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(09/30/99 9:00am)
Provost Robert Barchi recently appointed a committee of faculty members and administrators to look at ways in which the University can use distance learning most effectively in the upcoming years. The committee, chaired by Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing James O'Donnell, is examining the University's current distance-learning initiatives and considering new cost-effective programs that could take educational material out of the classroom and onto computer screens and television sets across the world. Barchi said he would like to see the committee -- which will begin meeting next week -- report back to him by the end of the semester. "Technology gives us tools that can make education more effective and reach more students in more different ways than we have in the past," O'Donnell said. O'Donnell, a Classical Studies professor, is no stranger to distance learning himself. He and English Professor Al Filreis have coordinated an online seminar the past two summers that allows incoming freshmen to meet one another via e-mail. And University administrators have repeatedly stressed their commitment to distance-learning initiatives and their interest in using technology as a means of conveying information. The College of General Studies, for example, administered PennAdvance this summer, a for-credit distance-learning program that enabled students from 15 cities to take Penn classes through a combination of live satellite broadcasts, videoconferencing technology and the Internet. High school students can also take classes in such subjects as anthropology, economics and mathematics through PennAdvance. The Medical School also recently adopted Curriculum 2000, a new integrative and broad-based educational curriculum that posts lectures with corresponding slides on the Internet. The committee members will explore these programs and numerous others in hopes of determining what sort of distance-learning initiatives they find most relevant to the University. A unique task for this committee, then, is considering programs that could benefit people not otherwise affiliated with the University. Most of Penn's current distance-learning initiatives are intended for Penn students, parents and alumni. Both Barchi and O'Donnell said they were committed to developing programs -- certificate-based or continuing-education ones, for instance -- that extend to Internet users who are not affiliated with Penn. Last spring, for instance, then-Interim Provost Michael Wachter announced the creation of Wharton Direct, a series of non-degree executive education classes administered through the Baltimore-based Caliber Learning Network's 43 center across the United States. The six-week classes, usually paid for by the student's employer, target established professionals who want to earn promotions or update their knowledge in an ever-changing business world. Penn President Judith Rodin said one of Penn's goals should be to extend itself via technology across the globe. "The University is absolutely committed to using some aspects of distance learning to enhance its impact around the world," she said. Rodin said University administrators had in recent years contemplated building Penn-affiliated campuses in other parts of the world, but are now eager to expand more figuratively. "We decided to do it through distance learning and I think that was a very good decision," Rodin said.
(09/29/99 9:00am)
Some top execs may lose their jobs as the troubled system faces major cuts. The University of Pennsylvania Health System is preparing for another series of layoffs that could reach into every corner of the financially troubled institution. All Health System employees received an e-mail Monday evening from Health System Chief Executive Officer William Kelley informing them of what he called the "very painful but necessary actions" that will be taken soon. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday that as many as 1,000 out of the 6,500 employees at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania alone could lose their jobs in the coming weeks. Though Health System spokesperson Lori Doyle would not confirm that number, she acknowledged that there will be system-wide cuts from each of Penn's four wholly owned hospitals. Besides HUP, the Health System owns Presbyterian Medical Center, Pennsylvania Hospital and Phoenixville Hospital, and is affiliated with several more. The Health System has made several major acquisitions over the past five years, a decision Kelley has strongly defended as necessary in spite of the current fiscal crisis. The Health System, which constitutes about 55 percent of the total University budget, reportedly lost between $150 million and $200 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1999. Kelley recently said he would be willing to eliminate entire departments and programs to save money and has pledged to have the budget in balance this fiscal year. He also has long maintained that no cuts will affect the quality of patient care, and he did so again in his e-mail. "The reputation of our health system is unsurpassed in patient care, in education and in research," he wrote. "Our fundamental purpose is to maintain and protect that high quality, and we will do so." Although business was carrying on yesterday, HUP employees were generally anxious and concerned over their job prospects. "I think we all should be to some degree [scared]," one employee said. The cuts come out of initial recommendations made by the Hunter Group, a consulting firm known for taking extreme measures to help hospitals cut costs. Hired in July, the Florida-based firm is expected to release a formal report later this fall which could include recommendations to dismiss top-level Health System executives, in addition to massive lower-level layoffs. "The Hunter Group's initial findings make clear that we must further reduce our costs significantly in order for UPHS to remain financially viable in today's volatile health care market," Kelley wrote in his e-mail. The forthcoming layoffs mark the second major wave of cuts to the Health System in the last five months. In May, the Health System eliminated 1,100 positions and laid off 450 employees, most of whom were in administrative positions. The Health System's deficits have been increasing regularly in recent years. It lost more than $90 million in Fiscal Year 1998, the last year for which exact numbers are available. As part of a "comprehensive remediation plan" aimed at helping the Health System cut its costs, Kelly's e-mail also mentions plans to save money in the purchasing of "supplies, equipment and services" and calls for executive pay cuts. He already announced that he would not take a salary increase this year. Health System officials have repeatedly insisted that their financial problems are no different than the ones suffered by academic teaching hospitals nationwide, caused mainly by decreased federal funding and reduced payments from insurance companies. "We're having to grapple with the realities of all these external forces that are having these devastating impacts on us," Health System spokesperson Rebecca Harmon said. But yesterday, gathered in front of the hospital's main entrance on their lunch breaks, several HUP employees expressed frustration with the way in which Kelley and his team have run the $2 billion system. "I think management is the No. 1 issue here," one employee said. "They went out and bought up all these different facilities and they just didn't have the money to manage it. Every time you turn around, they're buying something else." But in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian earlier this month, Kelley vigorously defended that decision. "I don't think we'd exist if we hadn't done what we did," he said of the Health System's expansion. Employees were generally skeptical that anyone -- no matter how senior their position --Ehad any job security. "I think it's going to affect everybody," said one employee, while another noted that "top management has just as likely a chance of getting laid off, if not more so." There might be other ways besides massive layoffs for UPHS to cut its losses, according to Health Care Systems Department Chairperson Mark Pauly. Pauly said that Penn has the chance now to renegotiate the amount of money it receives from insurance providers since the Health System's financial status has worsened. "Losing money lends credibility to the threat of, 'If you don't pay me more, I'm not going to be here,'" Pauly said.
