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(01/17/03 10:00am)
After a year of spending countless hours in their windowless office at 4015 Walnut Street, the 26 members of The Daily Pennsylvanian's 118th Board of Editors and Managers are ready to pass on the torch.
Tomorrow night, at the DP's annual banquet, the new leadership of Penn's independent student newspaper will officially take over.
Although they will certainly enjoy the additional sleep they'll get over the semester, the members of the 118th Board will look back on having earned the DP's second consecutive Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award, one of the nation's top college journalism honors. This year, they covered news ranging from the openings of Huntsman Hall and the Pottruck Health and Fitness Center to the Pennsylvania governor's race.
Tomorrow's ceremony will include a keynote address from David Borgenicht, a 1990 Penn graduate and former DP staffer who co-authored the popular Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook and is now a publisher in Philadelphia.
University President Judith Rodin will also address the attendees, as will incoming Executive Editor Amy Potter.
Potter, a College junior from Albuquerque, N.M., served as senior sports editor on the 118th board. This year, she will lead the new group of editors and managers and will serve as president of the organization.
In her new role, Potter plans to focus on "improving the quality of our reporting and the quality of the paper on a daily basis," she said.
In addition to being an outstanding choice for the position, Potter is the first woman to serve as executive editor since 1994. She called the DP "a remarkable institution." "We have a responsibility to deliver news to our community," Potter said.
Flanking Potter will be Marla Dunn and Deryn Dobson, who will lead the 27 students on the editorial and business boards as well as hundreds of DP staffers.
As managing editor, Dunn, a College junior from Silver Spring, Md., will oversee the DP's daily editorial operations. Before serving as assignments and features editor last year, she covered the facilities and Greek life beats for the newspaper.
"I hope to build on the DP's standard of excellence, increasing both the breadth and depth of news coverage," Dunn said. She looks forward to "continuing to provide a source for the truth for our readers in and around Penn."
And Dobson, a Wharton junior from Newtown, Pa., will run the corporation's daytime operations as business manager. Last year, Dobson was the DP's finance manager and was also a member of the Executive Board. This year, she will act as vice president of the corporation and will chair the Business Board.
In addition, Ross Clark, a College junior and native of Winston-Salem, N.C., will take the reins of 34th Street Magazine, the DP's weekly arts and entertainment supplement.
Other members of the 119th Editorial Board are Steven Brauntuch, Madlen Read, Rachel Velcoff, Ashley Parker, Vivian Hsu, Andrew DeLaney, Greg Muller, Zach Silver, Mary Kinosian, Caroline New, Christopher George, Jeff Shafer, Noel Fahden, Daniel McQuade, Chris McFall, David Young and Matthew Jones.
Serving on the new Business Board are Dobson, Saul Safdieh, Miranda Maney, Alexandra Zarrilli, Jennie Woltz, Spencer Schrage and Jennifer Klein.
(10/18/02 9:00am)
It was almost a dream come true.
(08/01/02 9:00am)
Few sports moments I have ever witnessed, live or on TV, were as heroic as the performance of American cyclist Lance Armstrong in the fifteenth stage of this year's Tour de France.
(07/11/02 9:00am)
Only rarely does the public get a glimpse of the inner workings and deep thoughts of those who hold power and make important decisions. But The Summer Pennsylvanian this week obtained copies of some recent entries in George W. Bush's private diary. Here are a few of the highlights.
(02/22/02 10:00am)
Django Reinhardt would be proud.
