Without question, social media has revolutionized the way in which people receive, interpret and remark on news and information. With in-the-moment reporting, living in a real-time news cycle is second nature for today's college students. Imagine the puzzled look on the face of someone from only 20 years ago if you were trying to explain what social media is, what it does and how there are college courses on the topic, like one offered this semester at Slippery Rock University. Textbooks for the class at SRU, called Social Media, are considered obsolete, because, well, it's social media.

A classroom assignment at Slippery Rock University often involves a group activity, but there's only one place on campus where that activity could mean getting group members to walk across a wooden plank before they swing from a rope -- by the way, did we mention the plank is suspended 30 feet above the ground? Those are just two examples of what students can experience on SRU's recently built challenge course.

It is said that hula, the popular dance developed in Hawaii, expresses all that the dancer sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches and feels. For two Slippery Rock University students, hula and other forms of dance from Hawaii, Asia and the Pacific could not be fully learned, or appreciated, without having such a multisensory experience in person. Led by Melissa Teodoro, associate professor of dance, two SRU dance students -- Kate Lehr, a senior dance major from Pittsburgh, and Kathryn Monsell, a senior dance major from Lewistown -- attended the Asia Pacific Dance Festival Intensive, July 22 to Aug. 4, at University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A firm handshake often concludes the hiring process for employers and job candidates. For students at Slippery Rock University, getting hired will begin with the Handshake, an online platform that connects students with employers. SRU partnered with Handshake to launch the new service earlier this month, helping students search for on- and off-campus jobs and internships.

A new program that Slippery Rock University is launching this fall will provide access to education and opportunities for civic engagement through a nationally recognized service model that has been adopted by an exclusive network of institutions. SRU is one of only 64 institutions in the country to sponsor a Bonner Leader Program, in which students receive a combination of an institutional scholarship and a paid student leadership position for leading a community-service partnership for the institution.

As the number of smoke-free college campuses across the country - 2,375 as of July 1 according to the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation - continues to rise, so to does the alternative to "lighting up": electronic cigarettes. The use of vaporizers such as e-cigarettes and other inhaling devices has become increasingly common on college campuses in recent years. And while the aerosol plumes emitted by someone using an electronic vaping pen are not the same as the smoke from tobacco cigarettes, the associated risks are still a concern. Count health officials at Slippery Rock University, as well as students who are studying the effects of e-cigarettes, among those concerned.

Among the more than 400 volunteers welcoming first-year students to Slippery Rock University on move-in day, Aug. 22, was SRU President Bill Behre, who stood by the curb outside of Residence Hall A where he greeted families as they arrived and gave directions as to where to unload students and belongings. Move-in day, which included more than 1,100 residential freshmen and transfer students that started arriving at staggered times between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., is part of SRU's Week of Welcome. Classes begin Aug. 26 but WOW programming, organized by SRU's Office for Student Success, continues through Sept. 3.

Pronoun usage can be tricky, especially when a person's gender is unknown or a hypothetical person is referenced, like in a job description. Should "he" be used as a generic pronoun or should the author use "he/she"? Can "they" be used as a singular pronoun even though the word is most often used as a plural pronoun? Researchers at Slippery Rock University are studying the effects of gender inclusive and exclusive pronoun use to help answer those questions.

Slippery Rock University expects to start the fall semester with a freshman class that is similar in size to last year's, albeit one that reflects an improved academic footprint. The average high school GPA of the incoming Class of 2023 is 3.46 with the percentages of freshmen who ranked in the top half (72.6%), quarter (35.5%) and tenth (12.6%) of their graduating high school classes all reflecting increases year over year.

