Gettysburg College

The FBI is investigating a white substance found on a greeting card mailed from central New Jersey to a Gettysburg College student. The student called campus security yesterday morning because she had seen a white residue when she opened the envelope in her dormitory room Tuesday. It was mailed by a friend attending Princeton University. "The substance was on the card inside the envelope," said Mary Dolheimer, a spokeswoman for Gettysburg College. "The fact it was from New Jersey elevated the concern.

Gordon A. Haaland, president of the University of New Hampshire since 1984, was named president yesterday of Gettysburg College, a private liberal arts school in Gettysburg, Pa. Haaland, 49, who is to begin his new job in March, replaces Charles E. Glassick, who resigned in May to become a senior fellow and vice president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. "I look forward to the challenge of leading Gettysburg College into the forefront of private higher education," Haaland said in a statement released by college officials.

Gettysburg College has received a $475,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to develop a new model for undergraduate education that emphasizes critical thinking rather than rote learning, school officials announced yesterday. L. Baird Tipson, the school's provost, said the model will likely include a requirement that seniors produce a research paper, work of art, or even a community service project that brings together what they have learned throughout their college careers.

An impulsive hug could land a student in serious trouble at Gettysburg College, or at least that is the interpretation of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which yesterday challenged the school to change its "arbitrary and overbroad" sexual misconduct policy. Most colleges have such policies, but Gettysburg's is unusual in identifying "physical contact of a lewd type such as brushing, touching, grabbing, pinching, patting, hugging and kissing" as violations. Gettysburg also requires that verbal consent be given before engaging in sexual conduct, reminiscent of a policy at Antioch College in Ohio that became the butt of late-night television jokes in 1993.

Brian C. Peterson Jr., the Gettysburg College freshman accused of murdering his girlfriend's newborn son, was expected to turn himself in to authorities today, according to the young man's attorney. A brief statement issued yesterday by the attorney, Joseph A. Hurley, said the surrender likely would be between 9 and 11 a.m. at the federal office building in Wilmington. The surrender would end a nationwide manhunt that began in earnest Tuesday when Newark, Del., police and the Delaware Attorney General's Office issued a federal warrant for Peterson's arrest.

The Civil War general was no stranger to controversy - his men had backed out of the first battle of Bull Run, and he was later given the undesirable task of protecting the conspirators said to have killed President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. One hundred and thirty years later, another controversy involving Brevet Maj. Gen. John Frederick Hartranft has been resolved with an out-of-court settlement among his heirs, Gettysburg College and the National Archives. At issue in the latest dispute was a diary, or "day book," Hartranft kept of the treatment and trial of the 16 people charged in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln in the summer of 1865.

October marks the high point of this year's Eisenhower celebrations in his hometown of Gettysburg. Gettysburg College is observing the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dwight D. Eisenhower with an exhibit, "Eisenhower the Painter" at the Art Gallery in Schmucker Memorial Hall, highlighting Ike's more personal side. Landscapes, changes of seasons and portraits were his forte, and he stuck to those themes, sometimes putting figures in his landscapes. He painted about 260 oils, of which 26 are on view here, and he was not afraid to tackle an occasional subject that might daunt professional artists.

Marcus Hook was chosen a runner-up for the 1990 Outstanding Pennsylvania Community Award at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry's annual dinner in Hershey Monday night. The borough was recommended for the award by the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce because of the strides it has made in economic growth and community spirit over the last 10 years, chamber president Jack Holefelder said. By the end of the 1970s the business community in Marcus Hook had eroded to about 32 businesses, half of which were bars, and the town had had problems with a motorcycle gang, Holefelder said.

Gettysburg College trustees have authorized a comprehensive review of the role of fraternities and sororities at the private liberal arts school. A task force of students, faculty members and administrators will conduct the review, which will examine whether the 1,800-student college should dismantle the Greek system. Within a year, the task force is to make recommendations to a trustee steering committee. "We hope to take a very close look at the overall social environment on campus," said Carol L. Kefalas, college spokeswoman.

Two volunteer firefighters at the Berwyn Fire Company - Helen Stead and Christine Nemetz - have been given scholarship awards of $1,000 each by The Main Line Chamber Foundation in recognition of their service. Stead, 21, is a student at University of West Florida and a third-generation volunteer firefighter at Berwyn, where she serves when she is home on vacations. Her father, grandfather and sister, Julianne, also volunteered there. Nemetz, 20, attends Gettysburg College and is a volunteer firefighter and EMT with Gettysburg Fire Department while at college and volunteers with the Berwyn Fire Company when she is home Stead and Nemetz are among 17 volunteer firefighters from the Main Line and Chester County awarded scholarships in 2007 by The Main Line Chamber Foundation as part of a project to increase public awareness of the need to support, retain and recognize volunteer firefighters and EMTs in the area.

Nina Williams Hillman, 78, an award-winning teacher and administrator at Temple University from 1976 until she retired in 2006, died of lymphoma on Saturday, Feb. 19, at Temple University Hospital. She was chairman of the biology department from 1984 to 1987, vice provost for the sciences from 1991 to 1994, and director of the College of Science and Technology from 1999 to 2006, according to a resumé supplied by her family. In the 1983-84 academic year, she was one of six Temple faculty members who won a Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation of Philadelphia.

