IUP's first community Hungerthon, held Nov. 16, 2002 in conjunction with national hunger awareness week, raised more than $3,500 for World Hunger Year. The event included a hunger banquet, art auction, improvisational performance by a student group, children's events at the Indiana Mall, and culminated in a benefit concert by the Steve Chapin Band at the Indiana Theater. The event was organized by Dr. Alan Temes (talkstotrees), a professor in IUP's Health and Wellness Department, with a great deal of assistance provided by several IUP student groups, including Alpha Phi Omega.

On Oct. 5, 2002 IUP dedicated a special memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that includes a piece of steel from the World Trade Center building in New York City. The 13-foot tall piece from the building’s upper floors is on loan to the University from the collection of the Kovalchick family, owners of Kovalchick Corporation of Indiana.  In addition to the World Trade Center piece, the memorial includes a special plaque that recognizes the victims of the terrorist attacks, including IUP alumni Donald W. Jones ’80 and William C. Sugra ’93, killed at the World Trade Center. The memorial has been placed outside of the University’s main administration building, John Sutton Hall, and is visible from the Oak Grove.

In 2002, IUP hosted a special Veteran's Day ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza on campus. This ceremony coincided with the 20^th anniversary of the establishment of IUP’s Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial on Nov. 11, 1982. IUP’s memorial, the first memorial to Vietnam veterans on a college or university campus, was established just a few days before the dedication of the national Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.   

In fall 2002, IUP hosted the first Western Pennsylvania Underground Railroad Symposium, designed to bring together public historians and educators, preservationists, history enthusiasts and students, tourism planners, and community and government leaders interested in the Anti-Slavery Movement, the Underground Railroad, and African American history in Western Pennsylvania and around the region. 

 In fall 2002, Dr. N. Bharathan, professor of biology, successfully secured an $8,000 competitive grant from the National Science Foundation to develop and deliver a hands-on workshop called “Biotechnology in a Box”  for pre-service teachers and teachers in Pennsylvania. IUP was one of 16 applicants for the grant. The workshop specifically addresses some of the state standards for biology, and includes work in advanced techniques in modern biotechnology through hands-on inquiry. A second workshop in spring 2003 is planned.

IUP's Center for Economic Education has been awarded a three-year affiliation status (2002-2005) by the National Council on Economic Education based upon the Council’s accreditation review of the IUP chapter. The Center is one of a dozen such nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations throughout the state that are also affiliated with Economics Pennsylvania. The main goal of the Center is to improve the economic literacy of the population by better training and equipping teachers in K-12 classrooms in Indiana and Westmoreland counties. It is directed by Dr. James Jozefowicz, IUP professor of economics.  The Center is involved in a number of concepts that support the National Council’s mission of continually improved economics education through teacher training, consulting services, research and materials development—all of which factored in its renewing the accreditation. One program, Make It Pennsylvania, equips teachers to teach about manufacturing. For the last several years, the Center has been inviting teachers to participate in a number of learning workshops that they can then work into their curriculums.  Other workshops include Economics of the Louisiana Purchase, Economics in Children’s Literature, Sports Economics, Economic Mysteries, Economics of Art and Entertainment and Bringing Home the Bacon, a study into the working individual. The Center holds an annual summer program aimed at high school students across the state and has provided mini-workshops for the School of Education and Social Studies Education departments in the past. 

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is working with an environmental non-profit organization to help protect endangered and threatened plant and animal species in Pennsylvania. IUP is cooperating with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to help them implement a computerized geographic database (called a Geographic Information System, GIS) designed to help biologists and zoologists map areas where endangered animal and plants species live in western Pennsylvania. This information will be used to help track specific locations in Pennsylvania that could pose dangerous threats to plants and animals. The Conservancy is an organization that protects ecological sites in western Pennsylvania. Part of the organization’s mission is to see how specific population areas increase or decrease, and what affect it will have on land use in relation to animal and plant life. IUP’s Dr. John Benhart, geography and regional planning professor, worked with IUP graduate Jason Fazekas, conservation data manager for the Conservancy, to organize a workshop to train Conservancy scientists in the use of a GIS software called ArcView. The Conservancy identified a need to coordinate special geographical mapping information with other data they were already collecting relating to plant and animal species.  They called upon IUP to assist with their GIS training because they had hired several IUP geography and regional planning program graduates and knew about the department’s emphasis on Geographic Information System and other geospatial technologies (such as global positioning systems and remote sensing). In the past, Fazekas says, mapping was done with topographical maps to pinpoint endangered areas. By combining GIS with the old data collection system, the database and mapping components are linked, allowing zoologists and biologists to efficiently update information as it becomes available. The data-sensitive information guarantees the protection of endangered species and plants.

