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(11/17/04 10:00am)
Wharton junior Douglas Sherrets went to a Wharton Council function last January and was asked to introduce his club. After listening to other prestigious clubs list their accomplishments, Sherrets got up and simply said, "I am founder of the Warren Buffett Club." Sherrets said he was practically laughed out of the room.
(11/15/04 10:00am)
Most college freshmen do not spend the summer on their 13-foot Boston Whaler, chasing big storms on the Atlantic Ocean. But for College freshman Joseph Sahid, founder of the Hydrogen Expedition, it's all in a day's research.
(11/09/04 10:00am)
It literally all started underground. At the end of this past summer, interns at The American Prospect gathered on the Boston subway and had the first meeting of New Deal, a new intercollegiate progressive online magazine.
(10/22/04 9:00am)
A horse race, a trip to Atlantic City and the upcoming presidential election all share something in common, according to Wharton professors J. Scott Armstrong and Justin Wolfers.
(10/15/04 9:00am)
College senior Drew Crockett took home the Big Man on Campus crown last night at Club Egypt in front of nearly 1,000 attendees.
(10/12/04 9:00am)
When Carrington Lee, a college senior at Columbia University, wanted to gather Southern belles to eat barbecue and drink sweet tea, she knew where to turn. And when Columbia College student Leslie Moore needed to vent her frustration with emoticons, all signs also pointed her in the same direction: Columbia's CampusNetwork, the university's student-run and student-used online community.
(05/29/03 9:00am)
Sometimes, pictures just don't do it -- you need the real, mushy gray thing.
(04/16/03 9:00am)
Acclaimed and assailed filmmaker Michael Moore will make his appearance tonight at 9 p.m. in Zellerbach Theatre.
(04/14/03 9:00am)
In the first few hours of Friday's Spring Fling Quadrangle kickoff, it looked as if rain had won the battle -- but with students streaming in as the afternoon wore on, it became clear that the rain had not won the war.
(04/07/03 9:00am)
Crazy for Swayze? Crazy enough to spend $75 to see him?
(03/25/03 10:00am)
With the University of Michigan affirmative action case hearing only a week away, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition tackled how the case could affect the Asian American community.
(03/24/03 10:00am)
No animals were hurt in the filming of this movie.
(03/05/03 10:00am)
Rapper Busta Rhymes will be headlining the Spring Fling concert on April 11, according to the Social Planning Events Committee's concert branch.
Music groups The Donnas, Jurassic 5 and OK Go are also included in Friday's lineup.
And in a historic move, the concert is abandoning its usual Hill Field location for Franklin Field.
Kirk Freeman, co-director of SPEC Concerts, said that upon the University's request, SPEC set out to look for an alternate venue. After speaking to both administrative and facilities officials, SPEC decided to instead utilize the east end zone of Franklin Field facing the eastern stands.
"It's a huge change," Freeman said. "But we think the extra work will definitely pay off."
Freeman also said that the particular bands were chosen because of their recent popularity, their mass appeal across a wide variety of people and their high energy.
Busta Rhymes is one of the big names in mainstream hip hop. Currently, he has two singles -- "I Know What You Want" and "Make It Clap" -- on the Billboard Top 20 Hot Rap Tracks chart.
The rest of the bands also boast hit songs. "Take It Off" by the all-female rock group The Donnas is on Billboard's Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks chart, Jurassic 5's latest album Power in Numbers is gaining popularity and OK Go has made a smooth transition from the Chicago rock scene to the national music level since its self-titled debut album.
Student reactions to the band choices are mixed.
"That's pretty hot," College sophomore David Johnson said. "How'd they get Busta Rhymes? I can't believe they pulled that off."
"This shows that hip hop culture is very diverse," he added, expressing his surprise that the hip hop groups were chosen by an Ivy League school.
At the other end of the spectrum, College junior Jim Di Domenico strongly disagreed with the Fling music selection and said he is not planning to attend the event as a result.
"I don't like Busta Rhymes," he said.
Other students are not even interested in the choice but are focusing on other aspects of Fling instead.
