Physics major earns full-ride scholarship to Yale Ph.D program - Duayne Rieger, a Slippery Rock University computational physics major, has been admitted into the geophysics doctoral program at Yale University on a full-tuition scholarship and teaching assistantship worth $60,000 a year.  Yale waived $30,500 in annual tuition and gave Rieger a $27,500-a-year graduate assistantship plus a $2,000 travel grant for each of the first two years.  “The type of work going on at Yale is the type of work I am interested in,” Rieger said. “I’m interested in seismology and using seismic data to investigate the earth’s internal structure and dynamics.”  As an undergraduate at SRU, Rieger participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates program offered by the National Science Foundation, participated in computational physics research with Athula Herat, SRU assistant professor of physics, and joined national physics and math honoraries, and minored in mathematics.  “I must thank the physics department at SRU, because the professors took such a personal interest in me and helped me along,” said Rieger, an academic scholarship recipient at SRU.

Six SRU Army ROTC cadets take honors at four-day training exercise - Six Slippery Rock University Army ROTC cadets earned Top Cadet Honors during last week’s four-day Joint Training Exercise at Camp Dawson, W. Va.  “The exercise is train-up to prepare cadets for the 32-day Leadership Development and Assessment Course held each summer at Fort Lewis, Wash.,” said Lt. Col. William Bialozor, head of SRU’s Army ROTC program. “All junior-standing Army cadets from around the nation must pass LDAC as a requirement to becoming an Army officer. The joint exercise in West Virginia consisted of a series of rigorous events designed to stress and test cadet's mental and physical capabilities. Each cadet takes a physical fitness test, written land navigation test, and practical day and night land navigation tests.”  The cadets are evaluated in a number of leadership roles in garrison and during field training events to assess how they handle leadership challenges, Bialozor said.  Of the nine squads formed at the training, each selected a top-performing cadet with SRU cadets taking top honors in six of the squads.  “All of our cadets came away with a sense of personal achievement and confidence as well as knowing they are prepared for this summer's training. They attribute their success to the training and mentorship provided by Master Sgt. Sheldon Monroe and student senior trainers Ty Kegarise and Amanda Herman.”

SRU education, English major takes ‘Student Paper Award’ - Christie D. Willison, a secondary education and English major from Cranberry Township, has won the "Meritorious Student Paper Award" at the 2007 ISECON (Information Systems Education Conference) for her paper "Teaching Students How to Evaluate Sources in Online Research."  The paper, originally written for her “Computer Science 300: Challenges of Computer Technology” course last spring, was presented by her instructor and co-author Patricia Joseph, assistant professor of computer science, because Willison was presenting another project the same weekend at the Kappa Delta Pi, education honorary, conference in Louisville, Ky.  The paper will be published in the ISECON proceedings and is available online at the Information Systems Education Journal Web site: http://isedj.org/isecon/2007/3123/index.html.  Willison is currently taking English and education courses, including her teacher education field experience in Grove City. She plans to undertake her student teaching work spring semester before graduating in May.

Rock geology duo collects fossil treasures in Russia - Several boxes of fossils from the Ural Mountains in Russia are on their way to Slippery Rock University, where they will give students hands-on learning opportunities for years to come. SRU geology faculty member Tamra Schiappa and geology major Nanje Eastman, a junior from Havre de Grace, Md., collected the fossils recently during an international field conference.  “I am a changed person because of this experience, it was incredible,” Eastman said. “I got to work with brilliant people in their fields. Dr. Schiappa taught me how to correctly excavate fossils. It was like a treasure hunt.”  The International Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy sponsored the 10-day field conference, which included geologists from the U.S., Russia, China, Canada, England, and Australia. Dr. Schiappa is a member of the organization.  The geologists collected ammonoids, an externally shelled cephalopod, as well as pollen and other fossils.  Eastman, who aspires to have a career in geology, said she recovered two ammonoids herself.  Eastman also labeled the bedrock before excavation and learned geologic field techniques from some of the world’s best geologists. “Slippery Rock University provided me with an experience I will never forget,” she said.