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(12/05/00 10:00am)
When I first walked into the International Market grocery store at 42nd and Walnut streets, I was scared. The produce section was stacked with exotic green vegetables and the shelves bulged with food products labeled in alphabets I could not decipher.
Someone in a back room was conversing noisily in Hindi.
Out of a dozen customers, I was the only white person, and I was beginning to wonder if the scent of curry hanging thickly in the air might singe off all my feeble Caucasian nostril hairs.
I was ready to chalk up the fruitless visit to a colossal failure of East-meets-West and hightail it outta there, back into the safety of the American 'hood. I was even longing for the metal bars and chain-locked shopping carts of Thriftway, just one block away.
Compared to the Indian grocery store, which felt like a foreign country, West Philly seemed to be, for the first time, my safety zone.
I bee-lined for the door when I spotted out of the corner of my eye a culinary delight that transcends borders, the world-wide constant of human epicurean desire -- cookies.
Yes, in the international language of junk food, cookies are the Rosetta stone of cuisine, and these treats were yelling my name.
As I timidly approached the bakery counter, eyeing the store's array of freshly-made, exotic Indian desserts, the check-out people stopped speaking in Hindi and asked me in perfect English, "Can we help you?"
It was then that I was struck dumb by my complete ignorance of Indian culture. I had no clue what those cookies were called.
"Can I have two of the brown ones, the roundish things, over... er, under the thing, beside those other ones there?" I said.
Three years of Ivy League training in anthropology, the study of world cultures, and I couldn't even buy baked goods from an Indian speaking my native tongue.
My 15-minute tryst with diversity at International Market personalized all the problems of multiculturalism. No matter the color of your skin, facing another race or ethnicity is terrifying because it yanks you out of your comfort zone and leaves you feeling confused and downright ignorant.
But avoiding the unknown means losing out on all the benefits of a diverse community.
Imagine life without the crepe truck. Pretty terrifying, I know. Yet at one point, even the beloved food truck that serves up French-style pancakes was a cultural anomaly at Penn. And now that we know it, we love it.
Diversity multiplies choice. And at the most basic level, diversity among humans is the mechanism of progress.
Some people insist on being different. Without unique thinkers and doers like Einstein, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony and Pablo Picasso, where would we be today?
These people saw that the world didn't have to be one way, laughed in the face of convention and altered the course of history.
The benefits of being exposed to diverse ways of thinking and cultural practices are undeniable. But the challenge we face at Penn is how to maximize the benefits while tearing down the walls that go up as soon as people perceive differences within their ranks.
The worst thing we could do is condemn minority students who "self-segregate." Self-segregation occurs naturally everywhere -- musicians hang out with musicians, athletes with athletes, bookworms with bookworms.
Preventing students from congregating around racial identifications would deprive them of a crucial support base.
Discrimination based on skin color still exists in subtle and overt manifestations. The Daily Pennsylvanian has reported, for instance, that blacks, Hispanics and Asians still feel unwelcome in some Penn Greek houses, performing arts groups and clubs.
Our goal should be to reach a point where everyone feels comfortable everywhere. But how do we welcome everyone to the table?
The solution depends on every individual -- regardless of skin color -- taking it upon him or herself to confront cultural difference.
The fruit of multiculturalism is ripe for the picking. Talk to the exchange student who sits next to you in lecture. Read a minority magazine. Participate in a cultural event that is new and different to you, whether that means buying a ticket to African Rhythms' phenomenal dance show or simply buying cookies in an Indian grocery.
Now, I'm a regular at International Market. And not only am I hooked on their cookies, but I've also been sampling their other delicacies, like the spicy bean and tofu mixtures. Trust me, it's good stuff.
As soon as we open up to what we don't know, we can begin exploring, sharing and understanding one another.
(11/28/00 10:00am)
I'm stuffed. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I gorged on turkey, cranberry sauce and squash. I also ingested enough advice to last until my retirement.
Like many seniors who went home for the holiday, I overloaded on discussions about post-graduation plans. At the meal table, I think I heard the question "And what will you be doing next year?" more often than "Can you please pass the gravy?"
At first, starved for some guidance, I welcomed career counseling. But as every conversation turned to the topic of life after college, hunger subsided and nausea kicked in.
Lounging at the table with me after Thanksgiving dinner, my grandfather advised me to pick a job I loved. In his lifetime, he learned that passion is worth more than money. Grandpa is an academic whose love of philosophy paid off unexpectedly in the '60s when the University of Michigan asked him to apply his knowledge of logic to a new idea that took off -- the computer.
On Friday, I consulted the people who know me better than I know myself -- my high school buddies. We needed to do some serious powwowing about next year, so we retreated to the war room: Denny's, the only all-night eatery in suburbia.
My friends represent a smorgasbord of unique plans: chemical engineering, education, sports journalism, publishing and computer science.
I, on the other hand, having operated this semester on the philosophy that enjoying the fleeting moments of senior year is far more important than face time with Peggy Curchack, had no plans.
Yet, it was reassuring to know that we all shared the same anxieties. For one thing, our parents had been kneading us like bread for the answers they wanted about our life plans.
And none of us had found comfort in the bittersweet promise of the current golden economy. Since job opportunities are purportedly sprouting like corn, I felt foolish that I'm struggling to find work.
We dissected each person's prospects like professional turkey carvers rooting through a cooked bird -- and came up with lots of bones. Basically, we were no closer to figuring out what it's all about.
Thinking I'd escape the madness in the safe haven of a dark movie theater, on Saturday I accompanied my family to the cineplex to see The Legend of Bagger Vance. The film was about -- what else? -- the meaning of life.
The movie is based on the Bhagavad-Gita, the epic Hindu poem that suggests that one must cease thinking in order to achieve nirvana. I tried this at home with the film in mind, but the repeated mantra that engulfed my consciousness was not Ohm, but "I love you Matt Damon. I love you Matt Damon."
By Sunday, I was so crammed full of theories on the meaning of life and promising career paths that I felt as sick as a pilgrim overdosing on cornbread.
One thing I knew for certain: The countdown to May is going to be a rough six months.
I'm not asking anyone to hand my future to me on a silver platter. I'm not asking for it to be easy.
And even as I deal with my pre-graduation angst, I had more to be grateful for this Thanksgiving than ever before. I'm in line for a diploma from a top university, and my family and friends are right behind me to blow wind in my sails.
We give thanks for having food on the table, health in our families and love in our lives. Some people don't get to pick. Some people don't have the luxury of flirting with destiny because they're just trying to get through each day. Some people have made it through four years of an Ivy League education in spite of, rather than because of, the experiences life has dealt us.
I might be sick of worrying, but as long as I'm soul-searching instead of merely trying to subsist, I will be thankful. For me, the greatest privilege is getting to choose my own adventure.
(11/21/00 10:00am)
Feminism is not a dirty word.
Yet somehow it has become more taboo than the worst four-letter expletive and has been relegated to bathroom stalls and documentary titles. Say the word aloud and watch people squirm.
Many Penn students often explain, "Sure I support women's rights, but I'm not a feminist." Because who'd want to pal around with combat-boot-clad man-eaters sporting jungles of armpit hair?
If you buy into this classic myth of the typical feminist, peek into a meeting of the Penn Feminists Club. You'll find that feminists at Penn represent such a diverse population, virtually the only thing we have in common is a feeling that gender makes a difference.
It is shocking that many female Penn students, poised to sail into traditionally male professions, not only have no interest in feminism, but avoid it like the plague.
Equally surprising is the number of men who don't identify themselves as feminists. According to the dictionary, feminism is "the principle that women should have political, economic, and social rights equal to those of men." Who disagrees with that?
The problem is that the word "feminism" is loaded with enough negative sub-meanings to fill up an entire Webster's volume of its own.
But abandoning the word means endangering all the hard-won progress.
The standard critique of the feminist movement is that it went overboard. Whereas formerly women were lonely and unfulfilled at home, now they're as equally depraved, forced to sacrifice their "natural instincts" to be mothers in order to be career women.
Those angry feminists of the '70s traded the confines of domesticity for the prison of the professional world.
This viewpoint rests on a stereotype of modern woman as a prozac-happy, love-poor business executive gorging on late-night Ben and Jerry's. It ignores the possibility that the cause of frustration among working women is an unfriendly workplace and not simply stifled maternal instincts.
Anyone who questions the need for continuing feminism need only look at the numbers. Half our country is female, yet only nine women sit in the Senate. Women's salaries are still only 72% of men's salaries, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity.
A recent report by the Gender Equity Committee at Penn found that female professors totaled only 24 percent of the University's faculty in 1999. In science departments, the numbers are much lower and change occurs at a glacial pace.
The American Chemical Society found that in 1973, 3 percent of tenured chemistry professors at the top 50 universities were female. Almost 30 years later, that figure is up to a whopping 6 percent.
Pop culture has limited women's opportunities as well. America consistently presents one image of women: young, white and sexually appealing.
In other words, Britney Spears.
Women are defined by their bodies, not their character or accomplishments. Witness all the bosoms without brains that the networks parade across prime-time television.
Fearful of being labeled with the tabooed word "feminist," opponents of the media's projected feminine ideal have no united front from which to mount an attack.
But the word feminism is the legacy of a movement that proclaimed, "You are not alone," and in so doing, united women from all corners of society.
