Student Affairs

Tanya Hofler of Glenmoore participated in this year's Penn State 4-H Ambassador Conference at the University Park Campus. Hofler, who helped organize the fifth annual conference with other junior and senior student advisers, attended workshops on interviewing skills, public speaking and marketing. Ambassadors will serve as representatives for the more than 20,000 4-H members throughout Pennsylvania. Hofler, as an ambassador, will promote the 4- H youth-development program and the land-grant university system.

The head of St. Pius X is gone, lost in the vandalism that marred a weekend showcase of local bands' original music at the high school that bears his name. The destruction at the North Keim Street school was wrought sometime after 11:30 Saturday night, Mike McShane, director of institutional advancement at the school, said yesterday. Besides knocking the head from the life-size statue, the vandals ripped gutters from the building, smashed floodlights and garden benches, and scrawled obscenities on school property.

Black students at Drexel University are rallying in support of a popular administrator who was among 24 non-faculty staff fired last month in a cost- cutting move. The students are angered because they regarded Denauvo M. Robinson, former special programs director for Drexel's Division of Student Affairs, as the only high-ranking staff member able adequately to meet the needs of Drexel's minority student population. "He was always there to field our questions and hear our concerns," said George Hanson, spokesman for Drexel's Black Student Union.

The state university system will suspend, discontinue or merge dozens of degree programs that are under-enrolled across its 14 campuses, officials said Wednesday. The bachelor's and master's programs being culled by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education cut across disciplines, from foreign languages to physics. Fifteen are being discontinued and at least 55 others placed in moratorium, meaning no new students will be accepted. Students currently enrolled in those majors - including incoming freshmen - will be able to finish their degrees, system officials said.

Bill Jarrell, the newly named deputy director of communications in the U.S. Department of the Interior and a former Ridley Township resident, had a little trouble communicating to a Hollywood film crew that he was not a moving man. Dressed casually, and ready to get some extra work done over a recent weekend, Jarrell walked into his office overlooking the Washington Monument and was greeted by a woman who said, "Good, you're here. Now move these boxes. " The crew, which was filming a movie about a lawyer in Washington soon after President John F. Kennedy's death, had selected his office for a scene because of its pleasant view, and unbeknown to Jarrell had invaded his work space.

Graduates of community colleges in Pennsylvania never have been sure how many of their credits would be accepted at four-year schools. A program being tested this year among the 14 universities in the State System of Higher Education removes the guesswork. Called the Academic Passport, it guarantees that community college graduates will have all their credits transferred to any of the State System schools. The program, approved last month, will affect students entering the system in the fall.

Good student. Good athlete. Good heart. St. Maria Goretti couldn't have asked for a better ambassador than senior Stephanie Digneo, who is The Inquirer's city softball player of the year for the second straight season. Digneo hit .619 (26 for 42) for the Lambs, who missed the Catholic League playoffs by two games. She hit .606 a year ago. Digneo scored 18 runs and drove in 20 more. Thirteen of her hits - four doubles, four triples, five home runs - went for extra bases.

The Marple Newtown High School English department has dedicated a courtyard garden to the memory of Terry Fridericks and Betty Giordano. Ceremonies were held May 22. Fridericks, who died in 1987, was an English teacher and department head at the school. Giordano, who died in 1988, was the English department secretary. "They guided us on how to be teachers and caring professionals," said Debbie Bonder, a teacher in the English department. "The department was deeply saddened by their deaths and really wanted to do something to honor them.

Listen up, college freshmen. Soon you will be staring at banners festooned across your campus, bearing this message: Welcome, Class of 1996. Ignore them. There's a good chance that you, or the person sitting next to you in orientation, isn't going to make it out in four years. But that's OK. It doesn't mean you're dumb. Or lazy. You're just part of the trend. In the last decade, the number of college students who take longer than four years to graduate has risen dramatically.