College Dreams a Reality with World Campus Military Scholarship

U.S. Army Sgt. Margaret Smith has always wanted to become a lawyer, but finding a military-friendly school where she could complete an undergraduate degree presented a challenge. That is, until she enrolled at Penn State’s World Campus in 2009, 11 years after she began her studies at a traditional college.

“What attracted me to the World Campus was that it was an SOC school,” said Smith, referring to the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges designation that stipulates an institution be flexible when working with servicemembers. “The online option allows me to remain an active-duty soldier and a part time student. It’s been great.”

It’s taken 13 years, but this spring, Smith graduated with a bachelor of arts in law and society. The World Campus’ new Logue Family Scholarship helped with education expenses. Smith is the first recipient of the scholarship, which honors the service of World War II submariner Robert “Bobby” Logue, who died aboard the submarine USS Wahoo.

“Deployments and military duties have defined the greater portion of my adult life,” said Smith, the married mother of a 2-year-old daughter and 7-year-old stepdaughter, who is assigned to the Washington, D.C., region.

Completing her course work proved to be a lesson in patience and stamina—something that Smith has applied in the achievement of another goal, running the 2010 Boston Marathon.

Smith’s efforts have resulted in a 4.0 grade point average and a stint as a teaching assistant during the spring semester to Caren Bloom- Steidle, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice.

Smith is currently applying to grad school in public policy and business, with plans to eventually pursue an environmental and public policy law degree.

Residents Learn About Water Quality with Cooperative Extension

Imagine receiving a letter from a gas-drilling company identifying more than a dozen chemicals that have been detected in your well water before the company even has begun to drill. “What are these chemicals?” you wonder. “Are they dangerous to my drinking water?”

Bryan Swistock, a senior Extension associate, along with a team of seven county Extension educators, is helping residents in Pennsylvania who live near natural-gas drilling sites to interpret the results of their water-quality reports. “The tests can be very difficult to understand with many chemical names, units, standards, methods and notations,” explained Swistock.

Swistock, who has helped private water-system owners interpret water-quality reports since the late 1980s, says the demand for this type of assistance has increased dramatically in the past year along with efforts to drill in the Marcellus Shale. That’s because in order to get at the natural gas reservoirs contained within the Marcellus Shale, companies must drill through the aquifers and groundwater that supply drinking water to many rural residents. So far, thousands of homeowners have had their water tested, either by a gas-drilling company or voluntarily through state-accredited testing labs, to document the quality of their drinking water.

Common Drilling Issues

Nearly 2,000 wells have been drilled in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania this year; however, so far, Swistock mostly has been evaluating pre-drilling water-quality reports. He says he will compare these results with post-drilling reports as they come in. “The most common pre-drilling problems are the presence of coliform bacteria, E. coli bacteria (abundant in feces), iron, manganese and low pH,” he said.

If post-drilling reports identify other types of contamination that did not exist prior to drilling, Swistock recommends that residents contact the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to initiate an investigation to determine if nearby gas-drilling activity is responsible.

In addition to helping individuals interpret their reports, Swistock and other members of the Extension water-resources team have given seminars to groups of water-system owners in Bradford, Susquehanna, Tioga, Wyoming, Luzerne, Lycoming and Elk counties as part of a new program called “How to Interpret Pre- and Post-Gas Drilling Water Test Reports” (http://extension.psu.edu/water/marcellus-shale).