(09/28/99 9:00am)
The recommendation would allow notification for major or frequent offenses. Parents of students involved in "frequent or serious" alcohol-related incidents that endanger themselves or others or result in property damage could be notified of their child's actions, according to a proposed new policy released yesterday by a University committee studying the issue. The recommendations are not intended to address alcohol-related hospitalizations, instead focusing only on incidents which lead to disciplinary action from the Office of Student Conduct. The University will maintain its policy of only notifying parents of students whose health is seriously endangered by their alcohol use and most hospital visits will not require any sort of notification. The policy does not call for any automatic notification. Instead, Office of Student Conduct Director Michele Goldfarb and her office would be able to use their discretion and make individual decisions for each case. The recommendations have been presented to University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi. Rodin said she was "looking forward to the input of the campus community" and would make a final policy decision on October 15, the last day of the campus-wide consultation period. As part of that consultation, the Undergraduate Assembly will hold an open forum tomorrow at 6 p.m. in Logan Hall for students to discuss the issue with administrators. The committee, chaired by College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman, was charged last year after Congress passed the Buckley Amendment to the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act in October 1998. That law reversed earlier regulations barring schools from notifying parents of students who are in violation of their respective school's drug and alcohol policies. Now, school administrators can make their own decision on which circumstances they feel warrant notification. The committee's report spells out the "specified circumstances" in which parents should be contacted. As had been the case before, a minor alcohol infraction will not warrant parental notification. Beeman said the recommendations reflected the committee's desire to treat students as adults who are capable of making intelligent decisions. "The University of Pennsylvania does not wish in any way, shape or form to rush back into the state of in loco parentis," Beeman said, referring to the era when colleges and universities assumed parental responsibility for their students. In addition, the committee recommended that the University further consider developing a voluntary "consent to be notified" form, which would be signed by both students and parents and would provide parental notification for violations not specifically mentioned in the recommendations. Citations for underage alcohol possession is one such example. Beeman stressed that notification is not meant as a punitive measure. "We said consistently, 'We do not want parental notification to be coupled with punishment,'" Beeman said. "It's a challenge to unlink those two." Administrators will try to contact in advance those students whose parents are to be notified so that the student may "initiate parental contact." The committee recommended that the OSC be responsible for gauging when and in what circumstances parents should be notified. "This is not meant to address all of the problems of alcohol abuse. It's only one small piece of a much bigger policy," said Goldfarb, who is also a member of the committee. Goldfarb estimated that, in the past year, about 30 students had been involved in alcohol-related incidents that, under the proposed new rules, would be serious enough to merit possible parental involvement. The committee had been meeting since early in the spring semester -- a week before before the alcohol-related death of 1994 College graduate Michael Tobin brought alcohol to the forefront of campus debate -- and has since been discussing the issue of parental notification with other universities and eliciting opinion from different campus and parent groups. Drug and Alcohol Resource Team Advisor Kate Ward-Gaus said she had contacted other peer institutions to see whether -- and in what way -- they were complying with the amendment. "There was the end of the continuum that said, "Let's keep the status quo,'" Ward-Gaus said. "Some institutions moved a little bit quicker," she said, using as an example the University of Delaware, which has begun notifying parents after the first offense.
(09/24/99 9:00am)
As she nears the end of her first five years in office, University President Judith Rodin recently signed a "letter of understanding" with the University Trustees suggesting the broad, overall direction in which the University should head over the next five years. Though the letter is not a binding agreement, it signifies that Rodin has plans to stick around -- at least for the next five years, through 2004. The document is similar in intent to the two-page letter she signed upon taking office five years ago, which laid out her salary and benefits and outlined individual goals for Rodin as president and more general goals for the University as well. Rodin called the five-year time period "arbitrary" and said it served only as a concrete period of measurement that administrators and Trustees could use to gauge Penn's progress. The "letter of understanding," which Rodin said contains mostly "pro forma" material, is not at all intended as a binding contract. Either Rodin or the Trustees could terminate the agreement at any time. Although the agreement does not require her to stay at Penn, Rodin said it does reflect her immediate commitment to the University. "It was not written contemplating my departure," Rodin said. She insisted yesterday that she has never seriously considered any other career opportunities and has the full intention of remaining as Penn's president for at least the next five years. "I really haven't considered the next job," Rodin said. "I came very late to administrative roles. Never did I set out early in in my career to be a university president." Prior to coming to Penn, Rodin was a renowned psychology professor at Yale University and later served as the school's dean and then as provost. In recent years, though, her name has popped up repeatedly in the political realm. She was named last fall in a listing of the top 20 women leaders by a group called The White House Project, while Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell said Rodin would have been a "dynamite candidate" for mayor if she had decided to run. Rumors have been circulating for years that Rodin is a sought-after personality in the Washington, D.C., political scene. But Rodin has repeatedly said she is dedicated to being president at Penn and is not planning on pursuing local or national politics in the near future. "I am not seeking a political appointment," Rodin said. "That is absolutely for sure? There is so much to do here." University spokesperson Ken Wildes said he imagined that Rodin would want to stay at Penn while certain programs -- the West Philadelphia Initiative, for instance -- mature. "I think we need Judith Rodin here and engaged in that perspective to help [the West Philadelphia Initiative] be as successful as it needs to be," Wildes said. "I know the Trustees very much want her to stay," he added. Provost Robert Barchi said he "fully expect[ed]" Rodin to stay as president for the next five years so that she could build on the "extraordinary work" that she has already done. "During her first five years as Penn's president, Dr. Rodin has been widely recognized as one of the premier -- if not the premier -- university presidents in the country," said Barchi. Rodin's immediate future, so it seems, will not lead her far from College Hall. What's further down the road, however, not even Rodin can say for sure. "I never say never about anything," said Rodin, when asked whether she would ever accept an appointment in Washington while Penn's president.
