Penn State Great Valley Library Blog

Presented by
Dr. Sandi L. Dinger

Monday, April 3, 2006
6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Penn State Great Valley
Safeguard Scientifics Building
Musser Auditorium

How can leaders best encourage each colleague’s strengths and talents to make contributions that promote performance beyond expectations within their organizations? The most effective leaders

- are alert to individual needs and diversity of strengths and talents.
- provide appropriate challenges and learning experiences unique to each individual.
- use delegation to help develop followers.

Learn practical strategies for demonstrating these key leadership behaviors during this presentation. Faculty are encouraged to bring their classes to this event.

Light refreshments will be served following the discussion.

Sandi L. Dinger (Ph.D., State University of New York at Binghamton) is currently Associate Professor of Organizational Management and Director of the Organizational Management Program at Eastern University. Her research interests include personality and individual differences, leadership in sports contexts, and charismatic/transformational leadership. Dr. Dinger has published her research in top-tier journals such as The Leadership Quarterly.

To Register, RSVP by Friday, March 31st to Cathy O’Neill at cxo10@psu.edu or 610-648-3248.

Penn State Great Valley’s Diversity Action Council is sponsoring “Playback for Change — Isms and Phobias: Experiencing Diversity” from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in the Musser Auditorium of the Safeguard Scientifics Building on campus.

Playback for Change is a Philadelphia-area troupe of actors and musicians that presents an interactive, improvisational theatre performance in which the real-life experiences of the audience are the subject matter. In this performance, audience members will have the opportunity to hear and tell personal stories about “isms and phobias” and see them embodied by the Playback troupe. Through the telling and re-enactment of these stories, an intellectual discussion about diversity is transformed into a heartfelt experience, and the community can become stronger and more welcoming to all.

The free event is open to the public.
R.S.V.P. to Elayna McReynolds at exm148@psu.edu or (610) 648-3294

For the second year in a row, students from the College of Communications plan to take a classroom assignment from conception to reality and provide live streaming audio and video coverage of the 2006 IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

The student Webcast will be available at http://www.thon.org or http://www.comm.psu.edu/

In addition, Penn State Public Broadcasting will stream its Thon coverage from 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, through 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, at both its home site of http://www.wpsu.org and on Penn State Live at http://live.psu.edu/ online.

Read the full story at http://live.psu.edu/story/16124

Penn State Great Valley will host a weeklong slate of activities from Feb. 20 to 23 to mark National Engineers Week. Penn State Great Valley is one of hundreds of engineering societies, government agencies, corporations, businesses, and universities hosting events during National Engineers Week, which was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers. The campus will celebrate with the following activities:

— Monday, Feb. 20: 5 to 6 p.m., “Career Lessons Learned,” Joe Trench, executive vice president, Maritime Systems and Sensors, Locked Martin Corp.

— Tuesday, Feb. 21: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Engineering and Information Science Information Session for those who would like to learn more about engineering and information technology degree programs and certificates at Penn State Great Valley; 7 to 8:30 p.m., “Coming of Age in the ’60s,” an evening with award-winning poet Sonia Sanchez, brought to the public by the campus’ Diversity Action Council;

— Wednesday, Feb. 22: 2 to 3:15 p.m., “Health Systems Engineering,” Dave Cowan, executive-in-residence, Institute for Health Systems, School of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; 5 to 6 p.m., meet the authors of “Antipatterns: Identification, Refactoring and Management,” Philip Laplante, associate professor, software engineering, Penn State Great Valley, and Colin Neill, associate professor, software engineering, Penn State Great Valley,

— Thursday, Feb. 23: 5 to 6 p.m., student and faculty mixer, during which participants can celebrate the conclusion of the week’s events in the main lobby with faculty members and students.

Ongoing activities include a poster session by faculty and engineering videos in the lobby of the Safeguard Scientifics Building.

All events are free to the public. For information, call (610) 725-5382.

For the third consecutive fall, Penn State Great Valley’s Social Entrepreneurship and Community Leadership course participants are presenting local organizations and businesses with free business plans and other consulting projects. Teams consisting of MBA and Master of Leadership Development students from Penn State Great Valley, and high school students from Conestoga, Great Valley and Malvern Prep, consulted with four socially responsible organizations
— Vanguard School, Sustainable Landscapes, Chilly Philly Ice Cream and Winning Wealth Services — to assess their business needs.

The Vanguard School, which is approaching its 50th anniversary, is a school that aids children with learning disabilities. Sustainable Landscapes is a consortium of small businesses that strive to support natural habitats while growing their businesses. Chilly Philly Ice Cream is a relatively new ice cream company with a goal to hire local employees and use ingredients produced by local farmers. Winning Wealth is a community organization that seeks to partner with local businesses to improve economic opportunities for minority communities through financial education.

The social entrepreneurship course teams have analyzed these organizations using business knowledge and skills learned during this class, and they will share their recommendations, which include business plans, strategic plans, marketing plans, funding proposals and performance management plans for the organization, from 6 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 7, and Monday, Dec.
12.

The presentations will be held in the Musser Auditorium in the Safeguard Scientifics Building on the Great Valley campus. The events are free to the public. Due to limited space, RSVPs to barrielitzky@psu.edu are requested.

Penn State Great Valley will hold an engineering registration night from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, at Vitetta, 4747 South St., in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The next graduate course being offered there is SYSEN 505: Technical Project Management, which will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, Jan. 11 through April 19. For information, call (610) 648-3243.

Penn State Delaware County will hold its annual Multicultural Day, celebrating cultures with food, fashion, song and dance, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in the campus gymnasium in the Commons/Athletic Center.

An international buffet opens at 11:30 a.m., featuring fare from more than 20 countries. Performance art begins at that same time, including music and dance numbers from Puerto Rico, India, Africa, Japan and Haiti among others. The event’s highlight will be the International Fashion Show, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Students and faculty members will model native garb from many lands, including Asia, India, and the Middle and Far East. Penn State Delaware County is home to students from more than 50 countries. This is a way of introducing customs, traditions, fashion and food from other countries to the campus and surrounding community.

Multicultural Day is sponsored by the Student Government Association, in conjunction with the Office of Student Life.

April and Phil Margera, hosts of MTV’s “Viva La Bam” and VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club,” will speak about “Turning Your Vision into a Successful Career” from 1 to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, in the Lion’s Den on campus.

The couple will speak to students about how their son, skateboarder Bam Margera, followed his passion for skateboarding and turned a hobby into multiple business ventures, including a line of skateboarding equipment and apparel that carries his logo.

Bam Margera is the producer and star of “Viva La Bam,” which also stars his parents, April and Phil, along with many of his childhood friends from West Chester. Episodes of MTVs “Viva La Bam” are filmed locally in Chester and Delaware counties at businesses frequented by students. The event is sponsored by the Student Business Association.