CAMPUS BRIEFS: Tuesday, February 24, 1998

RAB launches Home Improvement contest The decorative plants were suggested last spring by a student who participated in the Residential Advisory Board's annual Home Improvement contest. RAB is accepting entries for this year's Home Improvement contest starting this week. The contest allows students with "tangible improvement" ideas to submit them to RAB, which will then implement the winning entry. The winning submission is usually one that can be brought to life "easily in terms of money," explained RAB Chairperson Emily Pollack, a College sophomore. Another winning entry from several years ago produced the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority map that stands outside the Quadrangle. "[The contest is] a way of letting students have a voice in terms of coming up with tangible ideas for how to make their living situations nicer," Pollack said. The winner of this year's contest will receive a $75 gift certificate to The Book Store. Pollack added that many of the other ideas submitted for the contest eventually become part of RAB's agenda. One of RAB's current projects -- creating more comfortable and inviting meeting spaces in the high rise rooftop lounges and the Rathskellar lounges -- was an off-shoot of an idea submitted last spring. RAB plans to install "better lighting" and "some better furniture" in the lounges, Pollack said. Until March 4, Home Improvement tips can be submitted to RAB's Web site at http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~resbrd. -- Shirley Zilberstein Robber shoots at man on 4400 block of Pine An armed robber shot at but did not injure a man who was walking on the 4400 block of Pine Street at 9:08 p.m. Saturday night, University Police said. The suspect -- described as a bald, 5'11" 25-year-old black male wearing a hooded black sweatshirt, a jacket with a fur collar and blue jeans -- approached the victim from behind, brandished a chrome revolver and demanded money, police said. The victim, who was carrying no money, then pushed the suspect away and fled east on Pine Street. After the perpetrator fired "several rounds" into the air, the victim fled north on 44th Street, University Police Sgt. Thomas Rambo said. University and Philadelphia Police arrived at the scene after the victim approached a Spectaguard security guard at 43rd and Pine streets who called in the incident over radio. The Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives Bureau is currently investigating the incident. -- Maureen Tkacik Student files complaint after Penn Tower fight A male University student filed a private criminal complaint accusing another male student of knocking out one of his teeth during a fight at the Penn Tower Hotel early Sunday morning, police and witnesses said. The fight broke out at about 1:30 a.m. when two male students attending the Groove Phi Groove black fellowship society fashion show began arguing over who would dance with a female student, according to witnesses. After the student had a tooth knocked out, he was rushed across the street to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received immediate treatment but did not stay overnight, witnesses said. "It was a really terrible incident," said a witness who requested anonymity. -- M.T.