IUP is the only site in the nation to offer a state-of-the-art video
observation lab for the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Program, which includes the IUP Speech and Hearing Clinic. The Clinic is a free service for the Indiana community. The new system will allow for better and instant feedback for clinicians and will benefit parents who come to observe their children in the Clinic.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is part of a $160,000 project funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Office of Education Technology to help fund an introductory workshop on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Pennsylvania’s public school teachers. Dr. John Benhart, professor in the department of geography and regional planning at IUP, participated as an instructor and facilitator at Shippensburg University, where the workshop was held this past summer. The workshop explored ways for teachers to use the GIS as an interdisciplinary tool in the classroom. Sixty teachers from Pennsylvania public schools were chosen to participate in the program. They were selected based on their school district’s desire to learn more about technology and how it would support the classroom setting.

The student chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers at Indiana University of Pennsylvania purchased five computers for the benefit of interior design majors at the university in spring 2002, thanks to some creative ideas. IUP students involved in ASID donated their time and efforts to several fund-raising projects, including one in which they acted as design consultants for IUP organizations who built floats for last year's homecoming parade.

Indiana County's Community Action Program (ICCAP) Food Bank benefits annually from IUP's Soup Bowl Sale held each spring. Individuals pay $10 for a special hand-made ceramic bowl and a meal of homemade soup and bread. The meal is prepared by IUP's Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management students and the bowls are crafted by members of the advanced ceramics class at IUP. In 2002, more than $1,500 was raised for the Food Bank. The project was started eight years ago by the IUP advanced ceramics program and the meal was donated by area chefs and restaurants. IUP’s HRIM students took over the program in 2002.

For the past decade, Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management professor Dr. Thomas Van Dyke has been putting theory into practice with his "Housing the Homeless and Feeding the Hungry" course. As part of the course, students form groups and volunteer at various local philanthropic organizations and did semester-long projects of fundraising and community service. They also learned about less fortunate families and individuals in Indiana County and in the nation and were required to make presentations about selected societal problems and possible solutions. "The point of the projects is to give the students hands-on experience working with organizations that attend to the needs of people," Van Dyke says. "Actually getting out into the community to practice the course content is the best way for the students to bring the concepts together."

Pennsylvania employers who want help in recognizing and correcting safety and health hazards and in improving their safety and health programs can get it from a free consultation service largely funded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency of the United States Department of Labor. The service is provided through the PA/OSHA Consultation Program at IUP.

The program addresses immediate problems and also offers professional advice and help in maintaining continued, effective worker protection. Besides helping employers to identify and correct specific hazards, consultants provide guidance in establishing or improving an effective safety and health program and offer training and education for the employer, the employer's supervisors and employees.

Alternative Spring Break, a week-long service experience, promotes critical thinking, social action and continued community involvement by combining education and direct service on the local, regional and national levels. In 2002, a group of 20 students traveled to Washington, D.C., to work with a community relief agency called Pilgrimmage which specializes in care for people (mainly children, single mothers, and the homeless) who are HIV-positive or who have AIDS. Students worked throughout the year to raise funds for the costs of student training at a nationally recognized alternative break summer retreat, advertisement and recruitment, food and lodging for the volunteers and a donation to the Pilgrimmage agency, which will go to help their mission and relief efforts in the DC area.

The National Environmental Education and Training Center and its organizational partner, IUP, donated emergency response equipment to the Clymer and Marion Center volunteer fire departments in an effort to assist local fire companies to better prepare volunteers for emergency situations. NEETC's mission promotes worker health and safety by developing training materials for workers in the hazardous materials and heavy industries. NEETC Inc. services include program management, research, process improvements, equipment process risk analysis, chemical training and composite database development. In response to the Sept. 11 tragedy, NEETC donated a significant amount of personal protective equipment for use by the rescue and cleanup workers in New York City.

