Penn State

Penn State exhibit spans three centuries of Fraktur and Schrenschnitte Inspired by the cultural value and beauty of the Pennsylvania German paper arts in the Special Collections Library, two Penn State professors, Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Christopher Reed, decided to plan an exhibit to share these objects with the public. Their exhibit, “Paper Paradise: Three…

From Penn State project to industry leader with a community-first mission In State College, entrepreneurship comes in many forms. Small businesses are a staple of the community — from restaurants to clothing stores to homegrown manufacturing companies like DiamondBack Covers. Sporting the motto “Built Different,” DiamondBack sprang to life in 2003 from the minds of…

How a $32 investment in 1925 turned Eastern gray squirrels into campus icons Bushy tails skittering across Old Main lawn may be a normal sight now, but those Eastern gray squirrels we now know so well didn’t always build their nests on campus. It all started with $32 and a desire for new wildlife at…

Researchers at Penn State used artificial intelligence and recommendations from the visually-impaired community to develop an award-winning tool that can guide users to objects in their environment Over the last few years, systems and applications that help visually-impaired people navigate their environment have undergone rapid development, but still have room to grow, according to a…

In 2015, the Iowa State Cyclones football team finished with a record of 3-9 and ended their season with losses to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and West Virginia. The program was in shambles. Iowa State had won just five games in two years. Every position group was hurting, the school couldn’t recruit high-rated prospects,…

How many of us found something we loved as a young child that we still thoroughly enjoy as an adult? Members of the Penn State Model Railroad Club have. “I was just 2 years old,” says club President Adam Navarra. “My grandfather sat me down in front of a loop of track in his living…

Long before he was widely known as “Mike the Mailman,” Mike Herr was a young postal worker sorting mail in a back room in the downtown State College post office. Although it was a dirty job that did not require customer interaction, the jeans and t-shirts he and his co-worker wore to work were deemed…

If you tailgated at Penn State football games in the ’80s — those golden home games that led to not just one but two national championships, in 1982 and 1986 — you remember the whirlwind energy of the hours before game time, filled with chanting, cheers, and songs. One group in particular made that scene…

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book is celebrating its 25th anniversary at Penn State, and the 22nd anniversary of a special booklist — the Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Best Books for Family Literacy. The Baker’s Dozen booklist was created in 2003 by the center’s first Penn State director, Steven Herb, education librarian emeritus, and his wife,…

By Ronald A. Smith Penn State played its first intercollegiate football game in 1881, not in 1887. The story of the first game in 1887 has been repeated consistently by the Penn State Athletic Department. It is even recited by the Centre County Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of History and Culture. “Penn State played its first…