Penn State

As more and more of the country gets vaccinated against coronavirus, many Penn Staters are feeling hopeful about the upcoming in-person school year. Others point to the current upswing in COVID cases and say it’s too soon.

In a livestream Friday, leaders at Penn State and from the surrounding community voiced concerns about the recent uptick in coronavirus cases and a new, more infectious variant found in State College.

State College Mayor Ron Filippelli said police have been responding to more gatherings recently and he sees a relaxation of precautions across the board.

A team of Penn State researchers is using wastewater testing to track the rise and fall of the COVID-19 virus in the State College area. WPSU's Anne Danahy spoke with Andrew Read, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, about the project. Here's their conversation. 

Anne Danahy 

Andrew Read, thank you for talking with us.

Andrew Read 

Sure.

Anne Danahy 

State College’s annual partying holiday, State Patty’s Day, took place this past weekend. Crime rates surrounding the event have dipped in recent years. That trend continued this year despite the creation of new COVID-19 citations.

This State Patty’s weekend saw the lowest crime statistics in the past 11 years.

State College and Penn State police focused enforcement on dorms and apartments close to campus. The borough encouraged rental owners to keep an eye out for large gatherings throughout the weekend as well.

Monday is the first day of in-person classes for Penn State students. To slow the spread of the virus, the university is requiring students to be re-tested after arriving back on campus for the semester. 

All students living on or off-campus who are registered for in-person classes are required to take the arrival test.

Students living in the State College area are also required to take the test even if their classes are fully remote.

To celebrate Frederick Douglass’s birthday, Penn State will host an online “transcribe-a-thon” event this weekend to preserve the papers of an important Black woman activist. 

Jim Casey is a Douglass Day co-director and an assistant professor of African American Studies at Penn State. He said Douglass Day has evolved in the five years since it began.

Members of the Penn State Black Caucus are calling for action after the group was “Zoom bombed” during a virtual involvement fair. On Sunday Penn State’s student government signed a resolution condemning the attack.

The Black Caucus said 51 unwanted users ambushed their Zoom event with racist and homophobic slurs, and some exposed themselves in a sexual manner. Black Caucus representative Blake Toliver said it was heartbreaking to many of his fellow classmates.

Penn State students will return to in-person classes next Monday, as the country is bracing for a faster-spreading COVID-19 variant to become dominant.

The B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus -- also known as the U.K. variant -- has already been detected in more than 30 states, including Pennsylvania. The Centers for Disease Control expects it to become the dominant variant in March.

Worsening COVID-19 conditions at the end of last year led Penn State to move all spring semester classes online until Feb. 15. The university also discouraged all students – living both on and off campus – from returning to State College until then. But many students have already returned to Centre County. 

Avinash Saraiya is a pre-med student at Penn State. He moved in to his off-campus apartment in mid-January. He said being in Centre County makes him feel connected to the university even during the pandemic.

2020 was the first year many Penn State students could vote in the presidential election. Several politically active students shared their reactions to Wednesday’s inauguration.

Maliha Reza is an electrical engineering student and a member of the Penn State College Democrats. She remembers voting for Barack Obama during a mock election in elementary school. Reza expected her first time voting for a president would be similar.

Dr. Michael E. Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. He is recognized around the world as a leading expert on climate change. His latest book is “The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet,” published by Hachette. WPSU’s Kristine Allen talked with Michael Mann about tactics used by climate change deniers, what needs to be done about the climate crisis, and why he's optimistic about tackling climate change.

Roughly 35,000 students came back to Penn State this fall for classes during the coronavirus pandemic. One out of every seven of those students contracted COVID-19 during the semester. Some Penn State students who tested positive shared their experiences with the virus and whether catching it made them more or less cautious. 

This year marks the 30th anniversary of when the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. WPSU's Anne Danahy talked about the landmark legislation and the challenges people with disabilities still face with Leah Zimmerman, executive director of Student Disability Resources at Penn State, and Michael Bérubé, Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of Literature. Zimmerman and Bérubé are co-chairs of Penn State’s new Disability Access Initiative working group.

Penn State is one of many universities that had students return for fall classes during the coronavirus pandemic. Classes at Penn State and many other universities have now moved to remote learning at the Thanksgiving break. WPSU took a look how different universities handled testing and their COVID-19 numbers relative to Penn State. 

Penn State president Eric Barron hosted a virtual town hall Wednesday to discuss racism, bias and community safety within the university. Two groups tasked with addressing these issues presented their recommendations about how Penn State should move forward.

The Select Presidential Commission on Racism, Bias and Community Safety and the Student Code of Conduct Task Force have drafted reports about changes they want to see at Penn State. The commission would like Penn State to make broad changes, such as promoting an inclusive and antiracist campus culture.

The Centre Film Festival is happening this weekend. It was held at the Rowland Theatre in Philipsburg last year. But this year, because of the pandemic, it’s coming to a living room near you.

“So we’re in our second year, and obviously we hope to continue in person next year,” says Pearl Gluck, who teaches film in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. She’s co-founder of the Centre Film Festival. 

Penn State is urging students to get tested for COVID-19 before the university transitions to fully remote instruction for the rest of the fall semester on November 20.

In a webinar Tuesday, the director of the university’s COVID-19 Operations Control Center, Kelly Wolgast, said free departure testing for all students is voluntary but highly recommended. More than 6,000 University Park students have already scheduled one.

It's Halloween: time for chilling tales of local hauntings.  And in the interview below, Matthew Swayne delivers the goods. Swayne, originally from Tyrone, Pennsylvania,  is a science writer for Penn State's Institute for Computational Sciences.  He is also the author of "Haunted Valley: the Ghosts of Penn State."

TRANSCRIPT:

ALLEN: You wrote a book on hauntings at Penn State.  How did you get interested in that?

In July, Penn State president Eric Barron announced that nearly half of the university’s classes this fall would have some in-person component. But since the start of the semester, attendance for some of those in-person classes has dropped substantially. 

Penn State senior Kamron Sarmadi is registered to vote in Virginia. Mail-in voting is the only viable option for his first presidential election.

“I don’t want to drive three hours back home. And, obviously, before all the big changes started coming through, USPS is like the one government-run thing that I really appreciate,” Sarmadi said.

Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state in the 2020 election. And now, for the first time ever in a presidential election year, mail-in ballots are available to all registered voters in Pennsylvania, without any excuse. That means there is now actually a way for you to vote early in person.

Your polling place in won’t be open until Nov. 3.  But between now and Tuesday, there is a place you can go to vote early.