In a system where women were largely singled out and put down, they made gains only by joining together for the common goal of equality. The gates of the good ol' boys network were pried open by feminists who slowly and painstakingly picked the lock.
The problem with feminism is that it quickly became frayed. Gender inequities varied so greatly among women that the movement couldn't accommodate the needs of all feminists.
Feminism has tried to be all-inclusive. Its diversity is its greatest strength as well as its weakness.
But what kind of a country will women face if future leaders, like the men and women at Penn, deny that feminism, the fight for equality, is crucial? Working moms will continue to be overworked and underpaid.
And Britney Spears will have her own show.
We need to restore the word feminism. We need to start talking about it again.
When the futures of our daughters and granddaughters are at stake, the last thing we should do is hold our tongue.
(11/14/00 10:00am)
It's nine on Sunday morning and I step into the big black emptiness of Annenberg's Harold Prince Theatre. The stage is bare except for the ghost light, a solitary light bulb on a stand centerstage. According to theater superstition, leaving this bulb lit wards off a vacant theater's ghosts.
But this theater is full of ghosts for me, steeped in memories of past plays and friendships, exaltation and heartbreak -- the drama of theater production.
Any given Sunday, one or more student theater groups is loading all of their sets, costumes, props and other elements into campus theaters. The event, called load-in, is a grueling, 15-hour process where tempers flare and crises occur regularly as the production team scrambles to complete their show's technical elements.
The fact that student-run groups survive the catastrophes of load-in is truly inexplicable. Stars lose their voices, pit bands mutiny and directors ditch the production as the hours to opening night tick away.
On this Sunday, the Pennsylvania Players are loading in their production of Children of Eden, a musical exploration of the Genesis stories.
By 10:30 a.m., cast and crew swarm on the stage, assembling the prettily painted puzzle that will become our set. High above the stage, the crew members secure heavy theater lights with wrenches hanging from their belt loops and rolls of cable slung over their shoulders.
I pass by the director and the makeup girls, who are trying to fashion a silky wig on the lead actress. I check in with the props designer, who has been hot-gluing everything in sight. She is detailing a bright green apple and gestures to a flask of emerald glitter that will complete the fake fruit.
As I continue down the hallway, I hear voices soaring in harmony behind the rehearsal room's closed doors. The cast has been practicing 20 hours a week for a month and a half but now have only three rehearsals to adjust to the new environment. The melody grinds to a halt as the musical director admonishes the group, "You missed your entrance!" They start the number again.
In the costume room, the student seamstresses, giggling over needle and thread, are a bit punchy after sewing two dozen identical skirts.
I nab scissors and retreat to the theater to finish my contribution to the show: a big snake head for the scene between Eve and Eden's infamous serpent. Up close, this thing looks like a dilapidated sock puppet stuck together with chewing gum. But to the audience, it will take on mischievous life.
That's the magic of the theater: The final ingredient in the recipe is always the audience's willingness to engage in the fantasy. Their imagination will transform wood and cotton into stone and silk.
After a dinner break, I amble up to the lighting grid, a harrowing lattice of catwalks that criss-cross 26 feet above the stage below.
My fellow lighting assistants and I trade stories of load-ins past. There was the night during a Penn Players tech week when a techie focused 100 lights in a single hour, the time it usually takes to do 20. Then there was the swimming pool that Quadramics constructed -- complete with water -- in this theater.
Dangling my feet over the grid's edge, I watch my fellow crew members touch up the set, and marvel at our teamwork.
Penn student theater has given us the opportunity to realize our dreams and ambitions in a product of our own creation. This process and this show are all ours. When, on Thursday night, we welcome in the audience from their busy lives, the drudgery of reality will melt away into the fantasy world we have created for them.
As the clock strikes midnight, our post-load-in meeting begins. Through contact lenses cemented to my pupils, I scan the crowd of tired friends. They are more than fatigued -- they are deflated. Though bruised, bandaged and sprawled out on couches like rag dolls, we plan to be back at nine the following morning.
It's been a good load-in. How we spin the madness and mayhem into a finished production might be magic, but why we give our blood, sweat and tears is no mystery. We do this because we love it.
Once the show closes at the end of the week, and we laboriously strike set, lights and costumes, the theater will be as blank as we found it exactly one week before -- with only the lone light bulb to scare away our ghosts.
(11/07/00 10:00am)
It's Election Day, and America is in need of a hero. That's why some voters are rooting for Bartlet for president in 2000.
Josiah Bartlet is a silvering, affable New Hampshire politician with an unabashed faith in the greatness of America. He's fiesty, fair -- and fictional.
In fact, he's already president of the United States on NBC's Wednesday night drama, The West Wing, a show that chronicles the whirlwind activity of White House staffers struggling to keep the nation running. The show was nominated for 18 emmys and received nine, including Outstanding Drama Series.
I spoke to Melissa Fitzgerald, a 1987 Penn grad who plays Carol on the series. According to Fitzgerald, Americans like President Bartlet because "he is a decent, honest, good man who is working hard to take care of his country."
Bartlet is the national leader we want: He has the charm of George W. Bush, the brains of Al Gore and the unswerving convictions of the ideal president for whom we're all pining.
In short, Bartlet's a guy we would fight for, unlike our real-life cardboard-cutout candidates.
So there has been a collective headturn to the independents. We hope third parties can deliver an underdog who'll sweep in, pummel the powers of the status quo and lead the nation to glory. Are the days numbered for America's two-party system?
Nope. We have proven time and again that we don't really want a third party. Ross Perot earned 19 percent of the vote in 1992, then watched his base disintegrate in 1996. According to a poll that year by The New York Times, although a majority of Americans were dissatisfied with the two-party system, 61 percent believed a third-party president would have "serious problems" dealing with Congress.
Furthermore, introducing third parties would consistently result in the kind of electorate-splitting occurring in this race. Two of the candidates would be ideologically closer than the third, splicing the vote at one end of the spectrum. The winner would be the candidate least representative of national sentiment.
Let's say these third parties did have a chance. Would we want their candidates in the Oval Office? Buchanan's conservatism scares the pants off me, while Nader, whose views I share, would be a president about as inspiring as a wet dishrag.
A multi-party system is not the solution.
And neither the system nor the candidates are solely to blame for the nation's election-year gripes. This time around, the American people are guilty of not doing their homework.
We have told the candidates that we care about personality, not platform. Consequently, Bush and Gore are trying to be all things to all people. Their pandering sometimes obscures the vast differences between them, so our choice isn't clear-cut. But instead of scrutinizing the candidates' positions, we treated this election like an outing to the circus.
At the August conventions, the scope of the balloon drop was more closely critiqued than the scope of the platforms. In October, the post-debate announcers reviewed the candidates' performances, not their stances, as if commenting on the Olympics. "George Bush did what he came to do.... Gore really pulled it together in the homestretch."
If only we had turned off the sound bites, and tuned into the issues, we would have heard that Gore and Bush are, in fact, far more dimensional than those cardboard cutouts. We just want mega-stars willing to schmooze with Oprah or yuk it up on Saturday Night Live.
Blame the good times. Things are humming along, so much of America isn't worried enough to listen to political discourse.
But a show like The West Wing illustrates why things are humming: because our public servants are tirelessly toiling away to keep the ship afloat. On screen, President Bartlet weathers crises daily and reminds us that even in the best of times, it takes a Superman to keep the nation on track.
"People take our rights for granted," Fitzgerald said. "If we don't make an informed decision, we will pay a price."
Let's hope that Americans, lulled into complacency by the embrace of prosperity, don't dismiss the importance of this race simply because they don't see their Hollywood hero on the ballot.
(11/01/00 10:00am)
The first round of Teach for America applications was due yesterday. My bright yellow application booklet for the program -- which places college graduates in two-year terms as teachers in struggling city schools -- had sat on my desk for the last month. Yesterday, I finally did something about it -- I stuffed it into the bottom of a drawer.
And there it will stay, a testament to my exasperation and confusion over the plight of our public schools.
I want to help reform our country's educational system. But my idealism crumbles in the face of an issue so complex I can't find the front door to the problem.
According to Gallup polls and the media, education is the top voter concern this election year. A meager 36 percent of Americans say they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot of confidence" in our public schools.
It's easy to be disturbed when only 31 percent of fourth-graders and 41 percent of 12th-graders read at proficient levels. Schools in low-income neighborhoods suffer overcrowding and decay.
The Philadelphia public school teachers' strike, which ended Monday, is a painfully proximate symptom of unrest in our school system.
However, the most troubling warnings come from international exams that show our kids pulling mediocre scores in math and science.
History and Public Policy Progfessor Ted Hershberg, the director of the Center for Greater Philadelphia, suggests that the global economy -- in which multinational corporations compete on a high-stakes, technology-driven battlefield -- requires a new type of worker.
"We need a different school system for a different economy, a school system that produces graduates who are flexible, adaptable, quick learners, and problem solvers," Hershberg wrote in a 1996 report.
Education needs an overhaul. But what does it take to revolutionize education in America?
I think we need to experiment with new methods of teaching and relentlessly pursue ways to engage every child in the classroom. Memorization and multiple choice questions don't challenge students or stimulate a love for learning.
Accountability -- the buzzword of the day -- means students and teachers will be held to national standards. Standards are a crucial way of setting and keeping our goals, but only if we arm students with the tools to achieve on these tests.
