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Few Issues Resolved at Brief Hearing

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Joe Amendola

Joe Amendola

All the major pre-trial issues remain in play, as Jerry Sandusky’s defense lawyer will argue for the charges to be thrown out at a later date.  “Those motions and those issues are still very much at issue here in the case,” attorney Joe Amendola told the media following a brief hearing in Centre County Court. 

State prosecutor Joe McGettigan suggests that the defense team’s pre-trial tactics have been lengthy and pointless.  But Amendola responds that, “If the Commonwealth had been more specific, we probably wouldn’t be here today.” 

Joe McGettigan

Amendola wants many of the charges thrown out based on a lack of specifics from the Commonwealth.  It’s a notion that state prosecutor Joe McGettigan steadfastly denies.  “We have provided voluminous specificity as to the acts with which he is charged,” McGettigan told the mass of reporters who gathered at the courthouse in Bellefonte.    

A few of Jerry Sandusky’s pre-trial motions were withdrawn on Thursday, including a request to suppress statements Sandusky made to authorities in 1998 and a request to suppress intercepted phone conversations Sandusky had with two of the alleged victims.  Amendola tells reporters that both pieces of evidence will actually help the defense at trial.    

The 68-year-old Jerry Sandusky – a once iconic assistant football coach at Penn State – remains on house arrest following his November arrest on 52-counts of child sex abuse. 

Amendola says his client’s spirits are high, and Sandusky looks forward to spending the Easter holiday with most of his family.  McGettigan says the Commonwealth looks forward to the victims getting their day in court. 

Right now it looks that that will happen in early summer, as jury selection is slated to begin on June 5th.

Renaming Beaver Stadium?

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Pennsylvania voters believe Penn State’s home field should be renamed “Joe Paterno Stadium,” by a margin of 46 – 40, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll.  The support increases to 51% when you look only at voters over 65-years-old, and the name change has 55% support among college football fans.  

“There is lingering respect for Joe Paterno,” says pollster Tim Malloy.  “One has to wonder: If the Sandusky scandal had never happened whether support for renaming the stadium would have approached 100%.”  

After 61-years at Penn State, Joe Paterno was fired in November.  He died in January following a bout with lung cancer.  Paterno was 85.    

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,256 registered Pennsylvania voters for Friday’s poll.

New App Helps Find the “Caffeine Zone”

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Craving another cup of coffee to get you through the day?  Not sure if it’s the right move?  Thanks to Penn State researchers, there’s an app for that.  The “Caffeine Zone 2” iPhone app helps people monitor their caffeine consumption relative to adjustable thresholds. 

Those thresholds include a minimum level for optimal cognitive performance, a ceiling to tell you when to rein in the caffeine to avoid the jitters or illness, and a low threshold to ensure elevated caffeine levels don’t keep you up at night.  Once you input your caffeine consumption, the Caffeine Zone 2 app turns it all into an easy to read graph. 

Penn State professor of information sciences & technology Frank Ritter says proper caffeine balance can be important, but staying in the caffeine zone can be difficult.  “A little bit’s good, and there’s some optimal amount.  “But if you keep going it doesn’t get better, it gets worse instead.”  Mathematically, it’s called an inverted u-shaped curve. 

Dr. Ritter teamed up with assistant professor of computer science and engineering Martin Yeh to develop the new app.  It’s currently only available for iPhone users.  There’s a free version with advertisements.  To get the ad-free version, it will cost you 99-cents.

Capitol, State Capitol, Dome

Key Higher Ed. Budget Hearings set for Tuesday, Wednesday

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For the second straight year, proposed budget cuts in higher education are creating a stir under the capitol dome.  Senate Appropriations Chairman Jake Corman (R-Centre) referred to the state-related universities as the “state barely related universities,” as he lamented planned 30% cuts to Penn State, Pitt and Temple’s state support.  Corman’s Centre County district includes the Penn State University Park campus. 

