Eberly College of Science Strategic Plan 2005-2008

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Introduction

Recent Progress

External Environment

Looking Ahead

Goals

Executive Summary

In the past three years, the Eberly College of Science has extended its remarkable growth in aspiration and accomplishment in teaching, research, and outreach. Our challenge in the coming three years is to maintain this momentum by enhancing academic excellence, providing outstanding educational opportunities, supporting great science, investing in promising new areas of research, providing an environment where all members of the community can succeed to the best of their abilities, and by supporting the synergisms among teaching, research and service and among faculty, students and staff.

To guide the college in its drive to further excel, we have adopted the following goals:

A key element of the strategies supporting these goals is focusing on the people of the college and striving to make the Eberly College of Science the college of choice for outstanding faculty, students, and staff.  We seek an environment that is open and welcoming, creative and adaptable, and supportive for individuals of all backgrounds and individuals with differing perspectives and ideas.

Another important point is to recognize that in our drive for excellence we continue to live on the slope, where progress is readily observable and every step forward facilitates additional progress, but also where inattention or too little effort or too few resources can easily lead to declines. The slope is slippery, and standing still is not an option.

Fortunately, the University's sustained investments in faculty salaries and facilities have supported continued momentum and further progress in the college. Continued investment in facilities is essential; high quality facilities that support outstanding teaching and research are indispensable to continued growth in academic excellence.  Other key issues addressed in the supporting strategies are: securing resources for attracting and supporting faculty and students; improving academic programs; working to support the success of the faculty; enhancing career advising and international programs; improving physical environments for students; supporting instructional innovations; more vigorous and more effective recruiting of both undergraduate and graduate students; more effective methods for assessing student outcomes; engaging the staff more fully in the lives of the departments and the college; and building a broader sense of intellectual community across the college.

Introduction

This is a time of tremendous progress in science. The seminal discoveries of a few years ago have become the foundation for further, remarkable advances and discovery.  Genomes of organisms ranging from microbes to mammals are now being deciphered almost routinely. Dark matter has been supplanted by dark energy as the largest expected component of the universe, and each is understood to far exceed the amount of ordinary matter in the universe. The ability to understand, probe and manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular levels has increased dramatically.

Not only has science been enormously successful at describing and explaining the physical universe, but also applications of scientific discoveries have had a huge impact on our society. Science and technology have become prime economic drivers, and they contribute tremendously to improvements in the quality of life. Science and technology have led to dramatic improvements in areas as diverse as healthcare, food production, transportation, and communications.

Furthermore, this is a time of remarkable advances in the Eberly College of Science. In the past three years, the college has continued and extended its impressive growth in aspiration and accomplishment in teaching, research and outreach, furthering the college's position as a major contributor to the progress of science and driver for improving the world.

Recent Progress

The quality of the faculty continues to grow, as measured, for example, by the top levels of international, national and local recognition, and recent hires and hires in progress are providing new strength in key areas. Among our active and emeritus faculty there are twelve members of the National Academy of Sciences, nine fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and five fellows of the Royal Society (UK). Also, thirteen of Penn State 's twenty-four active Evan Pugh professors, the highest honor given by the University, hold appointments in the Eberly College of Science. These are overlapping categories, but altogether include twenty-one different faculty members in the college.

Among the many developments in and improvements of academic programs and teaching, the most dramatic is the development of a new major-in forensic science. We will launch this major in fall 2005. It will provide the students with a strong foundation in the biological and physical sciences and will introduce them to relevant topics in forensic chemistry, forensic anthropology, forensic biology and relevant social sciences. Another example of progress is the ongoing enhancement of instruction in the introductory courses in mathematics, particularly in the first two semesters of calculus, in part by the recruitment of a corps of outstanding instructional faculty from across the country. We are also working on enhancements of international programs and career advising in the college.

Research expenditures in the college have continued to climb dramatically, rising 28% in three years and 68% in five years to $83.6 million in 2003-04. Mirroring national trends and reflecting evolution of major programs, research awards have flattened off, but funding remains very strong. Among all universities, public and private, Penn State ranks ninth in chemistry R&D expenditures, tenth in physics, eleventh in astronomy and thirteenth in mathematical sciences in the latest report available (FY2002) from the National Science Foundation.

Some sense of the growth in the size and impact of the research enterprise in the college can be obtained from the ISI University Science Indicators database. In a decade, the number of publications with one or more Penn State authors in the fields of biology and biochemistry, chemistry, mathematics, microbiology, molecular biology and genetics, physics and space science grew by over 50% to an average of more than 1,400 papers per year over the 1999 to 2003 period. In the same decade, the number of citations per paper grew by 67%. The combination of the increasing numbers of papers and the increasing rate of citations per paper produced a 150% increase in the total rate of citations over the decade. The total number of citations reported for the 1999-2003 period is 51,090.

Although it is impossible to simply summarize the many remarkable research accomplishments of the faculty, postdocs, students and research staff of the Eberly College of Science, a few examples of departmental foci and work underway or recently completed give some feel for the range and impact of research in the college.

We continue to learn amazing new things about the universe by looking up and out with increasingly sophisticated instruments. Penn State (i.e., Eberly College of Science) astronomers have played leadership roles in a number of very prominent astronomical facilities and research efforts.  Many of the major successes have been in high energy astrophysics. For example, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, one of NASA's great observatories, whose PSU participation in instrument design and construction was led by Evan Pugh Professor Gordon Garmire, has resulted in a seminal study of the Chandra Deep Field, the most sensitive view ever obtained of the X-ray sky, led by Professor Neil Brandt. Also using Chandra, an international collaboration led by Professor Eric Feigelson is doing a deep X-ray study of star and planet formation in the nearby Orion Nebula. The recent successful launch of the Swift Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) satellite mission, led by Professor John Nousek, expands upon the department's already impressive theoretical presence in GRB astrophysics. The Swift Mission Operations Center , now controlling the satellite and disseminating data around the world, is located here in State College and is under the direction of our Swift team. Penn State astronomers have also led research efforts that vastly increased the number and understanding of known quasars, key components in understanding the large scale structure and evolution of the universe, and have been involved in placing new limits on the ages and environments of planet formation outside the solar system.