(01/28/02 10:00am)
Check out our Wing Bowl X Photo Gallery
(02/11/00 10:00am)
The newest translation of Euripides' drama Andromache probably won't hit bookstores for another two years. But last night, about 15 members of the University community watched as 11 more performed a reading of the latest version of the translation, developed by Classical Studies Professor Emeritus Wesley Smith and English Professor Susan Stewart. The performance was part of the monthly Kelly Writers House program entitled "The Play's the Thing." In the play, Andromache is the Trojan woman who is taken as a slave in a Greek household after the Greeks have won the Trojan war. Smith and Stewart were commissioned for the job two years ago by the Oxford University Press. "Susan's responsible for the poetry? in the text," Smith told the group of readers and audience members after the performance. "I am the guarantor that it is accurate to the Greek." In making the translation, Stewart said she developed a very rough draft based on previous translations of the play. Smith went over the Greek carefully, and he and Stewart sent their versions to each other back and forth over e-mail. "When we're both satisfied, it's good news," Smith said. For Stewart, last night's reading was intended "to help us hear the play as a whole via different voices as we go into our final revisions." So, the performers met at 5 p.m. yesterday to begin their first -- and only -- rehearsal of the play, throughout which Smith helped the readers pronounce all the Greek names correctly. After the readers discussed the play over dinner, the reading began at about 7 p.m., with a diverse group of performers that included seven Penn students, one faculty member and three Philadelphia residents. But not all of them began the afternoon knowing they would be participating on stage later in the evening. Engineering junior Dale Hetherington, for instance, was persuaded by a friend to come watch the play but wound up acting himself when the cast needed an extra performer. Theater Arts lecturer Rose Malague opened as the play's title character. "Susan Stewart's poetry is beautiful," she said after the performance. College senior Ben Pace played the role of Menelaus, the Spartan king who threatens Andromache by telling her to choose between saving herself or her young son, Molossus -- who was played by Hetherington. He said Stewart and Smith "worked [the play] well? into the vernacular." And Smith said he was "quite pleased" with the way the play sounded. "My sense of the previous translations? [is that] there isn't a really speakable one." "It's good to hear it and know that it can be spoken aloud," he said, adding that he was "just pleased at its flow." When one audience member asked how the new translation compares with older ones, Smith quipped that the new one is "much superior." Whatever the truth may be, Smith and Stewart are still not finished with their work. "We're taking out 50 percent of the 'berefts,'" Stewart joked. And for Writers House Program Manager Heather Starr, who played the role of the goddess Thetis, it was "really fun to participate." "The fact that we all had such a good time," she said, is testimony to how well the play is translated.
(11/23/99 10:00am)
A unique dialogue between two bishops -- one Roman Catholic and the other Greek Orthodox -- on Thursday night brought more than 50 area residents to the Newman Center's library for a discussion on the unification of Christian churches. The discussion, entitled "One faith and one baptism? A Hierarchical Dialogue on Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism in the Next Millennium," was part of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship's Distinguished Guest Lecture Series. It featured Metropolitan Maximos, Pittsburgh's Greek Orthodox Bishop, and Auxiliary Roman Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia Joseph Martino. Maximos also co-chairs the Official Orthodox/Roman Catholic Bilateral Dialogue in the United States. To begin the discussion, both guests gave their views on the movements to unite various Christian denominations and the similarities between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Maximos emphasized that the majority of the teachings of the two churches can be reconciled. As for the differences that do exist, "these problems are there to be overcome, to be resolved. That's our challenge," he said. Though he later pointed out that "we cannot harmonize what cannot be harmonized," he did say that Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians share "one same basic faith." Martino then took the floor, pointing out certain similarities between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. "Our understanding of the role of the father, son and holy spirit is very, very close," he said. Both guests then took questions. Responding to one query concerning the role of missionaries, Martino recalled working with a Congolese member of a Christian sect. With so many Christian denominations presenting varied religious ideas, Martino said, the Congolese may wonder if "the faith of Christ is divided." Both guests said they were pleased with the discussions. Maximos said he was glad to see that Martino "cares very much about the rapprochement" of the Christian churches. Maximos added, however, that he wishes there had been more dialogue, and hopes that the evening's discussion will be followed by more meetings. Alexander Webster, Penn's Eastern Orthodox Chaplain, added that the discussion is just the beginning of a long-term dialogue. "I think it's a great start," said Wharton senior Peter Margetis, president of the OCF. Though many in attendance were community members, Margetis said that the participants were "all students here tonight." Clio Alexiades, a 1988 Wharton graduate who spent time searching for other Orthodox students on campus during her years at Penn, added, "I think it's wonderful that there was such a great turnout." And for Social Welfare Doctoral student Nate Prentice, "Ecumenism," which involves the efforts toward unity for the different churches, "is a very important thing to me in my personal life." Prentice, who converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism, added that "there's a lot more that we can do as separate churches to work toward finding a happy medium."
