Archive for November, 2008

Honors Course (with the dean) CAMS/J ST/RL ST 110U

Published by
Dr Brady
November 20, 2008 in Curriculum, PSU and Scholarship. 0 Comments

I know that our honors students have already registered for classes and that this is late, but I just managed to get my course for the spring into the computer. So please consider signing up if you have the time!

The information is below and the class time will be TR 2:30-3:45.

CAMS 110 (GH;US;IL) (J ST 110, RL ST 110) Hebrew Bible: Old Testament (3) Introduction to the history, literature, and religion of ancient Israel.

CAMS (J ST/RL ST) 110 Hebrew Bible: Old Testament (3)
(GH;US;IL)

(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements.

The Hebrew Bible is the record of the interaction between the people of ancient Israel and their God. As a religious text, the Bible is inextricably intertwined with the cultures of Israel’s neighbors, including the Canaanites, Syrians, Greeks, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arabs, Egyptians, and the peoples of the eastern desert. To study the Hebrew Bible and its development during the first millennium BCE is to study the history, culture, and literature of the entire region. Hebrew Bible introduces students to the literature of ancient Israel, its rituals, the stories which established a people’s identity, and which defined their moral behavior. Great figures of the texts, such as Moses, David, Solomon, Bathsheba, Ruth, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezra, teach us important lessons about life and how people of faith attempted to relate to one another, to God, and to people outside their ethnic group. Students will read from the text and from a textbook which contains scholarly opinion from a variety of sources. Recent archaeological and epigraphical studies will be incorporated into the course to enhance our work. The ultimate goal will be to assess the meaning of the texts in their ancient Near Eastern environment, and to understand the development of Hebrew religion and the beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism. Students will be evaluated using an hour examination, a 6-8 pp. “hermeneutical essay,” a final examination, class attendance and discussion. As an introduction to the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, RL ST 110 utilizes the methodologies used in the academic study of religion. The course is related or linked to many courses in religious studies which use these same methods or which are related to the history and development of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. RL ST 110 may be used to fulfill requirements for the Religious Studies major. RL ST 110 may also be used to fulfill the US;IL or GH requirements in the major or minor in RL ST, CAMS and J ST.
General Education: GH
Diversity: US;IL
Bachelor of Arts: Humanities

Opportunities for Scholars in “Rethinking Urban Poverty” project

Published by
Dr Brady
November 12, 2008 in Curriculum, Ethics, Honor, Internships, Research, Scholarship and Service to others. 0 Comments

Penn State Outreach operates a fantastic program in Philadelphia and they are regularly looking for current Scholars and students to participate. Read the news item below and if you are interested visit the project website http://www.philadelphiafieldproject.com and the the inquiry page http://www.philadelphiafieldproject.com/inquiries. There are a variety of opportunities available including research, internships, and service learning projects.

Penn State Outreach Program Wins National Award for ‘Rethinking Urban Poverty’

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa –­ The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and the Outreach Scholarship Partnership has awarded Lakshman Yapa, a professor of geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State, the 2008 C. Peter Magrath Engagement Award for his work with Rethinking Urban Poverty: the Philadelphia Field Project.

The project, an outreach program of Penn State, is a unique service learning course that has generated more than 60 student-run projects addressing critical needs in areas as diverse as credit cooperatives, transportation and nutrition.

Since 1998, Penn State students involved in the Rethinking Urban Poverty project lived and worked in a low-income neighborhood of Philadelphia. By engaging in dialogue and creating partnerships with local community organizations, students identified the links between poverty and community development, and, through their research, became a resource for the community. Students moved away from the standard poverty discourse and focused instead on quality of life by employing the three community-identified needs health, dignity and community. Through the project, they undertook research activities to improve health though diet, nutrition, exercise, urban gardens, community supported agriculture and education for preventive health care, targeting specific challenges such as Type II diabetes, atherosclerosis and hypertension.

Robert Bruininks, chair of the NASULGC Board of Directors and president of the University of Minnesota, said the Philadelphia Field Project could serve as an outreach model for other universities.

“Penn State Professor Lakshman Yapa’s program in the City of Philadelphia should serve as a model of engagement and outreach for public institutions,” said Bruininks. “Public universities, like Penn State and the other four regional winners, exemplify the spirit and vision of university engagement championed by Peter Magrath and we salute their fine work.”

Yapa said the project represents a new way universities can work with the communities and students they serve.

“According to my understanding the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award was given to the Rethinking Urban Poverty: Philadelphia Field Project this year to recognize the proposition that effective community engagement requires a ‘rethinking of the university’ and a simultaneous transformation of the university itself as a place of teaching and research,” Yapa said.

Engaging communities and improving the lives of the citizens of the Commonwealth are key components of Penn State’s mission.

“I congratulate Professor Yapa, the students and community partners who made the Philadelphia Field Project such a great example of the transformative power a university can have within a community,” said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier. “This project represents the University’s legacy of engagement.”

“This is a wonderful recognition for the great work of Dr. Yapa and his students,” added Craig Weidemann, vice president of Outreach. “His Philadelphia Field Project is a great example of the impact of engaged scholarship and the power of universities in working with communities to address critical societal issues and learning from each other in the process.”

Visit http://www.philadelphiafieldproject.com for more information on the Philadelphia Field Project. To see a video of Yapa and his students in action, visit http://x02.ur.psu.edu/video/in_motion/yapa.html online.