Increasing numbers of research programs involve faculty and students from more than one department in the college and beyond. One example is the Rat Genome Sequencing Project Consortium, an international collaboration with over 20 groups in 6 countries including a Penn State team with members affiliated with four different departments, which announced in 2004 the generation and analysis of the genome sequence of the Brown Norway rat. Ross Hardison , Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Penn State Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Webb Miller , Professor of Biology and Computer Science and Engineering and their colleagues are using the rat genome, along with the previously published mouse genome, to learn how the human genome functions and to help translate genome sequences into applications that improve human health. The laboratory rat is an indispensable tool in research on experimental medicine and drugs. Hardison's and Miller's groups, along with Francesca Chiaromonte , Associate Professor of Statistics, joined the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium in 2001 to meet the challenging goal of aligning the entire human genome-almost 3 billion nucleotides-with the entire mouse genome-about 2.5 billion nucleotides-at high sensitivity and specificity in order to find the likely functional DNA sequences. Working with collaborators at UC Santa Cruz, the team computed and made public whole-genome alignments shortly after the mouse genome was assembled in 2002. In 2003, the team-which now included Anton Nekrutenko , Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Kateryna Makova , Assistant Professor of Biology-joined the Rat Genome Sequencing Project Consortium to compute and analyze alignments among human, mouse and rat genomes. This work holds promise to yield major payoffs in the fight against human diseases.

In another collaborative effort, one that provides an example of our rapidly growing ability to build structures and control processes at the nanometer scale, Ayusman Sen, Professor and Head of Chemistry, and coworkers announced the development of catalytically driven nanomotors. The work encompasses the first examples of catalytically driven motion at the nanoscale outside biological systems. These motors are autonomous in that they do not require external electric, magnetic, gravitational, or optical fields to provide the energy needed for propulsion. Instead, the input energy is supplied locally and chemically. By analogy to biological systems, some potential applications of catalytic nanomotors include engines for micro/nanoscopic machines, chemotactic static and roving sensors, delivery vehicles for molecules and nanoparticles and formation of patterns or arrays by autonomous local deposition of materials. This discovery is one of many in the college which illustrates the interdisciplinary nature of science today. In addition to Dr. Sen, the faculty members involved in the development of the nanomotors are Thomas Mallouk, DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics, Vincent Crespi, Professor of Physics and Materials Science and Engineering and Jeffery Catchmark, Research Associate in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics in the College of Engineering .

With rapidly increasing amounts and kinds of data in virtually every area, statistical techniques and understandings have become increasingly important in science and beyond. Penn State is the recognized leader in Astrostatistics. The diversity of statistical issues confronting astronomy, space sciences and high energy particle physics today led to the creation of the Center for Astrostatistics in 2003 to facilitate development and promulgation of statistical expertise and toolkits for astronomy and related observational sciences.  In another substantial and very timely area of research, the Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics is developing statistical methodology and computational technology for geoinformatic surveillance of hotspot detection and prioritization using upper level set detection and partially ordered set prioritization methods, software tools and visualization capabilities. Also, the Center for Likelihood Studies has as its main objective the fostering of a creative and interactive environment for students and faculty sharing a common interest in the area of likelihood theory and methods. Advances in mixture models have had wide impact on cluster analysis and inferential procedures used in genomic analysis and other areas in recent years.

Mathematics is both a vibrant intellectual enterprise in its own right and an ever more essential part of the astonishing success of science. Research in the college encompasses both pure and applied mathematics. Anatole Katok, Raymond N. Shibley Professor of Mathematics, and his coworkers have drawn on methods and insights from analysis, geometry, dynamical systems and the theory of Lie groups to open up new directions in geometric rigidity. Their work has made possible the first significant progress on the famous Littlewood conjecture in number theory in over 70 years and has led to breakthrough advances in arithmetic quantum chaos. Jinchao Xu, Professor of Mathematics, has made fundamental contributions to the theory and development of advanced numerical methods for partial differential equations. His basic research on multigrid methods and general iterative methods has had a huge impact in scientific computing, and he has been among the most highly cited mathematicians in the world in recent years. Alberto Bressan, Professor of Mathematics, has significantly advanced the theory of shock waves by proving that small viscosity in a gas can be ignored without affecting its stable evolution. This settles a mathematical issue which dated as far back as 1776. Bressan's work has had a profound impact on both theory and numerical simulations in aerodynamics and elasticity.

Some research results alter our thinking about basic concepts. In early 2004, Moses H. W. Chan , Evan Pugh Professor of Physics, announced the discovery of a new phase of matter. Chan and his student, Eunseong Kim, observed, for the first time, a "supersolid" form of helium with the extraordinary frictionless-flow properties of a superfluid. When a pressurized helium-4 sample is subjected to a low-enough temperature, thermal energy is no longer important and a quantum-mechanical effect becomes very apparent. A fraction of the solid decouples from the rest and enters a superfluid-like phase. In this supersolid state, the supersolid fraction of the particles executes coherent, frictionless superflow. Chan's experiments confirm that all three states of matter can enter into the "super" state, known as a Bose-Einstein condensation, in which all the particles have condensed into the same quantum-mechanical state. The existence of superfluid and "supervapor" had previously been proven, but theorists had continued to debate about whether a supersolid was even possible.

Some research extends our reach and our understanding by literally looking in new places. Jean Brenchley , Professor of Microbiology and Biotechnology, and coworkers recently announced the discovery of millions of micro-microbes surviving in a 120,000-year-old ice sample taken from 3,000 meters below the surface of the Greenland glacier. The majority of the microbes they discovered in an ice-core sample taken from the glacier were less than 1 micron in size--smaller than most commonly known bacteria, which range from 1 to 10 microns. A large portion of the microbes from the glacier are ultra-small and passed through filters with 0.2-micron pores. Many of these ice-core microbes are likely related to a variety of ultra-small microorganisms from other cold environments that have been shown to use different carbon and energy sources and to be resistant to drying, starvation, radiation and other stress factors. The dwarf cells are among what is thought to be the 99 percent of all microbes on Earth that never have been isolated and cultured for study. The study of the abundance, viability and identity of the ultra-small cells existing in the Greenland ice is relevant to discovering how cells survive being small, cold and hungry and how small life-forms can be.

Other research, often drawing on advances in fundamental science or new methods of analysis, produces results with the potential for immediate application. A study, titled "Structural Vulnerability of the North American Power Grid," was published recently by a research team lead by Reka Albert, Assistant Professor of Physics. The paper has received a great deal of attention in both the scientific press and the popular press. The researchers constructed a model of the entire North American transmission grid with over 14,000 "nodes," including generators, transmission substations and distribution substations and over 19,000 "edges," corresponding to the high-voltage transmission lines that carry power between the nodes. They measured the importance of each substation node based on its "load," or the number of shortest paths between other nodes that pass through it. From this model, it can be shown how defects can propagate through the system and which parts of the system need to be improved because they are not redundant. The work showed which substations need to be protected from failure in order to avoid widespread system failure. These are considerations that could help guide energy policy decisions.

