LEWISBURG, Pa. — These are Bucknell University story ideas that may interest you in December.
HONORING THE GIVING TREE — Students from the Bucknell chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD), a national honor society for first-year students, have begun collecting donations for their annual holiday Giving Tree. The student-led honor society recognizes academic excellence and encourages service and leadership among students. From November 9th to December 9th, the entire Bucknell community is encouraged to take a tag off the Giving Tree, located in the Bertrand Library lobby, and make a donation or contribute a gift. Gifts are then sorted and distributed to nearly 20 different local organizations and community members in need during the holiday season. In previous years, participating organizations have included Buffalo Valley Lutheran, Danville State Hospital, Celebration Villa, Essex Place, Union County Children and Youth, and Ashburn’s Animals on a Mission. Alpha Lambda Delta has received upwards of 400 gifts in previous years, and organizers are hopeful this year’s drive will be as generous. CONTACTS: Quincy Saadeh, qgs001@bucknell.edu; Sahana Bajaj, sjb040@bucknell.edu, ALD community service co-chairs; Margaret Marr, director of the Office of Undergraduate Fellowship and Research and ALD faculty advisor, 570-577-1979, Margaret.Marr@bucknell.edu
OPTIMIZING AIR TRAVEL — Holiday travel is off to a busy start, with the single busiest day for air travel being the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Similarly, the months of December and January have historically high travel volume concentrated around the holidays. Professor Greg O’Neill, mechanical engineering, works closely with students interested in aerospace engineering to tackle major challenges in modern aviation. Whether it be integrating electric aircraft into national airspace to designing noise-reducing morphing wings, Bucknell students, under the guidance of O’Neill, aim to make air travel more efficient and environmentally friendly. Joshua Hauck ’26 researches innovative energy recovery methods aimed at decreasing fuel consumption and analyzes how they impact aircraft performance. He and a team of student engineers designed, built and flew a custom aircraft for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Design/Build/Fly Competition. CONTACTS: O’Neill, 570-577-3265, mgo005@bucknell.edu, Hauck, jch056@bucknell.edu
BUILDING A BETTER BAGEL BUSINESS — Freeman College of Management Professor Daniel Street, accounting & financial management, is a loyal fan of Lewisburg’s All-Star Bagel, and got to know the owner, Andre Garrote. Through those interactions, he learned that Garrote was in need of some consulting help to improve production efficiency and diminish waste. Street decided to make it a project for students in his accounting information and analytics class. But before he did, Street inputted a year-and-a-half’s worth of paper bake sheets on the number of bagels baked, sold and wasted by variety each day into Excel. Last fall’s first class of students analyzed that data and more, providing Garrote with an executive summary of actionable insights to optimize operations and profitability through predictive sales analysis, bagel waste analysis, and bagel variety analysis. They even made a few suggestions on new bagel flavors. Garrote reports that his waste has gone down. “Not only has our waste gone down, but the bakers are now adjusting their bakes, so we’re a lot more efficient in our numbers,” he says. This semester’s class is continuing the analysis to focus on labor costs and staffing efficiency. He’ll learn their recommendations when the students make their final presentation to him on Thursday, Dec. 18, from 8 to 11 a.m. in Academic East 225. CONTACTS: Street, 570-577-3972, daniel.street@bucknell.edu; Garrote, andre@pabagels.com; Lauren Gillaspy ’26, lauren.gillaspy@bucknell.edu; James Robbins ’26, j.robbins@bucknell.edu (two student authors of the initial executive summary)
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CONTACT: Mike Ferlazzo, 570-577-3212, 570-238-6266 (c), mike.ferlazzo@bucknell.edu