Established in 2006, the Magrath Award recognizes the outreach and engagement partnerships of four-year public universities.  The award program seeks to identify colleges and universities that have redesigned their learning, discovery, and engagement functions to become “even more sympathetically and productively” involved with their communities.  The award is named for C. Peter Magrath, who served as president of NASULGC from 1992-2005.

***
Contact: Matt Swayne, Penn State Outreach, (814) 865-7600 or mls29@outreach.psu.edu or Melissa Kaye, Penn State Outreach, (814) 865-7600 or mwk10@outreach.psu.edu

How was your election?

Published by
Dr Brady
November 6, 2008 in PSU and Research. 0 Comments

Hank Foley, Dean of the College of Information Science and Technology sent this email. Please feel free to share your experiences at the anonymous survey or right here in our comments. I was very fortunate, our neighborhood had no real line. On the whole it sounds like most polls were very friendly places and efficient, even where there were lines. I have to comment that even had I to wait in line I would not have complained. That seems a small price to pay for the freedom and liberty of privilege to participate in our democratic process.

Friends, This was a momentous election. Now that it is over, as a pubic service IST@PENNSTATE has created a website for you to report on your polling/voting experiences. Many have already responded and have taken the survey this week. If you are interested in doing so, then please point your web browsers to http://ist.psu.edu/voterexperience. We hope that you will point this site out to other friends and colleagues who may also be interested in the survey.

The poll is completely voluntary; we will not divulge any personal information and the respondents may chose to answer as many or as few of the questions as they feel comfortable doing. We will work up the results and post them next week.

A short story on the site is below.

Thank you!
Hank Foley
Dean IST@PENNSTATE

IST Launches Voter Experience Survey
11/04/2008
by Jenna Spinelle
Did you have a good experience at the polls in Tuesday? Wait in line for hours to vote? Good or bad, Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) wants to know about it.

Researchers in the college have launched an online voter survey to gauge reaction to factors including voting equipment, election staff and atmosphere at the polling places.

The survey is available at: http://ist.psu.edu/voterexperience and will be open until midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 11.

“This survey provides a timely online service to allow voters to share information regarding their voting experience, both positive and negative,” said John Yen, IST’s associate dean for research and graduate programs. “The data gathered can help voters to see whether their voting experience is similar to or different from others in the same city, county or state”

The project also will benefit the college’s Global Prescience research effort, which aims to detect and predict global trends by analyzing current events and the relationships among them. The data collected from the 2008 voter survey will provide a basis for comparing data from similar projects in the future.

An “historic” day

Published by
Dr Brady
November 4, 2008 in Politics. 0 Comments

It has been a few days since I have posted and longer with anything substantial. I fear it will be that way for a couple more weeks. I have been traveling and will hit the road again shortly. But today is November 4, 2008 and in the US that means our presidential election is finally here.

I will not tell you that you need to go and vote regardless of your position and views. I do hope you will go and vote if you have educated yourself on the issues and the candidates and have real convictions about the choice you are making. But I think it is ethically and politically wrong to simply vote without such preparation and thought. There is no doubt that this is an “historic” election, but all presidential elections are such. This one, of course, has the added element of one candidate being the first African-American in US history to run for president. It is within living memory when African-Americans were driven away from voting so for many members of our national community this is an incredible moment and we should not lose sight of that fact.

On our campus the SHC has hosted a debate party with discussion following the first debate, a policy forum with a panel of faculty and students, and of course we were visited by Gov. Palin, Senator Obama, President Clinton (twice), and a slew of local and regional politicians. Remaining uneducated about this election at Penn State would have required a lot of serious effort at evasion. It is great for this political junkie to see so much interest and political activity. Our students have worked hard for both parties and are still at it today. This is the best kind of learning: participation.

I just made the comment a few minutes ago that my overriding hope is that the election will be a clear victory, whomever that candidate is. I think a prolonged count and questioning ballots would not be in our nation’s best interest. I was rightly chastised when a colleague said, “then vote for whoever is in the lead.” I questioned him and his response was, “if your greatest hope is for a clear victory then vote for the person who is in the lead.” No, of course we shouldn’t do that, we should vote for the candidate we believe will best lead our country. And I hope that you will do so today.

Finally a few sites of interest. As I was perusing the news sites this morning I came across this great pictorial on Wired.com of “A Century of Presidents.” (See the picture of Taft above.) The BBC is always a good site for an international perspective that is still somewhat closer to home. They are reporting that Dixville Notch, NH has completed their voting and Obama won with 15 votes to six. And of course Google News will give you a good mashup of all news stories with election results as the come in. Enjoy the day and the history that is being made.

RSS SHC Stammtisch

  • Greg Lucier '86 Eng
  • Dr. James A. Pawelczyk ’85g
  • Asra Nomani
  • Sean Lobar
  • Louis J. D’Ambrosio ’86 Bus

RSS SHC Podcasts

  • The Jewishness of Jesus
  • SHC Oxford Debate 2009
  • Building College Communit Through Technology?
  • First Night 07
  • "Go and do likewise," Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial 2007

What I'm Doing...

  • It has been a great few days in New Orleans at the SBL conference. Met colleagues at Tulane to plan possible PLA trip in 2011 Home tomorrow 2 days ago
  • Just saw PSU's own Dr. Rubin at the conference. If you need a class take his Intro to Old Testamenr/ Hebrew Bible CAMS 110U 4 days ago
  • Visiting my old stomping grounds at Tulane. http://yfrog.com/3lottj 5 days ago
  • More updates...

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