Steel City Smackdown

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It's a great day for a ball game, let's play two

The RMU club baseball team will get its 15 minutes of fame under the lights at PNC Park tonight when the team participates in the taping of an episode of The History Channel's Modern Marvels. The episode will examine stadium lighting, and will also feature an interview with Dave Synowka, professor of sport management and director of RMU's Sport Management Program. Synowka will talk a little baseball history and discuss the impact that night games have had on the sport.

The program is set to air early next year.

Maybe she'll bring us back a T-shirt

RMU business education student Sandy Niggel is heading to Beijing to attend the Mondialogo International Symposium, a prestigious honor for teachers that Niggel is enjoying for the second time, according to today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Trib notes that Niggel earned her teaching certification at RMU.

We'd be remiss if we failed to take this opportunity to mention that over the summer, RMU's School of Education and Social Sciences become the first education school in Pennsylvania, and one of only about 60 nationwide, to earn accreditation by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), one of two national education school accreditation agencies. You can read more about this here.

Yes, we do art. Next question?

Pop City gives a shout out to the RMU Gallery, which has its official grand opening Thursday night at our downtown Pittsburgh building, 600 Fifth Ave. The evening also will feature tours of the newly renovated Media Arts classrooms and studios.

We hope to see you there.

A bloody good article

The Arizona Republic recently called on RMU's A.J. Grant, head of the Department of English Studies and Communication Skills, for this article about HBO's new show "True Blood." Grant is an expert on the role that vampires have played in popular culture, and his research was the subject of an article in the Fall 2007 issue of Foundations magazine. (Which you can read here as a PDF.)

So if you want to talk vampires, A.J. is your man. And don't worry -- he doesn't bite.