We must also promote life-long learning. Hershberg suggests that schools focus on "the first 15 to 20 years of life, with precious little aimed at the remaining 40 to 50 years of working life in an era when technological change requires that education be treated as a life-long learning process."
We need teachers ready to help reform the system. Half of our nation's teachers will retire in the next 10 years; we must make teaching an attractive profession to our nation's best and brightest.
Finally, we must stick to our conviction that quality primary education is every child's right. Currently, education is run by states and local governments, which means that schools are often funded largely through local property taxes. So richer communities have better schools.
George W. Bush claims to want to close this gap, yet his general theory is that students in failing schools should be given passports out in the form of vouchers. What he doesn't say is how he will help those students who are left behind.
Al Gore plans to fix failing schools rather than abandon them. He wants to invest in our public schools instead of dumping the problems on the private sector and hoping that everyone will end up with a good education.
Bush wants to give $2.4 billion to states to enact teacher accountability programs but says little about teacher retraining. Meanwhile, Gore will recruit 100,000 new teachers, raise pay for good teachers and remove failing teachers.
Gore approaches the problem creatively; Bush is threatening a mean rap with the ruler to anyone who doesn't pass muster without giving them the chance to get in shape.
I chose not to apply for Teach for America -- yet. I'll have a second chance to apply in the spring or else decide to direct my energies down another avenue. Either way, I want to help rebuild a system in which all children have a chance to learn.
The first thing I'll do is vote for the candidate who has a thoughtful, sensible plan for the future of our schools.
(10/17/00 9:00am)
I'm stuck in the DSL doldrums. This summer, my seven roommates and I hit on the brilliant idea of installing DSL, or digital subscriber line, in our off-campus house. DSL is a type of Internet connection that quadruples download times and eliminates the problem of tying up your phone line when you're online.
Right about now, I'd like to tie up the geek who invented it.
Here's a quick chronology of our descent into DSL hell.
September 1. Certain of our own invincibility, we decided to buy the service for one person's computer and network it to everyone else's PCs. I vaguely wondered if it might be illegal, but it's the Internet and everything's still up in the air, right?
Survivors of DSL installations assured me it would be easy: "Oh yeah, you just purchase all this expensive, non-returnable hardware, rewire the whole house, then hook the eight-port hub thing into the other thingy, configure the flux capacitor, rearrange all the furniture, drill a hole in the wall..."
"Super!" I thought, oblivious to the sarcasm.
October 2. DSL arrived with an instruction manual that went something like:
Step 1: Quit now.
"Ha ha, oh, that's precious," we chuckled in our naivete.
Step 2: Configure the ports, assign IP address, install Ethernet in client machines.
That sobered us up.
Next came the firewall and the gateway, labels I'm sure were plagiarized from chapter titles in the Harry Potter books, which is appropriate, since only a 7-year-old has the imagination necessary to dream up the ethereal entities that have become our tormentors.
October 7. No Internet connection yet. In fact, the only thing that has happened online is that the DSL company charged exorbitant sums to our credit cards.
October 10. The special DSL modem is having blinking spasms, though I'm not using the computer. It might be looking up baseball scores for all I know.
October 14. The social tensions in my house are as thoroughly tangled as the wires in the hallway. The computer whiz among us has sacrificed days to the project, and the rest of us have worn out our pointer fingers clicking through layers of dialog boxes that often read, "You have made a fatal error."
Our unsympathetic computers refuse to accept blame for the failed network, so we hurl accusations at each other, wondering where we went wrong.
Everyone's had it up to their i-Macs with this disastrous endeavor that cost money and time and -- worse still -- frayed our friendships.
Technological progress is supposed to be the opposite of barbarism, yet Lord of the Flies is playing out in our living room.
Where has all this progress gotten the average PC user? We're forced to spend hours with Microsoft tutorials, sift through pages of spam and endure jibes from our holier-than-thou computers. The need for high-tech skills has accentuated class differences. Technology has replaced old mundane tasks with new mundane tasks.
The promise of the Internet was freedom. Freedom to communicate to every corner of the world, free time, free information, free speech. And all this for the betterment of society, which is fine if your idea of better society is ticked-off poor people living in a jungle of Ethernet cables.
Even as I cower before these portents of doom, the bottom line is, I want my super-fast Internet access goshdarnit! And no way am I relinquishing my chance to own a cell phone, Palm Pilot or e-book.
We can't overthrow the system. We love it, we hate it and we're gonna have to live with it.
Meanwhile, my computer is still splayed out all over the rug like an Ebola victim, innards everywhere, little wires quivering pathetically.
October 15. We called this guy who knew a guy who knew this purported sultan of DSL who said he could solve all our problems. We sweetened up the deal with offers to make him home-cooked polenta and various baked goods.
We believe he will be our messiah, but only time will tell.
What I've learned is that everything comes with a price, and cyber-indulgences may not be worth the sacrifice of simpler pleasures -- like household harmony.
October 17. Time to turn off my computer and go make amends with my roommates.
(10/10/00 9:00am)
At a quarter past 7 on Saturday night, I slip into heels and sail out of my apartment, bound for the Upper Quad taxi line. Ten minutes later, two friends and I are speeding beneath Philadelphia's glittering forest of skyscrapers. The river quivers with reflected city lights as we zoom over the Market Street bridge, and I can't help smiling with giddy anticipation.
Our destination is an animated strip of Sansom Street where we duck into the Adrienne, home to the InterAct Theatre Company. In the lobby, habitual theatergoers circle by InterAct's door, anxious for the first play of the season from the company that delivered last year's most celebrated production.
Soon we're settling into the theater's creaky aisles to watch Nixon's Nixon, a two-man political satire played out on a set not much bigger than my bedroom. Since the 106-seat theater didn't quite sell out, we sat up front, close enough to see the sweat beading on the actors' necks.
This sure ain't Broadway.
And thank goodness. Every time I've been to the Great White Way, I've strained from the 80-somethingth row to glimpse actors so tiny they might have been hallucinations.
On InterAct's well-worn little stage, less is more, and art takes life in the details of the performance. I can hear the actor tweaking his voice to infuse emotion into a word like an Olympic gymnast twisting on the parallel bars toward flawless physical expression.
This is why I go to the theater -- to see magic, spun from the threads of human imagination, materialize before my eyes.
But in my mind, going to a show is an event, and as the play ends, nightlife beckons in every corner of Center City.
Stepping out onto Sansom Street and chattering about the show, my companions and I are now just two blocks from Rittenhouse Square's ring of modish restaurants. If I'd caught a show on Broad Street, the heart of Philly arts, I might have ended up threading through Old City's bubbling bar scene.
The glamour of the Big Apple is seductive, but I don't have to stray so far from home to paint the town red. The trek to Broadway gobbles up an entire day and practically an entire paycheck. If you don't drown under the tsunamis of people washing up in Times Square, you might get to watch over-hyped theater from the back row.
You go to New York for the glitz -- and sometimes get only glare.
Philadelphia theater sees her share of lemons, but the bitter taste fades quickly in a town that has perfected the art of dusting itself off and stepping back into the ring. Local theater refuses to be intimidated by Manhattan's supposed superiority. Philly's home-grown talent cultivates the unique flavor of the city's artistic life through hard work and unapologetic spunk. The result is an inspired, fun and honest theater community.
Penn alumnus and director Seth Rozin, who chose Philadelphia over New York to make a home for InterAct Theatre, knows that in Philly, everything's coming up roses. He helped plant the seeds.
"In the 13 years I've been doing professional theater," Rozin said. "I've seen Philadelphia blossom from a fairly marginal scene to one of the most diverse and exciting scenes in the country."
Local companies represent a rainbow of styles -- everything from the Walnut Street Theatre's family fun musicals to the avant garde of the Fringe Festival, an annual smorgasbord of productions that skips along the raw edges of experimentality.
Spectators hankering for Broadway's beloved song-and-dance spectacles can catch imported favorites like Rent and The Phantom of the Opera at the Forrest and Merriam theaters. But rather than reproduce New York's latest hits, companies like InterAct dare to produce new scripts, putting Philly in the business of discovering and nurturing tomorrow's hits.
Last year, InterAct's production of Lebensraum, a wrenching tale of hate and love 50 years after the Holocaust, snagged three of the theater community's most prestigious awards. InterAct revived the show for 14 more sold-out performances.
Lebensraum's return was like the coming-home celebration for that gold-medal gymnastics team -- and I got to go to the party. There in the dark, shoulder to shoulder with 105 other riveted spectators, I held my breath as the actors swept us up in their fantasy world.
Rare is it that you get to feel like you're a part of something special.
The theater scene in Philadelphia on a Saturday night is just my size -- large enough to lure me to its doors, and small enough to let me in.
(10/03/00 9:00am)
My kitchen is in crisis. The Diet Coke cans are cascading out of the trash can alongside perilously piled plastic Fresh Samantha juice cartons, while Snapple bottles bulge from every side of their bursting garbage bag.
It's time to take out the recycling.
But I'm not the only one putting off the task. In the past four years, Penn has been pitifully uncommitted to making recycling a campus priority.
Houston Hall's gorgeously renovated basement was recently unveiled to reveal great culinary options -- and no recycling cans.
Study lounges and dining halls, havens for newspaper-readers, lack newsprint recycling bins where students can deposit their Daily Pennsylvanians.
