Author: wmf008

Shannon Beauregard

Contributing Writer

The technology team in the library will soon open the Digital Scholarship Center, which will introduce new technologies to students as soon as next semester.

A $700,000 grant awarded to the University this summer from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided funding for the center.

Sometime during the spring semester, students may have the opportunity to work with the MakerBot, a user-friendly 3D printer that will be located at the Digital Scholarship Center. The engineering department already owns a 3D printer.

The 3D printer spits out real, three-dimensional plastic objects. Students can go to thingiverse.com and design the plastic object they want to create.

“Maybe if a student was in a sculpture class and needed something to look at while sculpting, he or she could use the printer,” Digital Scholarship Coordinator Andy Famiglietti said. “Or, if a student was in a management class and wanted to give a class presentation about a new device to market, he or she could actually hold the device in his or her hand.”

Along with the 3D printer, the Information Technology (IT) department wants to have 3D glasses available at the Digital Scholarship Center.

The 3D glasses would allow students to “access information that they would otherwise only be able to access by looking at a screen,” Famiglietti said. “Using the glasses, you can channel information to particular places.”

The 3D glasses essentially display information or search results, in front of your right eye. This eliminates the need to “double screen” and makes multi-tasking substantially easier.

“We want to see how students will use them in classes, and how both students and professors will use them while completing their research,” Digital Scholarship Coordinator Diane Jakacki said.

The IT department has already conversed with faculty members about the new technology and will soon start to talk to the student body as well.

“The goal is to see how the technology can be brought into a humanities or social science context,” Jakacki said. “For lots of humanities folks, technology is straightforward, yet this new technology could transform their coursework.” 

The IT department is currently running trials to explore the effectiveness of the new technology in the classroom and hopes to utilize student feedback when the new Digital Scholarship Center opens.

Erin Jankowski

Contributing Writer

The Griot Institute for Africana Studies will host an event encouraging students to take a break from technology on Oct. 5.

The Dancing Mind Challenge will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and participating students will be asked to put down their cell phones, laptops, and other technology and read without distraction.

The program was created with assistance from the Library and Information Technology Department. The Dancing Mind Challenge can be accomplished independently, but there is also the option to unplug and read with others on the second floor of Bertrand Library or the third floor of Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Hannah Paton

Contributing Writer

A third trip in a series of research-based, National Science Foundation-funded excursions conducted by three professors in the University’s geology department will take place near Franz Josef, New Zealand in March 2014.

Geology professors Craig Kochel and Jeffrey Trop, and Assistant Professor of Geology Rob Jacob first traveled to Franz Josef, New Zealand in January of 2013, and then continued their research in McCarthy, Alaska in July 2013.

Upon their arrival in New Zealand, the professors met up and collaborated with engineer Keith Williams from the non-profit organization UNAVCO to conduct joint research on glacial decay. During their two-week stay, the team specifically studied the formation and decay of “icy debris fans,” fan-shaped landforms made up of deposits of glacial ice and rock sediment, on the Douglas, Mueller, and La Perouse glaciers.

The professors studied the method through which ice comes off the tops of ice caps and makes its way down glaciers to form these icy debris fans, Jacob said.

By examining the landform evolution and depositional processes that create icy debris fans, the professors hope to gain an understanding of the effect of future and past climate change on geological structures.

“We want to understand what has happened in the last 200 years and see if we can associate it with specific markers in the geological record,” Jacob said.

A typical day in the field began with a 10-minute helicopter ride to the icy debris fan, where the team would unload approximately 400 pounds of equipment and begin terrestrial laser scanning to construct a 3D surface topography of the icy debris fans.

The team also measured the size of ice particles and rocks daily and used ground-penetrating radar to create an image of the subsurface. The subsurface image allowed them to determine the thickness of the fans, glaciers, and sediment deposits, and gave them a view of the sub-architecture of the icy debris fan.

Finally, they set up a series of four time-lapse cameras set to take pictures twice a day during the daylight hours for the rest of the year, and two time-lapse cameras set to take pictures every 15 minutes for three months.

Inspiration for the idea came from two separate events in Kochel and Trop’s lives, Jacob said.

