CAMPUS BRIEFS: Thursday, April 2, 1998

U. Police arrest two men for alleged robbery According to police, Derek Gillard, 35, and Gentry Ware, 22, face charges of robbery, conspiracy and related charges for the incident, during which they allegedly stole $10 in cash from the students. The students were walking on the 3900 block of Spruce Street at about 12:30 a.m. when they were approached from behind by the two men, who brandished a knife and demanded their money. The men fled west after one of the students surrendered a $10 bill, according to police. Shortly after the students alerted University Police, two officers found the men walking near 40th and Market streets, allegedly carrying the knife and the money. The men were positively identified by the students and transported to the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives bureau for processing. --Maureen Tkacik U. to award nine with honorary degrees A diverse group of nine people, including Commencement speaker Jimmy Carter, will receive honorary degrees at the May 18 Commencement ceremony. Doctor of Laws recipients will include former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, an advocate for mental health; Federal Reserve Board Chairperson Alan Greenspan and Penn Law School alumnus and emeritus trustee Arlin Adams, a long-time judge on the United States Court of Appeals. Doctors of Science degrees will be awarded to Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, and College and School of Medicine alumnus Stanley Prusiner, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Harvard Professor Frank Cross and children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak will receive Doctors of Humane Letters, while Jessye Norman, a celebrated opera and concert singer, will be awarded a Doctor of Music degree. -- Margie Fishman Computer bug blocks campus Internet use When a bug hits the central computing system of a campus as wired as Penn, the results are not kind to computer users. That is what happened yesterday afternoon as one of the school's network routers crashed, denying thousands in the University community access to e-mail and the Internet. Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing Jim O'Donnell said the failed computer was one of several responsible for controlling traffic on the network. Students living in Hill House, the Quadrangle and the three high rises all reported problems with their network connections this afternoon. -- Edward Sherwin