And trekking to the two Hamilton Village recycling igloos with three bags of last night's beer and soda cans is not convenient for the average on- or off-campus resident living west of 38th Street.
In a poll conducted this spring by the Penn Environmental Group, 72 percent of students said they threw out recyclables because there were no nearby bins. And while the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 60 to 80 percent of waste is recyclable, at Penn we recycle less than 30 percent of our waste.
There should be plastic, aluminum and glass receptacles next to every trash can. Paper recycling cans should be a fixture of each classroom and University office. And increased steps should be taken in off-campus areas, where municipal waste services collects recyclables only once every two weeks.
I applaud the Undergraduate Assembly for its recent proposal, endorsed by the Penn Environmental Group, that the administration upgrade its decade-old recycling program.
But I wonder why it took the student body 10 years to demand an expansion of Penn's recycling efforts.
The answer is that most college students don't really care. The University could attach recycling bins to our backpacks and some of us would still chuck cans in the trash because we don't consider our daily impact on the environment.
We need an attitude overhaul. We must make the words "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" a motto to live by.
The benefits are undisputed: Recycling glass cuts air pollution by as much as 20 percent. Manufacturing from recycled materials consumes fewer natural resources.
Believe it or not, one person's actions can make a difference. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours.
On the other hand, that plastic bottle you tossed while leaving the gym is going straight to a landfill, and with some states' waste sites nearing capacity, your grandchildren will be dealing with that bottle long after you're gone.
Living the environmental lifestyle is easy. Here are a few simple things college students can do to cut down on the amount of garbage we send to our landfills:
€ Don't go through 10 plastic water bottles a week. Buy a Brita and refill bottles with filtered water.
€ Instead of crumpling up those quarter-size ads you accumulate on Locust Walk, use them as scrap paper.
€ When lunching at the food court, don't grab a fistful of napkins you're going to end up tossing. One or two is enough.
€ Tell the Wawa checkout lady you don't need a bag for the solitary soda you just bought. And if you do leave with a plastic shopping sac, reuse it as a garbage bag.
€ Prevent unnecessary waste by saving the paper towels and cleaning up with dishrags and sponges instead.
€ At the end of the semester, don't chuck your half-filled notebooks. Rip out and write on unused pages.
€ Do your dishes and save those plastic red cups for parties.
And when it comes to recycling, there are numerous reasons to make the extra effort.
First of all, it's the law. Philadelphia residents are legally required to recycle their glass, aluminum, steel and newsprint. Failure to do so results in a $300 fine.
Plus, recycling saves money. It's more expensive to send garbage to landfills than to recycling plants. In 1996, it was estimated that the University saved over $200,000 a year by recycling.
Finally, recycling is the environmental issue over which we have direct control. As everyday citizens, we feel powerless against complex crises like oil spills, the depletion of the ozone layer and rainforest destruction. But each of us can do something to reduce waste.
In fact, the only solution to our society's rapidly mounting garbage problem is individuals consciously choosing to limit their waste production.
It's time for Penn to make campus recycling a priority. It's time for students to make reducing and reusing their personal responsibility.
(09/26/00 9:00am)
During my three years at Penn, I've met Judy Rodin only twice -- on the same day. I was at the dessert reception in the Quad on the sixth day of freshman year, and I was flying. Not only did I have a triple-layer chocolate peanut butter crunch cake in my hand, but Judy had just rapturously summarized my class' mind-blowing profile and unquestioned potential to save the universe at Convocation.
In another two weeks, the emotional fallout of first-year giddiness would kick in and we would start gossiping about one another like Survivor contestants on Oprah. But for now, we were the chosen ones, the pride of Penn.
Suddenly, there she was, the visionary at the helm of this institution, moving among the masses. "Oh Captain, my Captain!" I exclaimed as Dr. Rodin approached me and asked my name.
"Welcome to Penn, Erin," she said as she shook my hand.
And then she did it again. Fifteen minutes later, after she'd completed another round of palm-pumping, she revisited my little group, totally forgetting that she'd already met us.
Thus concluded my honeymoon with self-importance. I realized that I was a little fish in a big pond, as unmemorable as every other over-achieving Penn student. And Judy had more important fish to feed.
Like kids on a playground, we want Rodin in our lives in the same way we want Mom watching from the park bench. On one hand, we yearn for her attention as we cross the monkey bars. On the other hand, we just want our weekly allowance and the keys to the car.
As long as we've got plenty of places to buy lattes, it doesn't matter to most if Judy's not around to shoot the breeze.
But while I do not want to talk current events with her at house parties each weekend, I would like a closer relationship.
Currently, Dr. Rodin has no online suggestion box and no forum for give-and-take discussion of undergraduate policy issues. And remember that students had to camp out in her office for a week before she listened to them on the sweatshop issue.
The student body criticizes Rodin for being a politician, citing stories of her wining and dining dignitaries, cutting ribbons and courting potential donors.
I applaud her triumphs of diplomacy; I just wish she'd tend to the other side of being a politico -- rubbing elbows with the commoners. Judy should take a lesson from Roosevelt's fireside chats, Gore's town hall campaign stops and former Mayor Ed Rendell's regular outings to cheesesteak stands.
Most of us couldn't recite three facts about Rodin. How many students are aware that she got her undergrad degree in Psychology from Penn, taught at Yale for 22 years and authored 10 books? Nobody knows where she really lives or who her mysterious husband is. What's behind her perennial smile and perfectly spun image?
We know nothing about Judy, so we have invented a persona for her that we liberally pervert by way of revenge for her stubborn elusiveness.
Mask and Wig relentlessly assails her femininity and 34th Street pommels her weekly. Even her dog, Butterfinger, attracted abuse in a DP April Fool's issue that accused the pup of defecating in Quad bathrooms.
No one cuts Rodin any slack. She's CEO of the largest private employer in Philadelphia and overseer of 4,000 faculty, 12 schools, a nationally acclaimed hospital system and an organization that generates $4.3 billion for Pennsylvania's economy.
Rarely do students discuss the fact that Penn has flourished under Judy's 6 1/2-year reign. Her long-term strategic plan, the Agenda for Excellence, has expanded interdisciplinary academic collaboration and nurtured the campus community through the college house system. She has followed through on commitments to better West Philadelphia and renovate campus facilities.
Though I've met Judy only once -- sorry, twice -- I think she's a good head honcho. Three Ivy League schools -- Harvard, Brown and Princeton -- are shopping for presidents, and Judy's recent pledge of allegiance to Penn swells my pride. At the same time, I wish she'd sit beside us to cheer for the Quakers at the next big game.
Judy, you're doing a good job. If you would only show up at Xando now and then, we could tell you so in person.
(09/19/00 9:00am)
I hate to be the bad guy, but somebody's gotta go. There are too many performing arts groups on campus.
The abundance of groups is diluting talent and resources, thereby lowering the quality of performing arts across the board.
Penn's 36 dance, theater, music, a cappella and comedy clubs have spent the last two weeks courting new talent for the coming semester.
And each year at this time, I recall with dread that after competition between auditioners ends, the competition between groups begins.
As a member of the governing board of the Pennsylvania Players, I have witnessed performing arts groups vie for access to money, rehearsal rooms and performance space more ferociously than sopranos at the Counterparts callback.
Another hotly contested commodity is techies -- the folks who orchestrate lights, costumes, sets and just about everything else that makes a show possible. I once saw a terrified stage manager being torn practically limb from limb while two groups argued over who would get her for their show.
Because techies are in high demand, they are invariably overworked and don't have time to develop their skills in one area of expertise.
Similarly, the battle for talented performers is a fierce fight; clubs must attract a large number of auditioners in order to have a sufficient talent pool from which to select a handful of performers.
At the annual Freshman Performing Arts Night, a mega-show that offers new students a glimpse of every performance group, I watched recruiters in the lobby warily eyeing one another as they awaited their prey. When the frosh flooded the lobby at intermission, the recruiters assaulted them with millions of colored fliers, imploring them to audition for this or that.
Shouldn't would-be performers be begging the clubs for attention, and not vice versa?
If Penn had fewer groups, performing talent would become concentrated and techies would have the chance to cultivate their skills. As a result, Penn audiences would be treated to better shows.
Penn's Performing Arts Council, the governing body for those three dozen groups, should consolidate a few of its eight dance teams; 11 a cappella ensembles; nine music, comedy and singing groups; and eight theater clubs. Many existing groups cater to the same audience niche and could merge without shifting or losing their focus.
Not to desecrate a genre near and dear to the Penn majority, but how many radio-rock a cappella groups do we need?
Furthermore, while certain organizations sell out their shows, others struggle to find an audience. These groups should step aside if they no longer fill a need in the Penn community.
PAC Chairwoman Cassandra Georges has a firm grasp of the issue. "Constitutions become outdated as groups evolve," she told me.
However, she added, "I don't believe in setting a limit for performing arts groups, especially if there is a need for a new group. That's the Penn way: Everyone has a chance to make their own niche."
But if new and different clubs are to flower, we have to first remove the dead wood from the performing arts community.
With four fledgling groups preparing to apply to PAC this year, I urge Georges to merge existing groups that have strayed from their constitutions. PAC should also tighten its admission rules to prevent redundant clubs from forming and further diluting the resource pool.
This is a debate about quality versus quantity.