While flying over New Zealand to visit his son, Kochel noticed these glacial structures and began to consider them as a topic of study. Similarly, Trop noticed comparable structures while flying over Alaska a few summers earlier.

The three professors teamed up in 2012 and wrote a proposal to the National Science Foundation, were granted funding on Jan. 1, 2013, and began the research right away.

The trip in March will consist of three undergraduate University students, Erica Rubino ’15, Mattie Reid ’15, and Chris Duda ’15, as well as the three professors. They will return to the same location and check the camera content, conduct more fieldwork, and collect new data. The team will also take various helicopter trips to look for more icy debris fans, as they are always looking for more potential sites to conduct research.

Nicole DiRussa

Contributing Writer

The Concert Committee will combine the fall and spring concerts this year into one larger show with twice the budget. The committee is hopeful this will make the overall experience of one grander concert preferable for both the performers and the audience.

The goal for the new budget will improve everyone’s experience by putting more time, effort, and money into the preparation of the concert.

The concert committee will consider feedback from online surveys, which will be placed on sites like Facebook.

Options offered in the most recent survey included Ed Sheeran and Young the Giant this fall. The results have yet to be released, though without support for either candidate the concert will instead be held in the spring semester with different options for artists.

“I like the idea of having one big concert, as long as it’s worth the cut of the second one. I’d like to see a prevalent band to justify the change,” Amanda Waller ’16 said.

Last year’s concerts were plagued by issues with performers and weather.

Swedish DJ Avicii cancelled his appearance for the fall concert last year due to illness, and Hurricane Irene ended a second attempt to bring the artist to campus. American rapper Lupe Fiasco walked off stage a few songs into his set complaining about poor sound equipment.

Gigi Flynn

Contributing Writer

Josh Hartman has become the new director of residential education at the University this year.

Previously, Hartman worked in residential life at New York University, Dartmouth College, and George Washington University. Hartman said he was drawn to the University by President John Bravman’s leadership.

Hartman’s role is in part to oversee the Residential Assistant (RA) program on campus.

“My job is not a one person position,” Hartman said.

Hartman wants to give RAs budgets to plan more events for their halls. Events such as Swartz Sports and the Gateway BBQ were held in the past few weeks.

Hartman will also oversee changes to the residential landscape of campus caused by new residential buildings, the first of which are slated to open in 2015.

“We want to promote independent living,” Hartman said.

At the beginning of the semester Hartman created an RA council. The council is made up of two RAs from every part of campus and meets every two weeks to discuss issues in residential halls as well as events that they hope to execute.

“I want to learn the culture and the students here at Bucknell,” Hartman said.

Kerong Kelly

Writer

University student and budding entrepreneur Bryan Richman ’14 launched “SharedSpark,” an online dating website open only to University students, on Sept. 15.

Richman, a management major at the University, in collaboration with his friends JJ Augenbraun, a recent graduate from Williams College, and Russell Toris, a Ph.D. student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, developed the idea.

In the fall of 2012, Richman proposed his “sharedspark” idea in front of a panel of alumni judges. As the winner of the first annual Business Pitch Competition, sponsored by the University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Richman and his friends were able to use the $1,500 prize money to create a working prototype for what they had envisioned.

Before entering the competition, Richman ran a market research survey. The results of his survey showed that out of 250 University students, 53 percent said they would be interested in a dating site such as the one Richman proposed.

SharedSpark is a registered not-for-profit business, though eventually Richman and his team would like to transform SharedSpark into a for-profit business. As of now, the total cost of this startup-up was less than $5,000.

“We are not trying to make money off of a product people haven’t seen before and are skeptical about. We’re just trying to make the product better and the only way to do that is to get users. The way to get users is to make it accessible,” Richman said.

The website itself is exclusively geared toward current University students and recent alumni. Users create a profile using their student e-mail addresses to ensure their authenticity. After entering general information such as class year and major, the user then proceeds to find a person. After selecting a profile, the options “fling” or “date” appear.

This simple process keeps both parties’ phone numbers locked unless they show mutual interest by selecting the same combination of either fling or date. A “shared spark” results when there is a mutual selection of both parties involved. The website then suggests local venues, such as downtown Lewisburg restaurants or Bison sporting events.

