Adam Plucinski, assistant teaching professor of engineering at Penn State Altoona, and Lolita Paff, associate professor of business economics at Penn State Berks, are the 2022-23 recipients of the Jack P. Royer Active and Collaborative Learning Award from the Office of the Vice President for Commonwealth Campuses. The award recognizes Commonwealth Campus faculty and staff who demonstrate innovative teaching practices to enhance student learning and who facilitate student engagement in learning to advance conceptual and applied understanding and competencies.
Penn State Berks has named nearly 700 students to the spring 2023 dean’s list. To earn a dean’s list designation, students must end the semester with a 3.5 grade-point average or higher.
How do you instill an appreciation of biodiversity and a desire to preserve ecosystems in the community? A team of Penn State Berks and Lehigh Valley professors tackled this very question through a multidisciplinary research project that involved participants in a meaningful community activity, linking science and the arts.
Two Penn State Berks students will spend this summer engaged in their respective funded research opportunities. Sophomore Daniel Abramov and senior Sydney Bankert received the Erickson Discovery Grant; they are two of 50 who received the grant.
Some of the projects that culminated at the end of the semester included holding a sustainable self-care fair on campus, a film screening of “The Story of Plastic,” the creation of a campus garden, and students presenting their engagement in environmental outreach projects — all to help educate the campus community on the importance of developing environmentally-friendly practices.
At Penn State Berks, hospitality management students are learning about the principles of food production and service management in a living laboratory, through a unique collaboration between the college’s hospitality management baccalaureate degree program and Penn State Housing and Food Services. Faculty from the degree program and Food Services staff have partnered to offer HM 330: Food Production and Service Management.
During her time at Penn State Berks, Michel Germán dedicated her efforts to helping others, in and out of the classroom, all while persevering through adversity. The Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, native graduated on May 6 with her bachelor’s degree in elementary and early childhood education during the Penn State Berks commencement ceremony.
Two Penn State Berks students received an honorable mention at the Mid-Atlantic Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting, which was held from March 31 to April 2 at the University of Delaware. Erin Horack, a second-year biotechnology major, and Quang Vinh Lu, a second-year biology major, presented their research, titled “Antibiotic-Resistant Gene Expression in Water Quality Indicators, Escherichia coli, and Enterococci, Extracted from the Delaware River Basin.”
Edith Konneh has had a successful four years at Penn State Berks, both academically and socially. Perhaps her most significant accomplishment was inspiring her fellow students through her poetry which explores issues of mental health, self-love, and healing. The Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, native will graduate with a bachelor's degree in elementary and early childhood education during Penn State Berks commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 6.
Four members of the Penn State Berks graduating class received their Schreyer Honors Medals at the Academic Achievement Awards Ceremony held on Sunday, April 16. Medals are awarded upon completion of the requirements of the Schreyer Honors College, including a capstone honors thesis.
