A group of students is taking its campus history lessons out of the classroom.

On Tuesday, a group of 10 SPCOM 100H (Effective Speech) students gave speeches at the locations where historic events took place. The students broadened their audience from the classroom to the entire campus by braving windy weather to present speeches outdoors.

Their speeches dealt with the history of diversity at Penn State. Using the University Archives in Paterno Library, they found information on the first black students at Penn State, the first female graduate, the creation of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center and other topics.

Their professor, Ronald Jackson of the department of speech communication, termed the project "public scholarship" because students are out teaching the greater public.

"I'm always thinking of new ways to expand the boundaries from the classroom into the surrounding community," he said.

He organized a campus speaking tour once before with a summer session first-year seminar class.

The group called itself the Ambassadors of Diversity, and each person spoke for a few minutes to anyone in listening range, then moved on to the next location. Gatherings around speakers were seen outside the HUB-Robeson Center, in South Halls and at the Peace Garden.

Sharon Whiteman (senior-computer science and history) had to search through old handbooks and housing contracts to find information for her speech: the historic rules that women on campus had to live by.

In her speech, she said that women had to be in their dorms by a curfew or risk being locked out, and that they had to wear dresses to class. They were also required to live on campus.

Whiteman said the project was a good idea, even if finding information was difficult for some students. "People have some responsibility to know the history of where they are," she said.

Although not many people outside of the class members attended the tour yesterday, Mike Blaguszewski (sophomore-computer science) said it still taught a lot. "I thought this was actually a pretty good way to do diversity in the class," he said.

Blaguszewski gave his speech on the 1988 takeover of the Telecommunications Building, when more than 200 students protested to change the racial climate on campus. One result was the creation of what is now the vice-provost for educational equity position.

The tour continues today at 1 p.m. with a second set of speeches. The group will leave from the Pollock Road entrance of the HUB-Robeson Center and take a path ending at the Creamery. Today's topics include Take Back the Night, affirmative action at Penn State and profiles of people in the university's history, such as Board of Trustees member Jesse Arnelle.

"It seems like the bar is being raised all the time," Jackson said. "These students are really rising to the challenge."