And some proponents of the status quo support quantity, arguing that performers want to have fun more than they want to have a good show. But where's the fun when you find yourself biting and clawing for rehearsal space, show dates, an experienced tap dancer or an available costume designer?
As a life-long performer, I understand the thirst for limelight and sympathize with performers who don't want their onstage opportunities limited.
To provide more performing opportunities, PAC could organize classes that would culminate in smaller-scale performances like one-acts, workshop comedy performances and one-night song-and-dance presentations.
Learning as well as performing would be emphasized, allowing less-experienced performers to develop their skills. This would also be a less-pressured environment in which to train techies.
I hope PAC will help raise the quality of Penn shows by consolidating redundant groups and admitting new groups only when they fill a unique niche.
Perhaps at future freshman arts nights, former rival group members can repose benevolently behind their information tables and wait for freshmen, drawn by rumors of high-caliber shows, to come to them.
(09/15/00 9:00am)
Each summer, droves of American college students traverse the Atlantic in the time-honored tradition of visiting the Old Continent.
I made the pilgrimage to Europe this June, and though I visited seven countries, the culture I came to know best was that of American backpackers, a nomadic society that knows no borders.
Members of this clan of 20-year-olds are easily identifiable: They bear permanent grooves on their shoulders from 40-pound backpacks and in their hands they clutch Eurail passes -- tickets that grant unlimited access to European railroads and guarantee three weeks of perpetual motion sickness.
During my 24-day odyssey, I was alternately seduced and repulsed by this culture, even as I struggled to accept the fact that I was part operating under its influence.
If these people had a constitution, it would surely read, "We, the backpacking college kids of the United States of America, proclaim it our duty to search out the cheapest Irish pubs in Europe for the pursuit of random hook-ups and the ultimate inebriation of all."
This is a group that encourages cultural exchange -- say, with the finely sculpted Spanish beauty gyrating next to you in the Barcelona discotheque.
The backpackers are simple folk, albeit superhumanly talented when it comes to sniffing out the location of an Internet cafe. After all, the majesty of Europe pales in comparison to up-to-the-minute details on events back home.
To be fair, backpackers are often led astray by the very mechanism meant to steer them on their voyage: the hip Let's Go, the most exasperating -- yet most coveted -- English-language volume on European travel.
Let's Go is stocked with all sorts of helpful information pertinent to a young American's travels, like how to avoid land mines in Sarajevo.
The book's sage advice on acquiring the Euro-chic look is to buy a fake mobile phone "from a wandering cigarette-lighter salesman." Not only is there no way I'd even buy a fake Eiffel Tower keychain from a Paris street vendor, but what makes them think I want to be Euro-chic anyway?
Though it details countries as obscure as Lichtenstein -- which I always thought was a beer brand -- Let's Go makes some major oversights. It says little about the American backpacker culture, for instance, of which a major rite of passage is the overnight train trip.
Why wasn't I warned that I would be shoehorned into a bunk below a guy who snored like a kid in Accounting 101? The unwashed laundry this man was toting around Europe with him emitted a stench that, if harnessed for military use, could revolutionize chemical warfare.
Some backpackers actually survive the tortuous ride. But crippled by a flimsy vocabulary composed of two phrases retained from high school Spanish -- and bowled over by the task of absorbing all of Western civilization's culture in three weeks -- their touring is often haphazard and unfulfilling.
They meander in a dazed stupor through Paris' Louvre and the famed National Gallery in London wondering: If the English painters came from England, did the Flemish painters come from Flemland?
Luckily, there is an oasis of hope in that alien European expanse, and it is Amsterdam, the mecca and ultimate destination of the American backpacker -- the town where Heineken is plentiful and marijuana grows on trees.
Legally.
In Amsterdam, the final stop on my Eurail safari, I reflected, in the name of American backpackers everywhere, on our collective mission in Europe. I asked myself: Why the hell are we here?
For survival skills. We're learning to make it in the modern-day global jungle. We're learning how to say, Pepto-Bismol, please in 12 languages and how to type e-mails on those misconfigured European keyboards. Even as our parents rant from across the ocean about the debt we're racking up, we persevere, determined to acquire some sort of useful knowledge -- or at least photos of ourselves in Internet cafes.
What did I gain in Europe? The confidence that I can survive in any big city in the world. And respect for other cultures, even for my tenacious, if sometimes laughable, fellow travelers.
After all, that fake mobile phone I finally bought classifies me as one of their kind.
(09/08/00 9:00am)
A health epidemic as destructive as the bubonic plague is currently causing massive suffering, yet many Americans are hardly aware that it exists.
The crisis is AIDS in Africa, a pandemic that has killed 13 million people and is tearing African society apart at its seams. We have the resources to tackle the disaster, but we must make lasting commitments to lend assistance through education, prevention and treatment programs.
In May, the magnitude of the disease jolted the international conscience when UNAIDS, a United Nations task force monitoring the global HIV/AIDS crisis, released a report summing up the chilling facts: Six people around the world under the age of 25 -- most of them in sub-Saharan Africa -- contract AIDS every minute.
Globally, 53 million people -- significantly more than the number of people killed in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam combined -- have been infected, and 19 million have died.
The 13th International AIDS Conference, held in South Africa in July, fostered conversation and cooperation among activists and policymakers, and in August, President Clinton signed into law a bill that dedicated $300 million to the problem.
However, in the United States, the momentum of the summer's legislation has not survived into autumn's campaign season. Both presidential candidates have been virtually silent on the issue, but we must demand that the Gore and Bush campaigns address this crisis.
This epidemic should be at the forefront of political discourse as we prepare to elect not only a new president, but new legislators in November. Though the U.S. has made significant progress toward taming HIV domestically, Americans are not immune to the disease nor to the unknown consequences it will wreak on international stability.
The epidemic will not end in Africa. Russia and Asia are fast approaching mind-boggling infection rates. The Clinton administration has now designated AIDS a threat to our national security because the disease has the power to swell poverty and incite ethnic wars. The AIDS plague could topple democratic governments that currently maintain peace and order in sub-Saharan Africa.
With warnings as early as 1990 from both the World Health Organization and the CIA, the magnitude of this catastrophe was not unexpected. However, 70 percent of the 34.3 million people in the world infected with HIV or AIDS are sub-Saharan Africans: The U.S. and other Western powers dropped the ball on fighting AIDS around the world because the people dying didn't matter.
Xenophobia and racism toward Africa, holdovers from a not-too-distant colonial past, made it easier for the West to justify ignoring the cries for help from this continent. Fears about a skyrocketing global population contributed to our willingness to let AIDS thin Third World populations. Added to U.S. indifference was the absence of a direct threat to our country's financial or political interests. Our economy would not be harmed by lives lost in Africa.
Though we cannot erase the shame of having looked the other way for the past decade while AIDS ravaged a continent, we can choose to act now. The United States, in conjunction with other governments, must multiply its efforts to battle the pandemic.
Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, estimates that it will take $3 billion of aid annually for basic prevention and care in Africa. This figure is 10 times what is currently being spent.
The effort to end the problem begins when we make AIDS in Africa a priority in America.
By financing massive education programs, we can help stem the disease's spread and reverse the epidemic. In Uganda, UNAIDS reported, prevention programs cut infection rates almost in half. New cases can also be avoided by funding drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission. And with cooperation from African governments, Western health officials can teach Africans how certain cultural taboos only increase the spread of the disease.
We can no longer sustain the attitude that it's "their" problem. It is humanity's problem. The majority of victims dying in Africa have no voices -- no internationally read newspapers to cry their case, no governments powerful enough in the global economy to wield leverage.
If respect for human life is not a strong enough justification for spending U.S. dollars to combat AIDS in Africa, consider this: History will look back on us as it has Nazi-era society and ask: What did you do to stop the suffering
(07/01/99 9:00am)
Ahh, Filthydelphia! I really miss you. During the school year, I lament the skyscraper claustrophobia, pierced by all-night sirens that cut through the stuffy air dense with food truck grease. But now I miss the sight of Independence Hall. I miss the Liberty Bell. I miss living in the city where freedom was born. Because now that I'm living again in my parent's house, the memory of these monuments is the only reminder that somewhere freedom still exists. Leaving the big city in May to return to my childhood home 30 miles west of Philly in cheery, suburban King of Prussia was good for my lungs and bad for my blood pressure: the battles I regularly wage with my parents are far fiercer than my most brutal roommate squabbles. I have spent two fantastic years in the other-world of college, where I am free to keep my own hours, to earn and spend my own money and to make my own mistakes. However, now that I am back at home, every aspect of my life has become subject to parental regulations. For instance, they want me home at a sensible hour. Sensible to them is 11:30. I have tried to explain that this is what time I start getting ready to go out during the school year but that doesn't impress them. My mom criticizes me for spending so much money eating out at restaurants. As though I will really endanger my tuition savings by shelling out cash once a week for onion rings at Denny's. A sample of other atrocities I commit: I make too many long distance phone calls; I spend too much time with my boyfriend; I own a scandalous bikini (though the suit my mother wore in the '70s is even less substantial). When did my formerly liberal, almost-cool parents convert to the Puritan church? They love to say, "Don't come home late tonight because I can't fall asleep until I know you're home safe." What do they do when I'm at college? Valium?! My requests to use the family car have been, I think, reasonable, but my parents consistently challenge where I'm going, explaining that not only is gas expensive but cars are dangerous machines. They also panic at the thought of their "little girl" driving through the streets of Philadelphia. As if the city where I live for nine months out of the year is now a major health hazard! Now, I've always considered myself a pretty good kid. I bring home As from an Ivy League institution, I chauffeur my little brother and sister around, I do housework -- sometimes. I've never been arrested, I don't litter and I'm dating a handsome, caring, law school-bound young man. What more could they ask for in a daughter? In the interest of fairness -- and before my ego becomes too inflated -- I must concede that I'm far from perfect and that my parents are justified in some ways. They are concerned with my safety, as well as the family finances and the influence my actions have on my siblings. Plus, during the summer my parents shelter, transport, and feed me.Therefore, they have the right to expect me to live by their rules. If only they didn't make me feel that I'm incapable of running my life responsibly on my own. It's true that my parents have always been there to bail me out of the tight spots and have consistently been my biggest fans through my successes and failures. Best of all, they never claim to have made all the right decisions in their youth. Therefore, I owe them some obedience. And I do want to please my parents , not because I want to repay what I owe them but because I respect them. However, I don't think sacrificing my freedom to them is a way of showing respect. So what do they want from me?! I don't think even they know. Perhaps they just want me to stay the same. To stay little, to stay innocent, but most of all, to stay with them. This will be my last summer at home. Soon I'll return to Philly with all its sidewalk vendors and security guards. Where there's no Mom to make sure I eat well and no Dad to check I got in OK. I hope they realize, however, that I will continue live my life by the values and truths they taught me. I think this is the best way to give them the respect they deserve as I begin to live life on my own.
