LEWISBURG, Pa. — The following are story and photo ideas that may interest you from Bucknell University in March.
CELEBRATING NEW BUSINESS: Wednesday, March 21 is the second annual Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Day nationwide, and Bucknell SBDC’s has two reasons to celebrate — also celebrating its 40th anniversary. Administered by the U.S Small Business Administration, the Bucknell SBDC works with 150-200 clients annually, providing no cost confidential consulting to entrepreneurs and small businesses in Juniata, Perry, Snyder, Union, Northumberland and Montour counties. During this anniversary year, the SBDC’s incubator program, StartUp Lewisburg, has renovated the office space available for new start-up entrepreneurs. There’s also a new Bucknell student specialist assisting new StartUp Lewisburg clients in Carolyn Sidoti, a junior double major in mathematics and music. Sidoti initially became involved through Bucknell’s Institute for Leadership in Technology and Management program and working with the successful SBDC-supported business Novipod, which started in the incubator program. She now advises business start-ups across the region. CONTACTS: Steve Stumbris, director, Bucknell SBDC, 570-577-3791, steven.stumbris@bucknell.edu; Sidoti, 631-680-0741, cns008@bucknell.edu.
PARTNERING FOR A HEALTHY CAMPUS: Since February 2015, Bucknell has been part of the pilot cohort of the Partnership for a Healthier America’s (PHA) Healthier Campus Initiative (HCI), which challenges schools to adopt guidelines around nutrition, physical activity and wellness programming. The University was one of the first 26 schools nationally to participate and those schools will be recognized for successfully achieving the wellness goals established by the HCI at PHA’s 2018 Innovating a Healthier Future Summit May 2-4 in Washington, D.C. The HCI requires universities to choose 23 aspirational guidelines from a full list of 41. Examples include offering healthier dining options on campus, supplying plentiful water fountains, increasing the hours of the fitness center, and providing free cooking and exercise classes to students. Bucknell had already met 12 guidelines upon signing up and the remaining guidelines were addressed through collaboration among the Bucknell Healthy Herd Group. CONTACT: Tanya Williams, University nutritionist who spearheaded Bucknell’s participation in the HCI, 570-577 3987, tanya.williams@bucknell.edu.
RIDING STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY: Not since 2008 has the current stock market been so volatile. According to Bucknell managerial practice professor Frank Schreiner, “it is difficult to say” what the long-term impacts of this fluctuation may be. Normally, markets don’t head straight up, he says, citing upward trajectories since February of 2016. A previous managing director at BlackRock, a global investment management corporation, Schreiner says that there is a distinction between correction territory and a “bear market,” or a condition in which stock market prices plummet and cause a self-sustaining market downfall. Co-director of Bucknell’s Student Managed Investment Fund, Schreiner sees recent downturns as a reaction to fear over potential rising interest rates and inflation. CONTACT: Schreiner, fjs005@bucknell.edu.
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CONTACTS: Mike Ferlazzo, 570-577-3212, 570-238-6266 (c), mike.ferlazzo@bucknell.edu; Barbara Bell, bab050@bucknell.edu