(09/23/99 9:00am)
In a meeting that finished just under the allotted two-hour time period, University Council spent its first gathering of the semester yesterday mulling over its year-long agenda, considering responsibilities for each of its 12 committees and attending to normal administrative business. After opening status reports from University administrators and student leaders, Council agreed that the six issues on its agenda -- which was developed in the spring and focused primarily on safety and minority recruitment and retention -- were still as relevant this year and will still be reviewed by Council in its monthly meetings. That was the easy part. Harder, though, was coming up with additional items to include on Council's agenda, as moderator Will Harris' suggestion for more issues was greeted with a brief silence. "When you're asked a question that's that weighty, no one wants to be the person that determines the consensus. People want to ponder it thoroughly," said Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Michael Silver, a College senior, offering an explanation for why Council members did not immediately suggest additional agenda items. United Minorities Council Chairperson Chaz Howard suggested to Council that certain issues -- minority recruitment and retention, for instance -- remain on the agenda because they have not yet been fully resolved and still warrant attention. "Oftentimes change has not happened," the College senior said. "The percentage of people of color is still the same as it has been in years." However, University President Judith Rodin pointed out later in the meeting that Penn has more minority students than it has had in the past. Howard also suggested that alcohol abuse, which has perhaps garnered more attention around campus in the past six months than any other issue, be included in the agenda. He said a means for gauging the effectiveness of the University's new alcohol policy should somehow be devised. But Provost Robert Barchi said it was too premature to begin to assess the policy's results. "I think to begin to measure it now wouldn't be of much use," Barchi said. "We only want to start measuring it once we have our benchmarks in place." Council will likely review the alcohol policy periodically throughout the year. The meeting then turned its attention to immediate responsibilities and the long-term tasks of the individual committees. The 12 groups, ranging from the Community Relations Committee to the International Programs Committee to the Personnel Benefits Committee, were each charged by Council's steering committee with two or three goals on which they should focus this year. Representatives from three committees -- the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, the Bookstore Committee and the Facilities Committee -- all updated Council on their progress. After the presentation, Howard urged the administration to speed up work on minority recruitment and find more ways in which the endowment for undergraduate financial aid can be increased. In addition, several UA members, including Vice Chairperson and Wharton senior Ryan Robinson and Treasurer Michael Bassik, a College junior, raised concerns over the price and accessibility of textbooks and bulkpacks. Attendance at yesterday's meeting was sparse, as approximately 30 of the 92 Council members -- students, faculty and staff whose job it is to advise the president and provost -- showed up. All 14 UA members who serve on Council were present. Silver also discussed the UA's agenda for the year. He mentioned plans for e-mail stations in the bookstore, a forthcoming landlord survey and possible outdoor basketball courts.
(09/23/99 9:00am)
Penn may notify parents when their children violate U. alcohol rules. After nearly a year of discussions about whether the University should notify parents of alcohol-related incidents and violations involving their children, a special committee will soon report its recommendations to University President Judith Rodin for approval. The debate follows the passage of legislation in Congress last September which authorizes universities to notify parents of students involved in drug and alcohol-related situations. Previously, they were not allowed to do so. At Penn, a committee chaired by College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman recently gave a list of recommendations to Provost Robert Barchi about ways in which the law can be made applicable to the University. Rodin is expected to review the report within the next several days. "The very clear intent of our committee was to respond to changes in federal legislation giving universities greater flexibility in the area of parental notification that would best serve the health and well-being of our students," Beeman said. Although officials have not yet released details of the recommendations, the University had previously only notified parents of students whose condition had been serious enough that they had been taken to the intensive care unit. But after Congress gave schools the green light to contact parents for less serious incidents, Penn decided to carefully consider its policies. "We had the obligation to carry out a thoughtful discussion? and to promulgate a public decision," Barchi said. The University is also examining the issue of opening student judicial records in certain specific circumstances, an issue Congress also is now letting colleges and universities decide on their own. Beeman's committee -- composed of students, faculty members and administrators -- began meeting early in the spring semester and continued to meet into the summer. Beeman said he also contacted administrators at other institutions to get a sense of how they were responding with the law. Barchi said the opinions he has heard from student leaders have been mixed but he noted that many students with whom he has spoken support the idea of parental notification in one form or another. Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Michael Silver said the UA planned to have an open forum soon to discuss the notion of parental notification. "It's a really tricky issue and there are arguments both ways," the College senior said. Barchi suggested a "rising concern about alcohol abuse on campus" as one possible reason that the law was passed last year as part of a series of new rules regarding campus crime and security issues. Administrators insisted that notifying parents would not be intended as a punitive measure and would not indicate a lack of trust in students. "We are not here in loco parentis," Barchi said. Added Beeman: "All of our discussions about the instances in which parents might be notified in the case of alcohol-related incidents were aimed at protecting the health and well-being of our students, not toward disciplinary action." Still, as a father of two children, Barchi said he thought that parents should always be notified when students have endangered themselves by binge drinking. "I can't imagine you would not tell me if my children's lives were at risk," Barchi said.