(12/09/98 10:00am)
Some students say they find little interaction despite increased mixing of classes. and Jeremy Reiss Freshmen in the high rises? Seniors in the Quad? Who are these social deviants? One of the goals of the University's new college house system was to provide an environment in which freshmen and upperclassmen could form a single community within each house. Instead of the status quo of having several predominantly freshman dormitories -- with upperclassmen relegated to the high rises -- the intention was to create a more even mix. A recent Daily Pennsylvanian survey of 183 randomly selected students found that a majority of on-campus residents were satisfied with their decision to live in Penn's dormitories. But according to several freshmen in upperclass dormitories and upperclassmen in traditionally freshman residences, the new system hasn't fostered the anticipated amount of interaction between the students of different class levels. For the first time since the early days of the high rises in the 1970s, a significant number of freshmen are living in the 25-story buildings, which are still occupied primarily by upperclassmen. Approximately 150 freshmen are spread almost evenly between the three high rises. Increased numbers of upperclassmen, meanwhile, are now living in the three traditionally freshman residences: the Quadrangle, Hill College House and King's Court/English College House. In each of the high rises, freshmen are grouped together on two or three floors. All of about 10 first-years interviewed said they were content with high-rise life, despite the fact that the buildings are "less social than the Quad," as Engineering and Wharton freshman Tanya Lee put it. And many students said that while they found close friends among their freshman hallmates, they rarely bonded with sophomores, juniors or seniors. "We got to know the other 10 freshmen on this floor really well," said College freshman Jo Gasiewski, 12th-floor resident of Harrison House, formerly High Rise South. "The sophomores don't talk to us," Gasiewski added. "But we don't make an effort to talk to them either." The freshmen, most of whom chose to live in the high rises and expect to reside there again next year, offered various reasons for their housing choice. "It's quieter than the Quad, so if you want to study you can," said Engineering freshman Hiram Mac, who lives on the eighth floor of Harnwell House, formerly High Rise East. And Gasiewski and her roommates said they liked having a kitchen and bathroom. Three blocks away in the Quad, one upperclassman is less than thrilled with her college house experience. Wharton sophomore Jennifer Lok said she and her roommate found their high-rise room too small, so they moved to the Quad's Spruce College House. "We basically got shafted by Penn housing," Lok said. "All my friends live on the same floor in the high rises. I don't know anyone on this hall." While many students say the college house system is not forging cross-class bonds of friendship in the Quad, others say their experience has been positive. And if the trend continues, even more upperclassmen are likely to move to the Quad next year. From June 1997 to October 1998, the number of upperclassmen in the four houses of the Quad roughly doubled from 127 to 260, or from 8 percent to 16 percent of the total. In KC/EH, the number quadrupled from 28 to 113, or from 9 percent to 30 percent of the total. And in Hill, where the number of upperclassmen has risen from 81 to 133, the percentage increased from 18 to 26. While the June numbers represent the occupancy for the 1997-98 school year, they do not account for students who signed up for housing late, during the summer months. Statistics for last October were not available. Engineering sophomore Yoko Kawashima, who retained her freshman room in the Quad's Ware College House, said she "stayed because I liked the atmosphere last year and with the whole college house system, I wanted to help with the whole family atmosphere." However, Kawashima said she has had little opportunity to do that because freshmen in the Quad, like those in the high rises, rarely mix with sophomores, juniors and seniors. Kawashima estimated that although half of the students in Ware are upperclassmen, she and most of her upperclass friends know their freshman neighbors only by sight, not by name.
(12/07/98 10:00am)
A controversial proposal calls for replacing the historic organ's old console with an electronic one. Imagine sitting in a vast auditorium of fine wood and marble before a splendorous pipe organ that stretches over the back and side walls like a silver spider, and listening to Bach's famed Toccata and Fugue in D Minor as the ominous opening chords assail you with all the majesty of a full-piece orchestra. Now imagine all of that pared down to a three-minute Internet excerpt squeaked out over tiny computer speakers. Internet sound files are all that is currently standing in for the University's Curtis Organ -- a 10,700-pipe instrument that was the acclaimed centerpiece of Irvine Auditorium -- while the auditorium is under renovation as part of the Perelman Quadrangle project. The 72-year-old organ, capable of sounds as loud as a jet plane's take-off, is one of the largest pipe organs in the world and is considered an exceptional historical artifact because its original mechanical and tonal qualities have been preserved. However, the Curtis Organ Restoration Society, which maintains the organ and sponsors organ events, is worried about the University's new plans to replace the organ console's original machinery with an electronic console that would operate via a computer chip. The console is the part of the organ that sits on the stage and looks like a piano, only with four keyboards instead of one. The rest of the Curtis Organ is comprised of a wind chamber, which holds massive bellows, and some 10,700 pipes that line the walls of Irvine Auditorium. "It's mostly a question of historical integrity," said College freshman Dan Paul, a member of the society. "The organ, when it was built in 1926, was a legitimate work of art and to start tampering with that is a big mistake, I think." Built to commemorate Philadelphia's celebration of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the organ was purchased and donated in 1926 to the University by Cyrus Curtis, the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post. "In general, all great educational institutions had a very great pipe organ," said Joseph Dzeda, who is a partner in the A. Thompson-Allen Company, the curators of Yale University's organs. Traditionally, "it was one of the hallmarks of a university's pride in itself." The University has stated a commitment to maintaining the Curtis Organ and preserving its cultural and historical value. However, the organ's pipe, wind chamber and console need costly repairs. It was unclear yesterday exactly how much those repairs would cost. Penn alumnus William Brown offered funds to repair the mechanical console, with the stipulation that it be replaced with a new electronic one in keeping with current organ-repair trends of updating organ consoles with computer chip controls. Without the donation the University does not have the funds to repair the old console. "We agree that we ought to renovate the original console and bring it back to its historical significance," said Max King, assistant vice provost for University life. "But the simple fact is we don't have the money to do that." Instead, after assembling an advisory group that recently released a researched report, the University decided to restore the pipes and windchest with funds from the Perelman Quad budget, the Curtis Organ Restoration Fund and the provost's office. Brown's monetary gift will go toward a new, $180,000 electronic console. The University will restore the old console with its mechanical parts when it raises the funds to do so. King suggested that both consoles could be used simultaneously, allowing organists the opportunity to choose which one they wanted to play. However, members of the Restoration Society see the electronic console as a waste of money because its components, such as a computer chip, will only last four or five years, as opposed to the leather, wire and canvas parts of the mechanical console. "The electronic consoles depend on a technology which is not readily reproducible," Dzeda confirmed. "The first time they encounter trouble, they are replaced wholesale." By the time the electronic console needs replacing, the computer chip that controls it may no longer be available." The advisory board's report also announced that the University will launch a fundraising campaign that will hopefully accumulate the necessary console repair funds within five years. Eventually, the University will endow the organ. The Curtis Organ is usually played during University ceremonies like Commencement and Convocation. The pipes and console are currently in storage with Austin Organs Inc., the organ's original manufacturer, in Hartford, Conn.