A prime example of this is Wharton junior Mark Cohen, who seemed unaffected by the selection -- and more interested in the traditional Fling snacks.
"I don't know about the music," he said, "but I am really excited for the pierogies."
Last year, SPEC Concerts brought George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, along with Pete Yorn, Lucky Boys Confusion and De La Soul to Hill Field.
Ticket information will be released by SPEC Concerts the week of March 17.
Last year's Spring Fling concert tickets cost $15 and were sold on Locust Walk.
(02/18/03 10:00am)
When was the last time a Penn student went to an event in Houston Hall with some friends, listened to a man impersonate Elmo, and a few months later found himself being driven around by chauffeurs, shaking hands with Carmen Electra and having his face projected on national TV?
Ask Evan Silverstein.
The College freshman will fight to defend the honor of the Ivies in the Hollywood Square's College Tournament at 7:30 p.m. on CBS.
From the time that he was a kid, Silverstein had Nickelodeon Slime and Bob Barker on his mind.
"This is something you dream about," he says about the game show genre. "I started off with Nickelodeon's Guts as a kid and then moved up to The Price is Right."
When Nursing freshman Cassie Long heard about her hallmate's big break, she "wasn't surprised at all."
"He's very dynamic in that way," Long says.
His parents, however, beg to differ.
"He's always been the quiet type," says his mother, Lynn Silverstein, adding that while it is true he has done bold things -- like designing a roller coaster for his high school senior project and dancing with a group of guys to N'SYNC's "Dirty Pop" in a talent show -- his father asserts that such things are "part of his personality that we don't see often."
"We look at each other," Robert Silverstein says, "and say, 'Is that our son?'"
Silverstein first heard about the Penn tryouts for Hollywood Squares from his graduate associate in Hill College House.
"He's from L.A.," laughs Silverstein. "So he's always trying to push us to be movie stars."
He immediately affixed a post-it note with the event information to his desk and anticipated the day. Picturing myriads of Penn students pushing through the doors to wait for their chance at fame, Silverstein was rather shocked when he finally arrived at the tryouts and, "Lo and behold, there were like seventeen people there."
The tryouts involved many stages, and Silverstein was sure he had not done well. When the Hollywood Squares staff ran mock games, complete with one staff member pretending to be different stars in all of the squares, Silverstein not only lost the first round, but bombed the call back.
He believes that he was redeemed when they asked him to say a little about himself, and he broke into the "Chili's Baby Back Ribs" jingle to display the bass tone quality that he utilizes in Penn's a cappella group "Shabbatones."
The lady taking notes during the interview cracked up, leaving Silverstein with some hope after his sub-par game performance.
Shortly after, the Hollywood Squares staff left with a "Don't call us, we'll call you," and two months later, Silverstein's phone was ringing in the middle of telling friends a story in one of Hill's lounges.
"I almost didn't answer it," he says. "But my friends convinced me to see who it was and finish the story later."
When the Hollywood Squares representative gave him the good news, Silverstein was "absolutely in hysterics," he says.
"We were all screaming," says Long.
Silverstein flew to Los Angeles on Jan. 16 for the show's taping and discovered a chauffeur waiting for him with a sign that said Evan Silverstein. Not knowing exactly how to respond to this situation, he said, "Yo, I'm Silverstein" and the next thing he knew, he was heading to his hotel room in The Beverly Plaza Hotel with over $100 in spending money, compliments of Hollywood Squares.
He and the 14 non-Ivy college contestants were brought to the studio at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 18 and were watched by show officials so that they would not sneak around to talk to the celebrities or wander on stage before it was their turn to go.
In the meantime, Silverstein was more than content waiting in The Price is Right studio.
A few hours later, he was tossed a Penn sweatshirt and headed out on stage to play his round with Kathy Griffin, Joan Rivers and Carmen Electra. The rest is history in the making, to be viewed tonight.
(02/12/03 10:00am)
Covering everything from his literary masterpieces and controversial political views to being accosted by a bejeweled Indian woman, world-renowned writer and activist Salman Rushdie addressed a packed Irvine Auditorium last night.