Using Penn State as an example, the governor’s office will tell you that the planned spending reductions only amount to 1.5% of its overall budget.  Corman, however, turns those numbers around and points out that the state’s share of PSU’s overall budget would only be 3.8% next year. 

In a direct line of questioning with Education Secretary Ron Tomalis, Monday, Appropriations Committee member John Rafferty (R-Montgomery) asked if there’s an effort to privatize the state-related universities.  “No sir, there is not,” Tomalis replied.  “A lot of these decisions, as you know, are budget-driven decisions.” 

The three major state-related universities would see 30% cuts in state support under the governor’s budget plan.  The State System of Higher Education would receive 20% cuts, and community colleges’ state funding would be reduced by roughly 4%.  Governor Tom Corbett recently addressed the issue on Radio PA’s Ask the Governor program.     

Jake Corman

State Sen. Jake Corman

“If we truly want these to continue to be public universities, then I look forward – at the state-related level, at the state system level and at the community college level – to restoring all of these cuts,” Corman said at Monday’s hearing, which focused on the State Department of Education. 

On Tuesday afternoon, the State System of Higher Education will sit down with the Senate Appropriations Committee.  Then, the committee has carved out all day Wednesday to meet individually with the four state-related universities.

State-Related Universities Plead Their Budget Cases

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State-related universities saw near 20% cuts in state support last year.  The governor imposed a 5% budget “freeze” mid-year, and Penn State, Pitt and Temple face proposed 30% cuts next fiscal year.  “In certain respects, what we’re seeing is the dismantling of a long, long commitment by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to public higher education,” University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg told the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.  Nordenberg went on to say the cumulative cuts appear to be pushing the state-related into private institutions.

When asked what the proposed cuts would mean, if they were entirely addressed through tuition hikes, Penn State President Rodney Erickson told the panel that it would be a 9.37% tuition increase.  “But I can assure you that we will not do that,” he added. 

At Temple, President Ann Weaver Hart says the hypothetical tuition hike would be in the $4,000 dollar range.  At Pitt, Chancellor Nordenberg said in-state students would be paying $3,000 dollars more if the cuts were absorbed entirely through tuition increases.  But the leaders of all three universities stressed that they continue to look to cut costs, and they would keep tuition hikes as low as possible. 

“The unemployment rate among college graduates is less than half the unemployment rate among high school graduates,” Temple President Ann Weaver Hart said as she implored state lawmakers to reconsider another round of deep budget cuts. 

Pennsylvania’s fourth state-related university, Lincoln, receives just a fraction of the state support as the larger universities do.  Lincoln’s “general support” line item would be level-funded at $11.1-million dollars in the governor’s spending plan.

Storytelling Professor Preserves his Tales in New Book

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Throughout his 35-years in the college classroom, first at Drexel University and now Penn State, Dr. Joseph Rose has developed a reputation as the “storytelling professor.”  Rose tells us his stories are meant to help students realize that it’s not enough to get good grades; they need to take charge of their lives. 

But Rose’s stories can inspire us all:STORY1

140 of Dr. Rose’s favorite stories can be found in his new book, “Seeking the Edge: Thoughts on Wisdom and Success.”  He defines “the edge” as the thin line between excellence and mediocrity: STORY2

The book includes sections that range from negotiations to happiness.

(Old Main photo credit: Nathaniel C. Sheetz)

Research: Targeted Intervention can Curb Campus Drinking

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The first few weeks of a semester are critical in shaping college students’ drinking habits, especially for freshmen, but new research out of Penn State is shedding light on strategies to curb dangerous drinking.  The focus is on early intervention strategies, and Penn State research associate Dr. Michael Cleveland was able to categorize drinkers into four sub-groups to analyze their effects.

 The four sub-groups used in Cleveland’s research include: non-drinkers, weekend bingers, weekend non-bingers, and heavy drinkers.  Parent-based and peer-based intervention strategies were applies to samples from each sub-group. 

