Rodin's fundraising practices questioned

This article appeared in the joke issue. President Judith Rodin routinely lends Eisenlohr Hall's "Hackney Bedroom" -- the guest bedroom on the second floor of the president's mansion -- to alumni contributors, according to documents obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian. Former University President Sheldon Hackney stipulated the bedroom be named after him as a condition of leaving Penn. Because the upper level of Eisenlohr is closed to tourists, staying there is considered a privilege. In a hastily arranged press conference, Rodin dismissed the charges of impropriety. "There were no laws broken, and there was no quid pro quo," she said. "The Hackney Bedroom was never for sale." Assistant to the President Jennifer Baldino denied that the bedroom was a special favor. "The president puts her friends up in the Hackney room all the time," Baldino said. "[The guests] don't necessarily have to contribute." But School of Social Work Administrative Assistant Paul Lukasiak said he was "shocked, shocked" at the allegations and called for a University Council committee -- under his direction, preferably -- to investigate. Last Saturday's guest list shows an overnight by Dato Moho Hassan Marican, chairperson and CEO of Petronas -- the Malaysian firm that owns the recently-completed, world record-holding Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. Four days after Marican's stay, the Wharton School released the blueprint of an 85-story "Marican Tower of Business," to be built on the current Book Store site. Mayor Ed Rendell immediately hailed the proposed Marican Tower as an "emerging beacon of West Philadelphia's economic renaissance." Another recent Eisenlohr overnight guest was entertainment mogul Ed Snider, who gave $2 million to the Wharton School last week. An Eisenlohr maid who prefers anonymity said Snider, a disciple of Ayn Rand, replaced the nightstand Bible with a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Asked what he liked best about his stay, Snider quickly replied, "That leather skirt [Rodin] wore! I mean, Sheldon always dressed so straight laced." In an unrelated incident, Provost Stanley Chodorow was accused of making hairdressing appointments from the phone in his office in College Hall. Under a 1952 University bylaw called the "Hat Act," it is illegal for University employees to call hairdressers. Provost Assistant Nancy Nowicki said the law was archaic because it was written at a time when men and women employees fussed incessantly about their greasers and beehives. "Besides," said Nowicki, "Stan doesn't exactly have much hair to style." But History Professor Alan Kors said Chodorow's encroaching baldness does not matter. "The law is blind to the amount of hair you have on your head." Kors said. "We shouldn't let our hair define our identity; we all have a common humanity."