Patty Satalia / WPSU Producer

Just hearing someone mention “The Great Gatsby” is enough to evoke vivid images of the roaring twenties--elaborate parties, flappers and booglegging gangsters! But how much do we know about the man behind Gatsby? F. Scott Fitzgerald and his contemporaries form a cohort of some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Literary expert and Penn State Professor Linda Patterson…

Thirteen medical students just wrapped up their third year of medical education at the Penn State College of Medicine Regional Medical Campus located at University Park. Created in partnership with Mount Nittany Medical Center, the goal of the program is twofold: training the next generation of physicians and improving access to medical care in Centre County. The hope is that,…

What will it take to avoid war with Iran? According to our next guest, the real obstacles to successful nuclear diplomacy with Iran lie in Washington, not Tehran. We’ll talk with Flynt Leverett, co-author of the controversial new book, “Going To Tehran, Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Leverett is a founding…

Charles Figley has spent more than thirty-five years studying trauma and its effects on both victims and caregivers. His work has led to innovations in psychology, psychiatry, and social work. We’ll talk with him about the field of traumatology, about what he means when he says there’s a cost for caring, and about his personal experiences with “compassion fatigue.” Figley…

In 2011, Chuck Felton organized a reunion for the Cresson TB Sanatorium. The retired aerospace engineer now living in Texas, spent 16 months at the state-run tuberculosis facility that was located on a remote mountain top outside of Cresson. For more than 50 years, Felton kept his experience there mostly to himself. Then, in 2009, he decided to create a…

A number of privatization initiatives have been proposed in Pennsylvania in recent years. A combination of state and local budget crises has prompted these so-called public-private partnerships that seek to transfer ownership of public assets or services to the private sector in exchange for lump sums of money. Everything from the state lottery to liquor sales and even prisons are…

When Stacy Parks Miller was sworn into office in January of 2010, she became the first woman to serve as district attorney in Centre County, easily defeating Republican Incumbent Mike Madeira, who served only one four-year term. Parks Miller talks about what the district attorney’s office does, how the Jerry Sandusky trial affected day-to-day operations, and about the greatest challenges…

We talk with two of the speakers in this year's Penn State TEDx conversation series about their "ideas worth sharing." Dannah Gresh is a leader in the evangelical chastity movement. She says the hottest sex is between monogamous married partners. Plus, Penn State professor Nichola Gutgold says it will take imagination, not image, to elect the first woman president.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called community water fluoridation one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century. But critics say fluoridated water is not as safe and not as effective as we’ve been led to believe. They argue for a consumer’s right to choose. Why is water fluoridation controversial? WPSU’s Patty Satalia talks with…