Cory Haser has a history of adding new dimensions to his experience working with computers, having previously developed software that uses three-dimensional models. He is getting an opportunity this summer to push his 3D modeling skills to whole new level. Haser, a Slippery Rock University senior computing major from Zelienople, is part of a faculty-student research project with Nitin Sukhija, SRU assistant professor of computer science, and Elizabeth Bautista, manager for the Operations Technology Group at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark are known for their progressive human development policies, which is why a faculty-led group of students from Slippery Rock University visited Bergen and Tromso, Norway, May 14-27, to discover for themselves what these countries are doing differently for their citizens.

A group of Slippery Rock University students visiting Cartagena, Colombia was so excited to be there they were literally dancing in the streets. Granted, that sort of thing could be expected since they were members of SRU's Afro-Colombia Dance Ensemble Six members of the ensemble made the June 18-27 trek as part of a faculty-led program with Melissa Teodoro, associate professor of dance and a Colombia native.

Actors portray fictional characters in theater productions, but for a Slippery Rock University student attempting to develop a theater camp for high school students, her role is anything but pretend. This summer, Naomi Bates, a junior dual dance and theatre major from Slippery Rock, is conducting faculty-student research with Deanna Brookens, assistant professor of theatre, to determine the feasibility and subsequent development of a summer program at SRU to train high school students interested in theater.

To the unknowing observer, the rock wall shouldering the Trans-Canada Highway, where the road sidles the banks of Kama Bay near Nipigon, Ontario, is just that, a rock wall. But for a faculty-student research team at Slippery Rock University, the site demands a much closer look. Fortunately for Logan McIntyre, a junior dual environmental geoscience and modern languages and cultures major from Volant, she doesn't have to travel to Canada to check the rocks out. Instead, she is looking at dozens of rock samples from the outcrop, each the size of a postage stamp, magnified 200 to 500 times on a computer screen at an SRU laboratory and under a scanning electron microscope at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The samples came from a 1.4-meter slab of diabase igneous rock taken from the Kama Bay outcrop in 2008 by Michael Zieg, SRU professor of geography, geology and environment.

Leave it to a Slippery Rock University student to use a metaphor about smoothing rocks to describe the daily grind of a summer research project. "The last rock is the most polished," said Ashleigh Schuler, a senior dance major from Williamsport. "I'm just smoothing out the edges as far as my dance technique and artistry as well as my educational understanding of the dance field that I'm about to enter." Before starting her final year at SRU this fall, Schuler is honing her craft with the top college ballet dancers and instructors in North America at the Cincinnati Ballet Collegiate Intensive, June 17 to July 26.

The two bags that each Slippery Rock University student are allowed for their service-learning trip to Peru are symbolic in that their mission is two-fold. On one hand, the trip will provide excellent field experience; while on the other hand, the donated physical therapy equipment they will take with them will help support people in need.

Three of the 12 Slippery Rock University students who attended a disability sports conference in Scotland last month missed their commencement ceremony at SRU. Instead of moving their tassels from right to left upon receiving their SRU degrees, they were tapped on the head by a Scottish professor with a rugby ball in an impromptu ceremony that was inspired by a graduation tradition at the University of Edinburgh.

If anyone from Slippery Rock University has the worldview to conduct research into teaching global citizenship, it's Jacqueline Routhier. After all, the junior early childhood/special education major from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, spent more than half her childhood in Singapore. Routhier and Sara Tours, assistant professor of elementary education and early childhood, are conducting research of international preschool teachers and their approach to global citizenship in the classroom. The faculty-student research project received $5,000 funding through SRU's Summer Collaborative Research Experience grant program. Tours and Routhier will conduct an online survey for at least 100 preschool teachers across a sampling of what they hope will represent at least 10 countries.

Pittsburgh will be one of more than 700 cities worldwide that will be filled with the sounds of music June 21 in celebration of International Make Music Day. Slippery Rock University's Department of Music will help the global community hit the right notes when it hosts a Sound Exploration tent, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at Pittsburgh's Children's Museum to encourage children to discover the world through sound.

