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(02/25/00 10:00am)
Vinay Harpalani assertively asked the crowd of nearly 200 students assembled on College Green yesterday afternoon, "Have things gotten better?" "No!" they shouted in response. The Graduate School of Education student was referring to affirmative action and the fact that although 170 African-American students were admitted to Penn in 1970, only 152 were admitted in 1999. Harpalani was one of the chief organizers of yesterday's rally, which was part of "Call To Action 2000," a nationwide day of activism in support of affirmative action. This was Penn's second year participating in the rally, co-sponsored by the United Minorities Council, UMOJA, the Asian-Pacific Student Coalition, the Greenfield Intercultural Center and the Undergraduate Assembly. Discussing issues of racism and affirmative action, 11 students addressed the crowd, eliciting shouts and applause from the audience. The organizers also collected signatures for a petition in support of affirmative action at Penn. "Penn is a plantation of higher learning, not an institution," said UMOJA Public Relations Chairman Dan Cherry, a College senior. "Don't be fooled by the rhetoric." He added that affirmative action encounters opposition because it scared the people in power. "It's a fundamental challenge to the balance of power -- the status quo -- in the United States of America." Organizers handed out "Call to Action" T-shirts to the crowd during the rally. More than 100 people received the black shirts with affirmative-action logos emblazoned on them. Students at other schools -- including the University of Michigan and Florida A&M; University -- held rallies today as part of an ongoing initiative by the Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary, a national organization responsible for organizing rallies on campuses across the country. The rally comes as institutions across the nation are re-evaluating their affirmative action programs. Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and Florida A&M;, among many others, have reduced or eliminated affirmative action in their admissions process either voluntarily or as a result of law suits. "It's only a matter of time before this movement hits the Ivy Leagues," Harpalani said. This year marked the first time that the UA co-sponsored the event. UA Chairman and College senior Michael Silver said the group would continue to do so in the future. Kwasi Asare, a College junior and admissions co-chair of the UMC, said the rally's two main goals were "to counteract the movement of the Center for Individual Rights, an organization in support of repealing affirmative action, and to send a message to the University that affirmative action is something students here support." UMC Chairman Jerome Byam, a College junior, also spoke of affirmative action "leveling the playing field" for all people, not just African Americans, but also Hispanics, Asians, homosexuals and women." APSC Political Chair Jenny Yan, a Wharton freshman, emphasized the relevance of affirmative action to Asian Americans, particularly under-represented groups from Southeast Asia. But by far, the most heated speeches came from Cherry and College sophomore Jamarah Leverette. Leverette spoke of reparations for African Americans and recited a poem entitled "Break The Bottle," which symbolized oppression as a Calvin Klein fragrance. She ended with the a shout of "black power!" Other groups in attendance included members of Penn Students Against Sweatshops, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance and the South Asian progressive activist group Sangam. Organizers accredited the impressive turn-out to good weather and a general increase in activism at Penn since the sweatshop sit-in. "I think the turnout was phenomenal," said Kimberly Noble, a College freshman and political chair of UMOJA. "As long as the numbers keep going up, we hope more people will hear our message."
(02/08/00 10:00am)
In an exhibit exploring the boundaries between art, architecture and design, visitors to the Institute of Contemporary Art are now able to look at and walk through an oversized vehicle, relax on top of giant beanbags and stare at travel billboards they would normally see on a highway. "Against Design," the new exhibit at the ICA, draws on current trends in modern art, specifically the bringing together of art and design and the artists' use of the external physical environment for artistic purposes. Guest curator Steven Beyer, former assistant director of The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, brought the idea of the exhibit to the ICA. As Beyer chose to bring together artists whose work "rubs up against design," the title came to be called "Against Design" -- the word "against" implying being alongside rather than being in opposition. The exhibit brings together 10 contemporary artists from the United States and Europe whose work is perceived as crossing the boundary between design and art. The artists included Joep van Lieshout, a Dutch artist who creates mobile homes and vehicles, encouraging viewer participation. As visitors walk through Lieshout's "Tampa Skull," a mobile home vehicle, they are forced to consider humans' need for protection as well as efficient living space. The idea for Tampa Skull was based on a sensory-deprivation chamber and is built from the inside out. Cass Green, an employee of the museum, admitted that the Tampa Skull is "where we go to hide out when we want to get away." Other pieces included Angela Bulloch's "Blush and Bean Bag Set," in which she uses a group of oversized bean bags to create an interactive room that challenges the preconceived notions of art museums. Kevin Appel, another featured artist, draws from the innovative and low-cost case-study homes of California in the 1940s in his work. Judith Tannenbaum, the outgoing associate director of the museum, worked closely with Buyer to coordinate the exhibit. "This exhibit makes us conscious of our environment, how we live and the environments we choose to live in," Tannenbaum said. "We are not always so conscious of our surroundings." Claudia Gould, the new director of the museum, said she has long been aware of the movement toward combining design and art. Museums, she said, should embrace this trend. "While the art world has seen much of this type of work separately in the design sections of museums, this is the first time I have seen it combined with artwork in a gallery," Gould said. Gould hopes that Penn students will take advantage of the exhibit, and of the ICA in general. "I think students would be surprised that this artwork looks familiar to them. Just when people think they understand what they see, this understanding can change," Gould said. The exhibit opened on February 3 to an audience that, for the most part, seemed very receptive. "I don't view this art as any different than, let's say, the motorcycle exhibit at the Guggenheim [Museum of Art in New York City]. I think it is a big trend to look at utilitarian objects as pieces of art," said Ellen Rosenhalt, a writer for The Philadelphia Weekly who viewed the exhibit. "Quality is quality and you need to look at new things without preconceived labels," Rosenhalt added. "Against Design" will be on exhibit through April 16 in conjunction with a lecture series.
(12/03/99 10:00am)
Joining together in the spirit of African-American pride and stressing solidarity in the community, family and culture, the Penn campus played host yesterday to an early celebration of Kwanzaa. More than 100 students and faculty members gathered in the Newman Center last night for the cultural celebration. The goal of the program -- sponsored by the Greenfield Intercultural Center in conjunction with the United Minorities Council, the African-American Resource Center and several other campus organizations -- was to introduce the entire University community to Kwanzaa's festivities. Kwanzaa is a relatively recent creation. Created by Maulana Karenga, an African-American scholar at California State University at Long Beach, the non-religious observance was conceptualized in 1966. Karlene Burell-McRae, associate director of the GIC, described Kwanzaa as "a celebration of family and community-building." Kwanzaa's roots lie in the traditional African celebration of the first fruits of the harvest, and its week-long observance incorporates seven principles, or Nguzo Saba in Swahili: Umoja, or unity; Kujichagulia, or self-determination; Ujima, or collective work and responsibility; Ujamaa, or cooperative economics; Nia, which means purpose; Kuumba, or creativity; and Imani, or faith. The night's program began on a solemn note as College senior Chaz Howard, outgoing chairperson of the UMC, sang traditional African-American spirituals. "Like a river, oppression and hatred flow on and on," he said before he began to sing. The audience was silent, enraptured by his deep voice and the message of his words. Kamau McRae led the audience in a libation, paying reverance to the spirits and memories of ancestors. "We honor our ancestors, those who laid down the foundation for us to be here," he announced. Audience members were encouraged to participate by calling out the names of those deceased who have made a significant contribution to the African-American community. An important part of the celebration of Kwanzaa is the incorporation of young children. "They are what allow us to go on," said Sharon Smith, associate director of Student Transitional Programs. And fittingly, children played an integral role in last night's program, setting the ceremonial table. Each child brought to the table a representative object. Entertainment was provided by Assata, Penn's African-American poetry group, and The New Spirit of Penn, the University's gospel choir. Before enjoying the Karamu -- the traditional Kwanzaa meal -- catered by three local ethnic eateries, participants and audience members joined hands in a unity circle and prayed. "The celebration is wonderful because it brings people together, regardless of their religious background," said program coordinator Richard Adzei, a College senior. Kwanzaa observance does not officially begin until December 26, but Penn will celebrate this weekend with a jazz concert featuring vocalist Monette Sudler and a workshop entitled "Keepers of the Culture."