"I sometimes think that people know too much about me already," chuckled Rushdie as he took the stage and wondered aloud what it must have been like long ago to live in an age when an author's books could be famous while his personal life remained anonymous.
Rushdie spoke about his humble beginnings as an author with his first book Grimus.
"I had a very bad start as a writer," he admitted, relaying how his first book received the kind of reviews that every author dreads. "It took me a long time to find out where I wanted to go."
He then spoke about his book that followed, Midnight's Children, which put him on the track to fame.
Starting with the construction of the first sentence, the author talked about the evolution of the work into a symbol of India's generation of independence -- originally it had read, "Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence," but he quickly decided that it was "too Tolstoy" and replaced it.
Within the detailed discussion of his literature, Rushdie managed to tell a multitude of personal anecdotes that repeatedly left the audience laughing out loud.
He discussed how there always seem to be people who see themselves as direct characters of his novels.
"They're determined to be in them," he asserted.
He relayed how on one trip to India, a bejeweled woman whom he had never met in his life came up to him, slapped him playfully on his arm and said, "Naughty boy -- but I see why you had to do it."
Confused, Rushdie inquired as to what she meant, discovering that the woman was convinced that a character in one of his novels had been based on her, and she simply could not be convinced otherwise.
He then told another story about preparing to purchase an apartment in New York City, when at the last minute, the seller pulled out of the deal.
But no one messes with Salman Rushdie -- as a result, Rushdie placed one of his characters in The Ground Beneath Her Feet in that building, in the exact apartment and decorated it as he had planned.
"Okay, scumbag, I got your apartment now!" he chuckled, grinning at the memory.
A lyrical piece from the same book was even made into a song by U2. He admitted that it greatly excited him to now "have a U2 song on his resume."
Rushdie also mentioned the infamous 1989 proclamation for his death issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, but played the situation down with humor.
Calling Khomeini "not my favorite person," he proclaimed, "I'd like to call into attention which one of us is dead."
When the floor opened to questions, political inquiries started to fly.
Prodded to speak about his views on Islam, Rushdie said, "It has slid backwards in the most horrifying ways."
He added how in Islamic countries, there is, "a kind of stagnation and oppression of its own citizens that is horrifying to see.... Islam has not served well the Muslim world. When will people wake up to this? The loss of freedom, the loss of everything is dreadful."
Other questions ranged from how Rushdie arrives at the names of his characters to his views on rock 'n' roll.
In the end, students responded positively to the talk.
"He did an excellent job focusing on the literary aspects of his work, while at the same time recognizing the fact that he's in a position to discuss political issues," College senior Sage Anderson said.
"I liked how he went off the cuff," College senior Matt O'Dowd added. "For a person once marked for death, he seems to have a pretty positive attitude about it."
Rushdie's message to students was both as a writer and influential representation of intellectual freedom.
In his own words, "A writer goes out there and conquers bits of the world."
The event was put together by the Social Planning and Events Committee's Connaissance branch, the Provost's Spotlight Series and the Philomathean Society.
(02/03/03 10:00am)
With a semester of sweat on its back, the Pottruck Health and Fitness Center has become the new face of fitness on campus.
It took a year to replace the old Katz Fitness Center with the $23-million Pottruck powerhouse, and many students voiced annoyance at the inconvenience -- but when the doors finally opened this past September, droves of students were more than happy to lace up their gym shoes and put their grudges aside.
Statistics show that now, Pottruck has approximately 2,500 gym users a day, 1,000 exercise class participants and 1,300 individuals who participated in intramural sports first semester, according to Associate Director of Facilities Bryan Haunert.
However, after a full semester has passed and the initial glitz and excitement has faded, mixed reviews have emerged among students.
The main accolades that students gave the gym related to its convenient hours, cleanliness and the fact that it was nowhere near as congested as the Katz Fitness Center used to be.
"The hours are better, and [it's] so much cleaner," fourth-year Dental student Loren Buonocore said. "I feel better working out here."
