Dean's Community Message

April 21, 2020

Dear College of Engineering Community,

Good afternoon! Having just one administrative update today provides an opportunity to largely focus on recognizing and celebrating excellence across our college. But first, a reminder related to student support:

Student Financial Support

Students in need because of circumstances related to COVID-19 or other issues can apply for emergency funding from the University’s Student Emergency Fund. To do so, reach out to the Student Care and Advocacy Office in Student Affairs. Separately, as part of recently announced funding to Penn State from the federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, a process is being developed for Penn State students to apply for emergency financial aid grants. The University will announce how to apply to the program as soon as possible.

Recognizing Excellence

Over the past few weeks, we have been collecting appreciations of individuals and entire teams in Engineering who have been going above and beyond in the face of these challenging circumstances. To date, more than 50 of these submissions have been collected and posted to the college’s website. It is inspiring reading — a showcase of the many ways both big and small that members of our community have been rising to the challenge for almost six weeks now.

From the submitted appreciations thus far, we also selected more than 25 individuals to be Zoombie Employees of the Week (in honor the video platform that has become a fixture in all of our lives), which earned each recipient a custom-designed novelty T-shirt to wear proudly.

Please join me in congratulating our inaugural list of Zoombies: Erin Ammerman, Matt Barone, Anna Pearl Belinda, Holly Benscoter, Somer Brown, Charlotte DeVries, Vikki Gearhart, Gary L. Gray, Diane Hockenberry, Syed Karimushan, Andrew Krebs, Christine Luzier, Jesse McTernan, Jessica Menold, Kate Myers, Sarah Rhyner, Robert Rioux, Sarah Ritter, Sarah Root, Ling Rothrock, Danielle Salerno, Rick Smith, Kevin Waltz, Ashley WennersHerron, Dawn Winters, Tessa Woodring, and Jessica Yarnell.

While the uncertainty and stress of this chaotic time continues, I think it is important to pause whenever we can to celebrate our people. In the coming days, I encourage you to take just a few minutes to submit an appreciation of your own for someone you think is helping us to move forward and deserves a shout out.

Take care and thanks for all you are doing!

Justin Schwartz
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean, College of Engineering