Every Friday until THON weekend, -- just 17 days away -- our centerpieces will be dedicated to THON coverage.

We're focusing on the THON theme Love Belongs Here. Our longer-form features examine the places behind THON -- the places love belongs, if you will. So far, we've sent reporters to the home of a Four Diamonds Family and on a canning trip. There are three more installments in the series, so keep reading each Friday as we countdown to THON 2010.

This will be the third time I've written to solicit Collegian reporters. Every semester, we open the doors of 123 S. Burrowes St. to a new batch of students eager to cover arts events, ready to report about sports from football to fencing and tough enough to ask the difficult questions. And every semester, it's exciting to see the new recruits step into the office for the first time, follow the signs to reporting tryouts and scribble a story in their blue books. It wasn't so long ago that I was on their side of the table.

But now I'm very aware of how different these tryouts are. The day after these students transition from being members of the Collegian's candidate program to Collegian reporters, I will transition from being editor, and along with our senior class, I will move onto post-graduation life.

The Collegian is transitory in nature. It's new people, new ideas, new newsroom leaders every semester. This year, a crew of editors, photographers, reporters, copy editors, designers and graphics artists will graduate, leaving plenty of spots for you.

We're looking for storytellers, newshounds, grammar fanatics. If that's you, join us at tryouts today or tomorrow. No experience necessary -- we'll teach you what you need to know. Come to the Collegian office, 123 S. Burrowes St., ready with a blue book and a pen.

Collegian reporting tryouts will be held:

Today -- Tuesday, Jan. 20

-from 3-4:30 p.m.

-from 6-7:30 p.m.

Tomorrrow -- Thursday, Jan. 21

-from 3-4:30 p.m.

Call News Adviser John Harvey at 814.856.3842 with questions. Look for an ad on the back of today's newspaper with more details. We hope to see you there.

--Rossilynne

Looking for something to do during syllabus week? Need a handy color-coded calendar to get your semester planning organized?

Check out our calendar. This week alone there's an Improv festival, a men's volleyball game, a student government meeting and a screening of The Big Lebowski. We've included all the arts, news and sports events we can find, and we've included things like THON canning weekends and the deadline to late drop classes.

You can print the schedule for the week or the month, and you can copy events to your personal Google calendar (click on the event and then copy). Arts events are in green, news events in orange and sports events in blue.

Want to suggest an event? E-mail us or call us at 814.865.1828.

The Daily Collegian is looking for anyone with an interest in creating cartoons for the Opinion page. Editorial cartoonists take local, national and world issues and portray them in a fresh and humorous way.

Applicants should be ready to bring their own ideas to the paper as well as respond to those of the Collegian Board of Opinion.

If you are a Penn State student interested in this position, pick up an application at the Collegian, located in the James Building, 123 S. Burrowes St., or find it here. Applications will be accepted until Tuesday, Jan. 19, in person or via e-mail to Opinion Page Editor Matt Brown.

E-mail Matt or Rossilynne with questions.

I love the day after New Year's Day -- the day to officially start working on those resolutions. For the past week, Collegian staffers have been e-mailing each other with our plans for the paper this coming semester. To begin fulfilling one of my resolutions (see number two below), we'd like to share a few of our resolutions with you.

1. Unveil a new homepage to better accommodate breaking news updates
while still highlighting content from the day's paper. Our Web team created draft upon draft of new psucollegian.com homepages during the fall semester. This semester we'll launch a new homepage. Our goal is two-fold: To best serve our campus audience who can pick up a print copy in the morning with updated news throughout the day. And to best serve our alumni and parent audience who are looking to read what news was in the daily.

2. Utilize alternative media -- social networking, blogs, multimedia. We're putting more emphasis this semester on updating the Collegian's Facebook page and our various Twitter accounts. We also plan to revitalize some blogs that have been in hibernation (editor-in-chief blog very much included). Arts blog snap, crackle, pop is leading the charge -- check out (365) Days of Film. You can expect more multimedia this semester, too. We have four staffers devoted solely to multimedia with a passion to tell stories through video and audio.

3. Continue to produce comprehensive THON coverage that captures the
weekend and the work leading up to it. We know how important the Dance Marathon is to the thousands of students organizing it, to the families who benefit from the fund and to the people captivated by reading about and seeing the event from afar. Last year, we live blogged during the event, updated the Web site immediately with the final total and posted videos and photo galleries during the weekend. And we published pages and pages of coverage on Monday to encapsulate the weekend -- a tangible reminder of the Dance Marathon. More than 20,000 copies of those papers left newsstands on Monday. This February, you can expect all that and more. We've installed a new Web server, increased our focus on multimedia and, as always, have talented reporters and editors planning months in advance to cover THON and all the festivities leading up to it.

Have resolutions you'd like to see us pursue? Comment below or e-mail me at editorinchief@psucollegian.com. We'd love to hear your suggestions.

--Rossilynne

Within the next few days, you will likely see plenty of campaign information. In one campaign flier, The Daily Collegian is quoted.

The flier, titled Joe Wakeley for Mayor, quotes The Daily Collegian as saying "Joe Wakeley hopes to incorporate students into local government." I believe this information is misleading, and I would like tell you why.

