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IUP's student newspaper, The Penn, and a Penn writer, Ashley Gurbal, have been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists in the annual 2004 Mark of Excellence Awards, announced in April 2005. The Penn won second place in the non-daily student newspaper in its region. Gurbal’s story, “Zealots Preach in the Oak Grove” won third place in the spot news reporting category in the region. The IUP entries competed against 326 entries across the 45 categories in the central and western Pennsylvania region.

Amber Skye Flynn, an anthropology and religious studies double major in IUP's Robert E. Cook Honors College, is the first IUP student to receive a Phi Kappa Phi study abroad grant. The $1,000 grant, announced in March 2005,  will help fund Flynn's participation in a six-week archeological excavation in the Beth Shean Valley in northern Israel with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in summer 2005.

IUP elementary education major Jessica Hanson was selected as a recipient of the 2005 K. Leroy Irvis Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Black Conference on Higher Education.

IUP elementary education major Jessica Hanson  is the recipient of the 2005 Mid-Atlantic Association for Employment in Education Diversity in Teaching scholarship. The Mid-Atlantic Association for Employment in Education is a regional professional association for career services personnel and school district human resources officers.  Selection for this competitive scholarship is based on an application, essay, and transcripts. Entrants are judged not only on background and qualifications, but on the potential to achieve excellence as a future teacher.

IUP's Students in Free Enterprise team cashed in at Purdue University’s “Battle in the Boilerlands” fall 2004 financial consulting competition by winning second place in the contest. The second place win earned IUP’s team $1,000 to invest in its economic outreach activities in the Indiana community. Delmont resident Daniel Altieri III, a junior small business management and entrepreneurship major, and Christine Gillock, a junior finance and economics double major from Belle Vernon, were the two students from IUP who participated in the competition. Teams were given a case study of a low-income family facing financial and personal problems.  Then, they were given 36 hours to create a plan to help the family recover from its financial crisis.  Teams later presented their plans in front of a panel of judges from various corporations.

IUP accounting major Gabriel E. Munoz of Caguas, Puerto Rico, is one of four Pennsylvania recipients of the 2004 Scholarships for Minority Accounting Students, sponsored by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Munoz is a student member of the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs. He received $3,000 as the scholarship winner. The scholarships are available to minority students who have completed 30 semester hours of college work, with six of those in accounting, and have an overall and accounting grade point average of at least 3.3. Founded in 1897, the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants is a professional association of more than 19,000 CPAs who work in public accounting, industry, government, and education.

Dr. Gary J. Olmstead, retired professor of music, received “The Lifetime Achievement in Education Award” from the Percussive Arts Society, an international organization of more than 8,000 members, at its fall 2004 meeting.

An Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor has been awarded a 2004-2005 Fulbright Scholar grant for the second year in a row. Dr. Wenfan Yan, professional studies in education professor, will lecture at Southwest Normal University in Chongqing, China from February to July 2005. Yan’s Fulbright assignment will be to teach graduate courses for Chinese students majoring in education administration. He will advise Chinese colleagues on curriculum development for higher education administration programs, advise graduate students in doctoral dissertation writing and conduct workshops on large-scale policy analysis in higher education. Yan is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the 2004-2005 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Kerry Krempasky from Latrobe received the 2004 Pennsylvania Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Scholarship. She is a senior art education major. All education majors attending a college or university in Pennsylvania were eligible to apply.  Selection was based on academics, interest in teaching, understanding of education issues, references, and extracurricular activities.

Two IUP information assurance students have received scholarships for their senior year (2004-05) along with job assurance with the U.S. Department of Defense upon graduation. This national scholarship program is  sponsored by the National Security Agency, which is an agency of the Department of Defense. 2004-05 winners are senior computer science-information assurance majors Michael Weissert and Anthony Rocchio, both of Imperial. Since entering the competition four years ago, nine IUP students have received scholarships. After graduation, scholarship winners must devote two years of service to the Department of Defense. In addition to scholarship funding, IUP has also received money from the Department of Defense for capacity building.  This includes grant funding for security laboratories and other equipment to train students.  The grant also funded four summer workshops held at IUP that trained faculty from across the country. IUP is an information assurance accredited university.

