With almost 550 presenters, this national conference is one of the largest conferences hosted by IUP.
Read the full article at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's site.
]]>Based on data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the animations show both the number of drilling permits issued for the Marcellus Shale target and the number of wells drilled by year from 2007 through August 2010.
]]>The gains from natural gas from Marcellus Shale are well known—jobs, energy, and economic gains for secondary business and industry. A four-day symposium, “Marcellus Shale and a Sustainable Future: Balancing Energy, the Economy, and the Environment,” explores the lesser-known aspects, such as the historical, social-environmental, legal, political, and health issues related to gas extraction.
Click here for full details about the IUP Marcellus Shale Week.
The conference includes a balanced series of topics, with speakers and panelists from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Duquesne University, and SUNY–Oneonta, plus University of Pittsburgh faculty, other regional scholars, state-elected and agency officials, corporate executives, and representatives from statewide environmental groups, as well as community members and students.
]]>This has been particularly true in the central Appalachian region of the U.S., where relatively diverse and self-reliant communities have gradually given way to increased dependence on external resources and greater extremes of poverty, wealth concentration, economic vulnerability, and ecological decline.
Click here for the full article from Solutions.
]]>A session on Tuesday will focus on mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. Click here for details on the meeting and a Mp3 download.
]]>Dr. William H. Turner, Jason Bailey, Richard Shinn, and Juliet A. Terry are scheduled to speak.
This regional summit will include participants from the Appalachian counties of Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The purpose is to bring together diverse organizations and policy makers to build a stronger Central Appalachia through respectful discussion and sharing of ideas.
Registration deadline extended until August 5. Click here for more information on the Summit and to register!
]]>DEP records show a total of 1,435 violations of state oil and gas laws due to gas drilling or other earth disturbance activities related to natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale in this two-and-a-half-year period. The association identified 952 violations as having or likely to have an impact on the environment. 483 were identified as likely being an administrative or safety violation and not likely to have the potential to negatively impact the environment.
The report breaks the violations down by type. For example, of the 952 violations:
The report lists the twenty-five companies with the most violations, as well as the twenty-five companies with the highest average number of violations per well driller.
]]>This year's theme is “Celebrating Northern Appalachia in Word and Song.” This is a one-day event planned for April 11, 2011, at California University of Pennsylvania.
We will be inviting a variety of types of presentations (papers, poetry readings, films, music, etc.), and hope that you will be able to participate. Please watch for the call for papers.
]]>Sunday night, NBC viewers across the country got a glimpse into the despair that is choking the life out of Ohio's Appalachia.
]]>Dontez Burnett, Saye Zarwolo, and Maurice Palmer will attend the event as representatives of the Pennsylvania Civil War 150 project, an endeavor coordinated by the Pennsylvania Office on Tourism and underwritten by a grant from the National Park Service and the Appalachian Regional Commission.
The IUP student participation is being coordinated through the IUP Center for Northern Appalachian Studies.
For more information on the Blairsville observance, please read the Indiana Gazette article.
]]>In response to this, the group Pine Mountain Residents for Broadband is determined to bring a decent Internet connection to its neck of Kentucky.
]]>Read the review of the album Classic Appalachian Blues at the Washington Post website.
]]>The event was sponsored by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a statewide environmental group trying to stop mountaintop removal through stream-saver bills.
]]>After the Civil War ended, Union soldiers were invited to a Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, D.C., but the black soldiers who fought in the war were not invited to participate. In response, a group of African-American women in Harrisburg declared public outrage and then held their own grand review, officially sanctioned by the U.S. Army. The event brought hundreds of black soldiers from twenty-five states to the capitol and featured an encampment and march on November 14, 1865.
The United States Colored Troops (USCT) were regiments of the U.S. Army comprised of free blacks and freed slaves; the soldiers reinforced the Union army in the final two years of the Civil War.
The 2010 event will feature presentations and conservation projects to honor the U.S. Colored Troops and tell their stories. Researchers are trying to track down the descendants of those who marched so they can be part of the event.
The 2010 Grand Review is being made possible by the generous support of Amtrak, which provided $25,000 for promotional support and development, along with the Pennsylvania Humanities Council that supplied $16,000 for a symposium of scholars, educators, and enthusiasts.
Dr. Jim Dougherty, director of the IUP Center for Northern Appalachian Studies, will assist in the project by providing research on USCT descendants, help locate soldier’s graves, and train tour guides. One of the major goals of the endeavor is to connect descendants to their legacies and build and interpret their stories.
The Grand Review has been created in partnership with the Appalachian Regional Commission, Pennsylvania Dutch Country Roads, the Senator John Heinz History Center, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Concerned Black Men of Pennsylvania, Partnership for Sacred Spaces, Institute for Cultural Partnerships, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Pennsylvania Civil War 150 Consortium, Historical Society of Dauphin County, Dauphin County Parks and Recreation, Jump Street Inc., Harrisburg 150, and the IUP Center for Northern Appalachian Studies.
To volunteer to clean up black cemeteries, to donate to restore the muster rolls, or to provide information on an ancestor who fought in the U.S. Colored Troops, call 800-VISIT-PA or contact Dr. Dougherty at 724-357-2734.
]]>The G-20 People’s Summit Week at IUP, September 21–25, 2009, will feature films, multimedia presentations, and a two-day summit that focuses on how globalization and neoliberalism affected the northern tier of the Appalachian region—the industrial north of the United States.
]]>Dr. Jim Dougherty, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Northern Appalachian Studies, is symposium coordinator. The center is housed in the IUP department of sociology.
Symposium programs begin at 9 a.m. and end with a 7 p.m. keynote presentation, “The Legacy of Rachel Carson and the Future of Energy” by Dr. Patricia M. DeMarco, executive director of the Rachel Carson Homestead. Carson was a writer and environmentalist who was born in 1907 in Springdale.
All programs are open to the community. Participants may attend all or part of the symposium programming.
The sessions will include information about the historical development of extraction industries, wind and solar power, the Marcellus Shale gas field, coal, energy social costs and environmental concerns.
The symposium is funded by a grant from the Appalachian Region Commission through the Appalachian Teaching Project.
“In addition to offering information to the community, the program also has the intent of getting students involved in regional issues,” Dougherty said. “The IUP students will participate fully in the symposium and then will make a presentation on the event at an upcoming Washington, D.C., conference with students from the 14 Appalachian-based universities.”
IUP represents the northern tier of the Appalachian region.
The symposium schedule is as follows:
For more information, contact Dougherty at (724) 357-2734.
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