(09/22/99 9:00am)
University Council, which serves as the main advisory board to the president and provost, will hold its first meeting of the semester today at 4 p.m. in the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall. Comprised of about 90 administrators, faculty members, staff and students, Council meets monthly to discuss University-wide issues in a public forum. Much of today's two-hour meeting -- which will begin with status reports from members of the steering committee, including University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi -- will center on the selection and ranking of "focus" issues for Council this year. At last year's final meeting in late April, Council selected six issues that it considered particularly relevant at the time. The six topics -- which include women's safety and the safety of the entire community, minority recruitment and retention, admissions and retention statistics for minorities, the pluralism report on financial aid and graduate and professional students' relationship with undergraduates -- will all be revisited today. Other issues could be added to Council's year-long agenda but none of the above six will likely be deleted from the agenda, according to Faculty Senate Chairperson John Keene, who also heads up the Council's steering committee. "There obviously were people there [in April] who had thought about [the issues] in one way or another and thought they should be considered again," Keene, a City and Regional Planning professor, added. At today's meeting, the steering committee will charge each of Council's 13 standing committees with individual goals and projects for the year. In addition, chairpersons from three of the committees -- Admissions and Financial Aid, Bookstore and Facilities -- will present brief reports to the entire Council. United Minorities Council Chairperson Chaz Howard applauded Council's efforts in bringing issues like minority recruitment and women's safety into a public forum this year. "Any growth for any group of color is a step in the right direction for the University," the College senior said. Last year was a relatively quiet one for Council, as two meetings -- one in October and another in February -- were both canceled due to a lack of substantial agendas. The issues that were discussed, however, focused largely on campus safety and minority concerns. In last September's meeting, for example, Council brainstormed ways in which the University can better recruit and retain minority students and student leaders encouraged Penn administrators to develop financial aid initiatives comparable to those at peer institutions. At December's meeting, in the aftermath of an early morning attack on a then-sophomore woman in a basement bathroom of Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, then-College junior Erin Healy spoke on behalf of the Penn chapter of the National Organization for Women. Healy presented a list of four demands to Council, including regularly maintained emergency alarms and multiple victim advocacy resources that could be employed in preventing on-campus violence.
(09/17/99 9:00am)
But Harker's knowledge of how Wharton works will help in his temporary role. Patrick Harker was not an altogether surprising choice to assume the interim deanship of the Wharton School. He is, after all, the school's deputy dean and is already well acquainted with the ins and outs of Steinberg-Dietrich Hall and the rest of the top-rated business school. Still, taking the helm has brought with it a new challenge for Harker: finding time to balance work and family while maintaining high standards under temporary leadership. "This is a good place -- it's been quite good to me -- so I think every once in a while people have to step up and give back," said Harker, 41, who lives with his wife and three children in Haddon Heights, N.J. Harker -- who earned his doctorate from Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1983 -- arrived at Penn in 1984 after spending a year teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And now, 15 years later, he finds himself with a host of responsibilities after taking Wharton's reins early last month. In addition to serving as both deputy and interim dean, Harker is a member of the search committee charged with finding a permanent replacement for former Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity. And just as Interim Law School Dean Charles Mooney must follow his predecessor Colin Diver, a Penn veteran and admired administrator, so too must Harker temporarily replace a leader respected by his peers for his exceptional organizational and fundraising skills. Harker insisted that his familiarity with Wharton's agenda should help prevent the school from losing ground under temporary leadership. "We can't afford to stay still," Harker said. "We have to compete in the world of faculty, in the world of students, to stay at the top, and nobody at Penn wants Penn to be anyplace other than the top." In order to keep pace in what Harker called an "extremely competitive" world of business schools, Wharton administrators plan to launch new programs centered around electronic commerce, increase its work in technology and distance-learning opportunities and provide a more interdisciplinary education by connecting the business school with more engineering and science-oriented programs. Harker had previously served as the chairperson of the Operations and Information Management Department, but stepped down in order to assume the position of interim dean. New OPIM Department Chairperson Howard Kunreuther said he felt Harker had the necessary commitment and ability to be an effective interim head. "He has a deep knowledge of Wharton as a faculty member and chairperson and wants to keep the school at the forefront of business schools in the U.S.," Kunreuther said. Gerrity announced in October of last year that he would step down from his position July 1, but no successor had been named by that date. University President Judith Rodin appointed Harker and Mooney to serve as interim deans of the Wharton and Law schools, respectively, in August. Harker said he is prepared to stay on as interim dean until the conclusion of the search. Since Harker is a member of the search committee, he is not being considered as a possible candidate. Though he declined to offer a timetable as to when a new dean might be named, he did say -- as University officials have said since the beginning of the search -- that the committee's top priority is to ensure that the best candidate possible accepts the position. "Our expectations are very high for the next dean and we're not going to settle for anything other than the very best," Harker said. "We have got lots of people interested. We just want to find the right person."
