Mercyhurst in the News: 2010

December

U.S.News & World Report: Learning Differences Program

Mercyhurst Learning Differences Program director Dianne Rogers is interviewed by U.S.News & World Report senior writer Kim Clark for this story: "8 steps for learning disabled students who want to go to college."
Read it here.

November

New Castle News: Forensic Anthropology Team

Mercyhurst forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat and his team of graduate students work on missing persons case in Hickory Township. Read "Digging Deep - Forensic team using every tool to locate missing teen" in this report.

Academic Impressions: Higher Ed Impact Monthly Diagnostic (online)

Chris Coons, director of admissions, discusses Mercyhurst's admissions offer process and his enrollment management expertise in Starting with Admission: Planting the Seed for Lifetime.

News Times (Danbury, Conn.): Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute

The expert testimony of Mercyhurst forensic anthropologist Dr. Steven Symes and well-known forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden was pivotal in influencing jurors to render a guilty verdict against a homicide defendant in State Superior Court. Read the news story at newstimes.com.

Billings Gazette (Montana): Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute

Dr. James Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute and a leading expert in prehistoric perishable artifacts, is featured prominently in a news article titled: "Artifacts from Pictograph Caves get new attention." Read this report.

October

Metro News (NY, Boston, Philadelphia): Mercyhurst Asperger's Initiative

Mercyhurst’s progressive program for educating students with Asperger Snydrome was highlighted in a Metro news feature carried in the New York, Philadelphia and Boston markets. Read “Making up the rules about Asperger’s.”

New York Times: Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics

The inaugural poll of the new Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics, led by Dr. Joseph Morris and Dr. Rolfe Peterson with support from Mercyhurst political science students, was included in The New York Times, FiveThirtyEight Election Forecasts.

ABC News: Mercyhurst Forensic Anthropology Team

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat and a team of forensics graduate students work together on identifying human remains discovered near Harrisburg. View this ABC News affiliate report.

September

Faculty & Students

The work of the Mercyhurst College Applied Forensic Sciences Department made headlines in the Sunday, Sept. 19, issue of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Read the feature: Team digs deep for answers of unmarked Somerset cemetery.

August

Student

Mercyhurst College senior Aleksandra Bielska of Lublin, Poland, has published an article in the “Foreign Policy Journal.” Her article, dated Aug. 27, is called “Drone Attacks – The Proliferation of a New Form of Warfare.” Bielska is an intelligence studies major and research assistant for the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies (MCIIS). Read the whole article here.

Faculty & Students

Graduate students studying forensic anthropology at Mercyhurst will have a unique case awaiting them when they return to class next month. They will be examining the remains of 21 bodies unearthed during excavating work at SCI-Laurel Highlands (state prison), where an expansion project is under way. Department chair Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat, Dr. Steven Symes and students will examine the recovered bones in Mercyhurst labs in an attempt to date them and determine other pertinent data. For more, read this story in Somerset County’s “Daily American.”

Faculty

Mercyhurst College forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat and a team of graduate students process an apparent cold-case crime scene in Fayette County. Read this report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Seen in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review features a complimentary article about Presque Isle State Park and highlights Mercyhurst’s engaging dinosaur exhibit at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. Read more here.

Students

Mercyhurst forensic anthropology graduate student Erin Franks helps teach forensic search and recovery techniques to cadets participating in a crime scene investigation camp near Indiana, Pa. Read more in this Indiana Gazette report.

July

Global Intelligence Forum

Ridge mulls challenges of targeting terrorists, Shawn Pogatchnik, AP, www.washingtontimes.com, Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Note: Besides coverage in The Washington Times and The Washington Post, Associated Press writer Shawn Pogatchnik's story on Mercyhurst's Global Intelligence Forum was carried by 65 other news outlets around the nation, among them ABC TV affiliate News 6 in Boise, Idaho; NBC TV afffiliate Newswest 9 in West Texas; CBS Channel 3 in Philadelphia; and The Daily Press covering southern Virginia.

Faculty and Students

Mercyhurst's forensic anthropologists were called to Murrysville to excavate the site where skeletal remains were found. Check out this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report.

Administration

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story on ACCLAIM -- or Autism College and Community Life Acclimation and Intervention Model -- notes Mercyhurst's collaboration with The Watson Institute and the residential program it is conducting with Mercyhurst on its Erie campus this summer. Read the whole story here.

June

"Dinosaurs" Exhibit

"10 short trips from Pittsburgh for the long summer" is the headline on a feature story that identifies Mercyhurst's "Dinosaurs" exhibit at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center at Presque Isle State Park, as one of those special excursions. See the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story.

May

Administration

Mercyhurst College is recognized as a leader among Pennsylvania colleges and universities in the purchase of wind energy. See Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article for more.

April

MNE Hirtzel Institute

A story in the Louisiana Advocate about the large number of grandparents in the state who are raising children cited a study on the subject by the Hirtzel Institute on Health Education and Aging at Mercyhurst North East.
Read more.

Faculty and Administration

Mercyhurst College announces this summer’s inaugural Dungarvan Conference, which will bring together leading practitioners from many disciplines to share best practices in intelligence analysis. View coverage by Irish radio, WLR FM.

Faculty and Graduate Students

Mercyhurst's highly regarded forensic anthropology team of faculty and graduate students was called to a crime scene in Waynecastle, Pa., on April 7, where they recovered the body of a Waynesboro, Pa., teenager missing since 1995. Read more.

March

Students

Mercyhurst College junior Andrea Baker, 21, of Olean, N.Y., got a taste of the bright lights and glamour of the theater district in New York City when she portrayed Queen Aurora — a lead role in the world premier of the opera “The Day Boy and The Night Girl” at Symphony Space Theater on Broadway last December. Read about her experience in the Olean Times Herald.

February

Students

All of the following stories cover Mercyhurst student Meghan Agosta's quest for gold at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Mercyhurst College Celebrating Agosta's Olympic Win, WICU-TV, February 26, 2010

Canada sets gold standard, Erie Times-News via goerie.com, February 26, 2010

Two-time Olympian Meghan Agosta plays for Canadian hockey team, but also an American star, NY Daily News, February 24, 2010

Agosta breaks record, Erie Times-News via goerie.com, February 23, 2010

Meghan Agosta sets Olympic record, Canada advances to gold medal game with 5-0 win over Finland, The Hockey News, February 22, 2010

Meghan Agosta the new face of Canadian women's hockey, Toronto Star, February 19, 2010

January

Coaches

The winning ways of Mercyhurst women’s hockey team – ranked No. 1 in the country 14 weeks in a row – is featured in this Jan. 27 USA Today story: Being No. 1 doesn’t faze Lakers; WCHA teams dominate top 15. Read the story in its entirety here.

Alumni

Two Mercyhurst College intelligence studies alumni, Diane Chido of DC Analytics and Michael Lyden of McManis and Monsalve Associates, were recently published in “Competitive Intelligence” magazine. Read Accelerated Analysis - The Mercyhurst Method: Agility and Speed for the 21st Century.

Faculty

Robert Heibel, executive director of the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies and former FBI deputy chief of counterterrorism, is interviewed in this CNN.com news report titled “Everyday heroes last line of defense in terror fight.”