Penn State Greater Allegheny's annual academic convocation will be held on Friday, Aug. 24, in the Wunderley Gymnasium. Members of the faculty and staff of Penn State Greater Allegheny will welcome first-year students and their families to campus during the annual event, which begins at 11 a.m.
The convocation celebrates the campus? dedication to student-centered success, global education, and community engagement. Since its beginning at the current location in 1957, the Greater Allegheny campus continues to serve as a key factor in the revitalization of Pennsylvania?s southwest region.
Margaret Signorella, director of academic affairs, will serve as master of ceremonies along with Curtiss E. Porter, Penn State Greater Allegheny?s chancellor.
This year?s guest speaker will be Clifford Manlove, associate professor of English at Greater Allegheny.
Manlove has been a member of the Penn State Greater Allegheny faculty since 2001 and was tenured as an associate professor in 2007. He earned his doctoral degree in English from the University of Missouri at Columbia, his master?s degree in English literature from the University of New Hampshire at Durham, and his bachelor?s degree in English at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. His undergraduate work included studies at Trinity College in Wales, the United Kingdom. Manlove has served as chair of the Faculty Senate, chair of the Academic Integrity Committee, and a discipline coordinator in English for the University College. He is currently the adviser of the campus? literary and visual arts magazine, Absence.
Manlove has one book-length manuscript in progress on the first-ever Jamaican feature film, The Harder They Come (1972), the classic reggae film starring Jimmy Cliff, The Harder They Come: Cultural and Political Histories of Rastafari and Reggae in Jamaica, 1930-1980.
His research in Rastafarian and Reggae literature involves study at the University of West Indies in Jamaica within the Reggae Studies Unit of the Institute of Caribbean Studies.