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Along n. 13th

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New Shirk Stadium Dedicated

Just seven months ago, Albright College broke ground on a replacement of the 95-year-old Eugene L. Shirk Stadium.

On September 24, 2005 the new stadium was dedicated during the football game between Albright and King’s College.

Annadora Vesper Shirk, Ph.D., professor emerita and wife of the late Eugene Shirk whose name graces the facility, attended the festivities, along with members of the Shirk family. Annadora’s grandson, William S. Beaver, participated in the coin toss prior to the game.

Dedication day also included tours of the stadium and a reception hosted by the Red & White Club.

The new 5,000-seat, multi-sport stadium includes a new field house/grandstands building, new stands, new locker rooms, press box and main entrance/concessions building. The new artificial turf field is designed for football, field hockey, soccer, rugby and lacrosse. The original stone columns topped by lions standing at the stadium’s original entrance at 12th and Exeter Streets have been preserved.

The LifeSports Center also got a facelift this summer. The block walls of the “turtle dome” have been removed and replaced with large windows, allowing for views of 13th Street as well as the new stadium.

This $6 million project is an innovative public/private joint venture with the Reading School District, which contributed $2 million of the cost. An additional $1 million gift from Albright Hall of Fame member John Scholl ’69 allowed the school to complete the stadium in such a short time period. Reading School District has used Shirk Stadium since the 1940s.

This issue of The Albright Reporter went to press just before the dedication, so look for pictures in the next issue and on the Albright web site.
2004 Graduate Receives National Research Award

Justin Madaus '04Justin M. Madaus ’04 received the distinguished National Convention Research Award presented by Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology, for his undergraduate research titled, “Police, Citizen and Inmate Perceptions of the Police.”

He presented his research at the American Psychological Association Annual Convention held in Washington, D.C. in August. There were only six such awards given nationally.

Madaus, a computer science/psychology major currently employed as an intensive case manager at Salisbury Behavioral Health, Inc. in Bethlehem, Pa., collabor-ated with psychology professor Andrea Chapdelaine, Ph.D., on the project. It was his senior honors thesis.

Results of Madaus’ and Chapdelaine’s research indicated that police had significantly more positive perceptions of themselves than did citizens or inmates but that generally, the citizens were more positive and the inmates were more negative than the police. The results also indicated that police thought the citizens’ and inmates’ perceptions would be more negative than they actually were. According to Madaus and Chapdelaine, the results may improve police-community relations by raising awareness about how they are perceived, thus leading to a greater willingness by the citizens to support the police.

Madaus said, “By learning the research process and completing this project, I left Albright prepared to handle most any type of project or research, because of how well methodology is taught at Albright.”
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