(12/02/99 10:00am)
Film enthusiasts, students of Italian culture and those jaded by Cinemagic's lack of sophistication might find something of interest this weekend at International House. "Authors of the New Italian Cinema," a film festival presented by the University's Center for Italian Studies and the Film Studies Program, opened there yesterday, as speakers addressed about 70 members of the Penn community before presenting the festival's opening film, Ecco Fatto -- or "That's It" in English -- for viewing. Along with New York University, Emory University and the University of California at Los Angeles, Penn was chosen by Italia Cinema and Cinecitt^ Holding -- Italy's version of Hollywood -- to showcase five recent Italian films. The purpose of the festival, said Nicola Gentili, assistant director of the University's new Film Studies Program, is to introduce a new generation of Italian directors to American audiences. During the opening remarks yesterday, Stuart Curran, director of the Center for Italian Studies, emphasized "the centrality of film to Italian culture," saying, "no country so small carries such a powerful legacy in film." Besides Ecco Fatto, a colorful comedy about forgery and jealousy, the festival will include four other films: I Protagonisti, a murder story; Un Amore and Il Tempo Dell'Amore, two avant-garde love stories; and Radiofreccia, a loosely autobiographical story of director Luciano Ligabue, a former rock star turned filmmaker. I Protagonisti and Un Amore are being released for the first time in the United States. Millicent Marcus, director of the Film Studies Program at Penn and considered the foremost scholar of Italian film in America, said, "[Italian cinema] is alive and well." She hopes the festival will confirm this. Vijay Gambhir, an audience member and professor in the South Asia Regional Studies Department, said she was interested in cinema and enjoyed the Indian Film Festival held in International House last year. She is enthusiastic about the festival this year as well. "Authors of the New Italian Cinema" is free for all attendees and will feature one film tonight and tomorrow and two on Saturday. Additionally, a reception will be held in International House at 9:30 p.m. tomorrow, after the conclusion of Un Amore. It will be open to the public.
(11/17/99 10:00am)
Freshman ugonna Onyekwe should play an important role for the Quakers this season. You see Ugonna Onyekwe for the first time and don't know a whole lot about him. You meet him and it is not long before he makes a very good first impression. Onyekwe is good at first impressions. Take, for example, the first time many Penn fans caught a glimpse of Penn's freshman forward from Nigeria. It's the Red and Blue Scrimmage on October 23, and Onyekwe opens the scoring with an alley-oop layup from Michael Jordan and then comes back two plays later to dunk on Frank Brown's head. Fans have seen him for less than five minutes -- five minutes of a scrimmage that means almost nothing -- and he already has them cheering wildly for him. They are ready for four years of this kid. They heard the reports. They know what's going on. They know that Onyekwe was rated as one of the top 100 recruits in the nation by several services, that he is the supposed headliner of what is being called the best Penn recruiting class in 20 years. They know the 6'8" Onyekwe is needed. With both starting forwards from last year graduated, fans realize a few of the freshmen must contribute immediately. They expect Onyekwe to be one of them. They wanted a good first impression from this kid. They got one. Meet Onyekwe off the court and you'll get an equally good -- albeit quite different -- impression. The banger you see on the court, the big guy slamming the ball through the rim and slamming his body against his opponent in the low post, disappears. Instead, you meet a polite man, a quiet man, a man who wears a "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelet and quietly practices his shooting alone on a side basket after all of his teammates have left the court following a practice. It's obvious that Onyekwe is not the party animal of the Quakers. He is not likely to be the one cracking jokes or dominating a conversation in the locker room. "All the freshmen are pretty good friends and we all hang out together," said freshman forward Andrew Coates, who is also Onyekwe's roommate. "But when we go out to parties on the weekend, Ugonna usually stays in and does something else." Unlike many high-profile athletes, Onyekwe turns away from the party scene, preferring to hang out with friends in Van Pelt College House or to study during the weekends. "He's very quiet, very reserved, very mature," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "He knows who he is as a person and I think that's a real positive." Onyekwe does know who he is -- and that someone is certainly not your typical basketball recruit. For starters, he was born halfway across the world and will bring some geographic diversity to a team's whose starting five of a year ago were all natives of either Pennsylvania or New Jersey. And the route Onyekwe took to West Philadelphia certainly wasn't as easy as the simple trip across the Delaware River that Matt Langel and Geoff Owens had to make three years ago. Onyekwe's story begins a world away -- in a world that could not be farther from Philadelphia, in a place most Penn basketball players don't even think about. Onyekwe was born in Nigeria and lived there for most of his childhood. He would eventually end up at the Palestra, along with five other men, as part of a recruiting class that has Penn fans everywhere drooling over the possibilities. But when he was younger, basketball meant almost nothing to Onyekwe. Until he hit age 12, the game was foreign to him. Sure, he was a great athlete, but he did not know much about basketball and there was no reason at all to suggest that he would ever be recruited by a Division I program. "When I was in Nigeria, I used to play a little bit, but it was mostly recreation," Onyekwe said. That was because he never really had the opportunity to play on a team in an organized league in Nigeria. He was basically just experimenting with the sport. It was not until after his family moved to London when he was 14 years old that Onyekwe finally had the chance to play in an organized league. After living in Nigeria for all of his life and just playing basketball for fun, Onyekwe began to see his potential on the basketball court when he was in England. He played on club teams and saw that he could actually have a future in basketball, a game that was still somewhat new to him. And he also knew that any future he would have on the court would be in America, not in England. Club leagues in Great Britain just weren't doing it for Onyekwe. After all, the Brits are better known for scones and the Thames than for slam dunks and three pointers. "There are a lot of talented players over there, but it's just not organized very well," Onyekwe said. "The coaching wasn't great." Onyekwe needed good coaching. He needed someone to help him hone his raw talent and athleticism into a polished game. He found that person in Tony Tucker, then head coach at Mercersberg Academy in central Pennsylvania. "I really didn't know if I would have the chance to come over here, but when my family moved to London and I started playing for club teams and I saw that other people moved on from there to the States, I realized that I probably had the opportunity to do the same thing," Onyekwe said. "So I started looking into it, started making inquiries and my coaches happened to have connections over here, so it worked out." It worked out with Onyekwe landing at Mercersberg and having a chance to play Division I college basketball. Here he was, still a neophyte to this game, but one whose pure athleticism put him ahead of so many other basketball players his age. He worked hard at Mercersberg, averaging 15 points and 14 rebounds per game in his first season in the United States. He was learning at an accelerated speed, taking this game to which he was still becoming accustomed and improving everyday. He had the skill to play at most schools in the country, but most schools in the country didn't know much about him. Dunphy didn't even make an attempt to recruit him, never having even heard of him. Besides, it wouldn't have mattered. Onyekwe was already committed. Long Beach State was interested in him and the coaches there had helped him get into Mercersberg when he was in London. There was really no choice. The decision was made. Onyekwe signed his letter of intent and was set to go. There was no turning back. The lanky forward with arms like a seven-footer and an amazing leaping ability was headed to California. Or so the Long Beach State coaches would have liked to believe. Onyekwe made the commitment to play for the 49ers without knowing much about the school itself or the types of colleges in the United States. After discovering that Long Beach State was not exactly at the top of the academic world, Onyekwe wanted out. He wanted a better school, but he was locked in and the 49ers would not release him from his letter of intent. "I didn't think they had a good academic program there," Onyekwe said. "After a while, I didn't feel comfortable with that decision." To avoid sitting out another year -- he was already taking a post-graduate year at Mercersberg -- Onyekwe started looking at the non-scholarship programs in the Ivy and Patriot leagues. He visited Penn, Cornell and Princeton, finally deciding that he wanted to play for the Quakers. "We had seen him play a number of times and we knew Ugonna was a kid who obviously had some terrific athletic ability," Dunphy said. "It was almost [as if] he [was] saying he wanted to come to Penn as much as it was us recruiting him." So here he is. After barely four years of organized basketball, a move across the Atlantic, a letter of intent and a changed mind, Onyekwe has arrived at the Palestra. And now comes the time when making a good first impression will be most important. Recruiting USA called him the 55th best recruit in the nation. He was ranked as the nation's eighth best power forward at the Reebok Vegas Holiday Prep Classic. More importantly, he arrives at Penn as one part of the Sensational Six, the best thing to happen to the Penn recruiting scene since Dunphy landed Jordan, Langel and Owens three years ago. It may be the deepest class since the likes of Tony Price, Bobby Willis, Tim Smith and Matt White arrived at Penn in 1975, destined to lead the Quakers to the NCAA Final Four in 1979. "There's a bit of pressure and high expectations, I guess," Onyekwe said. "I try not to think about that stuff because one day you're up, one day you're down. I just have to go out and do the best I can do." Onyekwe will certainly have his chance. In his 10-plus years at Penn, Dunphy has not put much pressure on his freshman players, but with the loss of forwards Paul Romanczuk and Jed Ryan to graduation, Onyekwe will likely be needed to fill part of the void. But he will not be asked to carry this team. The '99-00 Quakers squad belongs to players like Jordan, Langel, Owens and Brown, not to the kids who just popped up on the scene a few months ago. These freshmen, however, are the future. Along with his five classmates, Onyekwe will be crucial to Penn's success in upcoming years. Yes, he is still raw. Onyekwe readily admits that he still has a lot to learn about the game of basketball. And his coach agrees. "I've made the statement that he might be the best athlete we've ever had come into the program at Penn, but being an athlete and playing basketball are two different things," Dunphy said. "He needs to learn some of the nuances of the game and his fundamentals need to improve. All that being said, the sky's the limit as far as his potential is concerned." Tonight, it all begins. Onyekwe will have four years to realize his potential as a Penn basketball player and it all starts with a 9 p.m. tip-off in Kentucky this evening. It is his first game at Penn. Expect him to play, and he will probably play well. Because if there is one thing that Onyekwe knows how to do well, it is how to make a good first impression.