GETTYSBURG - Under a full moon, her hoopskirt swishing, Sandy Kime lights her lantern and sets off down the brick-lined sidewalks of this historic town, leading a flock of 16 people. Then she pauses and begins to roll out her collection of ghost stories. Standing across from an old-schoolhouse-turned-field-hospital, she recounts the tale of the wounded Confederate officer's emerging from a second-story window and floating down to what was a cemetery across the street. A little farther along, Kime tells the group how students have witnessed an image of a freezing child known as the Blue Boy, appearing to cling to a dormitory window at Gettysburg College.

Their first meeting didn't go well. The teenager was quiet - distant, really - as Bob White struggled to make small talk in the offices of Philadelphia Futures that day in 2007. "Afterward he's probably thinking, 'What's this big white guy doing in my world?' " White says. The 6-foot-3 litigator with a thatch of snow-white hair wasn't far off. "I wasn't too thrilled to have him," recalls Taurean Nelson, then a sophomore at Parkway Center City High School. "I was expecting someone younger.

About 5 in the afternoon, they started to gather on this central Pennsylvania college campus: The shih tzu brothers Boomer and Otis; Maggie, a lumbering chocolate lab; Cole and Chase, the David and Goliath of the bunch, of course named after Phillies; and the talented Bunsen, the boxer mix who has his own blog and can eat treats he flips off his nose. Then it was time to send in the homesick freshmen. "You're cute! You look like my dog," said Kayla Springer, 18, a biology major from Kennett Square, who was fussing over Chase, a border collie/German shepherd.

SELINSGROVE, Pa. - About 5 in the afternoon, they started to gather on this central Pennsylvania college campus: The shih tzu brothers Boomer and Otis; Maggie, a lumbering chocolate lab; Cole and Chase, the David and Goliath of the bunch, of course named after Phillies; and the talented Bunsen, the boxer mix who has his own blog and can eat treats he flips off his nose. Then it was time to send in the homesick freshmen. "You're cute! You look like my dog," said Kayla Springer, 18, a biology major from Kennett Square, who was fussing over Chase, a border collie/German shepherd.

Gettysburg College is proud of its liberal-arts program and commitment to community service, but it can't help envying the eye-popping Olympic-size swimming pool belonging to its academic and athletic rival, Franklin & Marshall College. "It's a wonderful swimming venue," said David Wright, athletic director at Gettysburg, which still uses a leaky, second-floor pool from the 1950s. In comparison, he said, "students are blown away by how poor our facility is. " But last month, Gettysburg broke ground on a $25 million architectural gem that will feature its own competition pool, a warm-up pool, a hydrotherapy spa, a 10,000-square-foot fitness center, a rock-climbing wall, and space for yoga, Pilates, spinning and martial arts.

Gettysburg College, within firing distance of the famed battlefield, has a strong commitment to public service with many students joining the Peace Corps and the former heads of UNICEF and Lutheran World Relief among its graduates. But nowhere is that mentioned in U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of colleges that puts the 2,600-student school at a respectable 45 among 215 liberal arts institutions. "What people need is information about schools," said Gettysburg president Katherine Haley Will.

Two volunteer firefighters at the Berwyn Fire Company - Helen Stead and Christine Nemetz - have been given scholarship awards of $1,000 each by The Main Line Chamber Foundation in recognition of their service. Stead, 21, is a student at University of West Florida and a third-generation volunteer firefighter at Berwyn, where she serves when she is home on vacations. Her father, grandfather and sister, Julianne, also volunteered there. Nemetz, 20, attends Gettysburg College and is a volunteer firefighter and EMT with Gettysburg Fire Department while at college and volunteers with the Berwyn Fire Company when she is home Stead and Nemetz are among 17 volunteer firefighters from the Main Line and Chester County awarded scholarships in 2007 by The Main Line Chamber Foundation as part of a project to increase public awareness of the need to support, retain and recognize volunteer firefighters and EMTs in the area.

An impulsive hug could land a student in serious trouble at Gettysburg College, or at least that is the interpretation of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which yesterday challenged the school to change its "arbitrary and overbroad" sexual misconduct policy. Most colleges have such policies, but Gettysburg's is unusual in identifying "physical contact of a lewd type such as brushing, touching, grabbing, pinching, patting, hugging and kissing" as violations. Gettysburg also requires that verbal consent be given before engaging in sexual conduct, reminiscent of a policy at Antioch College in Ohio that became the butt of late-night television jokes in 1993.

Growing up in a tough North Philadelphia neighborhood, Shannon Nowlin was in for a shock when she stepped onto Gettysburg College's campus. "In high school, I would get A's and B's on papers. On my first paper in my first semester at Gettysburg College, I got a D minus. I was just crushed. I was like, what did I do wrong? I was blown away," Nowlin said. But Nowlin ultimately wasn't blown away. And for that, Nowlin, now 21 and a senior at Gettysburg, credits Philadelphia Futures, a nonprofit group that first helps inner-city high school students get to college and then assists them in succeeding on campus.