However, beneath the compliments lay a barrage of complaints, the most prevalent being that the gym was too hot -- one student who wished to remain anonymous said that she became so faint last week in the cardiovascular room that she had to leave in the middle of her workout.
The $200 mandatory fee that all students were charged in tuition this year was also a point of contention for many gym-goers.
"There are probably people who pay the $200 and never step foot in the gym," College sophomore Tim Daniels said. "Also, I don't like how they charge for the climbing wall and the golf" simulator.
Wharton junior Joy Dyer also said she thought the fee was unfair.
"Penn would charge you money to breathe if they could," she said.
Gym users also lamented the fact that the gym did not have enough mats and had no exercise physical therapy balls as most gyms do.
Scott Fujimoto, a gym employee, said that Pottruck was lacking in certain areas.
"I like the layout, and there's a lot more cardio," Fujimoto said. "But there is not a significantly greater amount of free weights, and the fact that you have to walk down the hall to get to the pool is inconvenient and very cold in the winter."
But most students agreed that Pottruck was preferable to Hutchinson Gymnasium, located on 32nd Street, which sees 500 gym users per day.
"It's so much better," College sophomores Janna Hoffman and Jen Wade answered in unison.
Hoffman added that Pottruck was "not as claustrophobic."
Both girls also reported that the Jammin' Juice Bar located on the main floor was one of their favorite parts of the gym.
Still, not everyone shared this sentiment.
College sophomore James Freeman said he found carrying cash to buy a smoothie inconvenient.
"You work out, wanna grab something to drink and then you can't use your bursar" bill, he said. "That's a big deal."
Also, Haunert asserted that Pottruck is always looking for ways to improve the overall gym experience.
He recommended that students feel free to make suggestions and place them in Pottruck's suggestion box, which is located by the elevator on the first floor.
Now that second semester has begun, most students say that despite the problems, Pottruck is definitely an improvement from the past fitness options offered by Penn.
Freshman fifteen, beware.
(02/03/03 10:00am)
When Swarthmore graduate Anna Steingart took the stage last night, she conveyed the message, "There are not many degrees of separation nowadays."
The Russian Cultural Association and Penn Hillel organized a concert to raise money for victims of terror in Israel.
Houston Hall's Class of '49 Auditorium was filled throughout the evening with Penn students who donated their time and talent to the event, which at $10 a ticket raised thousands of dollars.
College of General Studies student Roman Gorelik delighted the audience of over 200 members with his guitar and the haunting sounds of College junior Alex Pantelyat's violin pierced the room with tunes from Schindler's List and Johannes Brahms.
During a potpourri of Yiddish folk tunes by Daniel Gildar, a cantor who was brought in for the event, many people in the audience broke out clapping. The evening also included dance numbers by students, ranging from a Brazilian dance to the Flamenco.
"We should help these people, but since we are students and cannot send monthly checks, we decided to donate our talents," Gorelik said.
Several people at the event, Steingart included, knew people in Israel who have been injured or killed in attacks and bombings that have terrorized the country for the past seventeen months.
Steingart spoke about attending the funeral for one of her young friends who was killed in a terrorist bombing at Hebrew University in August.
"I can tell you that shoveling earth on the coffin of a 25-year-old changed me profoundly," she said. "When people in their 20s are being killed in their prime every week, we know something is wrong in this world...."
Steingart said that it was not a coincidence that the event was being held on the first day of the new Jewish month known as "Adar," calling it the happiest month in the Jewish calendar because its 14th day, known as "Purim", commemorates the 2,400-year-old victory of outnumbered Jews over the Persians.
"They won because of their faith, courage and ability to stand together," Steingart asserted. "In the same spirit of Purim, we are united this evening with the people of Israel."
As soon as Pantelyat stepped down from the stage, he welcomed the opportunity to share what he felt was the message of the evening.
"The message is that the Jewish community is vibrant, and we won't let our enemies get us down," he said. "We will continue to make music and be joyful."
Penn alumna Beatrice Marker remarked that she was, "simply delighted. I'm dancing in my seat over here."
Drexel junior Victoria Greenberg had a more solemn take on the evening.
