Penn State Erie, The Behrend College

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**Penn State Erie, The Behrend College**

Established	1948
Type	Land-Grant, State-related
Chancellor	Jack Burke
Faculty	207 full-time 61 part-time
Students	3,756 students 1,645 residents
Alumni	22,000
Location	Erie, PA
Campus	725 acres
Colors	Blue and white
Nickname	Behrend
Mascot	Behrend Lion
Affiliations	AMCC, NCAA
Website	www.pennstatebehrend.edu

The main entrance to Penn State Erie

Penn State Erie, The Behrend College is a commonwealth campus of Pennsylvania State University located in Erie, PA.

1 General Information
2 History
3 Student Life
4 Transferring to University Park
5 Knowledge Park
6 Points of interest
7 External links

[edit] General Information

At Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, over 4,000 students benefit from the opportunities and prestige of the Pennsylvania State University while set in an atmosphere of a small college setting. Students can choose from thirty-one baccalaureate majors and nineteen minors, five associate degree programs, and three graduate programs. The 725-acre campus is located only minutes from the City of Erie in Harborcreek Township. As a land grant and sea grant institution, the college's mission includes advancing Northwestern Pennsylvania's economic and social welfare.

The college in recent years has added a number of facilities, including an athletics and recreation center, chapel and carillon, astronomy observatory, large residence halls, Knowledge Park at Penn State Erie, and a baseball and softball complex. The newest construction is a $30 million research and economic development center (REDC) that houses the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology and the Sam and Irene Black School of Business.

[edit] History

The Glenhill Farmhouse in winter

Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a four-year and graduate college of Penn State, USA. The college's campus was donated to the University in 1948 by Mary Behrend in memory of her husband, Ernst, co-founder (with his father and brother) of the Hammermill Paper Company. In donating her family's Glenhill Farm Estate to Penn State, Mrs. Behrend was responding to the need, expressed by a committee of prominent Erie residents, for a public, co-educational, non-sectarian university presence in Erie.

When the campus first started in 1948, only 146 students were enrolled at what was known then as The Behrend Center. Those first students could complete only their freshman year at the center. When Penn State reorganized the campus in 1959, the Commonwealth Campus System was established and The Behrend Center became The Behrend Campus of Penn State. Both the enrollments and the physical expanse of the campus grew throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. By 1971, more than 1,200 students were enrolled.

On January 20, 1973, the Penn State Board of Trustees granted four-year college and graduate status to Penn State Erie. With that decision, Penn State Erie became the first Penn State location outside of University Park to achieve such status. Today, about 3,700 students still attend classes in the original buildings from the old Glenhill Farm Estate, as well as a number of newer facilities including an athletics and recreation center, chapel and carillon, observatory, two residence hall buildings, and a baseball and softball complex. Penn State Erie offers thirty-one baccalaureate majors, nineteen minors, five associate degree programs, and three graduate programs.

[edit] Student Life

There are two on-campus dining facilities. The Gazebo at Dobbins and Bruno's Café. Dobbins is a cafeteria with a large variety of foods and drinks available as a buffet. The cafeteria will be expanding in the future as well. It is said that it will also include a "Panera-like" area for food-pick up. Bruno's is an on-campus cafe where students can get all types of food and drinks to go or to stay. It is located in the Reed Union Building and has wireless internet access for students. It tends to be open longer and later than Dobbins: till about 11 PM on weekdays and midnight on weekends. There is often live entertainment on weekends at Bruno’s Café.

Behrend has its own Greek life but it is not nearly as prevalent as Penn State's-University Park's campus. There are four social fraternities: Delta Chi, Kappa Delta Rho, Sigma Tau Gamma, and Tau Kappa Epsilon. The only recognized house as of right now is Delta Chi's. There are three sororities: Alpha Sigma Alpha, Alpha Sigma Tau and Theta Phi Alpha.

Residential facilities have been recently renovated and all rooms have relatively new furniture in good condition with wall-to-wall carpeting and a microfridge (microwave/refrigerator) in all of the dorm rooms. Most freshman live in Lawrence, Niagara and Perry Halls. Some students may also get housing in the recently constructed Senat Hall; a freshman-only hall reserved for those who join a "FIG" or Freshman Interest Group. Senat hall is the newest residential hall, it is suite-style, located centrally on the campus and as such, is often reverred to be the best place to live on campus. Honors students live in Almy Hall. Sophomores, juniors and seniors often opt to live in 8 person/4bedroom suites in Tiffany, Tigress and Porcupine Halls. Others may prefer to live in smaller 4 person/2 bedroom suite styles in Ohio Hall. On campus apartments are available too. Off-campus apartments have recently been built right across the street from campus and will be opening up in the fall of 2006.

The student:teacher ratio is 15:1 at Penn State Erie. During the first two semesters, many students may find themselves in bigger classes for some popular intro courses but classes decrease in size in their sophomore year. [1]

Students biggest complaints about the college include: little to do outside the campus, good parking spaces are often difficult to find, Erie weather tends to be harsh (renown for its cold winters and heavy snowfall) and that the gender ratio is imbalanced (quite a few more males than females).

[edit] Transferring to University Park

The vast majority of students at Penn State Erie stay at the college and do not transfer to another Penn State campus. However, about 20-25% of incoming freshmen eventually transfer to University Park at the end of their second year in order to complete a program that Behrend College does not offer.^{[citation needed]} In order to transfer, a person must 1) declare a major by the end of their sophomore year 2) satisfy a few required classes for that major and 3) maintain a sufficient GPA. In most popular majors, about 5-9 specific courses need to be completed (usually a few introductory courses relevant to the major) and roughly a 3.0 GPA needs to be maintained. It is recommended that the student know what their major will be, what classes (if any) are required before transferring for their major and if they meet minimum GPA requirements by about third semester or earlier. This is beneficial because if a student is missing any courses or needs to boost their GPA, they can do so in their fourth semester and transfer to main campus easily and succesfully.

Students who declare certain majors (architecture, agricultural business) can transfer to University Park after their freshman year (instead of after their sophomore year which is more common) because the majors aren't offered at Behrend at all, or as in-depth as it is offered in University Park.

It should be noted that while many majors are offered in University Park and not Behrend, five majors are offered only at Behrend and not University Park: International Business (offered only as a minor at UP), Plastics Engineering Technology, Software Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, and a BFA in Creative Writing. This is a major contributing reason as to why some students do not transfer campuses.

[edit] Knowledge Park

Knowledge Park is a 200-acre research and development area located on the campus of Penn State Erie in a park-like setting. The park enables knowledge-based organizations to take advantage of the college's intellectual and physical resources as well as the resources of other colleges and universities in the region. Close interaction of tenants with faculty, staff, and students is a vital component of this collaborative environment.

Jointly developed by Penn State Erie and the Greater Erie Industrial Development Corporation (GEIDC), Knowledge Park offers a technological infrastructure and close ties to the college's strengths in applied research and technology transfer with a focus on engineering, information management, and science.