A final example of recent research findings comes from the broad area of molecular medicine and genetics, a growing area of research in the college with both major questions of basic science and strong potential for applications to human health.  A research team led by Doug Cavener, Professor and Head of Biology, has discovered that the PERK eIF2 alpha kinase gene is required for several important physiological and developmental processes in mice including proliferation of the insulin-secreting beta cells, bone development, postnatal growth, regulation of stress response to oxygen deprivation in the brain and metabolic homeostasis. The group showed that genetic mutations in the mouse PERK gene resulted in a panoply of defects (diabetes, osteoporosis, growth retardation and multiple metabolic dysfunctions) that mimic the human Wolcott Rallison syndrome also caused by mutations in the PERK gene.  Discoveries made by Cavener's group in mice are already being applied to the treatment of Wolcott-Rallison syndrome patients.

Outreach from the college is multifaceted, ranging from outreach to the local schools and community by individual faculty members to large efforts organized by departments, research centers and the college. Examples of the latter include Astrofest, a free festival of astronomy for all ages which is timed to coincide with the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, museum shows sponsored by the Center for Nanoscale Science (an NSF-funded materials research center), the creation and provision of information and resources for K-12 educators from Ridge 2000 (an NSF-funded long-term research program on mid-ocean ridges and related tectonic systems hosted in the college) and "Action Potential" summer science camps for children in grades K-8 developed and offered by the college outreach office in collaboration with the departments of Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Our synergistic efforts in teaching, research and outreach create an outstanding scientific and educational community. The faculty, who are at the forefronts of their fields, bring original ideas and information into the classroom; they ignite the scientific curiosity of their students by sharing research results, bringing them into the laboratories or showing them the far reaches of outer space and by displaying their love of scientific inquiry and thirst for knowledge. Graduate and undergraduate students are important members of research teams, bringing enthusiasm, energy and fresh ideas. Our outreach activities are popular with K-12 students, teachers and the general public because of the enthusiasm of our faculty and students, the exciting science and new discoveries they describe and the way they present the information and ideas. The Commonwealth and the nation benefit from the Eberly College of Science through the quality of our graduates, through our discoveries and inventions and through our outreach programs.

External Environment

We find ourselves in a rapidly changing national and international environment. There has been a substantial change in the robustness of national support for science in the last three years. The heady days of annual 15% increases in the budget of the National Institutes of Health, as it was doubled in size, and the days of congressional declarations of intent to double the National Science Foundation budget as well collided with 9/11 and growing federal deficits. The years just ahead are, at best, likely to bring increases in federal support for research that match inflation, and it wouldn't be surprising to see budgets that are flat or even reduced. Congressional support for scientific research still seems to be very strong, but budget realities will require some very tough choices. One bright spot is that ECOS faculty, at least in the physical sciences, have been able to secure increases in research funding over the last several years that exceeded the rate of growth in the federal budgets for research in these areas; these faculty managed to get a bigger piece of the pie. We hope that we will begin to do the same in the life sciences.

It also seems unlikely that state support for higher education will grow significantly over the next few years. At least the pattern of reductions in state funding that existed over the past three years has been reversed, with a 3% increase in state funding for 2004-2005. Despite that increase, the fraction of the total University budget provided by state support continued to decline-from 12% last year to 11.4% this year. Penn State (and Pennsylvania generally) is not alone in this trend; similar stories can be heard at institutions of higher education across the country, but we are near the head of the pack in our reliance on sources other than state support. Fortunately, we are also near the head of the pack in independence from state control.

The funds to make up the declining fraction of the budget coming from the state come mostly from increases in tuition. Tuition for undergraduate students matriculating at University Park increased 6.6% this year plus a $500 "bump" for a total of an 11.8% increase over what freshmen paid last year. Penn State now has the highest in-state tuition in the country and out-of-state tuition is twice in-state tuition. Fortunately, both in-state tuition and out-of-state tuition are still reasonably competitive within their markets, and applications to Penn State remain at record or near-record levels, with 50,000+ undergraduate applications each year. University Park undergraduate enrollments in the Eberly College of Science have been stable at about 2600 students over the last several years. Nonetheless, the high tuition levels provide additional impetus for continued and increased attention to enhancement of the educational opportunities and experiences available to undergraduates in the Eberly College of Science. The college also needs to play an increased role in the recruitment of undergraduate students and ramp up its already substantial effort in fund raising for undergraduate scholarships.

The climate for international students in the United States has changed substantially in the last three years. A combination of increased difficulty in obtaining visas to study in the U.S. and increasing competition from universities in Australia, the UK, Germany and elsewhere and perhaps other factors, such as improving economies in their home countries, has led to a sudden decline in applications, particularly from India and China, countries that for many years have been the sources of a significant fraction of the graduate students in science and engineering programs in the U.S. Forty percent of the graduate students in the college are international students. At Penn State and across the country, graduate applications from international students declined precipitously last year-by as much as 30% for some programs. Fortunately, the declines in applications by international students to programs in the Eberly College of Science were much smaller, but these declines add impetus to the more active targeted recruitment of exceptionally able international students that had already begun in some departments. Our recruitment efforts for domestic students need additional attention as well to sustain the increases we've seen in both graduate enrollments and quality of students. (In five years, the number of graduate students, enrolled in the college of in intercollege degree programs, whose advisors are faculty members in the Eberly College of Science has increased by 28% to about 850). Attracting eager and talented students to graduate programs is important for the country as well as for the Eberly College of Science. Science and technology have become primary drivers for American prosperity, and the advances in science and technology and their translation to the marketplace rely significantly upon the bright and highly-educated graduates from our programs.

Looking Ahead

In our ongoing drive for excellence, we continue to live on the slope, where progress is readily observable, and every step forward facilitates further progress, but also where inattention or too little effort or too few resources can easily lead to declines rather than advances. Our challenge in the coming years is to maintain and build on the momentum we've developed. Fortunately, the University, both by choices about general fiscal directions and priorities and by specific investments in facilities and programs, has enabled further progress in the college. The strong emphasis on improving our position in faculty salaries advocated by the President and Provost and strongly supported by the Board of Trustees over several years has improved our ability to offer competitive salaries, an essential component of attracting and retaining outstanding faculty. Also, the ongoing investments in new buildings and refurbishment of older buildings are having a big impact. High quality facilities that support outstanding teaching and research are indispensable to continued growth in academic excellence. There are, unfortunately, still a significant number of teaching laboratories and research spaces in the college that are of poor quality. We also need to provide additional good quality student spaces around the college. An ongoing program of renovations and a continuation of investments in new buildings is required to address these deficiencies.