Twelve IUP students participated in a six-week summer field school in Mongolia during summer 2004. The six-credit program directly involved students in the Khanuy Valley Project on Early Nomadic Pastoralism in Central Mongolia.  Dr. Francis Allard of IUP’s anthropology department began the project in 2001 in collaboration with the Institute of History of Mongolia.  The project studies archaeological sites from the Bronze Age to the Xiongu Period, which together spans the second millennium B.C. to 300 A.D.

Eberly College of Business and Information Technology students Lindsay Hunter and Enzo Pirrone placed first at the 2004 annual state conference for Phi Beta Lambda and represented Pennsylvania at the national convention. Phi Beta Lambda is the national collegiate organization for students who have an interest in pursuing a career in business. Throughout the year the students are given opportunities to develop their leadership skills by attending workshops presented by business persons and university faculty.

Twelve IUP theater students pulled off two sold-out performances of Grizula July 21-22, 2004 at the 55th annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival in Croatia during a week-long stay. The Dubrovnik Summer Festival is looked upon as the most prestigious annual international theatrical, music and ballet festival in Croatia. The IUP theater group was one of only two American universities invited to perform in the Festival.

IUP mathematics professor Dr. Thomas Short has been named a 2004 Fellow of the American Statistical Association, a recognition of outstanding professional contribution to and leadership in the field of statistical science. The designation of Fellow has been a superlative honor in the society for nearly 90 years and less than 60 members worldwide are selected annually for this honor. With his selection, Dr. Short joins scholars and researchers from international organizations like the Food and Drug Association, U. S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Pfizer Inc. and academic institutions including Penn, Duke, UCLA-Center for Health Sciences and the Chinese University at Hong Kong.  Dr. Short also serves as coordinator of the Applied Research Lab at IUP.

Kecia Scott of Hopewell, a junior education of deaf and hard of  hearing persons major, is the first IUP student to receive a Student Honors of the Association Award from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Speech, Language and Hearing Association. Scott received the award at the 2004 Association meeting.

 Dr. Rita Johnson (food and nutrition) is the 2004 Outstanding Dietitian of Pennsylvania. The award is given by the Pennsylvania Dietetic Association in recognition of long standing and exceptional leadership, service and contributions to the Pennsylvania Dietetic Association and the public. For the past 10 years, Dr. Johnson has coordinated the "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" community food drive as a community service project within one of her dietetics classes. Dr. Johnson is a past recipient of the Keystone Award, the second highest honor of the state Dietetic Association, given in recognition of leadership ability and service. She also is a past recipient of the Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutritionists Dietetic practice Group's Achievement Award, this group's highest honor.

Thomas A. Baker, a student in the Robert E. Cook Honors College, is a 2004 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship recipient. A chemistry major from Bloomsburg, Baker has been engaged in several independent research projects throughout his IUP career. To receive a Goldwater Scholarship, students must be nominated by their college or university and must prepare a scientific research proposal. Goldwater Scholarships are given annually to approximately 300 students nationwide to help alleviate the shortage of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Baker is IUP's second Goldwater Scholarship recipient; IUP's first winner, Brigid Mooney, won in 2003.

An IUP Spanish professor will “join the ranks” at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2004-2005. Dr. Eileen Glisan, who began teaching at IUP in 1985, is one of a select group of civilians, chosen by the Air Force as leaders in their fields, to teach at the academy. Dr. Glisan will teach cadets, complete research, act as a consultant to members of the foreign language department, advise the head of the foreign language department, assist with curriculum development and conduct seminars for faculty concerning foreign language education.

Two senior IUP communications media majors will spend summer 2004 in New York City as International Radio and Television Society Foundation Inc. Summer Fellows. Joel Goodling of Wyomissing and Sharmyn Straughters of Connellsville were two of approximately 25 students selected from a pool of 800 applicants.

A senior economics major, Haider Mullick, a native of Pakistan, was selected to participate in a summer internship program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. during summer 2004. Mullick interned at the Center’s Asia Program under Shahid Javed Burki, current chief executive officer of EMP Financial Group.  Burki is a former finance minister of Pakistan and a former vice president of World Bank.  Mullick provided research for the development of Burki’s two books, which are related to Pakistan’s economy, society and political environment from 1999 to the present; worked on policy analysis of poverty alleviation, state-owned industries and financial institutions, education and the role of women in Pakistan. He also presented an econometric study on U.S. foreign aid at the Pennsylvania Economic Association Summer Conference at Robert Morris University in June 2004.