(10/22/98 9:00am)
Food, games, screams and procrastination are all part of the 'studying' process for freshmen. It's midterm crunch time, and the freshmen on the second floor of the Quadrangle's Speakman section are heading off to Wawa for post-midnight munchies, staging shaving cream fights and revving up the Nintendo 64. Oh, and they're also studying a little. As The Daily Pennsylvanian continues to follow the lives of the 40 freshmen on this floor and the milestone events that typify the first-year experience, the first round of midterms stands out as a momentous event in every new student's year. It is a time when students develop the tools of self-discipline that will carry them through the rest of their academic career -- and the tools of procrastination that will help them put off reality for as long as possible. "I check my e-mail 74,000 times a day," admitted College freshman Rachel Fershleiser, an animated brunette whose slight Brooklyn accent still betrays her place of origin. Fershleiser's hallmates procrastinate by socializing in each other's rooms, playing Sextris -- an X-rated version of the popular Tetris computer-puzzle game -- and chowing down. Pizza from McClelland Hall and Ramen noodles are clear floor favorites. But behind this seemingly carefree attitude toward studying is a nagging anxiety over fast-approaching exams. "For my Art History midterm, I seriously do not know anything," said College freshman and Manhattan native Rachel Gross, who was studying for an exam scheduled for tomorrow. Gross had already survived the Psychology 1 test given two weeks ago. "It was OK," she said. "I had done none of the reading and hadn't gone to a single recitation." But the night before the exam, Gross crammed with friends for five hours. "We didn't do so well," she said. After this experience, Gross tackled her Art History work a little more earnestly. Settling down at her computer one recent night, she opened her class' Web site and accessed a photo of an Egyptian slate carving. All of the artwork her professor discussed in class is on the Internet in slide form, and Gross said she was planning on reviewing each and every slide. At the time of this interview, she was on slide No. 1. "I always get behind in things," said Gross, shrugging nonchalantly. She recalled a resolution she made in September: "I thought, when it's time to study for the final, there's going to be one kid in the class who did all the reading and types up notes, and I'm going to be that kid for the first time in my life, and everyone's going to be jealous and want copies and stuff." But her resolve crumbled early on. "I couldn't even do it for the first reading assignment," she admitted with a chuckle. Gross' mellow sense of humor helps her dilute her anxiety, but other hall residents choose to be a bit more aggressive about combatting exam stress. Just ask the econ screamers. The semester's first "econ scream," a campus-wide stress-relief tradition, took place at midnight the night before the October 8 Economics 1 midterm. "It was short, but I enjoyed it," said Wharton freshman Chitavan Pandya. Pandya, who was born in India and moved to the United States at the age of three, came to Penn from Clifton, N.J. On the night of the econ scream, she joined about 100 other freshmen on the Upper Quad's Junior Balcony who, at the stroke of midnight, shouted away their exam frustrations. Some people screamed, "Fuck econ!" while others, deriding a basic economics term, shouted, "I hate marginal benefit!" Some just yelled outright, even if they were studying for subjects other than econ. The freshmen have been observing another Penn tradition as well, and gingerly avoiding the stone compass located on Locust Walk at 37th Street. "When you walk in a group, you can see the group divide [over the compass] and then come back together," said Pandya, who, like many freshmen, heard the superstition that freshmen who cross the center of the compass are doomed to fail exams. "Before I knew about it, I walked over it and I failed," affirmed College freshman Lisa Kucharski, a petite blonde from Woodbridge, Conn. For Kucharski, failure was a "C" on her Chemistry midterm. "But the lowest grade on the test was a two, and the class average was a 39," Kucharski said, adding that her professor is partly to blame for the low scores because he uses scientific terms that none of the students comprehend. Not everyone was bummed after their first exam, however. "The test itself was actually too easy," said Wharton freshman Karl Schulze, describing his econ exam. "The curve is going to be pretty fierce." Which doesn't mean that Schulze didn't work hard for his good grade. "I feel like I prepared myself as well as I could," he said, recalling all the chapters he read, the definitions he memorized and the Econ graduate student who helped him study. In general, much of the freshmen's midterm trauma is exacerbated by the adjustment process from high school to college academics. "In high school, we used to be smart. We used to do well on tests," Fershleiser said. Pandya agreed. "I used to be able to study an hour before the test and get away with it," she said. "Here you know there's always someone who will study 10 times more than you." The freshmen said they are also unaccustomed to taking tests from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- right over the dinner hour. Plus, exams are often held in buildings with which they are unfamiliar. "My math midterm is in the Nursing Educational Building or something like that. Where the hell is that?" complained College freshman Po Saidi, a native of Iran who now hails from Rockville, Md. The location of Saidi's test is actually called the Nursing Education Building. Saidi, who sports a goatee and a mustache, pinpointed another reason freshmen struggle at exam time. "I know so many people who are having a lot of problems on their midterms just because this is around the time when they start breaking up with their high school boyfriends or girlfriends," Saidi said. Although a freshman's first exams may be traumatic, the Speakman group, like the freshmen before them, are making it through mostly in one piece. Gross, for one, laments over all the art samples she must memorize for tomorrow's Art History 101 exam, but her midterm qualms haven't eroded her fascination with the subject matter. "Next semester I want to take Art History 102: European Art & Civilization after 1400," she said. "I think that's going to be really interesting."
(10/05/98 9:00am)
and Liz Goldhirsh The freshman dorm experience isn't for the squeamish. Close quarters, shared showers and the possibility of major personality conflicts are what combine to make the first year of college life so exasperating. And so memorable. This year, The Daily Pennsylvanian will chronicle the lives of one family of freshmen as they experience the highs and lows of the first-year experience, from drinking to sex, academics to athletics. Along for the trip are the diverse mix of 18 girls and 22 guys who make their home on the second floor of the Quadrangle's Speakman section. And what a mix it is: There are athletes who play a variety of sports; a student who was born in England and educated in the Philippines; a table-tennis champion; people from 15 states, and towns big and small; musicians and more. Not to mention a resident adviser who juggles several positions on high-profile campus organizations with dedication to his kids. "My job is made easier by the fact that [the students] bonded really fast, which is impressive," said College junior Bryan Grossman, who became an RA because he enjoys helping freshmen find their way at Penn. "And I like the Quad atmosphere." On a recent weekend, Grossman taught the freshmen the Penn fight song before accompanying them to their first home football game. It is just one of many firsts the group will experience on their rollercoaster journey. And if first impressions are any indication, it's going to be quite a ride. Far From Home On the floor, everyone is trying to get by despite facing their own personal challenges. Wharton freshman Frank Callaghan was born in England and lived in the Philippines before joining his hallmates in the Quad. He came to Penn for its top-rated business program. "It's a lot more of a party school than I expected," he said, adjusting his silver-rimmed glasses and tousling jet-black hair. "The general atmosphere isn't academically oriented." Still, Callaghan, who is taking five courses, said he finds his classes interesting and his professors engaging. From fifth through 12th grade, Callaghan attended an international boarding school in the Philippines where he spoke only English. He said he finds dorm life to be a fairly familiar experience, but the move to America offered somewhat of a culture shock. "The Philippines is known for its hospitality, but here in the states the thing that hits you pretty hard is people's individualism," he said. "Everyone is very concerned with the image they portray and try to seem confident in themselves and who they are." A colorful Filipino blanket on Callaghan's wall reminds him of home. "It's a big change, but it's getting better." Athletic Fit Callaghan's roommate, Engineering freshman John Carroll, also felt the shock of moving to a new environment --Ethis time from familiar high school surroundings to an intimidating Ivy League university. Carroll, who attended high school in the small town of Minoa, N.Y., said he is impressed by the academic talents of his fellow classmates, and aware that for the first time in his life he is competing with his peers. "Where they're from they were at the top of their class, too," Carroll said. "Everybody can't get straight A's here." The competition at Penn may be intense, but Carroll is no under-achiever. His muscular build and well-worn lacrosse stick attest to his accomplishments on his high school lacrosse team, which he captained for two years. Also his school's table-tennis champion, Carroll has issued an open invitation to anyone at Penn who wishes to challenge him in the game. A fellow athlete, College freshman Molly Meehan, hails from the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdale, Pa., where she grew up throwing a softball. "Basically, I learned to play when I learned to walk," she said, explaining that her father was the commissioner of her local youth league. Recruited to play varsity softball for Penn, Meehan is struggling to balance the sport and her workload. "It is sort of difficult, but I think I can handle it," said Meehan, who has long brown hair and green eyes. "The older girls on the team have been really helpful in giving me guidance in how to survive." Munchies and Majors Down the hall, another pair of roommates, Melissa Barry and Anne O'Neil-Henry, both of the College, quickly worked to transform their sterile dorm room into a comfortable home. Matching green bedspreads complement their green carpet, and glow-in-the-dark stars dot the ceiling. The roomies plastered the walls with black and white posters of favorite movies -- Gone With the Wind, Say Anything and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Barry, who sports short reddish hair and checks in at a few inches over five feet tall, came to Penn from Rockville Centre, N.Y. O'Neil-Henry is taller and quick with a smile as she gives the name of her hometown, Walla Walla, Wash. Munching on baby carrots and rice cakes, the girls named the one aspect of Penn life they don't delight in -- dining. "Definite thumbs down," said Barry, who will skip a full meal in favor of Rice Krispies. "But we go to SaladWorks every Sunday night," said O'Neil-Henry. "It's really good food. It's going to be a tradition." O'Neil-Henry does aerobics at Gimbel Gymnasium during the week and works out there on Saturdays. "We're