High School during the first eight years of his career. In 1981 he became Vice Principal of the D.H.H. Lengel Middle School. By 1987 he was named the Principal of Pottsville Area High School, and in 1993 he became Superintendent of Schools in the district in which he spent his entire career. Dr. Gallagher continues to serve in that capacity and is currently enjoying his 16th year in his role of superintendent.

Dr. Gallagher has served, and continues to serve many civic organizations. He is a past member of the Pottsville Rotary Club, the Schuylkill County Executive Commission on Drug and Alcohol Prevention, the Historical and Architectural Review Board of Pottsville, and served as a member of the Boards of Directors of the Pottsville Free Public Library, the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce, the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center and the Family Services Agency. He currently serves as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission of Pottsville, as a member of the Penn State Schuylkill Advisory Board, the Board of Directors of the Schuylkill Health System, the Knights of Columbus, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Dr. Gallagher is a member of the St. Patrick Church where he serves as a lector.

A graduate of Penn State University, Dr. Gallagher earned his B.S. in Education, followed by a Masters degree from Bloomsburg University. In 1993 he earned his doctoral degree in Education from Temple University. Dr. Gallagher is married to the former Mantura Mazzuca, who is currently serving as Schuylkill County’s Chair of the Board of Commissioners. They have one son, James Dominick, who is a 2001 Princeton University graduate and a 2004 Georgetown University Law Center graduate. He is currently an associate attorney in the Washington D.C. office of Hughes Hubbard and Reed.

Is Penn State Schuylkill the right fit for you?  Come out to learn about us at our Open House on Saturday Arpil 25, 2009, for prospective students and their families.  Registration begins at 9:30am and a program of events will run from 10:00am until 1:30pm.  

Our Open House will include an informational presentation, panel discussion, class room experience, campus tours, and lunch.  Please register ahead of time by calling 570-385-6252.  We look forward to meeting you!

The Biology & Environmental Club and the Office of Student Affairs invite you to join them for the following events during Earth Week (April 19-25).

Morgan Auditorium

Student Community Center

Wednesday April 22, ECO-FAIR:  The BLUE and WHITE is going GREEN! 

Questions?  Contact Dr. Medica 385-6176,email at dlm56@psu.edu

The second in a series of videos leading up to the 2009 Penn State Symposium on Teaching and Learning with Technology, which will be held on April18th, 2009, was recently released on the Symposium Web site. The video features Dr. Elinor Madigan, assistant professor of Information Sciences and Technology, and two of her students, Gabriel Marrero and Eugene Bound. 

Dr. Madigan is re-defining learning spaces through a class project she calls the Google Earth project. The purpose of the project is to get her students engaged with each other and the campus community through the use of technologies such as Google Earth and the Digital Commons   Last year, Dr. Madigan did some work with the Digital Commons and decided to do the same this year but on a larger scale. Using Google Earth to start, students in groups choose a building at the Penn State Schuylkill campus, then complete a set of multimedia assignments (this is where the Digital Commons comes in).Working in teams, student complete a set of multimedia assignments to create a well-rounded tour of the Penn State Schuylkill campus. The finished product is made available on the Web for the benefit incoming students.

Lady Lions Advance to Championship , Will Play PSU Beaver.

The Penn State Schuylkill Lady Lions defeated Penn State Greated Allegheny Lady Lions 60-59 in the semifinals of the PSUAC Playoffs on Monday at University Park. 

The Lady Lions will now play Penn State Beaver for the championship on Tuesday, February 24th.  Tip-off is scheduled for 10:30 am at the Bryce Jordan Center.