Penn State Behrend, Programs, Buildings Earn National Accolades
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, three of its schools and two buildings earned recognition in three national publications during the second half of 2007.
2 for 1
Featured in the October 2007 issue of the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism magazine, “2 for 1” highlights the college’s decision to collocate the Sam and Irene Black School of Business and the School of Engineering in the $30 million, 160,000-square-foot Research and Economic Development Center (REDC). “In putting its business and engineering schools under one roof, Penn State Behrend aims to foster creative teamwork while making its students attractive to industry,” writes author Mary Lord.
The REDC was designed from its inception to create opportunity for collaboration—to encourage “connection, collision and interaction between students and faculty, between business and engineering, between academia and industry, between campus and community,” said architect Herman Weber of Weber Murphy Fox, Inc., who served as the architect of record for the project.
“2 for 1” underscores some of the benefits that Penn State Behrend has seen since the REDC opened in fall 2006, including cross-disciplinary collaboration, the development of two minors—Technical Sales plus Operations and Supply Chain Management, as well as various courses, projects and outreach initiatives that unite the college’s business and engineering students.
The American Society of Engineering Education is a nonprofit association of more than 12,000 engineering faculty members, U.S. colleges of engineering and engineering technology, corporations and other organizations dedicated to promoting excellence in engineering and engineering technology education.
For the complete article, visit www.prism-magazine.org/oct07/feature_2for1.cfm.
Cover Shot
Penn State Behrend joined the ranks of MIT and RIT with the launch of the region’s first Scale-Up physics lab earlier this year. For its “Beyond Facts and Figures” cover story, the Chronicle of Higher Education chose photos of Penn State Behrend’s Scale-Up lab to grace the cover and an inside spread of its August 3 issue.
The article discusses new teaching methods that are effective for teaching science at the undergraduate level, but are not being implemented across the board—an indication that Penn State Behrend is among those leading the way in innovative teaching methods.
An acronym for Student Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs, Scale-Up changes the passive lecture-and-lab format of introductory science courses; in fact, it eliminates lectures entirely. Scale-Up seeks to reduce physics courses’ traditionally high drop-out rate by giving students greater responsibility in the classroom.
Prominently located in Witkowski Building in the college’s School of Science complex, the Scale-Up lab was built-to-suit. Students work in groups of three; each group has its own networked computer with laboratory interfaces and probes for measurement. Three groups sit at each of the classroom’s eight round tables to give a small-classroom feel to class sizes of up to 72 students.
Visit www.behrend.psu.edu/newscal/news2007/feb-ScaleUp2.htm for more information about Penn State Behrend’s Scale-Up lab.
Outstanding Design
Senat Hall, Penn State Behrend’s most recent residence hall, was one of three residence halls/lounges honored for their outstanding designs in American School & University magazine’s August 2007 Educational Interiors Showcase.
The hall, which opened in 2004, is available exclusively to first-year students participating in the Freshman Interest Group (FIGs) program. The 150 freshman who live in Senat Hall are grouped by academic major and enrolled in two or more courses with each other—offering a living and learning educational support network.
Senat Hall is named in honor of George Senat, acting sailing master and commander of the schooner Porcupine—one of nine American ships that defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie. Given its proximity to historic Lake Erie, each residence hall at Penn State Behrend is named after a commander or ship from the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 32 baccalaureate, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,400 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend is the link that connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams, 19 intramural sports and modern facilities. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.