(11/15/99 10:00am)
For local college students interested in getting more involved in community service, this weekend's third annual gathering of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development provided just the opportunity. PHENND consists of 38 colleges and universities in the region, including Penn. The network's conference, entitled "Service, Education, and Activism: Finding Common Ground," is designed to "bring the various constituents of PHENND together to talk about service and service-learning," said Hillary Aisenstein, the network's assistant director and a 1999 College graduate. Karl Nass, the director of PHENND, called the conference a chance for participants to assess their effectiveness in "solving the core problems of the communities." Friday's events, which drew about 40 area college students, featured Nadinne Cruz, the director of Stanford University's Haas Center for Public Service, as the keynote speaker. Haas' talk discussed various community service programs that have been implemented at Stanford and stressed that the mere intention of giving to the community is often not enough. "A lot of people came up afterwards" to say they enjoyed the talk, Aisentein said. "It went over very well." The participants then split up into 13 different workshops, which, according to Aisenstein, ranged from discussions about "practical" issues -- like "How to Build an America Reads" information session -- to the more theoretical debates -- like why the majority of people involved in community service are white females. In the pre-conference activities of PHENND's conference, community members, college students and staff gathered Thursday evening at Drexel University's Creese Student Center to discuss the connections between institutions of higher education and their surrounding communities. After serving themselves food in a buffet-style dinner to start the 1 1/2-day conference, 70 area residents settled in for an evening of discussion about serving communities. Before the participants split up into different workshops, they listened to a keynote speech from Alba Martinez, executive director of Congreso de Latinos Unidos, in the center's Grand Hall. Martinez began the evening's program by describing her experiences with her organization, which serves a community in North Philadelphia, and stressed that such organizations need help from neighboring universities. To be effective, she explained, "Congreso requires alliances.? Many of the alliances we need are with institutions outside of our community." Schools, colleges and universities have what the organization needs, such as resources to be used for training staff members and people who "generate great ideas" on how to solve problems, she said. "Our partnerships with higher education institutions need to be much, much stronger," Martinez said. After the speech, the three workshops began. In one, entitled "Student Action for Change," students described their experiences running service programs. One student, Ann Yerenink of Bryn Mawr College, said she hopes to form a coalition of area groups interested in social change. A simultaneous workshop's topic was the effect that service-learning programs have on faculty members up for promotion or tenure. According to Frances Hart, director of the service-learning program at St. Joseph's University, when colleges and universities judge faculty, they are more concerned with the "scholarly activities" seen as service to the institution than with service that faculty may help provide to the communities themselves.
(11/02/99 10:00am)
It's not in the official law books, but it governs some communities throughout Philadelphia. In a discussion of his book, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City, Sociology Professor Elijah Anderson described the street code's origins and tenets to about a dozen students and community members yesterday in the University Bookstore. Christine Hibbard, a supervisor with the Trade Book Department at Barnes and Noble, said that Anderson was invited to speak not only because he is a University faculty member, but because of the importance of his book as well. The code, Anderson told the audience, is a form of "retributive justice." Particularly observed within African-American communities in the inner city, he said, it is the golden rule "with a certain caveat of payback." "Retribution becomes a tool for letting people know you're tough," Anderson said. The code emphasizes the importance of having credibility, reputation and respect. According to Anderson, individuals in many urban neighborhoods often perpetuate violence when they feel they have been harmed by another person. Anderson also explained how the code developed, emphasizing the impact of economic issues. A changing economy that has seen both an exodus of manufacturing jobs from big cities and an increase in technical industries in areas separated from the city has served to cut off some communities from the outside world, Anderson said. "The people there are suffering from a kind of dislocation." He argued for the development in these communities of "human capital," noting that youths who may have otherwise entered the "underground economy" of drug-dealing should be better educated so that they can connect with the rest of society. Anderson added that the code of the street is put in place when the police abdicate their authority over a specific area. The perception -- whether or not it is true -- is that the police are an "outside occupying force" that does not "treat the inner-city black communities with respect," he said. What's more, he said that so-called "decent" people -- a term coined by the members of the communities themselves -- buy into the code of the street, only exacerbating the problem. Parents who "want their kids to protect themselves," for example, can teach their children not to trust the police, sometimes even threatening their children if they fail to show they can protect themselves. Anderson also read from his book during the talk. One passage was about a man who told Anderson that someone pulled a gun on him. When the man went to the police station, he was told that he needed the address of the perpetrator. "I bet if you were a Penn student and you called the police? it wouldn't happen this way," Anderson said. After speaking, the author addressed questions from the audience and signed copies of his book. "It was challenging for me to think about 'what do kids need to make it?'" said Carey Davis, an audience member who heads a coalition in Southwest Philadelphia called City Lights. "Dr. Anderson has been such a key person in Philadelphia in helping people better understand these communities." Anderson said he hopes students who read the book get "a better appreciation of the complexity of life in this community adjacent to the University and beyond."