(09/03/99 9:00am)
The Hillel building at 202 S. 36th Street will be torn down and a new, larger facility erected in its place as early as the fall of 2002, Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin said in July. Though construction costs have not yet been determined and plans are still preliminary, a recent proposal written by Brochin and Rabbi Howard Alpert, executive director of Hillel, said the new building may include a dining room with a seating capacity of 350, two auditoriums, two student lounges, a larger library, a game room and two seminar rooms. Officials are also considering adding more programming space for student performance groups, exhibition space for small programs, administrative and student offices and a rooftop patio in the new facility. Once a final proposal has been drafted, Hillel will embark on what Alpert called an "ambitious fundraising campaign," with the expectation that parents, alumni and other members of the University community will finance the entire cost of constructing the building. The current building, built in the 1930s, occupies approximately 11,000 square feet. The soon-to-be constructed facility will likely be more than twice that size, Brochin said. Hillel officials said that they hope to begin demolition of the current building next summer. University officials announced in the spring that Kosher Dining would relocate this summer to 4040 Locust Street -- a site formerly occupied by Boccie Pizza and Saladalley -- after its former location, also the site of the Faculty Club, was chosen to become the new home of the Graduate School of Fine Arts. In the interim period between the demolition of the old building and the construction of the new one, Hillel will lease another section of the building at 4040 Locust Street, formerly occupied by Urban Outfitters, which will then host much of Hillel's programming and many events. According to Brochin, there had long been concerns among Hillel officials and Penn students that the current building was too small. Hillel has worked during the last 15 years to alleviate the space crunch on campus, renovating the building itself in 1984 and helping create the Jewish Activities Center in the Quadrangle three years ago. But the construction of a new facility represents the most ambitious effort to date in providing more space for the Jewish community. Brochin and Alpert recently made site visits to the Hillel buildings at Harvard, Princeton, Tufts and Yale universities in an effort to gather some ideas for Penn's new Hillel building.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
The University Board of Trustees named James Riepe, vice chairperson of the Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price investment firm and former head of the Trustees' Investment Board, as its new chairperson this summer. Riepe, 56, graduated from the Wharton School in 1965 and earned a degree from the school's MBA program two years later. He was first elected to a 5-year term as Alumni Trustee in 1990 and began serving another 5-year term as a Term Trustee in 1995. The newly elected Riepe replaces Roy Vagelos, former chief executive officer of the New Jersey-based Merck pharmaceutical and health care company, as chairperson of the Trustees. Vagelos, who had held the position since October 1994, stepped down several months shy of age 70, the required age of retirement for all Trustees. He was also designated an Emeritus Trustee at this summer's meeting. Riepe was both a member of the Trustees' Executive Committee and the chairperson of the Trustees' Audit and Compliance Committee at the time of his election. He previously had served as chairperson of the Alumni Council on Admissions and is currently a member of the Undergraduate Financial Aid Committee and the Agenda for Excellence Council. He was appointed last summer to head the Investment Board, which manages the University's endowment. He and his family have involved themselves in the University financially, as well. In 1989, the James and Gail Riepe Scholarship Fund was created to assist undergraduate students in the Baltimore area. Trustee Richard Worley, a member of the Investment Board and the Audit and Compliance Committee, was named Riepe's replacement as head of the Investment Board. Shortly before adjourning the summer's stated meeting of the Trustees, Riepe briefly addressed the other Trustees and University administrators in attendance, calling his election a "very humbling appointment." He was unavailable for comment this week. During Vagelos' nearly five years as head of the Trustees, he aggressively campaigned to increase the endowment for undergraduate financial aid, and, as evidence of his commitment to increasing research opportunities, pledged two $10 million donations to the University -- one for the creation of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the other to fund an undergraduate program in the molecular life sciences. University President Judith Rodin lauded Vagelos' accomplishments and noted that the former chairperson will not soon be forgotten. "Everywhere is your imprint and your legacy," Rodin told Vagelos at the summer meeting. And Rodin added that it had been her "privilege to work side by side with Roy Vagelos these past five years." Trustee Gloria Chisum, who was re-elected as the board's co-vice chairperson, told her fellow board members that she had "mixed emotions" while reading a resolution recognizing Vagelos' accomplishments and appointing him an Emeritus Trustee. The resolution itself praised Vagelos for his "eagerness to ignite the spark of enthusiasm in others" and saluted him for his "legendary energy." "We know that it gives him genuine joy to walk around campus and know that what is going on in the classrooms, laboratories and libraries is improving both individual lives and society," the resolution reads. But Vagelos -- who called the meeting to order and addressed the board members and administrators first -- would not take credit for the University's recent success. "The University has done exceedingly well and the progress that it has made has made the rest of us look good," Vagelos said at the time.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
The Law and Wharton schools recently joined Engineering in appointing interim deans. Marking the first public announcement of two intensely private endeavors, the University named interim deans for both the Wharton and Law schools early last month, a move that gives both schools at least temporary leadership. Wharton Deputy Dean Patrick Harker will serve as Wharton's interim dean, and Charles Mooney, the Law School's associate dean for academic affairs, will temporarily head the Law School. Harker, who is stepping down from his position as chairperson of the Operations and Information Management Department, said he would not allow Wharton's academic and fundraising initiatives to remain stagnant under temporary leadership. "The one thing I'm committed to do is not to go into a holding pattern," Harker said. "The beauty of the Wharton School is that the dean is important, but most of the initiatives come not from the dean, but from the faculty members." Harker said he is prepared to act as interim dean until a permanent one is appointed. He is not, however, a candidate for the permanent position since he serves on the search committee charged with finding his replacement. Mooney, who has taught at Penn since 1986 and has served on the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee, was out of the country this week and unavailable for comment. The appointment of interim deans means that both schools will begin the academic year without permanent replacements for their respective outgoing leaders, despite searches that have each now lasted approximately nine months. Many have quietly criticized both schools for a search process that has extended beyond the time former Law Dean Colin Diver and former Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity both left office this summer. Though University officials have insisted that none of the outstanding searches are pegged to any schedule, both Diver and Gerrity said last October that they hoped new deans would be appointed by the time their resignations took effect. While there has been talk that the decision to appoint interim deans is a sign of a stalled search process, Provost Robert Barchi said it is beneficial to have knowledgeable people taking the reins for the time being. And according to officials at other top law schools -- some of whom identify with Penn's difficulty in ending these two high-profile searches -- nine months