While plans for the rebirth of the Old Botany greenhouse are still on hold, Penn State will be creating a Living Machine on campus without touching any 2000 senior class gift funds, Penn State President Graham Spanier told a few dozen students at a "fireside chat" last night.

"The Living Machine is going to happen," Spanier said. "I don't think any senior class gift money has to be used."

The university development office has contacted the former leaders of the senior class gift committee to decide where the funds should instead be directed, he said.

Spanier acknowledged that during voting, there was some concern voiced that the estimates might be too low.

"I was just kind of scratching my head at the time," he said, adding that he thought the price of building the greenhouse would greatly exceed the usual range of senior gift totals, pegged at about $100,000 to $120,000.

Spanier suggested that confusion might have risen from students not knowing exactly what project they were choosing — the greenhouse; a Living Machine, which recycles water using ecological methods; or both.

"It does make me feel a little uncomfortable to have people think it's going to be one project and turn out to be different," he said. "It's not like we put the kibosh on it just because we don't like the idea. . . . I wish the (higher) estimates could've come out earlier."

The president made the comments in response to a question on the status of the class gift from Abby Hoats, a 2000 graduate who's currently working with a professor on campus.

Spanier gave frank answers on issues ranging from safety on campus to his experience in radio broadcasting and elicited a few laughs at the informal open forum yesterday in the HUB-Robeson Center. Lion Support arranged the event, whose name dates back to when similar casual chats could take place near an actual fireplace in the HUB, before its recent renovation.

Aran Glancy (senior-physics) asked the president if Integrative Arts 3 (Reception of the Arts), a course for traditional students conducted entirely over the Web, was indicative of a trend at the university towards more online-focused education.

The roster for INART 3 has grown from about 30 students to hundreds, Spanier said.

He asked the audience how many had taken the course. When a few people raised their hands, he jokingly asked, "Did anyone not get an A in that course?"

After some students got their high grades, he added, complaints started to arrive.

Use of Web technology has become more sophisticated since then.

Spanier pointed to the success of Penn State's World Campus, the Internet distance learning program: "It's like the 25th campus."

He also estimated that residential instruction has also grown so much that an estimated 45 percent of courses on campus have some related online component, be it e-mail exchanges, Web sites or computer-driven discussions.

"The most interesting phenomenon . . . that I'm talking about in speeches these days is where these two things are merging," the president said.

He sees a future blending of the two realms, in which local students will be taking more courses online, and students signed up on World Campus will travel occasionally to one of the university's actual sites to do work.

Spanier also noted that some of this mixing can already be experienced in the large wired auditorium in Thomas Building just opened this semester.

Another recent addition to campus prompted Brian Nogy (senior-psychology) to ask President Spanier about how the new University Health Services alcohol awareness campaign relates to what Penn State has said about drinking in the past.

"We don't have an alcohol czar in here, who says 'This year it's OK, and last year it wasn't,' " Spanier said.

Universities, especially Penn State, are often forced to reinvent the way they express to students the need for responsibility and safety when drinking, Spanier said.

"The reason you see different messages in different years is that nobody's quite figured this all out," he said.

Spanier receives monthly updates on the effects of drinking at the university, most tangibly in the form of descriptions of students who end up in hospital emergency rooms due to alcohol-related injuries.

"I'm deeply troubled by what I see happening on campus and I'm not sure what I can do about it," he said. "I . . . have to write and speak with the parents of students who die. It's an overwhelming thing for me to do."