big on the negative 15," she said, referring to the fabled "freshman 15" pounds which she doesn't plan to put on. But she and Barry, who say they are in no way fanatical about their weights, laughed at the thought of the health-nut image they portray simply by being responsible exercisers and eaters. Besides, the girls have other topics on the brain -- like choosing a major. Both are decidedly undecided. Their friend and neighbor Melody Meyer, of the College, is also undeclared. "I think I put Psychology on my application here, but I want to be pre-law, so maybe Poli Sci. But then again, that will probably change next week." Meyer, wearing a long black skirt and a rubber band to tie back equally long dark brown hair, said that she came to Penn because she wanted to try new things. In Wayland, Mass., where she was part of a graduating class of 170, Meyer had never heard of things like intramural ultimate frisbee, a popular Penn extracurricular activity. Meyer is a self-diagnosed America Online Instant Messenger addict and said she refuses "to lose touch with my high school friends." This includes her boyfriend of seven months, to whom Meyer writes frequently. But keeping up a long-distance relationship, she has learned, is not as simple as e-mailing. "He told me that he realizes that I have a completely separate life here that doesn't involve him at all," she said, recalling a recent conversation. "That was hard." Dali vs. Pinup Girl Lounging in his room across the hall, College freshman Jim Miller explained why he came to Penn. "I loved the architecture," he said. "Once I saw the Quad, I knew I had to live here." The Salvador Dali poster that hangs over Miller's bed has almost a mathematical quality to it, hinting at his interest in equations and calculations. "I like the clearness of math. It always makes sense," he said, noting the influence his father, a mathematician in Brooklyn, has had on him. But his roommate stressed that Miller is not your typical Calculus nerd. "Yes, even Jim puts away his math book sometimes," Robbie Smith said with a chuckle. "Oh, yeah," said Miller, responding to the jest with an afterthought, "the roommate situation is horrible." Their banter betrayed the easy camaraderie that has already developed between the roommates. Which is not to say that the two don't have their differences. While Miller is partial to his Dali print, Smith's side of the room features a somewhat more low-brow poster, one which involves a plaid skirt, some nudity and the slogan "Study Hard." "Some people don't get it," he laughs. Furthermore, Miller is a math type, while Smith played varsity tennis for his Florida high school. After moving to the often-frigid northeast, however, Smith has turned to indoor sports. "I just came back from my first lesson of Tae Kwon Do," he said, showing off a recently-learned lunge move. Atheism Unlike Smith, College student Greg Wong does not expect to play any sports this year. Which doesn't mean that he won't be busy. Wong is currently campaigning to be his floor's hall representative to the college house government, and also hopes to be a tour guide for Penn. Plus, he plays the trombone and is considering writing for the DP. Where do academics fit into these busy plans? "The one subject I consistently enjoy is Computer Science," Wong said. "But I'm more interested in English and history than math or science." Wong, perennially cheerful, advertises his musical tastes through the large Dave Matthews Band and Mighty Mighty Bosstones posters hanging above his bed. There are no religious symbols hanging in his room, though, and for good reason: Wong is a self-described atheist. "I see no concrete evidence for the existence of a higher being," he explained. The Cool RA Much of the social success of the second floor of Speakman is attributable to Grossman, the RA. In addition to those duties, he works for UTV13, is the vice president of production and programming for the Social Planning and Events Committee and is co-director of the campus' biggest party, Spring Fling. Sporting a Penn baseball cap, denim shorts and a constant grin, Grossman admitted that he will overlook floor quiet hours in favor of an occasional 3 a.m. Busta Rhymes festival. And his freshman charges couldn't enjoy it more: they use adjectives like "awesome" and "very cool" to describe him. He also gets the highest compliment an RA can hope for: Grossman's charges refer to him, affectionately, as "just one of the guys."
(09/30/98 9:00am)
Panhellenic Council President Janelle Brodsky helps Penn women come to terms with food and body image. Women of Penn: Put down your NutraSlim shake and pick up the double fudge ice cream. College and Engineering senior Janelle Brodsky has written a 100-page guide to loving your body and leaving behind the food neuroses that plague a high percentage of American women. Brodsky wrote Things We Wish We Knew: Empowering College Women About Our Bodies and Food this summer, and with funding from the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life and Charlotte, N.C.-based First Union Bank, she has distributed over 400 copies around campus. "This is just research I did for myself that I wanted to share with people," Brodsky said. Things We Wish We Knew emerged from Brodsky's personal search for information about nutrition, exercise and dieting. Initially intending to create a pamphlet, her project ballooned into 10 chapters. The book emphasizes that in order to eat responsibly, women must understand how their bodies use food. "The reality is we enjoy food but we hate eating because it's such an upsetting experience," Brodsky explained. The key, she writes, is to eat the food we need and the food we want in moderation. So go ahead and have double fudge ice cream, but only eat one bowlful, and balance dessert with nutritionally sound meals. Things We Wish We Knew has received rave reviews from its target audience -- the women of Penn. Brodsky is bombarded daily with e-mails from students thanking her for writing "bluntly and honestly." University President Judith Rodin, who penned the foreword to the book, praised Brodsky for addressing "a sensitive topic with perhaps its most important and vulnerable audience." Brodsky saw college women as important targets for this information because society, she said, has put enormous pressure on young women to conform to an unattainable standard of beauty. "We are surrounded by images that make the average woman feel horrible about herself," she said. This extreme body-consciousness leads directly to eating disorders, weight obsessions and adherence to "fad diets" that are not always medically safe. "We read all this stuff in Cosmo and take it as fact," Brodsky pointed out. Brodsky's writing is straight forward like a sister-to-sister talk. And she avoids preaching. Personalizing her subject matter with anecdotes, she also makes references to life at Penn. College junior and Alpha Phi sister Jill Kleczko found the book easy to read and said it reinforced her ideas about nutrition. "I think it would be great if they could distribute it to more students," Kleczko said. Kleczko received a copy of Things We Wish We Knew when Brodsky, who is president of the Panhellenic Council, began distributing the book to sorority houses. Brodsky has also placed copies in lounges and hangout spots around campus. She has also applied for a grant from the Trustees Council of Penn Women in order to secure the additional $7,500 needed to print a copy for every incoming freshman female next year. In the meantime, Brodsky has sent the book to 10 publishing firms. The book is currently bound in plastic rings by Campus Copy Center. Writing Things We Wish We Knew was as therapeutic for Brodsky as it is for her readers. "I learned to be happy with who I was because I finally found out what works for me and came to terms with the fact that I am going to weigh 140 to 150 pounds no matter what I do," she said. Brodsky usually works out four times a week and tries to eat a balanced diet. Interested students can receive a free copy of Things We Wish We Knew by e-mailing Brodsky at janelle@sas.upenn.edu.
(09/22/98 9:00am)
Junior Amy Koenigsberg biked 275 miles in this year's AIDS Ride. It is not unusual to see Penn students riding their bicycles from the Quadrangle to Hutchinson Gymnasium, or from off-campus apartments to Van Pelt Library. But Massachusetts to New York? From Thursday through Saturday, Nursing junior Amy Koenigsberg rode a black mountain bike 275 miles from Boston to New York City during the AIDS Ride 4, a national fundraising event first started in San Francisco five years ago to benefit HIV and AIDS patients who cannot afford medical support. "It was so incredible," said Koenigsberg, who rode with 2,450 other cyclists for almost 30 hours over three days. The participants stopped periodically at rest stops during the day and camped at night in tent cities. "I was really nervous because the farthest I'd ever ridden was 35 or 40 miles, so I didn't know if I could do it," admitted the Montville, N.J., native. "My goal was to stay on the bike, no matter how slow I was going." And Koenigsberg did just that: she did not stop to walk her bike once. The AIDS Ride takes place in several locations across the country every year. In recent years, riders have biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Minneapolis to Chicago and Orlando to Miami. An AIDS Ride from Philadelphia to Washington took place in 1996, but the event was marred by financial scandals and controversy. It has not since been held here again. To participate, riders must raise at least $1,600, 60 percent of which benefits three health centers in Boston and New York that provide medicine and care for AIDS patients and HIV-positive people. The other 40 percent covers the cost of food and tents for the riders. This year's ride generated $6.5 million. Koenigsberg said she had no specific reasons for deciding to do the ride, but that "it just felt right." She found the experience more emotionally and psychologically challenging than physically grueling. As Koenigsberg pedaled past the throngs of cheering spectators during the last stretch of the ride and approached the finish line, the magnitude of her achievement overcame her. "As soon as I saw my parents waiting, I burst into tears," she said. Those last five blocks of the ride are called the Victory Parade. Just before this point, riders don brightly colored red, orange, yellow, blue, green or purple shirts so that the pack of cyclists looks like a rainbow riding through downtown New York. "It's not meant to symbolize gays and lesbians," said Koenigsberg. "It's just a happy, colorful, cheery way to end it." The spirit of her fellow riders and thoughts of the collective promise they had made to the ride's life-and-death cause was what carried her through the journey, Koenigsberg said. Bikers constantly encouraged and congratulated one another, especially during uphill stretches, of which there were 39. One male rider, called the Chicken Lady, dressed in drag and circled up and down a hill. He stopped for people who were walking their bikes and rode their bikes to the top for them. Others were just as willing to help. Koenigsberg was especially grateful to a man who adjusted her bicycle seat for her after she damaged her knee on the first day of the ride. Bicycling with the seat too low had caused her knee to swell, but she endured the recurring pain for the remainder of the ride. Koenigsberg didn't become a hard-core cyclist until after signing on for the ride. She was living in New York's East Village when she first saw ads for the AIDS Ride. She signed up in mid-July and prepared by working out at a gym and bicycling around Central Park. Now, after making the trek, she is already looking forward to next year's ride.
