Penn State adds artificial intelligence major, with a focus on ethics; WPSU, April 28, 2025

 Abigail Chachoute, WPSU; Penn State adds artificial intelligence major, with a focus on ethics

"Starting this fall, Penn State students will be able to major in artificial intelligence, focusing on the development, application and ethical considerations of AI.

Vasant Honavar, a professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, said with the wider applications of AI across industries, it is important for students to understand the societal implications of the technology...

Another goal in the college is to make AI education available to students across majors. Last fall, Honavar taught the first introductory AI course to more than 30 students. The class did not have any prerequisite requirements as a general elective and was open to students across class standings.

Honavar said this class focused on giving students a broad view of how to apply AI as a tool in their lives and in different contexts.

“This is really about becoming an informed citizen, about AI in a world that they are going to be in,” Honavar said. “It is being transformed by it and everybody has to know something about it, all the way from someone that may be sitting in a position in a company making some decision about ethical use of AI within that organization to someone that is on the staff of a legislature or advising them about some regulation around AI.”"

Penn State librarians support freedom to read, unite against book bans; Penn State, October 17, 2024

Penn State; Penn State librarians support freedom to read, unite against book bans

"Saturday, Oct. 19, is the Freedom to Read Community Day of Action, a national event designated by the American Library Association (ALA) and United Against Book Bans to celebrate America’s libraries, safeguard the freedom to read and encourage civic participation.

According to Russell Hall, reference and instruction librarian at Penn State University Libraries’ John M. Lilley Library and Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, his is one voice among many with strong feelings about book banning and censorship.

“Our core values as librarians are found in the Library Bill of Rights, which holds that libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment,” said Hall, a past chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee for the Pennsylvania Library Association, which serves to advocate for freedom of selection of materials for all libraries and oppose any infringement of intellectual freedom upon libraries. “We believe people are free to choose what they want to read, and to determine what their own children can and should read, but do not have the right to impose their will upon others who are free to make that choice for themselves.”

There’s nothing new about book bans. For centuries, published works ranging from religious texts to classic literature to contemporary novels deemed too controversial for young readers have been targeted for removal from library shelves across the United States...

Joel Burkholder, reference and instruction librarian at Lee R. Glatfelter Library at Penn State York, agreed. “Ban advocates try to frame their efforts as objective policy rather than an ideological agenda,” he said. “It’s the same basic tactic as citing peer-reviewed research to support the predetermined conclusion that pornography is a public health crisis or that being trans is a choice.”

For more information on the Freedom to Read Community Day of Action and events planned across the country, visit the United Against Book Bans website."

We Are! ... Happy Valley? Penn State applies for trademark on moniker; The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 2, 2019

Bill Schackner, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; We Are! ... Happy Valley? Penn State applies for trademark on moniker

"Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney in Washington, D.C., tweeted about the Penn State application Dec. 28, calling it a “trademark ‘land grab.’”

He said Happy Valley should remain in the public domain, since the university did not create the expression and the words are used broadly in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. He said others should be able to profit from it.

“It’s a generally accepted term for a geographic area in which the university happens to reside,” he said. “It seems out of place for the university to come in and say they should be the exclusive provider of Happy Valley clothing throughout the country. That’s exactly what they are asking to do.”"