Pedro Noguera, urban sociologist, will discuss education reform and diversity at Penn State Berks at 7 p.m. Feb. 15, in the Perkins Student Center Auditorium. Noguera, an urban sociologists and an advocate for a strong and vibrant public education system, is a professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. He also is the director of the Metro Center for Research on Urban Schools and Globalization. His scholarship and research focus on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment.
Penn State received $42.9 million in gifts from alumni and friends in December 2005 -- the highest total ever for a single month, President Graham B. Spanier reported to the Board of Trustees last week. The previous record was $35.3 million in December 1999. "Several factors converged to allow us to accomplish such a feat," Spanier said. "For example, improvements in the financial markets have made securities a more attractive gift vehicle for donors. We ended the first six months of fiscal year 2006 with about $12.8 million in securities gifts, the highest total we've had at this point in the last five years." Philanthropic support typically is directed to scholarships and graduate fellowships, faculty endowments, library and laboratory acquisitions, equipment upgrades and many other purposes for which state and federal funds are inadequate or unavailable. For the six months ending Dec. 31, 2005, giving to the University totaled about $98 million.
Penn State will distribute $1.2 million in student-parent child-care subsidies during the next four years. The subsidies generate from a new grant the University received from the U.S. Department of Education. Penn State was awarded the maximum amount possible under the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School program. The University will receive $300,000 per year for four years. The new funding represents an $80,000 increase over an existing grant that expired Sept. 30. Child-care subsidies will be distributed to student parents at all Penn State locations. As required by the Department of Education, priority will be given to student parents who receive federal Pell Grants. Students who do not receive Pell Grants can apply for future subsidy distributions.
More than a quarter of a million subscribers receive news about Penn State in their e-mail boxes through the Penn State Newswire, the companion Penn State Live Web site receives nearly 10,000 hits a day from people seeking information about the University, and RSS feeds deliver much of the same information directly to news Web sites and individual subscribers. Now, the Department of Public Information has launched the Penn State news widget. Anyone who uses an Apple computer loaded with the OSX 10.4 (Tiger) operating system can get Penn State news delivered right to the desktop with the new Penn State Live widget. Widgets, which are mini-applications that perform common tasks and provide fast access to information, run through the operating system's Dashboard feature. The Penn State Live widget gives users the most recent Penn State headlines automatically. The headlines then link directly to the full stories on the Penn State Live Web site.