Any faculty, staff, student, or community member may nominate a Penn State undergraduate student from any campus for the Stand Up Award. This award honors students demonstrating courage, fortitude, and ethical leadership by taking a stand for a person, cause, or belief. Successful nominees will be honored at a ceremony in April 2015 when they will be presented with a $1,000 award.

In response to accessibility requirements and new design technology, the University Faculty Senate recently unveiled a contemporary website with a user-friendly interface. The site provides information on Senate committees, including agendas, minutes, and reports; student academic policies; curricular procedures; and course/program changes across the University system.

From now through Friday, October 31, students may nominate advisers for the 2015 Penn State Excellence in Academic Advising Award. Sponsored by the University Advising Council and the Office for Undergraduate Education, the award recognizes and rewards advising excellence. One award is given annually to a faculty member and one to a professional academic adviser. All current full-time University employees with advising responsibilities are eligible. Students who wish to nominate an adviser may complete a short, online form available below.

On Friday, October 24, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m., in 102 Kern Building, University Park, the Division of Undergraduate Studies invites interested members of the Penn State community to attend a panel presentation, "Faculty Senate Petitions: What Advisers Need to Know," part of the Academic Advising Noon Seminar series offered every semester. This presentation will also be available via videoteleconferencing to accommodate participants at other campuses. 

“Some students put a lot of pressure on themselves and think the major they choose will define them for life,” says David Smith, associate dean for advising and the executive director of DUS. “In reality, many careers can come out of any one major. We want to help students understand their options and which may work best for them.”

To help them along, advisers in DUS have developed two web-based tools — MajorQuest and MinorQuest — to help narrow down the possibilities. The tools prompt students to check off their interests and then filter the lists of majors and minors to reflect the students’ choices.

On Wednesday, Oct. 1, the thirteenth annual professional development conference on academic advising will take place at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, State College. This year's theme is "Advising Smarter: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications for Student Success." The conference is open to academic advisers, administrators, faculty members who advise, and others interested in the field of academic advising. A registration form with fee information is available at http://dus.psu.edu/documents/fall_conf/2014/reg_form_2014.pdf

Penn State's Academic Advising Portal launched in May as the University’s gateway to academic advising information, resources and policies. As fall semester approaches, advisers, faculty members and students may find the tools and resources at http://advising.psu.edu/tools especially helpful as they plan and manage the many educational processes and opportunities that can inform a student’s experience at Penn State.   

University Park, Pa.—A study by Esther Prins, co-director of the Goodling Institute and the Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy, and her colleagues Cathy Kassab and Kimeka Campbell, challenges educators, researchers and policy makers to recalibrate their understanding of who college students are. A recent study of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) applicants from Pennsylvania found the average applicant was 24-years-old, 35 percent were adult learners, 40 percent were financially independent, and 16 percent were not single.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Division of Undergraduate Studies recently introduced the Academic Advising Portal as Penn State’s new online gateway to academic advising information, tools and resources. The portal, at http://advising.psu.edu, replaces Advising @ PSU as the University’s one-stop, searchable source of academic policies and procedures and will help students locate what they need to plan and manage successful educational experiences. The new site also supports academic advisers, faculty and staff members as they advise undergraduates and highlights opportunities for professional development and collaboration.

Penn State will offer its newest massive open online course (MOOC) "Presumed Innocent? The Social Science of Wrongful Convictions," produced by the College of the Liberal Arts. The MOOC employs the perspective of the social scientist to understand why and how wrongful convictions occur. The course will open to thousands of students for free on the Coursera platform in late June, and will also be offered for Penn State credit at a reduced tuition rate beginning July 2.

To help students identify minors that match their interests, the Division of Undergraduate Studies created an interactive site called MinorQuest, available at http://dus.psu.edu/students/minorquest. The new resource prompts students to select areas of interest from a menu and then locates those Penn State minors that provide opportunities to study all areas selected. Because minors can often include special considerations, such as hidden prerequisites and controlled courses, MinorQuest also provides both a planning checklist and a worksheet to help students determine if and how they can realistically complete a minor of interest.