For the first time, student productions from IUP’s communications media department competed on the international level and received three “Telly” awards for excellence. The Telly Awards competition receives 10,000 entries annually, and past winners include Newhart, Murder, She Wrote, and What Women Want. Entries are judged by advertising and production professionals against a standard of merit.  The awards honor local, regional and cable television programs, as well as film productions.  Commercials or programs that have not appeared on national feed or one of the four major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX) are eligible. IUP won a silver award (the highest award possible) for Emergence, a student film, and two bronze awards: one for coverage of IUP football and one for the show Adventures in Idiocy.

A student in the Cook Honors College is IUP's first recipient of a National Security Education Program Boren Undergraduate Scholarship. Catriona Lunsford, Fayetteville, received the award in May 2004. She was one of 181 students selected from a group of 860 nationwide for the scholarship. Lunsford will use the scholarship funds to study in Jordan for 2004-2005.  The NSEP was designed to provide U.S. undergraduates with the resources and encouragement to acquire skills and experience in countries critical to the future security of the United States.

Dr. Mary Jalongo, IUP professional studies in education professor is editor of The World’s Children and Their Companion Animals: Developmental and Educational Implications of the Child/Pet Bond, published in spring 2004 by the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI). The book discusses how companion animals are often great contributors to childhood development and education. More than 13 IUP faculty, alumni, doctoral candidates and master’s degree students contributed to book.

Since August 2001, IUP scientists have been quietly serving an important training need for military personnel related to homeland security and response to terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Military teams trained at IUP have been first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in New York City, the Washington and Florida anthrax incidents and the 2003 Columbia shuttle explosion. As of fall 2004, IUP will offer a special master’s degree program in this field, open to civilians and will have a $600,000 state-of-the-art laboratory facility specially designed for the program. A 5,300 square foot area, complete with laboratories for microbiology, molecular biology and chemistry, will be renovated on the second floor of IUP’s Walsh Hall for the WMD program. Renovations will begin at the end of the spring 2004 semester and will be completed for the fall 2004 semester, when the first non-military group of students is to begin study in this unique master’s degree program, Science of Disaster Response. The new laboratory facility will be a secured space, with three large laboratories, storage space and state-of-the-art equipment. Funding for the renovation project is being provided by IUP. The curriculum for the master’s degree program, originally designed for military personnel, has been developed through funding from grants from the Department of Defense’s National Guard Bureau.

Professional Studies in Education professor Dr. Wenfan Yan has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and do research at Bejing Normal University, China during the 2003-2004 academic year. While at the Bejing Normal University, Dr. Yan will lecture on American Higher Education:  Implications for Chinese Higher Education Administration. Dr. Yan is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the upcoming academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. A total of 56 Fulbright Exchange awards have been given to IUP faculty from 1959 to 2003.

One of IUP's Computer Science Department student programming teams took second place at the 2003 Association for Computing Machinery  programming contest held in November. The "Bears" team won second among 35 other teams from all over the east central region of the United States and Canada. A second team took 45th among 140 competitors in another competition at the contest. Dr. Leem S. Shim is faculty advisor for the IUP group.

IUP political science major Samuel Richards was selected as a 2003 Gallagher Fellow. He was one of only six winners recognized this year, joining IUP student Laura B. Regal's 1982 win to again represent the University. Fellowships are awarded by the Finnegan Foundation, which was established to honor the memory of James A. Finnegan, former Pennsylvania secretary of the Commonwealth.

IUP ROTC cadet Bruce A. Fillman of Williamsport was selected to join senior Bush Administration officials at a National Security Seminar as IUP's 2003 winner of The Marshall Award.

Two groups of students in IUP's Marketing Department won first and second place in the 2003 American Marketing Association's annual Marketing Plan Contest at Duquesne University.  This is the second year in a row that IUP marketing students have won this competition.