IUP, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (District 10) is working to keep campus pedestrians safe. As part of this initiative, IUP is the first site in Pennsylvania to pilot a state-of-the-art crosswalk marking program. In April, IUP became the first location in the state to pilot new florescent green thermal inlay crosswalk markings. These markings will complement the white painted crosswalk markings. In selected crosswalks, the material will be inlaid directly into the pavement. All costs of the materials and installation for the thermal markings will be funded by Avery Dennison, supplier of the crosswalk materials. Following the installation of the new crosswalk markings, the University will continue its awareness campaign with the development and posting of new florescent green street-side signs indicating that the University is a "pedestrian safe community."

Ryan Rearick, an IUP junior with a double major in management information systems and economics, has proven to be a strong leader in the 2001 Team PA/Stay Invent the Future program. The program is a combined effort of Pennsylvania bureaus and chambers of commerce to keep young men and women in Pennsylvania. Rearick was the only student on a 10-person panel put in place to determine the expenditure of $400,000 in southwestern Pennsylvania to further the cause.

Organized in 2002, the Center for Health Promotion and Cardiac Disease Prevention uses a holistic health promotion model to provide health and disease educational programs, health and fitness assessments, and diverse lifestyle interventions to reduce disease risks and help members of the IUP community and other residents of Indiana County achieve optimal wellness.

"This is a community as well as academic endeavor," said Bob Alman,
assistant professor and Director of the center. "In addition to IUP and
area schools, we are serving individuals, corporations and industries."

Immediately after the Sept. 11 tragedy, President Pettit felt it imperative that we lead our students and our community as a whole in a discussion and informational series of programs that help to stimulate thought and discourse. The development of this series has been in partnership with Dr. Patricia Heilman and IUP-APSCUF and has been open to the entire Indiana community. On Sept. 15, in conjunction with President’s Bush’s call for a time of prayer and remembrance, close to 1,500 persons gathered for a memorial ceremony in the Oak Grove, presenting flowers and other items to build a memorial wall of flowers in the Oak Grove. On Oct. 11, we had a "teach-in" and memorial program in the Oak Grove during the lunch hour with six different topics discussed during the noon class hour.

IUP is the site for a $1.7 million National Emergency and Disaster Information Center in partnership with Andrulis Corp. of Alexandria, VA. It will create a database for emergency first responders so that, when a disaster strikes, the responders ranging from volunteer fire companies to the Pennsylvania National Guard will be able to obtain Incident Command Instructions, Equipment and Trained Personnel Availability and Best Practice and Lessons Learned for that specific emergency. The initiative will be piloted in Westmoreland and Indiana Counties, with the goal of expanding it statewide and later, nationally.

IUP anthropology professor Dr. Laurence Kruckman has been elected president-elect of Postpartum Support International (PSI), an organization dedicated to increasing awareness, prevention and treatment of postpartum mood disorders. Dr. Kruckman and the Indiana Hospital Perinatal Education Department received the 1999 PSI Service Award for providing social support networks for new mothers in Western Pennsylvania. He has helped pioneer the role of social support as prevention and has recently published a transnational research article "Reinventing Fatherhood," one of the few studies on the role of fathers in the postpartum period.

At the request of the Pennsylvania’s Governor’s School, IUP organized and presented a day-long seminar on rural health care for 110 high school students enrolled in the Pennsylvania Governor's School who have demonstrated academic excellence and an interest in health care careers to combat the state-wide shortage of health care workers.

IUP and Clarion University have collaborated to offer the e-University of Western Pennsylvania, a program to offer the universities’ first completely online degree, an Associate's Degree in Arts and Sciences. The degree offers a flexible course of study for a wide variety of students, including those undecided about a specific course of study. Once the student decides on a specific course of study, the coursework can then be applied toward a bachelor's degree program.

IUP, in partnership with Somerset Hospital, Somerset County, is one of 20 community organizations statewide to receive a state grant benefiting children’s health-care programs. The Children's Health Outreach Project, begun in 2000, funded by Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare, the Department of Health and the Insurance Commission, is designed to increase Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment for eligible residents. 

From airport to pumpkin patch to Yellow Creek, Indiana County has it all, and thanks to three members of IUP, more people—especially children—will know it. Dr. Barbara Kupetz, professional studies in education professor; Dr. Ron Juliette, communications media professor; and Peggy Brady Stossel, College of Fine Arts administrative assistant, have published Indiana County A to Z, A Guide for Kids and Their Families. This full-color book, written for young readers beginning to learn about their community, features 26 different locations or attractions in Indiana County—literally, from A to Z. Twenty-five copies of the book are now available in each school library in Indiana County schools, and each first grader will receive a free copy of the book.