In addition to a continued focus on refurbishment of existing facilities and construction of new facilities, we must also look for new resources to support faculty and students in order to sustain and build on our progress. The wonderful growth in quality of the faculty and the associated growth in quality of our research and education programs also bring requirements for additional resources. The competitive environment for the best faculty and the increasing sophistication of research programs have put enormous strains on the funds available to attract new faculty and establish their research programs. We have been working hard to maximize the impact of our resources. Our partnerships with the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences, the Penn State Materials Research Institute (MRI), and the Penn State Institutes of the Environment have greatly enhanced our ability to attract and establish faculty in these areas. Even so, there is a critical need to find additional resources.

In parallel, rapidly rising tuition has created a large need for additional scholarship and fellowship resources to attract and support both undergraduate and graduate students. In response, we are stepping up our already vigorous efforts in fundraising for scholarships and fellowships.

These issues and many others relating to quality of programs and environment are specifically addressed in the goals and strategies below. A primary focus in all of the goals is on the people of the college and the people we serve.

Goals

To support further improvement in the Eberly College of Science and to guide its drive to further excel in meeting its responsibilities in teaching, research and outreach, we adopt the following goals:

Goal 1: Enhance Academic Excellence

Academic excellence is fundamental to accomplishing the college's mission. Academic excellence requires exceptional commitment, the highest standards of personal and professional integrity and exceptional accomplishment and impact-impact on the directions of scholarship and the development of knowledge, impact on the careers and lives of students and through these, impact on the Commonwealth and the nation. Synergism among teaching, research and service and among faculty, students and staff helps to support and enhance academic excellence.

The importance of academic excellence is not lost on the consumer. We all recognize the strong correlation between the academic reputation of an institution and the quality and numbers of applicants. A survey by the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement shows a concordant result. The survey sampled individuals who felt they knew their state's institutions of higher education well enough to make an assessment. When asked for the single most important priority for colleges and universities to pursue, the two answers that stood out were: (1) attract the best faculty and (2) ensure high academic standards. These two priorities go hand-in-hand.

Goal 1, Strategy 1:
Make the ECOS the college of choice for outstanding faculty.

This is a continuing, fundamental strategy for the college. People are important in every enterprise, but the faculty is the university. The reputation and success of the university are built directly upon the reputation and accomplishments of the faculty. The basics for building a great university are straightforward to state-hire outstanding scholars and give them support, encouragement and plenty of room to grow-but not always simple to implement.

Goal 1, Strategy 2:
Make the Eberly College of Science the college of choice for outstanding students.

Outstanding faculty and excellent programs are the fundamental elements in attracting outstanding students. A number of initiatives regarding programs and academic support for students are described under Goal 2, "Improving the range and quality of educational experiences for all students." These initiatives include new academic programs, support for improvements in teaching, improvements in academic advising and career advising, enhanced international programs and more. In addition, we seek to enhance our efforts to attract and support outstanding undergraduate and graduate students.

• In collaboration with and in support of the University's goal of increasing acceptance yield on offers to prospective undergraduate students, we are searching for a college recruiting coordinator who will: work with college administrators, faculty and staff to design, develop and implement a recruiting plan directed to students who have been offered admission to the college; participate in Undergraduate Admissions recruitment activities such as Spend a Summer Day, Spring Offer programs and family visits; serve as chair of the college Enrollment Planning Team; and carry out other activities designed to enhance recruitment into the college.

• Every department in the college has a long-standing objective of making its graduate programs attractive to outstanding prospective graduate students. Several departments have recently been awarded monies from the Special Fund for Excellence in Graduate Recruitment (augmented by college funds) to enhance their recruitment efforts. In brief, Chemistry intends to follow Biology's success and will travel to China and Eastern Europe to recruit students, BMB will augment its efforts to reach students by bringing life science faculty from strong PA institutions here at our expense to attend the Summer Symposium in Molecular Biology and Statistics will be using its money to sponsor Statistics faculty in making trips to strong schools within PA and contiguous states and to invite the best grad offerees to participate in its Alumni Weekend Program in March.
  
  
• A key component of attracting and retaining students is providing the needed financial support throughout their education. We are working hard to increase the amount of funds available for undergraduate scholarship support, particularly important in view of our rising tuition and the heightened aggressiveness of the institutions with which we regularly compete. We are seeking support from benefactors for the Trustees Scholarship program, a need-based scholarship program, and are partnering with the Schreyer Honors College in the joint allocation of new honors scholarships that will be awarded to students immediately below but comparable to our Braddock Scholars, a region of "quality space" in which we have been historically unsuccessful in attracting students. We are also seeking to double the support available for top graduate students through endowments to support Distinguished University Graduate Fellowships.
  
  
• As a follow-up from the recent University-wide student satisfaction survey, we will be conducting focus group discussions with students to learn what needs to be improved in the college and how we can enhance student satisfaction.

• In order to truly be the college of choice for outstanding students, we must be the college of choice for outstanding students from every race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and age. We have a number of programs in place, and more described in this plan under Goal 5, to improve recruitment and retention of all students in the college.

  
  

Goal 1, Strategy 3:
Make the Eberly College of Science the college of choice for outstanding staff.

We must make our outstanding staff members proud and happy to be part of the Eberly College of Science community. Staff members are the key to getting things done in the college, and an outstanding staff enhances excellence through direct support of teaching and research programs and through keeping the college going and on track in finances, administration and facilities.

Goal 1, Strategy 4:
Work to build a broader sense of intellectual community in the college.

Making progress in science requires great determination and effort. As a result, many students, staff and faculty are so focused on their own work that they don't get a chance or take the time to appreciate the range of incredibly interesting and impressive work around the college. We will seek out ways, perhaps through a college academic forum, to provide opportunities for members of the college community to develop a broader appreciation of the work and accomplishments of the people and programs in the college.

Goal 1, Strategy 5:
Maximize our reputation through publicity about our accomplishments, through awards for faculty and students and by hosting eminent scientists from around the world as guests and speakers.