is not abnormally long for a search. Georgetown Law School Associate Dean Peter Byrne, who sat on the search committee that appointed current Law Dean Judith Areen in 1989, said his search lasted for six months before settling on Areen, who taught at the school at the time of her appointment. And at Columbia University Law School, where a new dean was named by the university's president in June 1996, there was a similar 9-month period between the resignation of the former dean, Lance Leidman, and the appointment of the current one, David Leebron. An approximately 7-member search committee there, charged by the president and headed by a Law School professor, ultimately selected an internal candidate, according to John Kelly, the director of public relations at the Columbia Law School. "[In general] it doesn't seem to be a very quick process," Kelly said. In addition to the vacancies at Law and Wharton, the School of Engineering and Applied Science has been without a permanent dean for over a year now, since the departure of Gregory Farrington for Lehigh University's presidency. Eduardo Glandt has been serving as interim dean since last summer. Gerrity and Diver both announced in early October 1998 that they would step down from their posts on July 1. Months later, as the deadline for their resignations neared, Diver said he would remain as dean through the summer but would still step down before the start of the school year. Two search committees charged with finding replacements for both Gerrity and Diver have been meeting since January to screen internal and external candidates. Both were unavailable for comment this week. Graduate School of Fine Arts Dean Gary Hack, who chairs the 12-member Wharton dean search committee, said his committee is still in the process of interviewing a "small number of candidates." The list of candidates, which Hack said has been pared down during the summer, includes academics, businesspeople and "public figures." The actual person selected, said Hack, could include any of the above. "What we've said from the beginning is that we're looking for someone who can be an extraordinary leader," Hack noted, adding that, "We're looking for people who have different shades and blends of both [business and academic] abilities." Though Hack refused to comment on exactly how many candidates are currently being considered, members of the search committee had reported in late April that they were working on reducing a list of six candidates to three or four that could be presented for final consideration to University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi. Hack acknowledged that the search has taken longer than he would have liked. He suggested that the committee may have been "overly ambitious" in thinking that the search could be concluded quickly. He did, however, say he hoped to end the search process and present a final list of candidates this fall. In addition, Law School dean search committee chairperson Richard Herring, who is also Wharton's undergraduate dean, said his committee hopes to conclude the search "as soon as possible." "My fervent hope is that [the search] will not take into October," Herring said, though he noted that certain "variables" -- applicants' chemistry with the University and other personal issues, for instance -- make it difficult to predict an official timetable for the search. Herring said the committee, comprised of four faculty members, four Law School professors, two Law School students and one alumnus, met with Rodin and Barchi once this summer to give a progress update, but did not discuss any specific candidates. Herring refused to name any of the candidates and would not say how many people are being considered for the job. He also declined to comment on whether Mooney was a candidate for the Law School position. In late May, Mooney said the committee had interviewed more than 100 candidates since February.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
With a mounting deficit and a series of layoffs casting a pall over the University of Pennsylvania Health System over the summer, it did get at least one piece of good news: the flagship Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was ranked the 10th best in the nation by a high-profile ranking system. The ranking for HUP in the July 19 issue of U.S. News & World Report marked the third consecutive year that the weekly news magazine has named HUP to the "Honor Roll" in its annual America's Best Hospitals issue. But it was the first year that the hospital has made it into the top 10. HUP was also the lone representative of the Delaware Valley region included in the "Honor Roll," which lists the nation's 13 best hospitals. The top spots were once again occupied by Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, respectively. The Cleveland Clinic jumped two notches to No. 4, and Duke University Medical Center rounded out the top five. "HUP's citation -- as one of the top 10 hospitals in the nation -- is a tribute to our dedicated faculty and staff and to our ongoing commitment to provide easy access to high quality care and service," Medical School Dean and Health System Chief Executive Officer William Kelley said in a statement released soon after the rankings. To make the magazine's "Honor Roll," a hospital must exhibit "unusual competence" by earning high rankings in at least six of 16 specialities used in tabulating the results. U.S. News honored HUP for its performance in 11 of those categories. HUP's highest placement came at No. 8 for its treatment of pulmonary disease. The hospital ranked ninth in otorhinolaryngology -- the ear, nose and throat specialty -- and finished 10th in the specialties of gynecology and neurology and neurosurgery. Pulmonary Medicine Professor Neil Freedman, an attending physician at HUP specializing in pulmonary medicine, said he expects his division's high ranking to "create more referrals from around the city" and "generate more business." U.S. News ranked the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia second in pediatrics for the third consecutive year, finishing again behind Boston's Children's Hospital.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston named renowned criminologist Lawrence Sherman as the new director of the Fels Center of Government this June, ending a nearly 6-month search and granting the public management program its first permanent head since 1996. Sherman, who will be appointed the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations in the Sociology Department, was the chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland before arriving at Penn this summer. Since Sherman will be a Sociology professor, Fels will now fall under SAS jurisdiction, after having previously operated out of both the Graduate School of Fine Arts and the Office of the Provost. This classification means that Preston bears responsibility for Fels' budget as well as mounting courses and hiring additional professors. Expectations run high for Sherman -- the department's lone criminology expert -- who administrators hope will turn the institute into one of the nation's leading public policy research centers. "He is an extremely gifted administrator as well as a wonderful scholar," Preston said. "He has built the best and largest program in criminology in the country at Maryland." And Political Science Professor Jack Nagel, who headed the search committee charged with finding a new director, commended Sherman for his "outstanding record of scholarship" and his "superlative record of entrepreneurial leadership in an academic setting." Sherman himself was unavailable for comment this week. The Fels Center is a public management program that primarily caters to graduate students interested in pursuing careers in public service, allowing them to earn master's degrees in governmental administration. In recent years, however, Fels has experienced its share of turmoil and controversy, as former director James Spady resigned in late 1996 after having heated disputes with the program's administrators regarding the direction of the program. Then, with Fels mired in what Nagel called a "holding pattern," a panel of University administrators debated Fels' future and ultimately decided against its abolition. And last summer, Paul Light, the University's top candidate for the job and a director at the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, rejected an offer to head up the Fels Center. Last fall, a search committee convened and, after reviewing several dozen applications, brought three potential candidates to Penn, one of whom was Sherman.