Dance, one could say, is one of the most expressive forms of unspoken communication. Its power to overcome language barriers was a lesson learned by a group of Slippery Rock University students during a 10-day faculty-led, study-abroad program to Italy. The trip, May 21-31, led by Lindsay Viatori, assistant professor of dance, and Jesse Factor, instructor of dance, featured 23 students learning unfamiliar dance styles and experiencing how techniques they studied at SRU are interpreted in a different country.

Whether it's on a beach or in your own backyard, the "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer" are a great time to engage in leisure reading. For some faculty and students at Slippery Rock University, reading anything more than a class-assigned or research-related text might be difficult no matter what the calendar says. However, by recommending their favorite books to read this summer, a few SRU faculty and students offer a reminder that leisure reading is an activity that has great benefits and should not be edited out of people's schedules, regardless of the time of year.

A faculty-student research team at Slippery Rock University is seeking a better way to soak up the sun this summer. But they're not looking for a spot at the beach. Instead, they're in the lab analyzing new ways to absorb light that will be converted to solar energy. Archana Kumari, instructor of physics, and her student, Eva Beeching, a junior physics major from Slippery Rock, received a combined $6,500 from the University's faculty-student research grant and from the Physics Department to fund their research titled, "Optimization of Polymer Nanopillar Dimensions for Maximum Light Absorption."

Mother knows best, as the saying goes, but that doesn't mean she can't learn a thing or two by following in her daughter's footsteps. Case in point: a pair of mothers of students from Slippery Rock University's philanthropy and nonprofit management program decided to join their daughters and earn the same degree. Brenda Matthews, a sophomore interdisciplinary programs major from Suwanee, Georgia, enrolled at SRU after seeing the success of her daughter, Nicole Matthews, a senior management major, who transferred to SRU in 2016. Meanwhile, Kimberly Almedina, a junior interdisciplinary programs major from Tulsa, transferred to the University after her daughter, Maria Almedina, graduated with a degree in interdisciplinary programs in December 2018.

Just how eager is Jenell Gerow to conduct research at Slippery Rock University? She offered to help a recently hired faculty member on a project before the professor even arrived at SRU. Gerow, a senior chemistry major from Angola, New York, finally got that opportunity, a year after she initially reached out to Ashley Loe, assistant professor of chemistry, who started at the University in August 2018.

Good things come in threes, as the adage goes, and that's certainly the case for Austin Shirk, a Slippery Rock University junior biology major from Elizabethtown. Shirk received not one, not two, but three offers to participate in research experiences for undergraduates. REUs are competitive, paid research assistant positions for undergraduate students to work on research projects at a host institution, typically a large, research-level university.

Slippery Rock University has announced its dean's list for the spring 2019 semester. The dean's list consists of SRU undergraduate students who earned an adjusted semester grade-point average of 3.5 or higher, based on a schedule of at least 12 newly attempted and earned credits.

Eight Slippery Rock University groups will travel internationally as part of SRU faculty and staff led summer study abroad programs. While most of the programs will head to countries often visited by the University, such as Italy, Japan and Norway, a new program focused on leadership will take students to a country that no SRU student group has visited in recent memory.

Students who are moving out of residence halls at Slippery Rock University have a lot of "stuff" from their rooms that they will no longer use or don't want or need to transport home. Everything from rugs and lamps to cleaning and school supplies make their way into University dumpsters. To help reduce the amount of trash and repurpose items that still have life left in them, the University has launched a new program, Rock Pride Reusable On-Campus Room Supply, that will store donated items during the summer and offer the supplies for free to returning students for the fall semester.

When Andrew Young walks across the stage at Slippery Rock University's commencement ceremony, the 28-year-old senior from Beaver Falls will complete a journey that was fraught with obstacles that were invisible to others but difficult to overcome. His journey, aided by the support of the SRU community, resulted in a triumph of self-discovery.

There will be plenty of cheers for Slippery Rock University in Pittsburgh, May 5, when a group representing SRU takes to the streets as part of more than 40,000 runners in the Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon.