News Archive
Westminster College recently added two members to its Science in Motion staff.
Melissa Krenzer, a former science specialist at Grove City Christian Academy, has been named elementary mobile educator, and Dr. Floyd J. Zehr, professor of physics emeritus who taught at Westminster from 1965-2000, is the new physics mobile educator.
They join Stephanie Corrette-Bennett, biology mobile educator; and Bernard Durkin, chemistry mobile educator director of the Science in Motion Program at Westminster College.
The Science in Motion program brings vans equipped with state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and experiments to area Pennsylvania school students.
"We now have $112,500 of scientific instrumentation and computer hardware," said Durkin. "This year we visited 46 schools where we conducted experimental instruction, 35 instrumental loans, and eight experimental instruction visits. We also encourage schools to visit our Hoyt Science Resources Center for a day of science-related activities appropriate for their grade level."
A series of five workshops for teachers are scheduled for the month of June. Each of these workshops will earn the participant six hours of professional development each day to meet the Act 48 requirements. Also scheduled are four two-day introductory workshops for new teachers in each of the content areas of elementary, biology, chemistry, and physics, in addition to a three-day curriculum development workshop for veteran teachers.
The Pennsylvania Department of State funds this project through the Higher Education Basic Education Science and Technology Partnership.
For more information, contact Durkin at (724) 946-6294 or e-mail durkinbm@westminster.edu or visit the website: www.westminster.edu/sim.
A Linux InstallFest was hosted by Westminster College assistant professor of computer science Dr. David Shaffer in the McElree lab in Hoyt Science Resources Center on Feb. 26.
The event, the first of its kind on campus, was meant to spread information and help students interested in Linux, a free operating system, install it onto their computers. Other campuses and Linux user groups around the area hold InstallFests and other Linux-related meetings regularly.
"The wealth of free software for Linux opens opportunities for students to undertake tasks that might otherwise cost a significant amount of money," said Shaffer, who has been using the operating system since 2000. "I'm glad to see the variety of students that showed up."
Seniors Brad Kita, Jeremy Baker and Raphael Pigulla, sophomore Colin Dean and freshmen Bill McCullough and Bill Quigley attended the InstallFest. Kita, Dean and Quigley are computer science majors and Pigulla is a computer information systems major.
"I've been into computers since I was eleven," said McCullough, a music major. "I first became interested in Linux when an acquaintance mentioned it. I used to run [the] Debian [distribution]. Today, I installed Gentoo." A distribution is a version of Linux. There are currently hundreds of varying versions of the operating system.
"This [computer] has basically been a paperweight for the past three months," said Baker, a sociology major. Baker has been unable to get into Windows, so he decided to try Linux.
Linux was first made public in 1993 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish programmer who was tinkering with a version of UNIX, one of the first operating systems, called Minix. Since then, Linux has been adopted by major corporations such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems. Torvalds is still the maintainer of the kernel; the core of the system.
Companies such as Red Hat, Mandrake and Linspire offer unsupported free versions of their distribution while also offering professionally supported commerical versions. Other distributions, such as Debian and Gentoo, are offered completely free and are community-supported. The campus's UNIX lab is currently in the process of moving from Red Hat's distribution to Gentoo.
"Some find Linux confusing at first, but as with anything new, one must be patient and learn the ropes," said Shaffer. "It's not just the free operating system that is nice, but the sheer amount of free software that works just as well as commercial software, such as OpenOffice to Microsoft Office and GIMP to Photoshop."
Shaffer plans to have at least two more gatherings this semester regarding Linux. The topic of first of the two is currently the tools and common programs found in most Linux distributions. The topic of the second is still being planned.
More information on Linux can be found by contacting Dr. Shaffer at (724) 946-7292 or e-mail shaffecd@westminster.edu or by visiting www.kernel.org,
Colin Campbell, a Westminster College junior physics major, recently presented his research at the American Physical Society – Division of Fluid Dynamics 58th annual meeting in Chicago.
The research, "The De-pinning Transition of Periodically Vibrated Sessile Drops," was conducted during the summer with Dr. Craig Caylor, assistant professor of physics.
"The data presented is about the strength of the force that pins water droplets to surfaces for different sizes of water droplets," Caylor said.
Campbell is a son of Tom and Rose Campbell, Poland, Ohio, and a graduate of Canfield High School.
Contact Caylor at (724) 946-7202 or e-mail caylorcl@westminster.edu for more information.
More than 50 Westminster College Residence Assistants and Residence Directors recently received training from the New Wilmington Fire Department.
Dr. Edward S. Cohen, associate professor of political science at Westminster College, recently had his book, The Politics of Globalization in the United States, published by the Georgetown University Press.
Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker visited Westminster College for less than an hour, but the impact of his visit will last a lifetime for area residents.
Westminster College will host more than 900 students from 50 area schools to participate in the northwestern regional Science Olympiad competition on Friday, March 28.
The competition runs from 9 a.m.-2 p.m., and features middle school and high school students' science projects and experiments. "Bottle Rocket," "Crime Buster," "Disease Detective," and "Robot Ramble," are just four of 35 highly-visual experiments that will be educational as well as fun for spectators.
Sherri Slafka, senior public relations and Spanish major at Westminster College, was recently awarded the 2007 Bob O'Gara Scholarship Award, previously called the Outstanding Western Pennsylvania Undergraduate Student in Public Relations Renaissance Award, from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
Dr. Edward Cohen, Westminster College associate professor of political science and chair of the Department of Political Science and Sociology, was an invited presenter at the sixth Pan-European International Relations Conference in Turin, Italy, Sept. 12-15.
Dr. Pamela Richardson, Westminster College assistant professor of mathematics, will present "Nonassociative Algebra (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parentheses)" at the final spring semester Faires Faculty Forum on Wednesday, April 30, at 11:40 a.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater in the McKelvey Campus Center.
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