Ribbon-cutting festivities mark opening of new entrance

The new front entrance to Olmsted Building, formally opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 1, is the latest in an ambitious list of construction projects aimed at enhancing the look of campus while supporting its academic mission.

Participating in the ribbon-cutting festivities were: Chancellor Madlyn L. Hanes, Faculty Senate President Toni DuPont-Morales, Student Government Association President Sahar Safaee, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Mukund Kulkarni, and Anna Childe, the architect for the project with the firm of Weber Murphy Fox.

The University project was approved by the University Board of Trustees in late March 2007 and construction began in mid-summer. The Penn State Office of Physical Plant Design Services was the design professional for the 5,262-square-foot addition with Poole Anderson Construction the general contractor.

The enhanced entrance to the building is a three-story addition featuring a new atrium lobby, a café expansion, a new elevator to improve handicap accessibility, and a third floor conference room.

Since 2000, the ambitious expansion of the Penn State Harrisburg campus has included a 115,000-square-foot technologically enhanced library, all new student housing, an indoor aquatic center, new rear entrance to Olmsted Building, Ziegler Commons, the Hoverter Tennis Complex, new baseball field, and an addition to Church Hall including an elevator.

Construction Gallery Photos 2007:

Original Olmsted Building

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College News

Original drama, concert to highlight King Day observance

Penn State Harrisburg’s community observance of Martin Luther King Day on Monday, Jan. 19 will again include an original dramatic production and a musical celebration.

For the 11th consecutive year, the day’s observance begins at noon in the Capital Union Building on campus with an original play written by faculty member and Harrisburg resident Dr. Dorothy King. Then at 4 p.m., Harrisburg’s G.A.T. Fellowship Choir will take the stage for a celebratory concert.

Course on American childhood will include student-produced documentaries

Is there such a thing as a typical American childhood?

Can a study of the historical and cultural trends of the American childhood reveal society’s underlying values?

POGIL and clickers bring learning to classroom

Clickers and POGIL may not sound like academic terms, but a faculty member at Penn State Harrisburg is utilizing them to enhance learning and knowledge in his chemistry classrooms.

If you’ve seen the TV program "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," you’re familiar with personal response systems — those clickers the audience uses to register their votes. Associate Professor of Chemistry Thomas Eberlein is pairing clickers in the classroom with a student-centered active learning technique called Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) to encourage students to learn to reason through problems.