Pittsburgh native Eben Henderson has been selected as a 2003 Coro Fellow for the Coro Community Problem-Solving Fellowship program.  Coro Centers throughout the US, founded in 1942 to address a need for post graduate training in the area of leadership, offer participants in its training programs hands-on training that empowers them to make meaningful contributions to society.  The Problem-Solving Fellowship is intended to expose the brightest, most talented minority students to the professional, economic and social resources that exist in the region through multi-sector field assignments, seminars and networking events. The program, seeking to attract the very best talent, selected Henderson from hundreds of applicants through an intense orientation process.  His selection was based on his interest and commitment to developing leadership skills, strengthening communities and his dedication to Pittsburgh. 

IUP's Julianne Maximo, a native of Brazil, is one of 15 undergraduate, four-year continuing college students selected from a nationwide pool of 1,150 who will receive up to $30,000 in aid for the 2003-2004 academic year through the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Maximo  is the first in the State System of Higher Education to receive this prestigious award. The Foundation, a private and independent program established by Jack Kent Cooke, helps young people of exceptional promise to reach their full potential through education and to carry out their dreams for a better world. As one of the nation’s most prominent and generous scholarship providers, the Foundation identifies Maximo among the most idealistic, intelligent and involved students in the world. Maximo, a member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP, majors in theater.

Joanna Stone, a member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP, will receive the 2003 Syed R. Ali-Zaidi Award for Academic Excellence at the University’s commencement ceremony on May 10. Stone, of Lititz, is the second from IUP selected for this annual award, designed to recognize a student from one of the 14 Pennsylvania State System Universities. Stone, an anthropology-Spanish double major, will begin graduate studies in applied anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson following graduation. She plans to work in international development after receiving her PhD and eventually becoming a professor of anthropology. IUP has won the award two years out of the three it has been given.

Brigid Mooney of Tucson, AZ, a student in IUP's Robert E. Cook Honors College, has been awarded a 2003 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.  The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and a statesman, including 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate.  The purpose of the Foundation is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields. Mooney, a math and physics double major, plans to pursue a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.  She wants to “contribute to society through the use of applied mathematics, which can be done through a wide variety of applications, as their uses are seemingly limitless,” she says. Mooney is currently participating in a math program called Budapest Semesters in Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary.

Two IUP Robert E. Cook  Honors College students have been selected for prestigious Fulbright Scholarships for 2003-2004. Abby Brewer is a recipient of a year-long Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany for 2003-2004. Brewer is a senior English education major from Elizabethtown. Stephanie West is a recipient of a year-long Fulbright Scholarship to study in Belgium. West is a senior criminology and French double major at IUP from Eugene, OR. Both women will graduate from IUP in May 2003. Since 1999, IUP students have annually secured prestigious Fulbright Scholarships. In 2002, Robert E. Cook Honors College graduate Betty Lanteigne won a Fulbright to study for a year in Qatar.  Erica M. Shafran, a member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP, won the scholarship in 2001 to study sociolinguistics at the University of Vienna. In 2000, Cook Honors College senior Lori Felker, a 4.0 English-German double major from Bethlehem, Pa., was selected as a Fulbright Scholar and spent a year at the University of Frankfurt studying post-War German cinema. Only 40 students in the nation are selected for this prestigious scholarship each year.

IUP's Computer Science student programming team won the 2003 programming competition at the Pennsylvania Computer and Information Science Educators (PACISE) Conference held in April in Shippensburg. This is the fifth year in a row that an IUP team has taken "firsts" in the competition.
 

IUP students Katherine Sohn of Pikeville, KY, and F. Elizabeth Graber of Homer, AK, are the 2001 and 2002 winners of the most prestigious dissertation award in the field of composition. Sohn and Graber won the 2001 and 2002 James Berlin Memorial Outstanding Dissertation Awards, respectively. The award, first given in 1992, annually honored a graduate whose dissertation improves the educational process in composition studies or adds to the field’s body of knowledge through research or scholarly inquiry. The Berlin Award is announced annually at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, a group of the National Council of Teachers of English. NCTE is a national professional organization of educators in English studies, literacy and language arts. Dr. Carole Bencich of IUP’s English Department served as the advisor to both women’s dissertations.