“Both strategies were associated with baseline heavy drinkers reducing their use,” Dr. Cleveland tells us.  “The parent-based intervention not only had the effect of reducing the use of the heavy drinkers, but it also was effective at preventing non-drinkers from escalating their use.”  Neither intervention strategy made much of an impact on the weekend drinker categories.

He believes the results are promising.  “The right intervention has to be given to the right person, in the right amount, at the right time kind of a targeted intervention approach,” Cleveland explains. 

His study utilized student samples from Penn State and the University of Washington in Seattle.  Cleveland is now in the process of replicating the results using different student samples.

A Final Goodbye…

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He was more than a coach.  Former players spanning six decades were represented at “A Memorial for Joe” on Thursday afternoon.  They spoke of Joe Paterno the man, the educator, the role model.   1982 national championship quarterback Todd Blackledge called JoePa the most extraordinary person he’s ever known.  1970s receiver Jimmy Cefalo added that Paterno’s legacy won’t be defined by the 409 wins, five undefeated seasons or two national championships.  He says Paterno’s legacy will be the Grand Experiment.  “What was the idea?  That we wouldn’t just be athletes, but we would be student athletes.  And we can say now, 46-years later, that the Grand Experiment was a great success.” 

Paterno’s mid-season ouster, amid the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, did not go unnoticed during the two hour service at the Bryce Jordan Center.   “Whatever the details of that investigation are, this much is clear to me: if there’s a villain in this tragedy, it lies in that investigation, not in Joe Paterno’s response to it,” Nike Chairman Phil Knight said defiantly.  Those words brought a near 60-second standing ovation from some 12,000 fans. 

It was an emotional afternoon for many; especially the family.  Paterno’s son Jay spoke last.  “My father used to quote Tennessee Williams who said, ‘I knew no one was immortal but I thought I was the exception.’ Well dad, through this legacy and the legacy of so many you have touched, you are the exception.” 

Joe Paterno died on Sunday following a bout with lung cancer.  He was 85. 

"Today we are going to show you how much we love you" ~ Kenny Jackson

 

“A Memorial for Joe”

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    Thousands of mourners and fans will pack into the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State today to say their final goodbyes to Joe Paterno, who passed away Sunday at age 85.

    “A Memorial for Joe” is scheduled to begin at 2:00pm. More than 10,000 free tickets for the event were snatched up in just minutes Tuesday morning when they were made available online.

Beaver stadium flags

Flags at Beaver Stadium are flying at half-staff this week.

   Paterno spent 61 years at Penn State, the last 46 as Head Coach. For most of the past half-century he embodied the Penn State football program and the university itself. While the word “icon” is often overused, it certainly applies to Joe Paterno.

    His tenure as Head Coach came to an end on November 9th when the Penn State Board of Trustees fired Paterno in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. Days later, the coach was diagnosed with what was at that time described as a “treatable” form of lung cancer, but complications took his life this past Sunday.

    Tens of thousands of fans paid respects to the closed casket during visitations on Tuesday and Wednesday. Paterno was laid to rest on Wednesday following a private family funeral service.

Long Lines of Mourners Pay Their Respects

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Over his 61 years at Penn State, Joe Paterno made thousands of friends and countless fans.  The legendary football coach’s wide-ranging impact is evident in the long lines of mourners waiting to pay their respects to Paterno on this the first day of a two-day public viewing. 

The closed casket will be accessible for viewing until 11pm tonight, and again from 8am to noon on Tuesday, at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on campus.  A private, family funeral will follow on Wednesday afternoon.  

Paterno Viewing

If you look closely in this picture, you can see a white steeple in the distance. That's the front of the line.

Thursday’s public memorial service, “A Memorial for Joe,” will be held in the 15,000 seat Bryce Jordan Center.  Penn State officials made free tickets available starting at 10am this morning; within minutes there were none left. 

Joe Paterno passed away on Sunday at the age of 85.  If you plan to attend any of this week’s remembrances, be prepared for crowds.