IUP is part of $1.7 million project titled "Weapons of Mass Destruction—Response Element Advanced Laboratory" being developed by a team consisting of Concurrent Technologies Corporation, IUP and University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. The focus of the program will be the development of accredited courses to train first responders who would react to a biological, chemical or nuclear attacks in the United States.

IUP’s Literacy Center, part of the Master's in Literacy Graduate Program within IUP’s Department of Professional Studies in Education, opened in 2001. The purpose of the center is to access and instruct children and adolescents who need support in reading and writing. Graduate students, who are certified teachers studying to get their reading specialist certification and master's degree in literacy, will work with children on a one-on-one basis. The center will also provide workshops and other support materials for parents.

IUP is playing a key part in a Department of Defense program to improve teaching and learning on military bases overseas. The five-year program, Technology Innovation and Teacher Education Collaborative (TITEC), teams IUP with Mississippi State University and University of Hawaii at Manoa. MountainTop Technologies, Inc., based in Cambria County, and Reading Results, Inc., based in Washington, D.C., are also partners in the project. U.S. Representative John Murtha is responsible for generating a total of $1.2 million to support the project efforts of IUP, MountainTop Technologies, Inc. and Reading Results, Inc.

Focusing primarily on American military bases in Europe, the project aims to improve learning by providing professional development for teachers to assist with literacy instruction for children. IUP’s role is to restructure courses from its master’s of education in literacy graduate program for long-distance online courses and in-services for teachers on the bases.

IUP will bring television programming of particular interest to the community via Channel 16, a local station provided by Adelphia Cable. WIUP-TV will be airing Community TV starting April 18, 2001. Following six years of study, IUP’s WIUP-TV has joined with the Community Television Network of Pennsylvania to present this new community-based television system to address the needs of individual communities. The WIUP-TV station management and IUP student practicums (undergraduate students working at the station as volunteers) will work with local community organizations, governments and schools to provide various programs of community interest. Monthly checks from advertising revenue for Community TV are funneled back into the University for use by the station.

IUP is the lead institution in the Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation in Pennsylvania (CETP-PA) project, a $5 million, five-year National Science Foundation collaborative program designed to better prepare the nation's science and mathematics teachers. IUP's Dr. Terry Peard, professor of biology and director of IUP's Teacher Education Center for Science, Mathematics and Technology, is the project director. All 14 State System of Higher Education schools are part of this project.

Language and cultural differences are no barrier to MetLife’s foreign language-speaking clients, thanks to a unique partnership developed between MetLife and IUP.  Through this partnership, IUP’s Translation Center, located in Eicher Hall, serves as the foreign language unit of MetLife’s Corporate Special Services, offering translation services and transcription of written materials into other languages for customers and into English for company representatives.

The IUP Translation Center includes a team of 25 international students, chosen for their expertise in the various languages the service offers and who have successfully completed a 160-hour training program on customer service and the insurance business. The program, from the MetLife side, is the initiative of IUP alumna Kate Sewalk, manager of quality assurance at MetLife’s Client Relations Center in Johnstown.

IUP received $234,000 from the Pennsylvania Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to partner with three area school districts to create "virtual communities" to assist in the development of educators in those districts. IUP will both develop the online community discussion groups as well as provide training for the participating teachers.

In July 2000, IUP received $122,789 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to study the association of nitrate in drinking water with reproductive and development disorders. The principal investigator in the study is IUP biology professor Dr. Amadu D. Ayebo. Other faculty participants include Dr. Thomas Simmons, biology, and Dr. John Benhart, geography and regional planning. The faculty will include graduate and undergraduate students in this study, and also will work with Dr. Richard Bailey, a consulting family practice physician at Indiana Hospital. The study focuses on the rural community around Smicksburg and Dayton.

As of Fall 2000, IUP's Government Contracting Assistance Program, which works to assist area businesses in generating government contracts, has been successful in generating more than $26 million during its 12-year history.

IUP has received a $410,000 grant from the state Link to Learn program. This grant will be administered by Dr. Wayne Moore, IUP Eberly College of Business and Information Technology, and co-directed by Karen Rivosecchi, vocational personnel preparation center. This project also has several community partners, including area school districts and the Pittsburgh Technology Council. This grant will be used to develop curriculum for students in K-12 in the partnering institutions in order to produce information technology graduates who possess the knowledge and skills that match the needs of Pennsylvania's employers.

Students have special opportunities to participate in community service through a recognized Service Leadership program that provides thousands of hours of community service.