The quote is from a Collegian article that ran on April 26, 1993. The information quoted is from a subhead (a smaller headline summarizing the article) to the article which reads "Wakeley hopes to incorporate students into local government." The headline to the article is "Mayoral candidates run unopposed in primary."

In 1993, most of this staff at The Daily Collegian could not read a newspaper, let alone write for one. The flier gives the appearance that the Collegian is endorsing the candidate. In fact, the Collegian's editorial board has not yet published an endorsement for either candidate.

Further, the document is misleading because it uses information from 1993 to make a statement about a current campaign. It's disappointing that Mr. Wakeley chose to feature this quote on a card distributed to the students he hopes to soon be his constituents. Use of the Collegian's name like this is not something to be taken lightly.

A Collegian reporter recently asked the candidate about the quote.

"That wasn't meant to be a thing relative to the Collegian," Wakeley said. "It was meant to be me," he said.

"... in 1993, I followed the same series direction for pursuits ... and here in 2009, I am saying the same thing. I feel the same way," Wakeley said. "I was trying to indicate that I was the same person, I wasn't just trying to put forth something to get votes. This is something I did in 1993, and here we are years later, and it's the same."

Wakeley is free to campaign on the same principles, of course. But he's obligated to be transparent with the people he's campaigning to represent. This flier was not. Instead, it comes off as a dishonest political move. And it's unfortunate because it's something that could have been so easily remedied by simply explaining that the information came from a 1993 article and that those campaign principles are still important to him.

Wakeley is seeking the position of a figurehead for the borough. A figurehead does not represent himself in this way. Anyone who campaigns for the mayoral position must be held to a higher standard. Standards of honesty and transparency should not be too much to ask.

-Collegian staff writer Jacquie Tylka contributed an interview with Wakeley to this report.

--Rossilynne

Editor's Note: This is the first in an occasional series about what it's like to report various stories in the Collegian. This blog re-establishes an series started by former editor-in-chief Devon Lash in 2007.

Covering an event as big as Penn State's Homecoming is no small feat. Covering it in the snow and frigid temperatures is even more of a difficult task. Collegian reporters Somer Wiggins, Caitlin Sellers and Samantha Kramer spent the much of their weekends with notebooks clenched in chilly fingertips to cover the Homecoming festivities.

I caught up with Somer (sophomore-journalism) and Caitlin (sophomore-English) once they had time to thaw out and got some information about reporting the events:

Both reporters said they -- like the rest of State College's residents -- were completely unprepared to brave the elements for the weekend. Cold fingertips were the biggest complaint. Writing in a notebook with gloves on is nearly impossible. Notebooks were soaked and pens weren't writing well; apologizing to sources for taking so long to get the pen to write became commonplace.

Overall, they summed up the event with a few words -- cold, hectic and stressful. But they also call it a portrayal of teamwork they're proud of. Each reporter had to rely on her fellow beat partners to compile information and get all the details necessary for interesting, well-sourced stories. And, in the end, they did just that.

--Post by Rossilynne

--Photo by Chloe Elmer

Penn State just got a new friend request -- The Daily Collegian's Facebook fan page. It'll be the more personal face of the Collegian online, highlighting special content, opening the door to discussion and publishing some of our best user submissions.

You'll find we've opened up our discussion forums and comments on the posts -- that's because we want to hear what you think about what's going on at Penn State. We're looking forward to the dialogue.

Ever see that guy on campus who unicycles everywhere? Well, today you can read a full question-and-answer segment and story describing what it's like to be the student atop the wheel.

And every Tuesday for the rest of the semester, you can read about someone interesting and quirky on Penn State's campus on The Daily Collegian's freshly minted "We Are" page. It's a section devoted to you -- the readers on campus who make Penn State unique. It's a place for us to showcase a bit of who "we" here at Penn State "are."

We're open to suggestions about the page and about people to interview, so tell us what you think. There's a space for you to comment below. Or you can call our newsroom at 814.865.1828.

This week, it's a unicycle aficionado and mentor. Next week, it could be you.

--Rossilynne

The Collegian has unveiled a few new blogs and given others a makeover recently.

Sports fans, rejoice. Check out our men's soccer blog "Blogging, Kicking and Screaming" for live blogs from games and extra info about the team, like this week's announcement of Corey Hertzog as Big Ten player of the week. There's also a women's volleyball blog "Can You Dig It?" to fill you in with all the details about the talented team. Our lacrosse blog "Crosse Check" and national sports blog "MAKE PLAYS" have also been re-designed and have a new stamina for posting. Tomorrow, the Icers season officially starts, and our reporters are already updating "Between the Pipes." Check the blog for an in-depth look at what could happen this season.

We've also recently launched "Small World," a blog to tell you all about planning time abroad and to hear about life abroad. So far, Collegian reporters stationed in Sevilla and London have filled us in. And our "It's News to Me" blog is revamped and re-energized, too. This week, read about a lawsuit relating to an exploding toilet -- seriously.

Remember: You're welcome to comment on all of our blogs. Tell us what you think, what you'd like to see. You're welcome to join the conversation.

--Rossilynne