Reputation is the coin of the realm for academic institutions. An outstanding reputation is not the goal of our continuing drive for excellence, but a strong reputation is an essential tool in building great programs and departments. The reputations of the faculty, programs and departments are fundamentally built on the quality and impact of the research accomplishments and the success of the graduates. In a kind of bootstrap process, an enhanced reputation makes it possible to attract more excellent faculty and students and more resources, which allow further growth in accomplishment and reputation. We can accelerate the process by working to ensure that the accomplishments of the faculty and students are recognized through publicity, awards and the like.

Goal 1, Strategy 6:
Continue the program of external departmental reviews.

We have embarked on a program of ongoing external reviews. A review of the Department of Physics was carried out in the fall of 2001, and a review of the Department of Mathematics was carried out in the fall of 2003. Reviews of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and of the biological sciences in the college, including the Department of Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, are being scheduled for 2005. When done well, these reviews provide realistic assessments of our current programs and some good thoughts and ideas about needs and opportunities for the departments and the college.

Goal 1, Strategy 7:
Improve the quality and scope of our facilities.

Without high quality facilities to support outstanding teaching and research, academic excellence is impossible. High quality facilities enhance recruiting and retention for faculty, staff and students; they allow us to keep pace with productivity growth and to change as our needs change; they can foster an integration of teaching and research; they create a positive working and learning environment for everyone; and they can foster collaboration and sharing. Continuous improvement in the facilities of the college is necessary to support continuous growth in academic excellence.

Goal 2: Improve the range and quality of educational experiences for all students.

Goal 2, Strategy 1:
Increase the number of faculty on continuing appointments in order to reduce class sizes, improve student/faculty ratios and ensure high quality academic experiences for our students. Attract the expertise needed to teach the breadth of courses that need to be offered.

Our departments start with a significant handicap in the size of the tenure-line faculty relative to nearly all departments at comparable institutions. For example, our physics department, with approximately 35 faculty members, is much smaller than the average size, closer to 50, of other leading public universities with separate astronomy and physics departments. In the biological sciences, departmental structures are varied, but we are at least 20 faculty members below the average of other leading public universities.

Given limited resources, a mix of tenure-line faculty and non-tenure-track instructional faculty enables us to provide the best range and quality of educational experiences for our students. A majority of our instructional faculty members are professional scientists and educators who have been hired in national searches and are committed to long-term careers in the college. These faculty members are dedicated and capable teachers, several of whom rank among the most talented teachers in the college.

In an initiative underway with support from the Provost, we are building a corps of outstanding instructional faculty in Mathematics by using national searches to hire lecturers on multi-year contracts. These new faculty will also allow us to reduce the amount of teaching done by graduate student instructors, enhancing both the undergraduate instruction for students from across the University and the graduate program in the department.

Goal 2, Strategy 2:
Increase the number and kinds of educational opportunities.

•  Establish new educational programs as appropriate.

The ECOS has developed and will initiate in fall 2005 a baccalaureate degree program in forensic science that draws upon the expertise and course offerings of colleges and departments across the University. Forensic science is rapidly becoming a field of great interest to students with scientific capabilities and the desire to apply those capabilities to assist criminal and civil investigations and litigation. The new major will provide enrollees with a strong foundation in the biological and physical sciences and will introduce them to relevant topics in forensic chemistry, forensic anthropology, forensic biology and relevant social sciences. Students will learn about the role of forensic scientists in the criminal justice system and the use of scientifically obtained evidence in that system. Graduates will be qualified for employment as scientists in federal, state, or private crime laboratories or with insurance companies, homeland security agencies, or the judicial community. They could also choose to pursue graduate study in forensics, possibly specializing in areas such as forensic psychology, anthropology, pathology, odontology, entomology, or toxicology.

We have recently submitted to the Faculty Senate and to the Graduate School an IUG (Integrated Undergraduate Graduate) Program in biotechnology, built on the ECOS undergraduate program in biotech, the undergraduate program in animal sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and the M.S. in biotech, that moved recently from the Huck Institute to the ECOS department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. This B.S./M.S. program provides new opportunities for our students and should increase the number and quality of students entering the Professional Masters Program in Biotechnology.

•  Increase undergraduate research opportunities.

The Eberly College of Science is proud of the research opportunities offered to its undergraduate students. These research experiences are often major formative experiences in which students integrate and apply classroom learning in a different and challenging environment. On the order of 40% of Eberly College of Science juniors and seniors participate in research. Undergraduates are considered a natural part of research teams in the college and many of their research efforts lead to publications in major scientific journals. The natural integration of teaching and learning through researchers and students carrying out research projects together offers the best possible educational experience. Full participation in a true learning community provides our students with the maximum benefit of an education at a research university.

Many undergraduate research opportunities are supported by sponsored program and departmental funds. We also make maximum use of the President's Fund for Research and supplement it with college funds to maximize the numbers of opportunities. Virtually all students in the physical and mathematical sciences who express an interest in doing undergraduate research are given the opportunity, but we have been unable to meet the huge demand in the biological sciences. Our future strategies for addressing this problem are to add additional faculty members, who are needed in the classroom as well, and to involve more fixed-term faculty, both instructional and research faculty, in mentoring undergraduate research.

We believe that this effort aligns with another goal - to help with the national problem of insufficient numbers of minority graduate students and faculty members. We will further encourage minority students to participate in undergraduate research experiences, and we will track the students to see where they go after finishing their baccalaureate degrees.

We have expended over the past decade (and continue to expend) a great deal of effort in assisting campus colleges in developing their own versions of the general science and other UP-based majors and in assisting in the development of new programs for which there are no analogs at University Park. Given the University's concern with issues of curricular integrity, which we share, we mention that the ECOS has for many years worked closely with campuses wishing to develop science programs from the initial planning stage to what we have called "service after the sale" visits that are meant for us to receive updates on the programs and offer advice on fine-tuning them if needed. Also over many years, we have provided financial support to science faculty at the campuses (regardless of the location of their tenure) who wish to attend and present papers at research conferences, and we have more recently begun making teaching laboratory equipment, equipment that has been replaced in our Eberly College of Science teaching laboratories through our process of regular upgrades, available to campus colleges. The response to these programs has been very enthusiastic. In the local sphere, we have partnered with the College of the Liberal Arts to develop and offer a first-year LEAP seminar dealing with bioethics and statistics.

We look to expand the current Professional Master's Degree portfolio, which includes the Professional Masters Program in Biotechnology and the Masters in Applied Statistics, to include such new programs as Industrial Mathematics and Materials Sciences. Encouraged by the success of our established Professional Masters Degree Programs, we will also continue to explore other opportunities. The professional Master of Applied Statistics has achieved its goal of enrolling 15 new students per year and provides employers with strong, well-trained candidates.