(10/21/99 9:00am)
The flu isn't the only bug to hit campus this fall. A computer virus known as W32/Pretty Worm or Pretty Park, spread through Hill College House recently and possibly other parts of campus, according to Information Security Officer Dave Millar, who said up to 50 computers in Hill have been affected. The virus -- which affects Windows-based machines -- can open up personal information like passwords and credit card numbers saved on the computer. It infects machines when users open it as an e-mail attachment, and then sends copies of itself to different people in the user's address book. Though not all e-mail programs will copy and send the virus to other addresses, computers can be infected regardless of the program being used. Mike LaMonaca, an information technology support specialist with College House Computing, said that "computer applications may fail to work properly, and information stored on the computer may be compromised." LaMonaca said that last Friday afternoon, a student in Hill House opened an e-mail attachment that was a copy of the virus. Though the virus was then sent to other computers in Hill House, LaMonaca added, he does not know if it spread from Hill to other campus locations. "I think we're still assessing how widespread it was," LaMonaca said. Later that afternoon, a fix for the virus was placed on Hill House's World Wide Web site, and LaMonaca e-mailed information technology managers around campus to let them know about the outbreak. According to Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing James O'Donnell, the virus is transmitted throughout a community much like a disease. "Something happens that brings it into your neighborhood," O'Donnell said. "[Viruses] are designed to spread rapidly." Millar said that if the virus were to continue spreading, it could potentially cause enough e-mail to be sent to override campus mail servers. Besides not opening unfamiliar attachments, there are other ways students can prevent the spread of PrettyPark. The University has a license with Network Associates to provide VirusScan, an anti-virus program, to all Penn students for no cost. Students can also receive free updates that allow the software to recognize the latest viruses. And PrettyPark is not a new virus -- updates for it were available since late in the spring.
(10/14/99 9:00am)
As they stood facing the Peace Sign on College Green near Van Pelt Library, a group of 25 emotionally charged students were thinking about a war. In a candlelight vigil organized by the Korean Students Association, the students gathered to acknowledge the fateful events of July 1950, when, according to some accounts, American soldiers massacred as many as 300 Korean civilians during the infancy of the Korean War. American troops were ordered to fire on anyone trying to move south of their position at No Gun Ri because of fear that North Korean soldiers were among them, the Associated Press reported recently. As a result, American GIs and South Koreans who survived the alleged incident said the soldiers ended up killing an unknown number of civilians. Now, with both the South Korean and United States governments saying they will investigate the matter, Penn students are doing their part to remember those who were killed during those four days in late July. "If we don't continue to try to uncover the truth, we will be doomed to repeat our history," College junior Hoa Duong told the assembled students, who had formed a tight semicircle next to the library. When Duong, chairperson of the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, first heard about No Gun Ri, she said, she thought of the Rape of Nanking during Japan's occupation of China in 1937 and the American massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968. In both incidents, troops massacred men, women and children indiscriminately. Though not of Korean heritage, Duong said that "as an American I'm extremely appreciative for what the U.S. government has done [in South Korea]," but that at the same time, events like No Gun Ri "can't be overshadowed." James Yoo, KSA's vice president, agreed. "To be honest, it is a very sticky issue because without American intervention at the time, I would most likely be a farmer in the rice paddy fields now, instead of here at Penn." Nonetheless, he added, "As a student and a person, this is my way of expressing my own personal sorrow over what happened." Duong added that it would be a great injustice not to make some kind of acknowledgement of both the survivors and the victims. Being given the chance to express his own emotions to the group gave Yoo an indescribable feeling, he said. "That people actually came out just makes you feel glad that other people can care about the same issues," he said. And when the students ended their moment of silence Friday evening by blowing out their candles one by one, they made it clear that their remembrance of the injustices of the war would continue. In addition to holding the candlelight vigil, the KSA has been collecting signatures for a petition "to let both the American and South Korean governments know that they are now being held accountable by humanity, ensuring a full and thorough investigation that answers all questions and reveals all details," Yoo said. He added that later this year, the organization hopes to bring one of the AP reporters who covered the story -- as well as the former GIs involved -- to Penn for discussions on No Gun Ri.