(08/05/99 9:00am)
Michael Rainey, a 30-year-old black male of the 4400 block of Sansom Street, was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on Friday at 9:20 p.m. after suffering a gunshot wound to the head early that morning near his home. University Police officers apprehended three unidentified black male suspects in connection with the shooting. The three were taken to the Philadelphia Police Department headquarters at 8th and Race streets where they have been charged with homicide, University Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Tom King said Tuesday. According to Lt. Susan Slawson of the Philadelphia Police Department's Office of Public Affairs, an investigation determined that Rainey was a bystander between two groups who were firing at each other from opposite sides of the street. University Police officers responded to a radio call-in of a shooting Friday at 1:50 a.m. on the 4400 block of Sansom Street. Upon arrival, they found the victim lying in the street with a gunshot wound to his head. Rainey was transported to HUP and was put on life support at 3:26 a.m., Slawson said. Two Penn Police officers then observed a white Pontiac on 46th and Walnut streets that matched the description given in the radio call-in and followed the vehicle for several minutes, King said. At 41st and Chestnut streets, the driver of the Pontiac crashed into two other vehicles that were waiting for a green light, King said. According to King, three males, whose names and ages were not released, then exited the vehicle. All three suspects were apprehended by Penn Police officers. One suspect was carrying a Tec 9-millimeter machine pistol and another male exited the vehicle carrying a .357-caliber revolver. A third male exited the vehicle but was not armed. The three suspects were then transported to the homicide unit of the PPD, King said. "This was excellent police work," King said. "Not only in the arrest, but in the fact that two of the three men apprehended were armed."
(08/05/99 9:00am)
Renovations to the Law School's Silverman Hall are slated for completion by next fall, just in time for the facility's centennial anniversary celebration in November 2000. The building, formerly known as Lewis Hall, has been undergoing renovations since mid-May as part of an $11.2 million project designed both to restore the building's original turn-of-the-century motif as well as modernize its mechanical and electrical systems to make it more functional for future use. According to outgoing Law School Dean Colin Diver, the project includes the restoration of the building's entire exterior and entranceway; taking up the current linoleum floor and putting down the original marble mosaic pattern; replacing windows; providing additional space for classrooms and conference rooms; and improving accessibility to the building. "My ambition since coming here was to try to undo some of the renovations that were done in the '60s," Diver said. Last February, University Trustee and 1964 Penn Law graduate Henry Silverman donated $15 million to the school, marking the largest gift ever given to an American law school. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of the donation was intended to go towards the restoration of the Silverman Hall, the original Law School building on 34th Street between Sansom and Chestnut streets. Additionally, a separate construction project, made possible by a $2 million donation last May from 1972 Law graduate Paul Levy and his wife Karen, is being used to fund the Paul and Karen Levy Conference Center in Sharswood Hall, the south reading room of the old Biddle Law Library. "Fortunately, the two gifts were finalized within months of each other, so that we could incorporate the two projects into a single construction project," Diver said. The Levy facility will include a state-of-the-art lecture hall, a multi-purpose reception hall and a full service kitchen. It will also feature rear projection technology as well as voice-activated cameras. The new mechanical and electrical systems will be "compatible with the historical architecture of the building," according to Patrick Burkhart of Shalom Baranes Associates, the Washington, D.C.,-based architectural firm that has been responsible for coordinating the restorations. An additional feature of the renovations is the activation of the 34th Street entrance to the facility, which had been closed for more than a dozen years. Diver said no additions will be made to the exterior of the building since the emphasis of the project is on restoration rather than new construction. According to Diver, most of the renovations and restorations are being made during this summer and will continue next summer so as not to interfere with the daily activities of Law students and professors. Diver called the project a "slight inconvenience" for those who utilize the building during the summer. Twelve Law professors whose offices are in Silverman Hall have been relocated during the summer months but will return to their regular offices once classes begin in the fall. And although most of the renovations will take place during the summer, and not during the academic year, officials are still confident that the project will be completed before the November 2000 centennial ceremony. "We're right on schedule," said Joe Policarpo, the Law School's associate director of facilities. The recent renovations represent the second in what could be a series of phases of construction. Phase I, which began in 1993 and ended three years later, resulted in the restoration of the building's interior spaces, including classrooms and the basement, which the law clinic uses as its mock-trial room.