(10/26/99 9:00am)
by Adrain O'Connorby Adrain O'ConnorThe Daily Pennsylvanian But on Friday, several hundred lawyers, religious figures, academics and legislators gave it yet another shot. The Law School, along with the Anti-Defamation League, sponsored a national conference on "The First Amendment and Government Support for Religion and Religious Institutions." Recent national politics have brought this issue to the forefront, with presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore coming out in support of government funding for private service organizations, including those that are religiously affiliated. The piece of legislation debated Friday known as "Charitable Choice," passed in 1996, is a bill which has sparked controversy over where the separation of church and state actually lies. The conference wasted no time in getting to the crux of the debate, with a panel discussion on the nature of faith-based service organizations and on the social paradox they often represent. "It's often the liberal black churches you see out working in these programs, and yet it is the conservative politicians pushing the government towards them," commented Floyd Flake, a minister from Jamaica, N.Y. On the panel with Flake were Mark Scott of the Ella Baker House in Boston and David Saperstein, a rabbi from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. The three panelists came to an agreement of sorts that, in Saperstein's words, "there shouldn't be the impression that the government is supporting or funding proselytizing, and I don't see that here." After a short break, the format changed from panel discussion to heated debate. Arguing in favor of Critical Choice were Nathan Diament, a representative of the Orthodox Union, and Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Texas Law School. The were opposed by Barry Lynn, an ordained minister, lawyer and the chairperson of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor from the University of Southern California Law School. Despite obvious ideological differences and arguments about the logistics of implementation, the debate seemed to focus mostly on the technical definition of the separation of church and state and the debaters' varying interpretations of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. After about 90 minutes, the four debaters were unable to reach quite the same level of accord as the early-morning panel. But as Laycock explained, it's a difficult issue to resolve, and even the highest court in the land remains split "four to four to Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor -- and nobody knows what she thinks." Later in the day, a diverse group of panelists discussed the issue of school vouchers, which figures to play prominently in next week's mayoral election. Then, former Law School Dean Colin Diver moderated a panel called "Have Recent Court Holdings Enhanced or Eroded Religious Freedom for All Americans?"
(09/21/99 9:00am)
The Quakers defeated Cal State-Fullerton in a five-game battle Saturday. After being delayed by both Hurricane Floyd and United Airlines, the Penn volleyball team finally made it to San Francisco on separate U.S. Airways flights on Friday night. "When our luggage went and we didn't, that's when I lost it," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "One by one we got bumped down the list. Whoever had the highest-priced tickets got to go in front of us, so we switched airlines. It was tough but we did eventually all get out there and got a good night's rest." On Saturday, the Quakers even got to play, and on Sunday they came home with an impressive 4-4 record for the season after beating Cal State-Fullerton in their second match that day to emerge with Penn's first-ever volleyball victory in California. "Once we got there, it was a good trip," Penn senior K.C. Potter said. "It was so built up because of the delays but once we got there, everyone was really relieved." The Quakers were relieved, but very flat in their first match of the Golden Gate Invitational on Saturday, falling to Fresno State, 15-10, 15-6, 15-5. Penn's highest hitting percentage of the match was a meager .033 in the first game, and the Quakers fell below .000 in the second and third games. Penn then regrouped and took a five-game match from Fullerton that evening. While it was Penn's first-ever victory in California, it was the second time that the Quakers have beaten a California team -- Penn beat St. Mary's in four games at the William and Mary High IQ Classic in 1995. "[After the Fresno State match], we regrouped, and thought 'Did we come all this way to play like this?'" Penn coach Kerry Major said. "Then we went out and played awesome defense, and we stuck with it until the job was done [against Fullerton]." After winning a close first game against the Titans, Penn dropped the second game, 15-4. Although the Quakers lost 15-10 in the third game, their resiliency was impressive. "When we lost game two to Cal State-Fullerton, it would have been really easy to fold," Major said. "One of our goals was if we lost a game like that to come back, and I didn't want to have that spiral effect like against Rutgers. They played the way I know they can play." Penn faced match points in the fourth and fifth games against the Titans but still pulled through, winning 16-14 in each game. "We probably played the best level of ball we've played this season against Fullerton," said Penn freshman Kai Gonsorowski, who had 14 digs and four service aces in the match. "I think we started to realize that we're better than we think we are." The victory was Penn's third straight triumph in a five-game match. The cardiac Quakers are comfortable with that, however, because of the makeup of their team. "We have a lot of depth and a lot of heart," said Potter, who had 15 kills and six digs against the Titans. "We played confidently the whole match, and we knew that we were capable of beating them, and we pulled it out. Five-game matches are always really tight and intense and we played really hard and won the match." Because of the victory against Fullerton, Penn had a chance on Sunday against San Francisco to take second place in the tournament behind the Bulldogs. The Dons proved to be too big and tough, however, and beat the Quakers in three games. For her performance, Potter was named to her first-ever All-Tournament team. "It's an incredible honor to be noticed by the other coaches," Potter said. Still, she said the best part of the weekend was "beating Fullerton." Penn will need to keep that team focus up tonight when the team travels north to face Lehigh (3-6). The Engineers, who like Penn have played a tough pre-conference schedule, are the two-time defending Patriot League champions and are very tough to beat on their home floor. After all of their traveling, the Quakers had a day off from practicing yesterday but they do not believe that the lack of work in the gym will have any effect on their play. "We played so much this weekend that I think we're ready [for the Engineers]," said Penn senior Kristel Weaver, who hit .367 against Fullerton. "After going through the whole struggle this weekend, I think that we will be really strong when we face Lehigh." The Quakers will be happy that once they do return from their contest with the Engineers, they do not have to travel any further than Villanova until October.
(09/16/99 9:00am)
The Associated Press STANFORD, Calif. -- The president of Stanford University has announced he will step down next year as head of the prestigious university, but he said he won't go too far. Gerhard Casper, a 61-year-old constitutional law scholar, said Tuesday that he will resign next summer, take a sabbatical and then return to teach at Stanford. ''I always carry the Constitution with me, as is well known. And the 22nd Amendment says eight years is the maximum for the president of the United States. If eight years is good enough for the president of the United States, it's good enough for me,'' he said. Casper has recently faced criticism over the financially troubled merger of Stanford's teaching hospital with the University of California at San Francisco's hospitals. Together, they lost $60 million in the second year after the merger. While president of Stanford, a job that paid him $375,622 last year, Casper has focused on improving undergraduate curriculum and launching a new program for freshmen and sophomores that encourage mentoring relationships between students and faculty. Stanford Provost John Hennessy said Casper has shown that a university president can provide dedicated leadership while maintaining intellectual vitality. ''I particularly admire his active engagement with the academic programs of the university as well as his significant interaction with individual faculty and students,'' Hennessy said. Casper said he had no regrets for his time at the top. ''Let me invoke my favorite adjective in student's use these days for anything they like: awesome," he said. "This is an awesome university and I have had no disappointment.''
(09/08/99 9:00am)
Whitten, along with junior Damon Hamilton, was cut by Quakers coach Rudy Fuller after five days of training camp on August 30. The cuts reduced the size of the team roster from 29 to 27. "He was one of the guys we decided that wasn't really at the level we needed to be at," Fuller said of Whitten. More cuts will be made before the season begins on Friday to further reduce the roster size. The maximum number of players allowed to compete on the traveling squad is generally 18, but Fuller can take 20 to the season-opening George Mason Tournament in Fairfax, Va., on Friday. Although Whitten's absence from the team comes as a surprise to many, the 5'11'' forward was not shocked. According to Whitten's father, David N. Whitten, the Penn sophomore had predicted that he would get cut prior to leaving for training camp. "David said, 'Fuller's going to cut me because he doesn't like me,'" the elder Whitten said. Whitten's father admits that his son was not in particularly good shape for training camp and Fuller did not deny that this was one of the reasons he cut the Fort Worth, Texas, native. But the elder Whitten suspects that Fuller might have had an ulterior motive. "I think [Fuller] used some players last year in a self-serving way and never planned to keep them," David N. Whitten said. The elder Whitten suggested that Fuller had intended from the beginning to cut his son after one season. "I believe, in fact, that [Fuller] failed to utilize my son appropriately last year, taking advantage of him as he faithfully played the role of reserve/practice player as he developed other (apparently less skilled) players who for some reason were more appealing to him," the elder Whitten said in a statement last week. However, Fuller believes that the Quakers are simply a deeper team this season, a difference that can be seen in the freshman classes of this year and last year. "Last year we had to throw a lot of freshmen into the fire that maybe weren't ready," Fuller said. "This year the freshmen thrown into the fire have earned their shot." The younger Whitten, who could not be reached for comment, made the team last year as a walk-on out of Branson (Calif.) High School. Whitten did not see game action until the Quakers' 10th contest last season but quickly made a name for himself after scoring the game-winning goal in the 75th minute against St. Mary's of California. Three days later, Whitten scored another goal in a 3-1 victory over St. Francis at Rhodes Field, but the walk-on only saw one more start in Penn's final four games. Whitten played in a total of five games in 1998, starting three. He finished tied with fellow freshman Evan Anderson for second on the team with four points, behind only then-junior midfielder Reggie Brown, who had five points in 1999 off a goal and three assists. Anderson and Brown each played in all 16 of the team's games. Whitten was named to the NCSAA All-Far West team as a senior in high school. He also played for the Marine United Club that finished third in the California State Cup. Hamilton played in 14 games last season under coach Fuller. The Sharon, Mass., native, who is also a hurdler on the Penn track team, earned three starts but did not register a goal or assist in 1998.
