Purdue Newsmakers

The National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest once again received considerable attention from the media. A crew from ABC's "Good Morning America" came to campus the Friday before the event and did a live shot from the Purdue Memorial Union with the contestants and their machines. The New York Times sent a correspondent to cover the contest. A team of students from the University of Texas-Austin won the event with a machine that loaded and played a CD using 35 steps. The Austin American-Statesman carried a story on the team after the event. An Associated Press story ran in newspapers nationwide, and highlights from the contest aired on CNN and CNN Headline News, as well as television stations across the country.
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Purdue's annual Bug Bowl received a wide variety of media coverage. The Wall Street Journal ran an article in its Friday edition. Jay Leno referred to the Bug Bowl in his Friday monologue. CNN Headline News aired video of the event on Saturday and Sunday and then posted some video on its web site. Television stations across the country picked up Purdue's satellite feed and aired the story. National Public Radio interviewed participants.
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Purdue University and the Council on Competitiveness co-sponsored a Midwest summit for leaders from business, education and government. The summit was the third of three regional conferences to discuss the future of research and development partnerships and funding. Purdue President Steven C. Beering was the host and convener for the summit. A variety of business and agricultural media reported the event, including Associated Press PR Newswire, WIBC Radio, Network Indiana and Agri-America Radio Network. Dr. Beering was interviewed by a reporter for the Chicago Tribune .
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Charlene Moore Hayes , director of personnel services, provided practical advice about sexual harassment situations in the May issue of Essence magazine. For someone ending an affair with a boss, Hayes says: "Talk with another manager or human-resources representative in your company. You should also ask for assistance with efforts to get another position, change your reporting relationships or identify other alternatives for minimizing the opportunity for retaliation."

End-of-life decisions are hard -- so difficult in fact that many older people would leave them to someone else. That's the finding in a study conducted by Victor Cicirelli , professor of developmental and aging psychology. One-third of the time, older persons opted to let someone else decide their fate when presented with fictitious health scenarios that resulted in a low quality of life. His research appeared in papers including the Dallas Morning News , Atlanta Constitution , and the (Los Angeles) Daily News .
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The Internet won't doom retail stores, says Richard Feinberg , professor of consumer and family sciences, in an opinion piece in the magazine ComputerWorld . He says Americans will continue to make purchases in stores because "People love to see, feel, smell and try out merchandise before they buy." Feinberg also commented on McDonald's recent price cut on hamburgers in stories that appeared in papers including the Cincinnati Post and Arizona Republic . "McDonald's has made a bold move, and if everyone else follows, the customer wins."
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The missing faces in children's books are primarily black, according to Elizabeth Grauerholz , associate professor of sociology. She and colleagues studied children's picture books from the past 60 years and found few containing black characters. "...It is important we are aware of the lack of interracial images that exist," she says. The study was reported in the Christian Science Monitor .
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In a story picked up by the Associated Press, Carl Braunlich commented on the "Achilles heel" of the gambling industry: compulsive gambling. "It's a hidden issue in this state. No one cares about it. No one knows about it," says the assistant professor of restaurant, hotel, institutional and tourism management. Braunlich compiled a guide for gambling establishments on how to deal with the problem. "If the vendors don't get off their rear ends and pay attention to this problem, the state should make them," he says.
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Alan Rebar , dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, traveled to Louisville to sign a cooperation agreement with a magnet high school that is preparing students for careers in animal science. The Louisville Courier Journal and the four major television stations in the Louisville market covered the event.

Purdue was the site of two national competitions in April: the Concrete Canoe Race and the Steel Bridge Contest . Student teams from across the Midwest participated in the events, which were part of the American Society of Civil Engineers' regional conference. The Concrete Canoe Race consisted of four separate races on Lake Shafer, Monticello. The overall winner moved on to the national finals. The Steel Bridge Contest was conducted on campus. Students design and build a steel bridge and then load it with concrete to test its strength. The bridge sustaining the greatest weight wins the contest. Video of the contests aired in Madison, Wis., Champaign, Ill., Terre Haute and Fort Wayne.
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You can help ensure that your school and faculty are recognized in "Newsmakers" by sending clips of national news stories or reports of national broadcasts to Jeanne Norberg, director, Purdue News Service, ENAD.