• Enhance opportunities for international educational experiences.

The college has been very aggressive in seeking out opportunities for international study. We have developed the so-called British Science Exchange which has generated close affiliations with the Universities of Leeds, Sussex, Essex , Bath , Wales (Aberystwyth), Glasgow and Lancaster. We have similar partnerships with McGill University in Montreal and with the Universities of Marburg in Germany and Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg , France . We have developed less formal relationships with the Universities of Southampton and Sheffield in the UK (the latter through the World University Network), with the University of Jena in (formerly) East Germany and with King Mongkut's University of Technology in Bangkok, the latter chiefly for the purpose of aiding this rapidly emerging institution in a rapidly emerging nation in the development of doctoral programs in the sciences.

Despite this array of programs, only a small fraction of our students opt for international experiences. In response, a college committee is working with the Office of the Registrar to provide recognition on transcripts that students have enrolled in the newly developed International Science Minor. This minor, requiring that students spend one of their years abroad in one of our partner schools and enroll in a pre-selected set of science coursework at those schools, has been developed with the intent of facilitating and recognizing student participation in international studies and, hopefully, increasing participation rates as a result.

Goal 2, Strategy 3:
Improve student advising.

The college has for many years taken a leadership role in the assessment of academic advising and has piloted an advising evaluation process that the Division of Undergraduate Studies extended to other colleges. Results of college-wide assessments, department reports and the recent student satisfaction survey are shared across the college, and the Eberly College of Science Enrollment and Retention Planning Committee has been engaged in an ongoing process of determining areas of strengths and weakness from these studies and has brought these to the attention of the relevant departments.

Since high quality advising is critical to a positive educational experience, our focus on advising continues.  Students need different types of advising as they progress through their undergraduate careers. First and second year students are, by and large, focused on selection of a major, on which entry level courses to take, on how to maximize probability of success, on how to add a minor or a major with a minimum number of additional courses, and the like. Third and fourth year students are interested primarily in research and extramural (e.g., coop and international) opportunities, in career advising, in advice on graduate school or professional school selection and, in general, in information on post-baccalaureate pursuits. Our faculty members are well suited to advise students on research, careers in research, graduate school selection, thesis preparation and the like, but they are, for the most part, less-well equipped to provide advising on which section of English 15 to take, how to satisfy the General Education requirements, etc. Therefore, we have encouraged a gradual evolution away from faculty advising of undeclared students to a system which encourages them to seek the advice of our professional advisors. Some professional advisors are tenure-line faculty, but most are experienced instructors or full time advisors who know the system at PSU inside and out. These individuals are fully equipped to answer the needs of our first and second year students.  We will continue to assess advising in the college and will make changes appropriately.

Present college and University advising structures do not adequately support career advising for science students who are not going on to professional or graduate programs.  Recognizing a need, the associate dean and the ECOS Student Council are working to develop and implement a new program in career advising.  Patterned after a highly successful career advising program offered to and by doctoral students in physics at the University of Indiana , the ECOS program will rely equally on contributions from alumni and from the students themselves as information on careers is shared with participants.

Our students would be better served if we could physically co-locate our student services offices in an easily-accessed, central location. To this end, under strategy 7 below we describe the need to create a high quality Student Academic Support Center , combining the functions of academic advising, career advising, student services and student recruitment with a gathering space for students and an office for the ECOS student government.

Goal 2, Strategy 4:
Improve teaching and learning in the college through sharing of ongoing instructional innovations and support for further innovations.

• Establish and support an ECOS Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE).

We will establish and support an ECOS Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE) that will have as a major thrust the partnering with and lending of support to our departments in the obtaining of external grants that will provide major enhancements of our instructional and advising programs. We envisage that the CESE will house individuals with professional credentials and established track records in grant-writing who will support the departments and make them more competitive in responding to the many opportunities from federal funding agencies for educational enhancement. In addition, there are innovations in teaching and learning being developed in departments across the college, and the Center for Excellence in Science Education will support and reinforce those efforts and work to disseminate the successes throughout the college. This Center will also serve as a point of liaison with the University's Schreyer Institute for Teaching and Learning.

The Statistics Department is really at the forefront in the college in creating e-learning opportunities both for resident instruction and for World Campus delivery. They are continuing to implement curriculum reform in intermediate and upper level courses in Statistics, building on the transformation at the elementary level that was supported by grants from the Pew Foundation and the NSF. A pending NSF proposal from statistics asks for funding to create statistical learning centers to improve learning and understanding through student activities and interaction with technology in the classroom.   The Statistics department has now developed three additional courses, Stat 501, Stat 505 and Stat 480, in addition to the ongoing Stat 500 course offered each year through the World Campus. These courses are being offered on-line beginning in Fall 2005, and several additional courses are being developed including Stat 504 and Stat 414 and 415. These courses are all designed to meet the needs of working professionals and also satisfy requirements for the professional master's degree in the department, the Master of Applied Statistics.

Offering of courses and programs through the World Campus can provide departments with academic opportunities and fiscal benefits, but, in spite of college efforts to encourage participation, and in spite of the successes in statistics, growth in our on-line World Campus offerings has been slower than hoped. To address this situation and to stake out a larger position in outreach, we appointed in March 2003, our first Outreach Fellow, an individual whose outreach responsibilities include the development of World Campus courses in astronomy (Astro 010 and 011). Discussions are underway with the University Office of Outreach to expand the concept of Outreach Fellow to other areas in the college.

Goal 2, Strategy 5:
Work to increase the diversity of our students..

To enhance the educational experience of all of our students and to strengthen the Penn State and national efforts in science by engaging a broader cross section of our society in the enterprise, the diversity of our students, faculty and staff should be increased. Greater diversity will help bring greater understanding and respect for others from different backgrounds and should improve the retention of individuals from underrepresented minority groups. A recent report by the Business-Higher Education Forum says that the trend of African-Americans and Hispanics earning proportionately fewer degrees could lead to a dearth of skilled workers. Eighty percent of the growth in the traditional college-age population between now and 2015 will be non-white. To help direct our efforts, we've created a "Tool Box" of strategies aimed at recruitment and retention of individuals from under represented groups. The Tool Box is described in Appendix 1.

Goal 2, Strategy 6:
Improve the climate for minority students and other students in the college by seeking improvements in all points of contact..