(05/27/99 9:00am)
Penn's varsity eight boat downed Cornell for the 16th time in the last 17 years to keep the trophy. The Madeira Cup -- given each year to the winner of the Penn-Cornell heavyweight varsity eight race -- seems to have a permanent place in the Quakers' trophy case. Penn has relinquished the Cup only once since 1983. And this year was no different. Penn (6-1, 5-1 Ivy League) steamed by Cornell (3-5, 0-3) in convincing fashion Saturday on the Schuylkill River, outrowing the Big Red from the start. The Quakers finished in 5:55.91, almost 10 seconds ahead of Cornell (6:05.19). "We've always had success against [Cornell]," Penn senior captain Greg Rauscher said. "But we've worked really hard this week so it's been rough on everybody. We were just really tired [on Saturday]." While the fatigued varsity eight crew still managed an easy win over the Big Red, the hard training was too much for the second varsity eight to handle. Penn lost its second varsity race by just 2.65 seconds to Cornell. "I take the blame for the loss," Penn coach Stan Bergman said. "We really trained hard this week and the guys were just tired." Cornell, meanwhile, used their fresh lightweight eight in the second varsity race. The Big Red lightweights responded by rowing more than four seconds faster than their heavyweight counterparts. In the freshman race, Penn was again saddled with a loss, as Cornell won by nearly 10 seconds. "Cornell has a really good freshman crew," Bergman said. "But our guys are just struggling." Penn's open four, a combination of varsity and freshmen rowers, had some success on Saturday, as the boat defeated Cornell, 6:57.00 to 7:00.55. The Quakers' crew was largely inexperienced -- none of the four rowers or the coxswain had raced prior to this season. The Big Red were victorious in the two other four-man boats -- one by a blowout and one by a very close margin. While Cornell's varsity four without coxswain destroyed Penn by more than twelve seconds, the Big Red varsity four won by just 1.1 seconds. "Cornell got out to open water early [in the varsity four race], but we came back," Bergman said. "We caught a little bit of a crab and that probably lost it for us in the end," referring to when a rower's oar extends too deep in the water, causing the boat to stop momentarily. The Quakers will finish their season this weekend at the IRA national championships at Cooper River in Camden, N.J., today through Sunday. The three-day meet features some of the best crew teams in the country. Penn is currently ranked fifth in the United States Rowing National Collegiate Coaches poll and finished fourth at IRAs last year, but Penn coach Stan Bergman is not just concerned about a high place for his varsity eight squad. "We want to have our best race of the season [at IRAs]," Bergman said. "If that gives us the gold, fine. If that gives us seventh place, fine." Still, Penn is looking to pull off an upset victory. California and EARC Sprints champion Princeton will be tough for the Quakers to catch, but Penn should be in a competitive race with Brown, Washington and Wisconsin -- numbers three, four and six, respectively -- for the next four places. The Cooper River course is no stranger to the Penn crew, as the IRAs have been in New Jersey for the last six years. "It's a great course," Rauscher said. "It's straight -- no turns, no currents and the water's almost always flat." Penn's lightweight crew will also compete at IRAs. The Quakers are ranked ninth after their ninth-place finish at Sprints three weeks ago.
(03/25/99 10:00am)
Members of the Class of 2002 may recall the fuchsia-colored novel The Woman Warrior which appeared in their mailboxes last August as part of the Penn Reading Project. The book's author, Maxine Hong Kingston, a creative writing professor at the University of California at Berkeley, spoke at the School of Arts and Sciences' 16th annual Dean's Forum yesterday after taking part in several other events around campus earlier in the day. At the forum, SAS Dean Samuel Preston honored undergraduate and graduate students as Dean's Scholars, after which Kingston spoke to the audience about how her novels relate to war and peace. "It provided for a more interesting afternoon with Kingston speaking, rather than only presenting us with awards," Dean's Scholar and College senior Deepak Sampathu said. University Trustee Natalie Koether, who has been chairperson of the SAS Board of Overseers for the past nine years, was also honored with the first-ever Dean's Medal in recognition of her extraordinary service to SAS and her leadership. Immediately following the award presentation, Kingston lectured on "The Woman Warrior and Beyond." She addressed the audience by doing what she does best -- telling stories. Kingston mentioned that she recently found out that The Woman Warrior was being taught in one of the most unusual places she had ever heard of, the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. When she visited the institution to find out why the students were reading her book, she learned they were doing so because the novel was an inspiring myth that gave support to the female soldiers at the Academy. This first "talk story" was Kingston's way of introducing a discussion on war and peace. She explained that she meant to make Warrior a nonviolent piece of writing. "Unbelievably enough, I never tied war and peace into the actual novel so strongly," said College freshman Amy Timmerman, a Daily Pennsylvanian staff member. "To hear [Kingston] talking about the novel and identifying it in the context of war makes me think that I should go back and read it again." Kingston mentioned how she decided several years ago to write an addition to the three sacred Chinese books of peace which suggested tactics on how to end war and make peace. She was going to invent a fourth book of peace that would fit herself and modern times. But the fires that struck Berkeley, Calif., several years ago burned down Kingston's house and with it, her work. It was then that Kingston realized she was going about writing the book the wrong way. She said she knew that to write about peace and harmony she should be around those elements, not alone in her attic. "I had to create a community first before I could write about one," Kingston told the crowd of a several hundred people. And that is exactly what she did. She gathered together a group of homeless war veterans eight years ago and since then the group has continued to meet regularly to write, eat and relax together. They even share their writing pieces with one another. "It's not fair if I do all the work and all you do is read it," Kingston said. "A perfect community happens when you talk back to me." Prior to Kingston's speech, Preston named 20 students Dean's Scholars for their exceptional academic performance, rigorous course loads and extracurricular pursuits. The honored College students included sophomores Sofya Malamud and Kai Ouye; juniors David Boncarosky, Kristina Herbert and Andrew March; and seniors Christopher Cutie, Beth Ann Griffin, Sampathu and Anastasia Schulze. In the graduate division, Dean's Scholar recipients were History and Sociology of Science student Joshua Buhs; Sara Davis, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; John Harding, Religious Studies; Matthew Hart, English; Stephen Hock; Heidi Kuehne, Biology; Carlos Norena, Ancient History; Julia Shear, Art and Archaeology; Andrey Schevchenko, Economics; Patricia Stern, Sociology; and Isabel Taube, Art History. Additionally, College of General Studies graduate student Patricia Scott was named a Dean's Scholar. Earlier in the day, Kingston lectured to English Professor Mark Chiang's class, where students had the opportunity to ask her about her follow-up novel to The Woman Warrior, China Men, which they had previously read in class. In addition to giving advice to aspiring writers in that class, Kingston also held a writing workshop with 15 selected Penn students at Kelly Writers House later yesterday the afternoon.
(02/25/99 10:00am)
Several student groups noted the second annual Students and Youth Day of Action. Over 100 members of the University community braved the cold to rally together on College Green yesterday in support of affirmative action. The "Call to Action Rally" was the main event in a series of programs marking the second annual Students and Youth Day of Action in Defense of Affirmative Action. Several organizations -- including the United Minorities Council, White Women Against Racism and the Black Graduate and Professional Students Assembly -- joined together to sponsor events across campus. College junior and UMC Political Chairperson Daniel Cherry called the rally a "proactive rally in defense of affirmative action." He stated that the purpose of the rally was so that the "University knows students will do everything in our power to make sure affirmative action stays at [Penn]." "This is not a black-white issue, it's one that affects us all," Cherry added. Vinay Harpalani, a second-year Education graduate student, said that throughout history the "gains made by African Americans were followed by reactionary movements" of white people. "It's time for us, as students at Penn, to mobilize? [and] build a vast, diverse commission to fight this war," Harpalani added. At the rally, Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum read a statement from University President Judith Rodin, in which Rodin said she gave "full support" to affirmative action policies at Penn, emphasizing that "we must recognize and accept the diversity of the society we expect our graduates to lead." In her own speech, McCoullum referred to her grandson in stressing that people need to "reaffirm our commitment" to upholding equal admissions policies at universities across the country for future generations. Throughout the day, BGAPSA and other organizations sponsored a petition drive on Locust Walk in support of affirmative action, both at Penn and nationally. The list of signatures on the petition will be presented to Rodin in the hopes that the University will continue to "ensure equal access to [Penn's] campus in admissions," said BGAPSA President Nsenga Burton, a second-year graduate student in the Annenberg School for Communication. The day concluded with a speech in Stiteler Hall by Islamic minister David Muhammed, who spoke about the importance of getting black people involved in their communities. "Black people have always been mobilizing toward some form of action, toward some form of power," Muhammed said. "[White supremacy] is a mindset that has to be altered and changed." February 24 was designated last year as a national day of defense by students at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan in response to recent initiatives to end affirmative action, such as Proposition 209 in California. This year 25 universities across the country recognized the day.
