Recently in Penn State Principles Curriculum Category

In this brief Introduction, President Spanier explains the rationale behind the Penn State Principles. He mentions four things that students should learn about and develop during their time at Penn State: Character, Conscience, Citizenship, and Civility. Listen to his introduction and reflect on your own understanding of these commonly-mentioned attributes. What do you think about his claim about our responsibilities as members of a larger community? Share your thoughts on these matters directly in the VoiceThread (by clicking on 'Comment' in the viewer) or in the comments section below.

Nivi was taking an English literature course that required reading six novels. She was a slow reader and found it difficult to keep up. By the end of the semester, she was so far behind in her reading that she knew she would not be able to catch up. The final exam required an analysis and comparison of the plots of the six novels. One day as she was leaving class she overhead a group of students laughing about the class and saying that they couldn't imagine reading such boring books and wondering how they would ever manage without Cliff Notes.

Cyrus is in a large lecture class and is sitting next to a student who keeps looking at his exam and copying answers from his scantron sheet. He tries to shift his paper to make it more difficult for the student to look at his exam, but the chairs are too close together to do this effectively. After the second test and the same behavior by his seat mate, Cyrus talks to his Professor about the problem and asks if he could "prove" the cheating by writing down all the wrong answers on the next exam and then arranging to retake the test right after class for his grade.

Charlie was working for the history department fifteen hours a week as a work study student to help cover his expenses. He was also taking a large lecture history class that involved an in-class final exam worth 50% of the grade. Two weeks before finals, the instructor handed out a list of fifteen study questions, explaining that the two final questions would be selected from that list. Charlie was taking a full load of classes, plus his job, and had gotten behind in a couple of his classes. He knew that his grades were going to suffer because there just wasn't enough time in the day to get caught up. One day he was asked to make copies of some papers on the history department xerox machine. When he opened the lid of the copy machine, he discovered that someone had left a copy of the final for his history class in the machine, and he saw which questions would be on the final.

Mei and Chloe have been good friends since they met in 7th grade. They are now sophomores at Penn State. Chloe has a scholarship that requires that she keep a 3.0 average to retain the scholarship support. Chloe has been having a rough semester and is barely earning B's in her classes. Mei and Chloe are both taking a difficult statistics course. Although Mei is doing well in the course, Chloe is panicked because she really doesn't understand the material. Since the final project for the class is worth 60% of her grade, Chloe knows that if she doesn't earn at least a B on the project, she will lose her scholarship. Although the instructor made it clear that all work on the final project was to be done independently, Chloe begs Mei to help her. Mei is sympathetic but reminds Chloe that the professor said that they must work independently. Chloe cries and tells Mei that if she loses her scholarship she will be forced to leave Penn State and again begs her to help her.

Andrei is a premed major and a senior. Although he has an academic scholarship that covers his out-of-state tuition, he also has to work twenty hours a week to cover other expenses. He's taking a full load of classes and is finding them to be much more difficult this semester than in the past. On top of everything, he has to start applying to medical schools. Although he works hard, he is at risk of getting a D in one of his required 400-level chemistry classes. If he doesn't get at least a C in the chemistry class, it won't count toward graduation and he would have to make it up in the summer. He doesn't have enough money to retake the class and is worried that a bad grade would ruin his chances of going to medical school. He's been working on a lab problem for the class that he just can't get to work properly. He's run the experiment two times, but keeps getting strange results. He thinks that either he's misunderstood how to do the experiment or he has a contamination problem with his lab materials. He has spent so much time on this lab experiment that his other class work is suffering. His best friend is in the class and is worried about him. His friend has offered to share his lab results with him so Andrei can finish the lab report and get caught up in his other classes.

Ming is taking a senior level class that is being run as a seminar and class participation is 30% of the grade. Although there are only 15 students in the class, she is finding it difficult to participate in the discussion. There are a few students who talk a lot and who frequently interrupt the flow of the discussion to get their point into the dialogue. Ming comes to class well prepared and often has a set of questions and issues she would like to have addressed in the conversation, but she leaves class most days frustrated because she spent most of the class session listening to others talk and didn't have the issues that mattered to her sufficiently addressed.

Marcos is taking a sociology class that requires a final term paper. He took the class because it covered a topic that interested him and that he knew a bit about because he had taken a history class on a related topic in the fall semester. It dawned on him that he had written a term paper for the history class that would, with only a little bit of revision, be quite appropriate for the sociology term paper.

Jena is a freshman who is having a difficult time with her transition to Penn State. The classes are more difficult than she expected and she got caught up in a lot of social events and didn't do a good job of keeping up with her studies. She is now facing her first semester of finals. There is a big final in her chemistry class that is scheduled on the same day as her history final. She talks with her history professor about her concern that if she takes two finals on the same day, she will bomb them both. The professor is sympathetic and agrees to let Jena take the final for the history class later in the week. Jena dutifully studies for the chemistry exam and does pretty well, but she is exhausted and still has to make up the history final. Then she realizes that she knows people in the class who have already taken the exam and can ask them what questions were on the final so she can focus her studies.

Yvonne's design class involves a group project that is worth 55% of the grade. Yvonne just started dating and is really caught up in the excitement of a new infatuation. On top of that she has to work 20 hours a week to help pay her rent. She is frustrated at having to make time to meet with the group. She goes to the first meeting and after the first hour feels that the group isn't making much progress, so she suggests that they divide up the tasks and then meet in a week leaving them a day to "paste" all the parts together into the final project. The group agrees to the plan. The only problem is that Yvonne doesn't feel like doing her part of the project so she keeps putting it off. The night before the final group meeting, Yvonne still hasn't started her part of the assignment.