Improving the climate in the Eberly College of Science for all its members is an ongoing process. We have shared responsibility for this process across the college. A welcoming and inclusive climate is grounded in respect for others, and this respect must be visible in our day-to-day environment and interactions. Every point of contact should be welcoming for all students, and we will seek to ensure that minority students in particular feel welcomed. (For example, office displays should be multi-cultural and inclusive). The college is committed to finding the resources to make the appropriate changes to our facilities, displays, information provided, etc. Each department received some funding for this initiative in late 2004.

Every department has a Climate and Diversity Committee, and there is a link between the departmental committee and the college Climate and Diversity Committee. The departmental Climate and Diversity Committees should continue to develop plans to improve the look and feel of places in the department where we interact with students. In general, the committees should focus on creating a respectful, multi-culturally welcoming environment in each department.

Goal 2, Strategy 7:
Improve the quality and availability of space for our students.

• It is imperative that we improve educational facilities for laboratory instruction.

Some of the teaching laboratory spaces are among the worst spaces in the college.

We will look for ways to increase the number of appropriately equipped teaching labs available to the life sciences undergraduate courses. An obvious track here is to work to convince the University administration that the classrooms in the Life Sciences Building that were designed to accommodate demonstrations and light laboratory work should be made available for life sciences laboratories.

We must also find the resources to renovate teaching laboratories in Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Chemistry to bring them up to modern standards and equip them to support the educational needs of today's students.

•  Find space and funding for the development of a high quality Student Academic Support Center .

It is the intent of the college to seek space and funding for the development of a high quality Student Academic Support Center , combining the functions of academic advising, career advising, student services and student recruitment with a gathering space for students and an office for the ECOS student government. A major problem with the advising enterprise in the ECOS is the deplorable physical condition of its Academic Advising Center .   Located in a 53-year-old building that is in major need of overall renovation, the Center itself has undergone no substantial renovations in that time and currently houses 10 staffers in a crowded collection of cubicles and warrens that once housed three individuals whose responsibilities did not include students.  Our students deserve better. Student input also tells us that gathering spaces for students will enhance the educational experience for our students through increased socialization, group study and informal access to faculty.

•  Seek space, perhaps in the basement of Thomas Building , for Statistical Learning Centers. These spaces are necessary to support the curricular developments underway in Statistics.  These classrooms would reduce the current demand by Statistics for general purpose computer laboratories.

Goal 2, Strategy 8:
Implement meaningful programs to assess student outcomes.

The College expects to enlarge and expand upon an already successful program of exit interviews and post-graduation surveys. All departments currently carry out exit interviews of graduating seniors, some (Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics) in conjunction with luncheons, one on-line (BMB) and the remainder through surveys or visits to the offices of the undergraduate program chair, advisor, or similar individuals. Post-graduation surveys are more difficult to carry out, although Astronomy, Physics and Mathematics have had some initial success in doing so. These departments direct their surveys chiefly at graduates who are located in graduate or professional schools where they are easier to locate but this introduces a bias into the findings that we want to correct. The remaining departments are in various stages of developing surveys to implement this highly useful means of assessment. The College will offer academic assistance and material help to departments wishing to enhance their exit interview strategies or to expand into post-graduation surveys.

Goal 3: Support and promote world-class science.

Goal 3, Strategy 1:
Engage the college in a deliberate process of identifying strengths and long-term opportunities.

A three-year strategic planning horizon is too limited a view to see trends and opportunities in science clearly and thus too limited to guide investments in faculty and programs that are inevitably much longer term commitments. Our current three-year strategic planning takes place within the context of longer-range intellectual planning, both formal and informal, that engages faculty, department heads, deans, directors of institutes and other University administrators in various ways.

With the ongoing growth in strength across many disciplines and sub-disciplines in the college and with the continuing growth of opportunities in many areas of science, this is an opportune time to engage the college in a formal process of long-range intellectual planning. Hence, we've organized a long-range vision committee consisting of two faculty members from each of the seven departments in the college. The charge to the committee is to think broadly about and identify promising directions of science within and across disciplines and to combine this information with an assessment of where we are now in the college (and University) in order to identify how we can advance our programs, pick areas of opportunity and enhance our ability to make major contributions to the basic sciences.

This is an ongoing process. The committee has produced a preliminary document describing some of the trends in the different disciplines, but there is much more to do. The committee will continue its work until it has a reasonable product that will be useful for further discussion in the college and for the long-range planning of the college.

Goal 3, Strategy 2:
Sustain and build upon strengths in departments across the college.

All of the disciplines in the college are central to the basic sciences and essential parts of a major research university. The Eberly College of Science can only succeed as one of the premier centers of teaching and research in the basic sciences if we have strong departments and outstanding programs across the college. To strengthen and improve the college, we will continue to support and build upon those areas where we already have excellent research programs with continuing promise of great science and to support other areas where there is promise of exciting and important future research. In doing this, we will partner with other parts of the University in priority areas of mutual interest such as maintaining and building on our strength in materials research.

Goal 3, Strategy 3:
Continue to build strength in the life sciences.

While the occasionally heard declarations about the end of the era of major advances in the physical sciences are clearly wrong, the opportunities for advances in the basic and applied life sciences are enormous. Like some others, this priority of the Eberly College of Science aligns with University goals. If Penn State is to be a significant player in the development of the life sciences, we must have a vibrant enterprise in the basic life sciences in the Eberly College of Science.

To continue to strengthen the life sciences, we must ensure that we have strength in essential areas such as cell biology, neuroscience and genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics; that we look for areas of opportunity, such as plant biology or infectious disease dynamics, to sustain or build world-class efforts; and that we increase the involvement of the physical and mathematical sciences in the life sciences. Systems biology is an emerging area where we can draw on our strengths in the physical and mathematical sciences. We must also be ready to adapt and seek the best structures to support our efforts in the life sciences. The life sciences nationally have the most fluid organizational structures of any area in the college, and we need to be open to reexamining departmental and program structures as the life sciences evolve and as our programs grow and evolve.

Goal 3, Strategy 4:
Develop and support cross-cutting initiatives within the college and across the University.

The college is either already a major player or is poised to be a major player in a large number of interdisciplinary areas or developing areas which draw upon more than one of the tradition disciplines. A considerable portion of the science of tomorrow will be in the interfaces between and among the traditional disciplines, and we need to be ready to take advantage of available funding and to make major contributions in these areas.