(02/16/99 10:00am)
Showing that even an expert on lie detection is sick of the impeachment trials, Ken Adler refused to talk about the Clinton situation yesterday, steering away from a discussion on whether or not the president lied to the grand jury. Instead, Adler, a professor at Northwestern University, spoke about the polygraph and its place in American history to around 35 professors and graduate students from the History and Sociology of Science Department yesterday afternoon. The speech, entitled The Technology of Truth: The American Polygraph, the Republic of Expertise, focused on the emergence and nature of the polygraph and its role in evidence collection and the judicial process. "Many of the same forensic sciences used today [in our legal system] can be seen throughout history," Adler said. The modern lie detector was developed by John Larson and Leonarde Keeler at the University of California at Berkely in the 1920s. The machine eventually came to be used by both industry and government as a means of determining the loyalty of individuals and maintained a great deal of popularity until the 1960s, according to Adler. "Jurists banned the lie detector in court precisely because of the way it thrived in the marketplace," Adler said. In the United States, judges have the discretion to choose whether or not to allow the results of lie detector tests to be admitted as evidence. Few polygraph test results are admitted in court because they infringe upon the right to free and private thought, as well as the Fifth Amendment right to avoid self incrimination, Adler said. The lie detector is currently under a great deal of scientific scrutiny. Researcher David Lykken claims that the polygraph correctly identifies people telling the truth only 53 percent of the time -- which is little better than random guessing, according to Adler. Another critic of the polygraph claims that 80 percent of those who administer the test are unqualified, Adler said. In principle, the lie detector works by monitoring an individual's temperature, blood pressure and other factors. These conditions become more pronounced when someone tells a lie. But according to Adler, this system is far from perfect. Accusatory or personal questions often elicit physiological responses that mimic the signs of a lie. When the polygrapher examines the resulting data, he often misinterprets these signs as indications of lying. Although the lie detector test is administered one to two million times a year, most polygraphers admit that the test is extremely unreliable and its main function is to initiate confessions, according to Adler. Adler said this dubious means of assessing truth grew out of a general trend in the United States in the mid-20th century to use science as a way to standardize the world. The polygraph offered Americans a seemingly objective way to bring about justice. Larson and Keeler developed the polygraph during the same era the SAT and IQ tests were developed, according to Alder. "Our Anglo-American system is a hybridization of the republic of expertise and democracy," Adler said.
(02/12/99 10:00am)
From Michael Brus', "Narcissist's Holiday," Fall '99 From Michael Brus', "Narcissist's Holiday," Fall '99Judy wants to have a chat with you. Well, OK, not with you specifically. Actually, what she has in mind is something much loftier than shooting the breeze. She wants to have a "discourse" with you, a "dialogue" that will move beyond the "polarization" of right and left, a thoughtful "conversation" that will transcend the simplistic "entertainments" that now pass for politics. The PNC is a Who's Who of the liberal intelligentsia, dedicated to analyzing not politics per se, but the "health" of political debate. Rodin has assembled a crack team of almost 50 political players. These include academics, professional Democrats such as Bill Bradley, Clinton flack John Podesta and campaign sugar-daddy Teresa Heinz; and local notables, including professors Drew Faust, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Martin Seligman. What all have in common, according to PNC Executive Director Stephen Steinberg, is that they are all "experts on issues of public discourse and the democratic process." Monday evening at the White Dog Cafe, Rodin officially "introduced" the PNC's work to the public. The White Dog soiree was really just a formality. But despite the PR gloss, the PNC has produced some real results since convening in 1996. As proof of this, read the transcripts of the PNC's speeches and discussions at its World Wide Web site. Amid the expected boilerplate and self-congratulation are some thought provoking discussions, like the debate between affirmative action advocate William Gray, director of the United Negro College Fund, and Ward Connerly, a businessperson and leader of California's fight against racial preferences in government and state universities. Rodin should be congratulated for this achievement. Still, the PNC ultimately promises more than it can deliver, both because the panel is not as ideologically diverse as it could have been and because, on some level, the structure of political debate is inextricable from politics itself. First, inclusivity. Republicans and conservatives are noticeably underrepresented, which is a problem in a forum that purports to discuss the consequences of America's culture wars. In response to this criticism, Steinberg told me, "If you have people with certain views who can't work with somebody with different views, you're not going to get anywhere." Yet this country does not lack for reasonable, intelligent conservatives. Where is former Senator Warren Rudman, former Education Secretaries Lynn Cheney and William Bennett, editor Irving Kristol or historian Gertrude Himmelfarb? How about Penn's vocal conservative historians, Walter McDougall and Alan Kors? The Commission seeks to engage "public-opinion makers," yet there is not a single representative from conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or Stanford's Hoover Institution. Perhaps the most notable absence is Sheldon Hackney, a History professor and former University president. Several years ago, as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hackney spearheaded a "National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity." Not only did Rodin virtually copy Hackney's idea and then not invite him, she made pains to distance the PNC from her politically tainted predecessor. "I thought, 'There has to be a better way to offer and demonstrate moral leadership than by imitating a 600-pound elephant squashing or drowning out what behaviors or opinions it dislikes,'" she said at a PNC session. "First, we've got to learn to tolerate the intolerable. It is the antithesis to political correctness." I interviewed Hackney extensively early last semester. Rightly or wrongly, he still thinks "political correctness" is a red herring in public debate, and he has a thoughtful argument to back it up. Rodin, for personal and political reasons, does not want to hear it. Besides these flaws in membership, there is also a flaw in goals. The PNC cannot live up to its own expectations because of the impossibility of becoming completely non-partisan. At the White Dog, for example, Rodin praised Hillary Rodham Clinton for her role in the national health care debate in 1994. There are many political analysts, of course, who saw Hillary's closed-door strategy meetings as a secretive, heavy-handed perversion of public discourse. There are others who are equally critical of the GOP's manipulative ad blitz. I doubt whether a platonic panel devoted to "discourse analysis" can separate politics from process, but Judy's experts are giving it the old college try.