"I just got back from Israel, and I feel a connection to the people," Greenberg said.
The words of the Israeli national anthem pulsated through the packed room after it was sang in unison by the audience last night and left many students with a glimmer of hope despite the dire Middle East situation.
(01/29/03 10:00am)
Last night, President George W. Bush found himself in more Penn apartments and dorm rooms than on any other night of the year.
Whether it was political interest or the temptation of free pizza and popcorn, students huddled together to watch the address all over campus, from The Underground in Hamilton College House to TV lounges in the Quadrangle.
Some people, such as Hill College House Graduate Adviser Tensai Asfaw, even held parties in their rooms to view the event.
When asked how many people he expected to attend, Asfaw responded, "I asked a bunch of freshman -- some seemed really interested, some seemed lackluster and some were just like, 'State of the what?'"
Many students at the start of the oration said that the threat of war with Iraq was what drew them to watch the event.
And in the end, Engineering junior Juan Carlos Baez said Bush should have focused more on the possibility of war.
"I don't think he said too much," Baez said. "There was a lot of rhetoric involved."
As Bush took the podium to a prolonged standing ovation, most students at Asfaw's gathering remained silent. But the minute he opened his mouth, silence was anything but golden in the room.
Republican students in attendance spent most of their time on their feet, mirroring the applause of the Republicans on the screen, while snickers from the Democrats were more than plentiful.
Bush's topics ranged from prescription drugs, environmental protection, abortion and AIDS relief to urges of medical liability reform.
"I was shocked how he talked about AIDS," College freshman Rafael Viana said. "I didn't expect that."
Interspersed promises to fund research for hydrogen-fueled automobiles and antibiological warfare seemed to generate respect from the students.
However, Bush's oft-ridiculed speech-making abilities led to some criticism.
"He trips over his words -- his mind is moving too fast for his mouth," College sophomore Alex Lorenc said.
And both sides of the political crowd broke into laughter together when Bush mispronounced "Korean peninsula."
But shortly after, students became solemn for the portion of Bush's words that dealt with Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.
Following Bush's address, College of General Studies student Jason Bartlett admitted that the free popcorn had initially drawn him to view the speech in Hamilton's Underground.
But as his crunching died down, he said, "It was a good speech. He even got Hillary Clinton to stand up first in some of the ovations -- she was popping up all over the place!" he chuckled. "Whenever you get bipartisan support [like that], it's gotta be a good speech."
(01/27/03 10:00am)
Call it dorm room disgust, call it restlessness for the high rises to replace their aging furniture or just call it insanity. But whatever you call it, no one can deny that creative genius is thriving here at Penn.
If you had an old iron, an elevator cord spool, some plastic bottlenecks, a decomposing couch and some scotch tape, what would you do?
To some Penn students the answer is obvious -- decorate the apartment.
College sophomore Scott Sokoloff first heard about the abandoned cord spools that were extracted from Hamilton College House's infamous elevators from a senior. The wheels in his head were already turning as he headed out to the dumpsters.
And by the time he was rolling one of the huge circular monstrosities past bewildered Spectaguards in the Hamilton lobby, his mind had already transformed it into a buffet table. Within a month, it had been cleaned off, covered in a tablecloth and had become an integral part of the numerous weekend meals that he and his roommates hosted in their apartment.
Looking back on life pre-spool compared to life now, Sokoloff proclaims, "I believe that no room is complete without a gigantic wheel."
Right down the hall from Sokoloff resides another budding interior designer.
Engineering junior Peretz Cik is the mastermind behind what he proudly refers to as "the ghetto pulley." Using old plastic bottles and string, he created a pulley system in his Hamilton dorm room whereby he can close the door while sitting on his bed across the room.
"I used bottlenecks because they're smooth, and the string pulls over them with little resistance," Cik reports.
When asked if he used his engineering knowledge to develop the system, Cik answers in the affirmative.
"In order to shut the door, the string had to have a force at a certain angle and have the string pointing toward a certain corner of the door."