Example areas of current interest include:

• Applied mathematics and statistics
• Astrobiology
• Astrostatistics
• Bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics
• Computational science
• Ecological Sustainability
• Ecology
• Electronic, molecular and quantum devices
• Energy
• Gravitational physics and geometry
• Infectious Disease Dynamics
• Materials
• Nanoscience
• Neuroscience
• Sensors
• Space science
• Systems biology

Goal 3, Strategy 5:
Continue to evolve and adapt facilities plans for the college to support world-class science.

We have challenging and evolving needs for facilities which support the research priorities in the college, support and foster appropriate cross-cutting initiatives in the college and among colleges, support faculty residing in interdisciplinary buildings and meet the basic needs of the whole college.

Facilities and space planning in the college is an exercise with changing boundary conditions as academic plans and priorities in the college evolve and as the University's plans evolve and sometimes change very quickly.

The completion of the new Chemistry and Life Sciences buildings and the soon-to-be completed refurbishment of the McAllister Building mark a very large investment by the University and a huge step forward for the college. The Chemistry and Life Sciences buildings together with Shortlidge Mall are also a major aesthetic enhancement and a new focal point of the University Park campus.

The University continues to invest aggressively in facilities. Two other collaborative buildings, Life Sciences II and the Materials Building are now on the drawing boards, and Life Sciences II is on a fast track to completion as a better alternative to renovation of Chandlee for the life sciences.

Even with the University's very large investments in new and renovated facilities, the quality of facilities in the college is very mixed. We have seen a negative impact on recruiting and retention of faculty and students resulting from non-competitive facilities.  Since much of our competition is investing heavily in facilities, we must aggressively continue to seek facilities improvements in the college.

Goal 4: Enhance outreach.

As a college of the basic sciences, the Eberly College of Science lacks the well-defined outreach audience and programs typical of the professional colleges. Therefore, we have chosen to focus our outreach activities in areas that enhance the college's research and instructional efforts as well as its capability to attract the next generation of students.

Historically, one of our major outreach audiences has been K-12 students. In recent years, we have reached this group in part through an extensive and expanding program of day and resident summer science camps. This program is known as the Action Potential Science Experience (APSE). The camps developed under this umbrella focus on basic concepts in life, physical and mathematical sciences, and they have allowed us to introduce students to science and the culture of science. These camps have been implemented at the UP campus, as well as at a Center of Excellence in New York (Infotonics) through a site license, so we are now reaching beyond our local community to regional audiences and nationally, since we have also attracted students from Maine to California with our residence camps. Additionally, the camps have provided our own graduate and undergraduate students-serving as mentors and counselors-a range of opportunities in preparation for their careers.

Through these camps and through other means, the college outreach office is able to provide faculty who are required to incorporate outreach into their grant proposals with assistance in writing these proposals, as well as in the delivery of the proposed outreach programs when the proposals are funded. The outreach office has assisted in the development of proposals for NSF Career Awards, NSF Research Centers , NSF REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) sites, NASA Mission grants and individual awards. Approximately $7.4M in research dollars has been awarded to faculty who were successful in obtaining support for one or another of these projects.

The college provides a home for a number of research centers that have vigorous outreach programs. The Center for Nanoscale Science (Penn State MRSEC) and the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics (CGWP) are NSF-funded centers. Both of these centers have research, education and outreach missions, and they engage external audiences on a variety of fronts. The Center for Nanoscale Science funds graduate and undergraduate student research and requires these students to engage in outreach efforts to the general public and to K-12 audiences alongside their mentors. This MRSEC center sponsors museum shows that have been disseminated nationally, with the materials being used in summer science camp venues on and off the University Park campus as well. Additionally, this center supports public television "shows", educator workshops, educator research with MRSEC faculty (Research Experiences for Teachers, or RETs), and K-12 classroom demonstrations on related science topics. Likewise, the CGWP also disseminates research results and provides educational materials to K-12 audiences by sponsoring research conferences for other scientists in the field, and outreach engagement in the forms of in-class demonstrations, public television presentations and public lectures for community audiences in State College , as well as in the visiting speaker's home community.

Another major research enterprise in the college which supports an extensive education and outreach component hosted in the Department of Biology is "Ridge 2000". Ridge 2000 is a major national, long-term program of research into the life, physical, earth and ocean science of mid-ocean ridges and related tectonic systems. The Ridge 2000 office oversees a very active education and outreach program which includes information and resources for K-12 educators such as activities, lessons and resources for K-12 classrooms, competitions to inspire students, opportunities for career development for teachers, information on ocean-related careers for students, and web-links to follow the expeditions live on-line.

A new, very successful outreach program hosted by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences is a program known as BioDays. It ran for the first time in 2004 and was a one-day public outreach activity held in conjunction with Space Day, an outreach activity hosted by the Space Grant Consortium.  It involved hands-on activities, public talks and posters, and tours of the Huck Institute research support and analysis facilities.  The organizers had originally anticipated around 100 people, but the event attracted over 700 in its first year. We intend to continue this activity with planning for 2005 already well underway. Sponsorship has expanded to include the Department of Biology as well.

The hiring by the college in March, 2003, of its first Outreach Fellow, a Ph.D. in Astronomy, has made it possible for us to enhance our offerings of a wide range of astronomy outreach programs in such areas as science teacher in-service workshops in astronomy; Astrofest (a highly popular astronomy sky-viewing Open House program held on the roof of Davey Lab), K-12 planetarium field trips, the Friedman Lecture Series, faculty assistance and activities provided for "Space Day" and others.

The college has a vigorous program of outreach to the local community through a number of lecture series, including the Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science, a series of lectures given each winter over a series of Saturday mornings, the Friedman Lectures in Astronomy, the Johnson Lecture in Scientific Communication, the Eberly Family Distinguished Lecture in Science and lectures presented by our science centers (Penn State MRSEC and CGWP). In addition, we have a dozen different lectures series across the college, each of which includes at least one lecture intended for general audiences. These lectures attract audiences that include K-12 students, Penn State students, faculty and staff, and other members of the local community, including retirees.

Individual faculty members engage in a large number of outreach endeavors, both large and small, as part of their individual commitment to science, the local community and society. These endeavors extend across campus, into the local community and beyond Central Pennsylvania , and they include activities ranging from advising individuals and groups in State College communities to the engagement with peer and public groups around the world. Numerous faculty members advise graduate and undergraduate groups with philanthropic and outreach missions directed to K-12 audiences as well as the K-12 audiences directly.  Activities include meeting with Penn State groups such as the Nittany Chemical Society, Alpha Chi Sigma fraternity, Science Lions, Math Club members at Penn State and in the local school district and with the organizers of BioDay and Space Day. The activities also include engaging school children directly through numerous sch