(11/09/98 10:00am)
For from their bases, three Air Force officers are getting an education of a different sort. and Erin Reilly On a recent Thursday morning, Maj. Don Zimmerman took a seat in the second-floor Kelly Writers House seminar room and extracted a ballpoint pen and a thick bulkpack from his book bag. Wearing a red-and-green flannel shirt, jeans and thin-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a typical Penn student than an officer in the U.S. Air Force. "We're not required to wear our uniform on a regular basis to class," said Zimmerman, 35, a second-year English graduate student who was arriving at a class on British literature of the 18th and early-19th centuries. Though their clothing might not give them away, Zimmerman and fellow Air Force officers Maj. John Terino and Capt. David Bush are on duty in University City -- on duty to learn, that is. In each case, the federal government is footing the bill for their education or research, as it commonly does for military officers: Zimmerman is pursuing a doctorate in English; Terino a doctorate in History and Sociology of Science. Bush, a pediatrician, is on a fellowship doing clinical and research work at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Zimmerman and Terino, 34, did not know each other personally before coming to the University, though they were familiar with each other's backgrounds because one taught literature and the other history at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Bush, 29, came to Philadelphia in July fresh from a three-year residency at a base near San Francisco. All three hope the knowledge and experience they gain in the City of Brotherly Love will benefit military personnel across the country -- from cadets at the academy to the chief of staff at the Pentagon to the families of Air Force servicemen at bases with major medical centers. The Shakespeare Nut Though his official task is to earn a degree, and his education is being fully funded by the Air Force Institute of Technology, Zimmerman says his real mission is to open Academy cadets' minds to the world outside air combat. Zimmerman, who is on his fourth military-funded degree and will return to the academy as an assistant professor in its English department, said the typical cadet enters the school thinking, "I'm going to be a fighter pilot. What does Shakespeare have to do with me? I know I am going to fly an F-16." Zimmerman commended Penn's English professors for their ability to use the Internet to aid in the teaching of literature. He will try to bring chat sessions and Web pages with direct links to literary resources to academy classrooms. The major was initially unsure that the government would be willing to fund his education at an expensive private university, and first looked at a number of public universities with respectable English departments. Thus, he was surprised when his supervisor, Academy English department head Col. Jack Shuttleworth, suggested Penn. "If we are spending taxpayers' money to prepare future faculty members, we want to make sure they get the best education possible," Shuttleworth said. He said Zimmerman was uniquely qualified to obtain such a pricey degree. "In the changing technological world, we need someone who is humanely educated as well as technologically efficient," he said. "[Zimmerman] unifies both of these." And he unifies both of something else: Zimmerman has had experience in both the academic and combat spheres of the military. In fact, he faced the decision of his life nearly eight years ago with the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War. As an Air Force pilot, his commander offered him the chance to fly in Desert Storm. His wife, Gail, was 3 1/2 months pregnant at the time with their first child, Marshall, and a week earlier her doctor told her she no longer had to stay in bed. "In no sense did I want to go all the way around the world," Zimmerman said. Evaluating his options, he came to the conclusion that since his wife had a church and military-family support-group and her pregnancy was no longer in a dangerous stage, he should take the mission. Zimmerman ultimately joined his crew at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean. But 12 hours before his first scheduled combat mission, the war was over. These days, Zimmerman's family and mission are grounded in Colorado. When Zimmerman -- who is in an accelerated three-year program in which he must finish his dissertation by May 2000 -- returns to the academy classrooms, he hopes the move will be his last. The History Buff Terino, a third-year graduate student in the History and Sociology of Science Department, also has the military to thank for his repeated, free-of-charge visits to universities. The Reserve Officers' Training Corps program provided the financial assistance Terino, now 34, needed to attend Penn as an undergraduate, earning his bachelor's degree in HSS in 1986. The Air Force Academy was looking for a teacher and returned him for his master's degree in HSS, which he received in 1991. Now he is back to finish what he started and earn a doctorate in the subject. Upon completion of his degree, the Pentagon will employ Terino as the historian for its chief of staff. As for the future beyond Penn and the Pentagon, Terino hopes to return in four or five years to the academy as a professor. He, like Zimmerman, is on a time constraint. "I turn into a pumpkin in September of '99," Terino said, explaining that his funding does not extend past that date, forcing him to write his dissertation faster than normal graduate students. Penn has already shaped Terino's life in more than just the educational sense. He met his wife Susan, a 1986 College alumna, as an undergraduate. Another thing: Terino is "a real nut when it comes to Penn football," said Zimmerman, who has attended several recent games with Terino. In addition, because of his long-time affiliation with the school, Terino has established "a great rapport" over the years with professors in the HSS department. And Terino echoed Shuttleworth's feelings about why officials chose Penn as opposed to other institutions for Air Force officer education. "If you want to be the best, you have to associate with the best," he said. The Children's Doc Bush will also return to the Air Force, but not as a professor. When he finishes his clinical and research work at CHOP in three years, he will care for the children of servicemen and servicewomen at one of the Air Force's four bases with major medical centers, in California, Texas, Ohio or Mississippi. "If I'm taking care of their kids," Bush said, "then I'm contributing to their peace of mind and allowing them to do their jobs better." As a military doctor, Bush is guided not only by the oath of the medical profession but by the stated credo of the Air Force. "Everything we all do is to support the mission," he said of himself and his fellow military men in University City. "And the mission is to defend and protect the constitution of the United States and the country." This sense of duty that he feels toward his country was one of the factors that propelled him into military service as he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a doctor. It was the Air Force Academy that put him through five years of medical school at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He graduated in 1995 with a medical degree, a doctorate in Clinical Epidemiology, and the rank of captain. Bush then served his three-year residency in pediatrics at Travis Air Force Base, 45 minutes outside of San Francisco, and came to Philadelphia in July when he received funding from the Air Force for a fellowship in pediatric cardiology. At CHOP, Bush treats patients but will also pursue hospital-based research in the next few years before returning to a base. Somewhere in between caring for patients and conducting research, he still finds time to spend with his wife, Anneke, and their 19-month-old daughter Abigail in their Havertown, Pa., home. The couple is expecting another child in February. And despite the 36-hour shifts he puts in regularly, "I love what I do," Bush said. "We take children that may not have a chance for life, and give them a full life," he added. "Everything we do is to improve the chance of not only living, but living a full life and achieving the most that they can. It's rewarding to see that you've helped someone do that."
(10/31/98 10:00am)
Before Yale's season opener, Elis transfer Rashad Bartholomew huddled with the offensive linemen on the grass of Brown Stadium. The tailback offered a prayer with his protectors, asking that the bond forged between him and the offensive line would prove strong enough to break Yale's losing ways. Bartholomew had recently freed himself from a trying, two-year experience at the Air Force academy, and like a jovial newlywed on his second honeymoon, vowed this time to make things work. The message was a simple quid pro quo -- if the linemen blocked for him, he promised to run the Elis out of the cellar. Six weeks into the season, Bartholomew has been a man of his words as Yale sits in a four-way tie for the Ivy League lead at 2-1. · In Bartholomew's September 19 debut, the Elis broke a 13-game Ivy League losing streak. Since then, Yale has also snapped streaks of two straight winless seasons at home and of four consecutive losses to Columbia. At 3-3 overall, the team owes much thanks to Bartholomew and the offensive line. "It is one of the closest relationships I've seen between positions," said Yale sophomore lineman Eric Lee, who also blocked for Bartholomew at Peninsula High School in southern California. Upon arriving in New Haven, Conn., this September as a last-minute transfer, Bartholomew was introduced by Lee to the offensive linemen and they quickly accepted him as an their leader on and off the field. He's been a total, turnaround player for a team that had become mocked as the East Coast's Prairie View. Second-year coach Jack Siedlecki made a gutsy move naming Bartholomew the starting tailback despite not joining the team until September, but it has proved an ingenious vote of confidence for the transfer, as Bartholomew ran for 140 yards against Brown -- even without knowing many plays in the book. "I guess we're dealing with the new Yale," Bears coach Phil Estes said after the game, alluding to the difference from last season when Siedlecki called on wide receiver Derek Bentley to play tailback, and 1995-96, when Carm Cozza played the ineffective Jabbar Craigwell. Possessing the Ivy's best average yards per carry among backs at 5.13, and on a pace to break 1,000yards rushing, Bartholomew uses his blazing speed (4.49 40-yard dash), extraordinary power and a Terrell Davis-sized vertical leap to wreak havoc on opposing defenses. "He's got the best leaping ability I've seen," Siedlecki said. · The turf warrior, however, had childhood dreams of leading air raids -- not a ground attack. Rashad's father, Ronald, has served in the United States Air Force for over 20 years and is currently ranked a colonel and stationed in San Antonio, Texas. When Rashad was a high school senior, his father encouraged him to accept free tuition to the Air Force Academy, since it was an affordable option and Rashad had an interest in flying. "At the time, it was the logical choice," Rashad said. It didn't work out. "When he went to [Air Force], he hoped and dreamed to be a pilot," said Brava Bartholomew, Rashad's mom. "But he washed out before he even left the ground -- he didn't qualify." With a sub-par score on his flight aptitude test, Rashad found himself prohibited from flight. He felt alone on the Colorado campus, unable to partake in the activity that prompted him to attend Air Force. A damper on his dream drained him emotionally, as building new friendships in the intense environment proved difficult. "Going to Air Force required a lot of commitment," Bartholomew said. "I wanted to have a little more happiness." As far as football, Rashad had been a high school star at both schools he attended -- O'Fallon and Peninsula. Air Force coach Fisher DeBarry, in addition to others, heavily recruited him. But Bartholomew struggled to gain yards for the Falcons against Western Athletic Conference defenses, and was quickly moved to the bench. He watched from the sidelines as then-Falcons junior Jemal Singleton emerged as the ball carrier out of the halfback and freshman Qualario Brown played occasionally as two-deep. "He wasn't too happy at Air Force," Lee said. "He's a very sociable kid, but going to Air Force depressed him." · If Bartholomew stayed in school for a third year, he would have been obliged to serve in the military upon graduation -- a task that two years at the academy led him to dread. While he went through the motions of studying for his sophomore courses and improving his football game in spring practice, Bartholomew devoted most of his energy to filling out transfer applications. He received quick acceptances from Division I-A football schools Virginia and Northwestern and the Ivy League's Penn and Yale. This was the start to a new