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The Rocket www.theonlinerocket.com
Friday, September 28, 2012
Slippery Rock University Student Newspaper
Est. 1934
Volume 96, Number 5
Professors SRU welcomes share class new president participation A week of inauguration events honor Dr. Cheryl Norton as the strategies university's 16th president By Erica Kurvach Rocket Staff Reporter
Faculty shared advice on classroom participation to improve student learning at Open Discussion: Cultivating and Evaluating Class Participation on Tuesday during common hour in room 202 in the Bailey Library. Dr. Timothy Oldakowski, an assistant English professor, led the discussion that allowed all faculty attendants to share their strategies and to ask questions about how to encourage students to participate in the classroom more. These seminars are run by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Educational Technology (CETET), a program that helps faculty find ways to engage in teaching, learning technology, implementing assessments, and designing course development. Brian Danielson has been the director of CETET for the past four years, which is about when CETET started. “The open discussion was made so that the faculty members in attendance would gain some of the best practices in encouraging student participation in class,” Danielson said. Dr. Danette DiMarco, CETET’S faculty coordinator and English professor, asked Oldakowski to facilitate the discussion since he has a personal interest in class participation. Before the discussion, Oldakowski shared about how he graded participation in his interpreting literature class from last year. He had students sit in a circle and put up name tents on their desk. Then, he videotaped them as they took turns in introducing their names. After he watched the video, he learned their names. Oldakowski said that the students felt valued when he knew their names by the next class time. Still before the discussion, Oldakowski shared an “icebreaker” technique that he saw some professors doing. Some collect cards that answer “That awkward moment when…” Oldakowski gave additional advice on how to ask questions and when to wait for a response. He recommended on getting students to talk to each other in small group discussions. He suggested that online classes, depending on class size, should have a group discussion board. Sarah Williams, a Spanish professor, assigns a 15 percent participation grade in Spanish 102. She gives
SRU holds inaugural events throughout week for Norton
SEE PARTICIPATION, PAGE A-3
SEE SYMPOSIUMS, PAGE A-2
Schedule of events Friday
10:00 a.m. – Inaugural procession departs 10:30 a.m. – Inauguration ceremony in the Quad 12:30 p.m. – Inauguration reception in the Quad 6:00 p.m. - Inauguration dinner in the Smith Student Center Ballroom
Saturday
10:00 a.m. Inaugural celebration community service projects 11:00 a.m. Planting of “Inaugural tree” at the President’s Residence lawn For video highlights of Dr. Norton's inauguration, please visit the theonlinerocket.com/inaugural-events. Video highlights will be available Saturday. Scan the QR code to the right with a smartphone to view video highlights. GRAPHIC BY ALEX MOWREY/THE ROCKET
By Catie Clark Assistant News Editor
Slipper y Rock University will celebrate the inauguration of its sixteenth president, Dr. Cheryl J. Norton. Nor t on , SRU ’s f i r s t f e m a l e president, will participate in inaugural ceremonies Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the Quad. Over 250 people are scheduled to march in the inaugural procession leading up to the ceremony that starts at North Hall at 10 a.m. A campus and community picnic on the quad is to follow the ceremony. At 6 p.m., an inaugural scholarship dinner will be held in the Smith Center Ballroom. Tickets were $100 each to support the Norton Undergraduate Research Scholarship. Over 200 people are
already registered. Saturday’s events include several sporting events as well as community ser vice projects held at various locations around campus. An inaugural tree planting ceremony is scheduled for Saturday morning. R i t a Ab e nt , S l i p p e r y R o c k University’s Director of Public Relations, said that the inaugural tree is symbolic of the campus growing in new directions. The Athletic Hall of Fame induction and dinner will be Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in the Smith Student Center Ballroom. According to Abent, inauguration ceremonies aren’t just for a new president. “Inaugurals are really for campuses to celebrate success,” Abent said. Other inaugural events have been held over the course of the past week.
Inaugural events included a 5K run/2K walk, a faculty fine arts exhibit, three Inaugural symposiums, a Japanese cultural workshop, a dance event, and a music faculty concert. The 5K run/2K walk through campus was held on Saturday. The race began at 8:30 a.m. and was sponsored by SRU Wellness Committee and the Butler Health System. All profits from the race were donated to the Norton Undergraduate Research Scholarship. Abent said the run was ver y successful. “We kicked off the week with the inaugural run that had over 300 participants and raised over $4,000 for the Norton scholarship,” Abent said. The Martha Gault Art Gallery held a reception for its faculty and student “While You Were Out” exhibit Monday
Professors develop new software PASSHE Chancellor addresses
User-friendly computer program helps define airsheds By Jonathan Janasik Rocket News Editor
SRU professors Dr. Jack Livingston and Dr. Julie Snow are putting their finishing touches on their $175,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in order to publish a program that will allow users to better understand their local airsheds. The goal of the grant was to create a free and publicly available software that enables people to analyze and use complex models of air movement to answer regional environmental questions, according to Dr. Jack Livingston, associate professor and chair of the SRU department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment. “An airshed is the area of the Earth’s surface that contributes pollutants or anything to a point down wind,” Livingston explained. “So, for any given point on the Earth’s surface we can say
what area contributed to it over a period of time. And what that allows someone to say is, ‘My air is bad, who caused it?'” Associate professor of meteorology Dr. Julie Snow stated that the target audience is mainly political leaders who need to keep track of the regional amounts of carbon dioxide, particulate matter levels, and ozone levels, as well as changes climate in climate. “If I’m breathing air that’s toxic, I’d like to know who is making it toxic so that I could take action and improve the air that I’m breathing,” Snow said. “Most people probably don’t even probably think about it like that. Most people probably don’t think SEE SCIENCE, PAGE A-3
university enrollment issues By Will DeShong Editor-in-Chief
The Pennsylvania System of Higher Education (PASSHE) schools will be improving their recruitment efforts to help combat the decline in enrollment the system has witnessed for the second straight year. PASSHE Chancellor Dr. John C. Cavanaugh addressed numerous issues facing the system during its own Collegiate Media Summit this past weekend at Bloomsburg University, most notably commenting on concerns about PASSHE enrollment and ongoing APSCUF negotiations. Cavanaugh cited a drop in the number of students statewide and strong competition in higher education as the
main factors for the drop in enrollment across PASSHE schools. “It’s no secret that the number of high school seniors in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, when you look at the commonwealth as a whole, is declining,” Cavanaugh said, adding that the areas outside the state’s two largest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, are the most affected. “Part of that is due to migration, part of it is due to the big populations [around the cities],” Cavanaugh said. “That means for us that the traditional market of 17 and 18 year old freshmen is declining. We experienced this decline last year, and this year, according to ‘first day’ statistics, numbers indicated we’re down SEE CAVANAUGH, PAGE A-2