“What makes SharedSpark different is that it helps you enhance relationships you already have rather than just browsing until you find someone you think is attractive,” Richman said.

In the first two days following its launch, the site attracted over 100 users.

Madeline Diamond

Contributing Writer

Actor and comedian Nick Offerman will headline the University’s annual Center Stage event at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19.

Offerman, who currently stars as Ron Swanson on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” will perform as part of his American Ham tour. Additionally, several student groups will perform, all on the Sojka Lawn. The Campus Activities & Programs (CAP) Center is organizing the event, along with input from students.

“We are excited to have him,” Assistant Director of CAP Chelsea Burghoff said.

The CAP Center is confident that the student body will also be enthused with the University’s choice to invite Offerman to campus because of their involvement in choosing the performer, Burghoff said.

This year, student polls contributed to the university’s choice to invite Offerman.

The student-run organization Activities and Campus Events (ACE) worked with the CAP Center to organize the event. Students involved with ACE contributed some input in choosing the performer and will also help with the event’s production.

“Overall, we are there to help ensure that the entire event runs smoothly,” ACE President Tory Cutting ’14 said.

Center Stage will also feature several student performers; in past years, student a capella and improv groups have performed.

“We like to provide a spotlight on student performers,” Burghoff said.

Before the main performances, the CAP Center will provide a dinner (also on the Sojka Pavillon Lawn) of soup in bread bowls as well as a dessert of s’mores roasted in chimneys placed around the lawn.

The five-year-old Center Stage show has hosted performers including Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers and Kenan Thompson, and B.J. Novak of the former television show “The Office.”

Kerong Kelly

Writer

A construction worker was rushed to Evangelical Community Hospital while working on a University project around noon on Sept. 11.

A Public Safety officer called an ambulance for the 28-year-old worker, who was exhibiting symptoms of heat exhaustion.

At the time, the worker and several others were working on the site of a new chilled water storage tank located directly adjacent to Health Services on campus. The storage tank will be used to air condition future upperclassmen housing to be built on the new South Campus, according to James Knight, senior associate director of Energy and Utilities.

The Facilities Department declined to comment on the condition of the worker, citing privacy laws.

Ethan Zubkoff

Contributing Writer

An award-winning journalist will discuss fracking in Pennsylvania from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 21 at the University Bookstore.

Dr. Walter Brasch, the author of a recently released book entitled “Fracking Pennsylvania,” will lead a discussion about the economic, political, health, and environmental impacts of fracking.

Brasch will also talk about the impact of fracking on people who live outside the Marcellus Shale region.

Currently, Brasch is a syndicated social issues columnist as well as the host of a weekly radio series called “The Frack Report” on WFET in Scranton, Pa. Brasch formerly worked as a newspaper and magazine reporter and editor, writer-producer of multimedia productions, and professor of journalism and mass communications.

In “Fracking Pennsylvania,” Brasch interviewed numerous people within the fracking industry, including environmentalists, physicians, and scientists, and he investigated the corporate and political aspects of fracking.

Ethan Zubkoff

Contributing

The University will add new security measures to University President John Bravman’s house after anonymous threats were posted on the Internet in response to the cancellation of House Party Weekend.

The posts, which were made anonymously on several sites, mostly threatened vandalism to Bravman’s home, and most were not credible.

The enhanced security measures include lights, which have already been installed, and a security camera that will be mounted soon.

Chief of Public Safety Stephen Barilar recommended that the camera, which was already budgeted for another location on campus as part of a growing surveillance network, be moved to Bravman’s home partly in response to the threats, according to Andy Hirsch, director of media and communications.

“It is not just solely for the President’s house, [the camera] also covers an area of campus that hadn’t been covered before,” Hirsh said.

The camera will be one in a growing network around campus that Public Safety uses to monitor high traffic areas and places on campus that are considered less safe for students.

The emergency blue light callbox located on the path behind Bravman’s home is the source of a large number of calls and false alarms, according to Hirsch.

“We are looking at areas that serve multi-purposes–for the best interests of the safety of the students,” Barilar said.