beginning. Once completing his sophomore year at Air Force, Bartholomew finally confronted his father about the decision he was prepared to make. "He kind of expected it," Rashad said. "After two years, I realized things were not going the way I wanted. He was a little taken at first but he accepted it." While Bartholomew liked the Quakers because of their strong Ivy League football reputation, he was most interested in Yale because Lee often raved about the Elis' new head coach, Jack Siedlecki. "We talked through the school year," Lee said. "He asked how school was for me and I said I loved it." Bartholomew went that June to visit Yale and meet with Siedlecki -- a visit that proved decisive in his joining the Elis. Not only did he reunite face-to-face with Lee, but he also had a pleasant conversation with the Yale second-year coach. Unlike at Penn, where coach Al Bagnoli indicated a commitment to start Jim Finn at tailback, Siedlecki made it clear that a starting position was available. He even gave the Palos Verdes, Ca., native reason to believe the program was going to rebound from its collapse in the mid-1990s. "He's very talented and came in at a position where we had tremendous need," Siedlecki said. "Our defensive back, Josh Phillips, came out of spring practice as our No. 1 [running back], and we really needed to find someone who would make a difference." Since accepting admission to Yale, things have changed for the political science major. · "We've been making things work. But from the economic point of view, it has been a [big] transition," Bartholomew's mom said, noting the family now must pay for him to attend school. Even his depressed social life has turned around, as roommate David Smith said, "everyone around here -- even outside football -- seems to know who he is," and according to Lee, "he can finally have fun and talk to girls again." With his spirits raised, Bartholomew's football game has taken off at Yale like the proverbial jet. After he was tackled by the last Brown defensive back to deny him a touchdown on his first play from scrimmage, Bartholomew continued to run for a marathon of yards in week one -- carrying the football 31 times for 140 yards, including a nine-yard, third-quarter touchdown. His teammate, quarterback Joe Walland, earned Ivy League Player of the Week for his performance. But with his rushing totals, Bartholomew couldn't have been far behind in the voting. Over the next few weeks, Yale beat Holy Cross for its first home win since 1996 and then fell to Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H., 22-19. Defenses began focusing on Bartholomew, and it appeared the magic was wearing thin. Last week, however, the former Falcon made a 180-degree reversal, rushing the football 17 times for 192 yards -- an incredible 11.3 yards per carry -- against Columbia. Until then, the Lions had the best rush-defense in the Ivy League. What made Bartholomew's performance so impressive was that Columbia's eight-man front succeeded at limiting Finn, the Ivy's leading rushing, to 77 yards on 27 carries. Bartholomew more than doubled Finn's totals, with 36 percent of the yards coming on a fourth-quarter playbreaker. On that play, he ran through the Lions defensive line and beat the Columbia right cornerback into the endzone 70-yards downfield. "Ivy League competition compared to Division I-A teams is more lumpy," Bartholomew said. "It's not spread evenly. So, a team might have one good guard and not another to go with it." The Columbia game was the first time Bartholomew really concentrated on attacking the weakness, rather than just running at holes. The approach proved effective, as he showed that even with leading defenses focusing on him, he would find open holes. · Excited to play for the first time since high school, the most important task down the home stretch of Bartholomew's first Ivy season is to remain focused. Even as a two-year veteran of Air Force, however, that may prove difficult this weekend. Penn's homecoming is also a homecoming of sorts for the Bartholomew family, as Ronald flies from San Antonio, Texas, to his new home in West Virginia on Friday night, and will then drive with Rashad's mom to Penn for the game. In addition, Bartholomew will also have friends in the opposing stands, as for the first time, his compatriots can travel from school to school to watch him play. "People say it takes a lot of discipline to make it through Air Force," Bartholomew said. "But here it's much tougher to manage my time. Before, it was choosing between things I disliked. Now, there are things I like to do -- fun distractions." When Bartholomew kneels down with the offensive line in prayer -- which has become the Elis' routine before game time -- he has reason give thanks, beyond just Yale's 2-1 conference record. While he may never fly in a combat mission, Yale has returned football, friends and fun to Bartholomew's daily routine. Even if Siedlecki's crew falls to Penn on Franklin Field -- and the odds predict they will -- an element of smile will remain on the junior tailback's face. Once again, he's playing ball and having fun.
(10/28/98 10:00am)
The Daily Californian BERKELEY, Calif. (U-WIRE) -- A University of California at Berkeley research assistant was found hanged in her University Village home in Albany Thursday in what police are calling an apparent suicide. UC Police found Irima Lisitski, 29, at 7:45 a.m. Thursday at her residence in University Village, a university-owned housing complex for married students and students with dependents. Police were alerted to the incident by a neighbor who saw the researcher's body through the window, UC police Capt. Bill Cooper said. By the time she was found, Lisitski had been dead for less than 12 hours, he said. At this point, the official cause of death has not been announced, said Michael Yost, a supervisor in the Alameda County coroners office. But he said the incident is being treated as a suicide. There is no indication of foul play, according to UC Police Sgt. Howard Hickman, who is supervising the investigation. Lisitski's family, who live in Haifa, Israel, have been contacted, authorities announced. A neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, described Lisitski as "quiet." "She had difficulty speaking English. She stayed to herself," the neighbor said. Lisitski was a post-doctoral researcher in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department, according to the neighbor. Lisitski, who was originally from Russia, had been residing in Israel for the last seven years before coming to the United States, the neighbor said. Lisitski had only lived in University Village for nine days before she died, according to a resident advisor at the village, who wished to remain anonymous. Lisitski had been depressed before her death due, in part, to the fact that she was in a foreign environment, according to her neighbor. "We wish we could have helped her," she said. "She had difficulty adjusting. She was very depressed, but we had no idea how much." The neighbor said she thought Lisitski had also faced problems occurring in her former home, Israel, at the time of her death. According to International House Executive Director Joseph Lurie, who has dealt with two suicides by foreign students in the past year, the change in cultural environments has an effect on foreign students. "There are special vulnerabilities for foreign students because they are far from home, but that does not necessarily cause something like this," Lurie said. Lisitski had been divorced for three years and was allowed to stay in the village because she had an eight-year-old daughter, the neighbor said. The daughter was staying with her grandparents in Israel when the incident occurred, the neighbor said. Because the village houses students living with dependents, the university had been pressuring Lisitski to bring her daughter to the country to live with her, the neighbor added. The daughter was expected to join her mother shortly, she said. The death has prompted village officials to conduct outreach efforts within the complex in order to deal with the reactions of other residents.
(10/23/98 9:00am)
Penn freshman walk-on David Whitten will meet high school teammate Adrian Rapp at Brown. Coming off an offensive explosion in a 3-1 victory over St. Francis (Pa.) on Wednesday afternoon, the Penn men's soccer team heads into dangerous waters this Sunday -- the Providence, R.I., confines of defending Ivy League champion Brown. Waiting for the streaking Quakers on Brown's Stevenson Field, though, will be friend as well as foe. Former high school and club teammates Adrian Rapp, a freshman striker for the Bears, and David Whitten, a freshman striker for the Quakers, face off for the first time in different uniforms. "It's going to be a challenge [for all of us]," Quakers junior striker Reggie Brown said. "If we're on for 90 minutes, then we come out with a win. But if we're not on for 90 minutes, then a team like Brown will be able to punish us." The Quakers (3-8-1, 0-3-1 Ivy League) may just be prepared for this battle against the Bears (9-2-1, 2-0-1), who are ranked No. 3 in New England by the National Soccer Coaches Association. The last two outings have seen the Quakers "be on," scoring four goals in stringing together back-to-back victories over St. Mary's (Calif.) and St. Francis. Injuries and arrivals have changed the face of both teams since their last meeting a year ago. The Bears have been without their returning First-Team All-Ivy selection, Mike Rudy, for over a month due to a concussion, and Quakers senior tri-captain Jared Boggs is out for at least another week with "a partial tear" in his medial collateral ligament. In their absence, the two freshmen from the small Branson (Calif.) High School will be looked upon to gear up their respective squads up front. Two-time Ivy Rookie of the Week Rapp leads the Bears on their attack, while Quakers leading scorer Whitten patrols the other end of the field. The two played together for four years on their high school team, and for several more on a Marin United Club team that finished third in the California State Cup in '97. Last season, despite 11 goals and 13 assists by Rapp, Whitten managed to outscore his co-captain and be named Branson's offensive player of the year. "I know I'm definitely looking forward to taking on Brown," Whitten said. "I have a friend [Rapp] who plays striker over there who I played with in high school. So I'm looking forward to -- pardon my French -- talking a little shit over there." Rapp, who saw little playing time prior to Rudy's injury, has been unstoppable since his teammate went down -- tallying three goals and an assist in his past eight games. "[Brown] was fortunate to have a guy like Rapp who was biding his time behind Rudy to come in and now step up his game and take over for them," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "Rapp was recruited to be an understudy to Rudy, but he's had to develop a lot quicker than we anticipated," Brown coach Michael Noonan said. "He's scored some very good goals for us, and he's improving every day in practice." But in Whitten, the Quakers may just have an equal to the elusive Rapp. The Quakers striker also started '98 slowly -- he did not see any action until the Quakers 10th game -- and was even misidentified as 'Carlos' in the Quakers media guide. Whitten has come of age in the last two games, scoring goals in each of the Quaker wins. Last Sunday, in his first collegiate start, Whitten netted the game-winner in front of friends and family at St. Mary's. "David is trying his best to really get his name into the line-up each and every day," Fuller said. "That's what we need out of guys. We need guys who are trying to win a spot in the line-up on the field when they get their opportunity, and David's almost forcing my hand." Along with Whitten, Fuller has had his hand "forced" in the last few games by sophomore midfielder Michael McElwain, who also netted a goal against St. Francis. Invigorated with the frenetic energy of Brown, junior striker Jason Karageorge and freshman striker Evan Anderson, the Quakers head to Providence with a newfound offense that the Bears will be forced to respect. The offensive end of the field is where this matchup will be decided, as evidenced by Brown's high-scoring, come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Penn last season. The Quakers dominated that game early by grabbing a 2-0 lead, but three second-half strikes completed a startling comeback by the Bears in the final 34 minutes. At the same time, Bears sophomore goalkeeper Matt Cross has shut out all three Ivy foes he has faced, and with a 0.88 g.a.a. is the backbone of the leagues leading defense. "Brown is clearly one of the top teams in the Ivy League, and they're battling to get an NCAA bid," Fuller said. "We're going to need to be on top of our game to take care of them." But if Whitten and the Quakers offense can duplicate the performances of their last two games then the team might be coming back to Philadelphia on Sunday night with its first Ivy win in its last 11 tries.