(10/06/99 9:00am)
When he was in high school, Philadelphia native Malik Armstrong had an unusually entrepreneurial spirit -- selling pretzels, T-shirts and even school supplies to his peers. A decade later, Armstrong is a successful business owner, having started up the Five Spot Soul Food Restaurant in Brooklyn. And in many ways, he credits the Milken Young Entrepreneurs Program, run through the Wharton School -- in which he participated more than a decade ago -- with transforming his ambition into practical business knowledge. "It was incredible," Armstrong said of his experience with the program in 1988. Before the program, he said, "I just could not conceptualize how to start a business." Sponsored by the Milken Foundation and now in its 12th year at Penn, MYEP -- also known as the University-Community Outreach Program -- places dozens of local high school students like Armstrong into a two-week business seminar over the summer. The students devise ideas for their own businesses during the seminar, and then, along with their volunteer mentors, prepare to present their improved plans to a venture capital board early the next year. Besides providing encouragement and support for the budding entrepreneurs, the mentors impart advice about topics ranging from technical issues like project feasibility to public speaking skills. Though not every student is required to present, some can earn grants of up to $500 from the board, made up of Wharton faculty members, MYEP staff and alumni of the program. In the last phase, the mentors form themselves into Business Centers of Excellence Teams, acting as resources for the entrepreneurs in different business-related areas. MYEP selects high school students not by looking at their grades but through a process that includes an application, a letter of recommendation, essay questions and a formal interview. That way, "we can assess a level of commitment, motivation and interest in entrepreneurship," according to Jeffrey Harris, the program's director in Wharton. Last year, Harris acted as an instructor and a consultant to the program. From a service standpoint, "our goal is to serve the West Philadelphia community," Harris said. He noted that 95 percent of the 36 high school students involved, most of whom will continue with the next phase of the program, live or go to school in West Philadelphia. And from a business standpoint, the goal is to expose students to entrepreneurship early, leading to future accomplishments in business. "There are a number of success stories," Harris said. After holding several information sessions over the past week and the group's first one-on-one meetings with students yesterday, Harris said MYEP has more than achieved its goal for recruitment of mentors, although he added that about right more female mentors are needed. The group hopes to pair up students with mentors by gender. Mentors say that their involvement with MYEP can be as valuable for them as it is for the students. Though scheduling conflicts can make it difficult to meet, working with a high school student is "very enlightening," said Audrey Greenberg, a second-year Wharton MBA student and one of last year's mentors. "You're influencing their life in some way," she said. MBA candidates "get an opportunity to work with people who are not of a similar background," Harris added, which will make them more competitive. And while some entrepreneurs may decide not to immediately pursue a business plan, he said, they can still cultivate positive relationships with their mentors. MYEP members hope to continue to support the entrepreneurs after they have completed the program and to try to accommodate those entrepreneurs who did not present their plans during their year of enrollment but wish to do so the next.
(09/24/99 9:00am)
While NBA teams made their 1999 draft picks at the end of June, the Philadelphia 76ers were still busily recruiting last night -- on College Green. Students and members of the Penn community tried their hand at two-ball, a basketball shootout game, not for a place on the team, but for prizes ranging from keychains and posters for participants to free game tickets for the winners. In an effort to cultivate a fan base at colleges in the region, including Penn, members of the 76ers front office -- with the help of radio station Y-100 -- held the shootout. It was hosted by World B. Free, a former NBA All-Star and now the team's community relations player representative. The College Tour, now in its second year, started earlier this month and will end in mid-October. Its latest stop was part of the University's "No Place Like Penn" weekend. According to Bree Jones, the team's community relations coordinator, the tour's goal is to "show college students the Sixers" and "get our name and face out there." Penn students did just that, with 1 1/2 hours of competition. Even though Hip-Hop -- the team's mascot -- did not attend, students walking in front of Van Pelt Library stopped to see what was happening as men and women in 76ers attire set up a basketball hoop and a table with sign-up forms and prizes. Each contestant was given 45 seconds to make as many shots as possible from different spots labeled around the hoop, set up near the Button. Shots were assigned point values based on their distances to the basket. The top score of the day was 55 points. The male and female winners of the shooting contest each won two free tickets to a 76ers game. Also up for grabs were team license plates and student discount cards. Every contestant received a prize. Additionally, at a separate Y-100 tent, representatives distributed free concert and movie tickets to passersby. Using a loudspeaker and then a microphone, Free challenged everyone to try to win tickets to 76ers games, encouraging students and community members to attend games as well. "I just heard all the commotion," College junior Eileen Munoz said. "They told me to try to shoot some baskets, so I tried." College sophomore Vikram Veeramachaneni, who competed last year as well, said that the event shows that the Sixers "appreciate the fans." Play continued as the skies darkened, ending before 8 p.m. when the next "No Place Like Penn" event got underway. Students gathered to watch the classic film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the recent hit comedy There's Something About Mary.