Next, Cik displayed the projector that he had built to turn his room into a movie theater with nothing more than a cardboard box, a $5 page-magnifier from Staples and a dorm room wall.
The only problem that Cik ran into was that the lens inverted the image and projected it upside down. Cik, undaunted, proceeded to hook up the TV to his computer so that he could invert the TV image before it went through the projector.
"Who wouldn't do this?" is Cik's final conclusion.
The high rises are not the only hotbeds of redecorating innovation.
College freshmen Matt Aquino, Byron Drumheller, Robbie Biggs and Ken-ichi Hino bonded early in the year in their Quadrangle hallway of Butcher -- soon after, their two rooms were famous for their late-night parties.
"Well-known? Just ask our RAs," Aquino says with a smile.
However, the boys realized early on that their cramped rooms with bulky beds were not ideal for the kind of atmosphere they wanted to create for their parties. That is why one night, it suddenly struck them that they could move out of one of their rooms and make it into an official lounge for such occasions.
"That was it -- at 3:30 in the morning we started moving furniture, and we did it all night," Aquino says.
Slowly, they found things to add to their new pad. Aquino's father, who is in the liquor business, gave them old memorabilia that they used to decorate the walls, and one day when Drumheller and Aquino were on 41st Street, they found an old couch that they dragged all the way back to the Quad in the cold.
Next came the scotch tape that they used to write messages on the wall to be further accentuated by black lights.
Unfortunately, they were soon put on probation for their parties, and their party room became a place for them to just chill.
But not all of Penn's on-campus creations are large-scale productions.
Take the case of College sophomore Nora Badal's old iron. She had nothing in her wardrobe to iron, but she did have a hankering for grilled cheese last year in the Quad. As a result, her iron quit its day job and moved from smoothing out creases in her shirts to ironing out toast.
"I wonder what you can make with a curling iron?" she ponders.
MacGuyver would be proud.
(01/16/03 10:00am)
Digging through the garbage, waiting out in the freezing cold and running onto the stage to recite dirty limericks were all probably not in the script for the Social Planning and Events Committee's evening with Kevin Spacey last night, but somehow, all of these things worked their way into the festivities.
By 6:30 p.m., masses of students were already braving the cold in front of Zellerbach Theatre, waiting in line for the 7 p.m. screening of Spacey's latest film The Life of David Gale. However, due to overbooking, many disgruntled ticket holders were turned away five minutes before showtime without a glimpse of Spacey.
College senior Jacob Dickstein was enraged by the miscalculation.
"I find it woefully disappointing that the University oversold tickets and tons of students had to wait in the cold without a chance of ever getting in," he said.
Others echoed this sentiment.
Some students who did make it through the doors were a little wary of Spacey's actual appearance at the event.
But sure enough he was there, sweatshirt-clad and all, for an evening with Penn. This was confirmed by Screenwriting Professor Marc Lapadula whose announcement elicited cheering from the crowd.
Students then previewed the film and immediately after, Spacey took the stage to a standing ovation and calls of, "Love you, Kevin!"
"Kevin," as he repeatedly encouraged students to call him, then opened the floor for questions. People inquired about everything from script details and political issues that the film raised to the meaning of life, and if there were any roles open in Hollywood for fat ladies. One question even prompted Spacey to admit that he could really go for a Bud.
With a chuckle, he quickly added, "I meant the beer -- now I'm in trouble."
The Life of David Gale centered around the controversial issue of the death penalty. When questioned about his own position on the topic, Spacey responded, "I have come away from this issue grappling with it and am somewhat reluctant to take a side on it."
His reasoning for his ambivalence was that although in the film his character is enmeshed in the issues of the death penalty, he could not put himself in the shoes of those on death row.
Spacey also discussed the early days of his career and tried to explain his rise to fame. He grew up surrounded by the arts and fell in love with both theater and film. He attended The Julliard School of Drama for two years with other stars such as Val Kilmer.
"It's great to see everyone grown up now and into their careers," he said with a laugh.
He attributed his success largely to being lucky. "I found first-time screenwriters -- I was willing to take a chance on them and they on me."