(09/04/98 9:00am)
and Edward Sherwin Not all Penn students, faculty and staff took a break over the summer. Instead, one Penn affiliate travelled to Mongolia, another prepared to blast off into outer space and a third found something surprising in his pants. · Garrett Reisman, a 1991 graduate of the Management and Technology program, was chosen in June by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a member of this year's astronaut candidate class. He began 1 1/2 years of training and evaluation at the Johnson Space Center in Houston in late August. Only 100 of the 2,600 applicants for this year's candidate class were even granted interviews for the elite 25-member group. "It was sort of a long shot -- no pun intended," Reisman said of his chances for acceptance into the competitive program. After training, Reisman and his 24 classmates will receive technical assignments within the Astronaut Office before actually voyaging beyond the earth's atmosphere. He said he could be in line for a mission within three or four years. After a childhood of model rockets and movies of the Apollo missions, Reisman, 30, majored in mechanical engineering and economics while at Penn. An Alpha Tau Omega brother, he served as president of the InterFraternity Council in 1989. After graduation, Reisman received his master's degree and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. A native of New Jersey, he currently works as a spacecraft engineer in the Space and Electronics Group of Redondo Beach, Calif.-based TRW Inc. · Amanda Fine, a 1997 graduate of Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, will travel to Mongolia in September to spend a year as a fellow at the Veterinary Research Institute in Ulaan Bator. Fine, from Bristol, Pa., is one of only 17 winning applicants selected as a Luce Scholar for the 1998-1999 year from among 125 to 130 candidates. The highly competitive fellowship, established by the Henry Luce Foundation in 1974, "enables young Americans of exceptional promise to live and work in nations throughout east and southeast Asia for one year." Fine received her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa., in 1993 before coming to Penn. And Fine is no stranger to the kind of first-hand research in which she will take part in Mongolia. In 1992, she spent four months in South Africa researching parasites of importance to the livestock industry. Sixty-seven colleges and universities across the United States submitted nominations to the program this year. · Only a few months out of school himself, 1998 College graduate Harold Shields is already hard at work, figuring out how to make good on his recent pledge to help send a group of youngsters to college. Shields -- who attended the University on a full scholarship, as part of the "Say Yes to Education" program -- was searching for a way to give back when he announced his plan to start a scholarship fund for the graduating fifth-grade class of Philadelphia's Belmont Elementary School. Shields' announcement at Belmont's June graduation ceremony came exactly 11 years after University alumnus George Weiss made an offer of his own to the 1987 graduating class at Belmont, of which Shields was a part. The elementary school went up to sixth grade at the time. When Weiss, a Connecticut philanthropist, offered to send all 112 members of the class to college, for free, Shields took full advantage of the offer. And more than a decade later, armed with a degree in psychology, he is out to make an impact on the lives of the next generation -- insofar as he is able. Shields may not yet have the means to provide a free ride for every deserving student, but he has promised to put aside $30 a week for seven years -- enough for 10 scholarships of $1,000 each. And that's not even counting investment income and community help which he has solicited -- and received. Shields said he has received several donations since his June announcement, ranging from $12 to $10,000. In light of the additional funds, he said he hopes to be able to help a greater portion of the 58-member class. "The response has been great so far," Shields said. "It would be great if we could get a scholarship for each and every one of the students." Before taking his proposal to the public, Shields confided his idea in April to both Weiss and Graduate School of Education Fellow Norman Newberg, who is the executive director of Say Yes. Although Newberg said he was initially concerned that Shields might be taking on too much for a young person, he soon discovered what he described as Shields' "unfaltering determination." Weiss, who was in attendance for Shields' announcement, echoed Newberg's feelings of pride. "I think it's phenomenal, it's exactly what I'm always trying to teach to the Say Yes kids," Weiss explained. "If someone makes a change in your life, you should try to turn around and make a change in someone else's life." · Some laud him as a hero, others deem him a role model, but Brett Bonfield said he was "just doing the right thing" when he returned a $1,850 wad of cash to its rightful owner. Bonfield -- a staff writer in the communications department of the Office of Development and Alumni Relations -- was shopping with his fiancZe, Beth Filla, at Thrift for AIDS on South Street when he found the money in an old pair of pants early last month. "I saw some pants that looked interesting, but they seemed too big," explained Bonfield. "But as I held them up, I felt something in the pocket that felt like an old wallet. Well, I reached in and pulled out a wad of cash, including several hundred dollar bills." Bonfield, 28, claimed that he didn't even stop to think as he headed up to the register -- the money in one hand, the pants in the other. "What I did took about 15 seconds and it took that long only because my knees were shaking," he said. "There was no decision time. I was just thinking, 'This is Thrift for AIDS, the money isn't mine and I should give it back'." The thrift store, located at 633 South Street, is a non-profit organization whose proceeds go to assist those with HIV and AIDS. A deposit slip found with the money was used to track down the rightful owner, according to Mike Martino, the store's executive director. It turns out that Javier Kuehnle, the owner of a company that makes automotive components, had donated the pants only a week before, although he had lost the money two years ago. "I was very pleasantly surprised when the thrift store called," Kuehnle told The Philadelphia Daily News last weekend. "I was actually shocked that the money showed up after all this time." To show his appreciation for the returned money, Kuehnle gave Bonfield a $500 reward. Thrift for AIDS has also given him a $100 store gift certificate.
(08/06/98 9:00am)
Nearly 100 years after W.E.B. DuBois studied urban life in The Philadelphia Negro, several University researchers will continue his influential investigation into the life of city-dwelling minorities. The W.E.B. DuBois Collective Research Institute, established in May, deals with many of the urban issues analyzed by DuBois that still plague many African-American communities today. Education Professor Margaret Beale Spencer of the Graduate School of Education, who spearheaded the project, will serve as its director. The institute is funded through the Office of the University President and the National Institute of Mental Health. The University is kicking in $1 million over five years, while the NIMH will contribute $3 million over the same time frame. The DuBois Institute encompasses eight different schools at the University, including the Wharton School, The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Social Work and the Medical School. Spencer said that bringing in diverse topics -- such as business, health and the humanities -- is the only way to efficiently study the broad themes of urban life on which DuBois wrote. "We have created a research community for scholars interested in the basic themes and concerns raised by W.E.B. DuBois," said Spencer, a developmental psychologist and the Penn Board of Overseers Professor of Education. "It is fascinating that we ask questions redundant of those DuBois raised 100 years ago. DuBois -- who taught at Penn in the early 1900s -- is considered one of the most influential men of the time because of his research into the historical and sociological conditions faced by African Americans. He fought hard for economic and educational equality and is one of the founding officers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "When I first arrived, different people were interested in all different aspects of his history.", Spencer said, "I realized we would learn much more about W.E.B. DuBois if we collaborated." The Philadelphia Negro, published in 1899, is a study of the social and economic conditions of African Americans in Philadelphia. The work is the first sociological text on an African American community published in the United States. The projects in the institute will range from completely new studies to extensions of old investigations taken in a collaborative light. The Kellogg Foundation has already funded a $2 million study into how youths are supported in their schools and communities that will involve faculty from the School of Social Work, the Medical School and GSE. "The collaboration is unusual in that it proposes to research and not just serve as a forum for discussion," said Spencer. "That's unique among disciplinary lines." The newly formed institute may also help mend the somewhat strained relationship between the University and the surrounding community through research and youth programs. "Our research will cross many different disciplinary lines and create a real collaboration with West Philadelphia," Spencer added. Spencer is currently involved in a school-to-work program that gives students from nearby Philadelphia public schools jobs at the University. If the institute proves to be successful, it could be seen as a model for other urban areas across the country where similar problems, such as prejudice and underemployment in African American communities, exist. The DuBois Center at Harvard also focuses on the African American visionary but, according to Spencer, the similarities end there. "Not only are we focusing on the themes, but we are coming together with basic research that can be applied into our community," she said. Representatives from the National Science Foundation, the Institutes for Social Research at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley and The Job Bank advise the DuBois Institute on a national level.