(08/05/99 9:00am)
A new alcohol policy incorporating the recommendations of the alcohol task force will be in place for the fall. University President Judith Rodin announced this week that she has approved each of the alcohol task force's recommendations, meaning that the University will have a new alcohol policy in place for the start of the upcoming school year. Rodin said Tuesday that all students will receive a copy of the new policy, which incorporates the 45 recommendations presented in late April by the provost-appointed task force, via mail or e-mail later this month. The Provost's Office is currently working with the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life, the Office of the President and the Office of the Executive Vice President to formulate a budget and identify funds for the implementation of the various initiatives, according to Provost Robert Barchi. Barchi said Tuesday that he expects the task force's recommendations to be implemented regardless of their costs. "Although fully implementing all 45 recommendations will certainly tax our resources, it is our intention that funding will not be a rate-limiting factor for implementing these recommendations," Barchi said. Among the recommendations that administrators expect to have implemented by the time students return to school next month are those calling for increased non-alcoholic social programming. Rodin cited late-night dining options, a student-run music club, the re-opening of Irvine Auditorium and enhanced alcohol education as examples of non-alcoholic social opportunities that should be available in the fall. "In September, students can expect to arrive on a campus with a more vibrant and healthful way of life," Rodin said. Other possibilities mentioned in the proposal, such as a pool hall and a video store, are considered more ambitious and are not expected on campus in the immediate future. Assistant to the Vice Provost for University Life Max King said the recommendations, though "not the solution," will "give students something other to do than drinking." In addition, University administrators expect to hire an Alcohol Coordinator -- a position designated by the task force's report as a "confidential source to address all areas of of concern related to alcohol and other drugs" -- in early September. Rodin's approval is the latest in a series of developments that dates back to late March, when Barchi appointed a committee of students, faculty members and administrators to recommend changes to Penn's previous alcohol policy. Administrators formed the committee, comprised of 14 student leaders and seven faculty and staff members, in the wake of several alcohol-related incidents within the Penn community -- most notably the death of 1994 Penn graduate Michael Tobin, who was found dead outside the Phi Gamma Delta house on March 21 after an evening spent drinking. The University-wide task force convened for five weeks and, on April 26, presented its final report to Rodin that consisted of 45 recommendations to curb alcohol abuse on campus. Specifically, the task force called for a total ban of all on-campus undergraduate registered events; a stipulation that alcohol distribution end at 1 a.m.; more educational programming; more on-campus social options; and counseling and education for alcohol violations. Rodin then began a two-month period of consultation, during which she reviewed the task force's recommendations and ultimately decided to approve each of them and recommend them for implementation. Another provost-appointed committee of students and faculty and staff members, charged with the actual implementation of the recommendations, has been meeting throughout the summer and will continue to do so during the year, Barchi said. Now, with the task force's recommendations approved, the University is preparing itself for life under a new alcohol policy. "Students should not be concerned that the new policies will drastically alter their social lives," InterFraternity Council President Mark Metzl said Tuesday. "The policies should enhance the quality of the social scene at Penn, providing more avenues for a good time as well as safety to the existing ones," said Metzl, a College senior and a member of both the alcohol task force and the implementation committee.
(08/05/99 9:00am)
In the fall, the Committee on Undergraduate Education will give further review to its proposal to test a pilot curriculum. The Committee on Undergraduate Education's proposal to test a revision of the existing curriculum of the College of Arts and Sciences, which was granted provisional approval by the faculty in the spring, will be examined again this fall. CUE Chairperson Frank Warner said Tuesday that the committee is inviting between 80 and 100 faculty members to convene in September with the goal of fleshing out more specific details to the proposal, which included a recommendation for an experimental overhaul of the General Requirement. "Our job between now and December is to get these groups of faculty, as many as possible, as broadly constituted as possible, working on the pilot curriculum" said College Dean Richard Beeman, who has fully endorsed the proposal. CUE presented the proposal at a faculty meeting in late April. At that time, 33 professors in the School of Arts and Sciences endorsed the idea of the pilot curriculum on at least an experimental basis, with the stipulation that the 14-member committee return in December with a more precise and detailed plan. Under the committee's proposal, 200 students -- beginning in the fall of 2000 -- will be exempted from fulfilling the College's General Requirement and will instead participate in a pilot curriculum. Randomly selected members of the Class of 2004 who express interest in fulfilling alternate requirements will then be enrolled in the pilot curriculum, which will require them to take one course in each of four specified categories, one per semester during their freshman and sophomore years. Writing and oral communications requirements are also included as part of the pilot curriculum. The proposed categories -- which Beeman termed "illustrative and not definitive" -- are tentatively titled "Freedom, Equality and Community," "Science, Culture and Society," "Earth, Space and Life" and "Imagination, Representation and Reality." But the actual content of the courses to be offered under the broad-based, interdisciplinary categories has not been determined and has remained a focal point of debate among faculty members since the proposal was first introduced. The meeting in September, according to Warner, will enable faculty members to voice their opinions about what directions the courses should take, though no final decisions about actual syllabi will be made at that time. "My approach to [the categories] is that they'll evolve," said Warner, who is also a Mathematics professor. "There's a lot of flexibility." Student Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairperson Aaron Fidler, a Wharton senior, said he supports CUE in trying to incorporate diverse ideas and views into the proposal. "Being a plan that right now looks to try and encompass all aspects of the college?[CUE] needs to get as many professors' input as possible," Fidler said. Out of this initial meeting will likely emerge four different committees of faculty members, each one charged with helping to formulate the curriculum for the courses under each of the four categories. An additional committee of faculty members will assess the efficiency of the pilot curriculum by monitoring the progress of its original participants. CUE's proposal says that a decision to extend the "pilot curriculum" to all students will be made by SAS faculty no later than the spring semester of 2004. "I'm not going to step forward and propose that we implement a new curriculum for the whole student body unless I think it is demonstrably more successful than our old one," Beeman said. "We the faculty are responsible for the integrity of our curriculum, and if after rigorously assessing the pilot curriculum, we think it's preferable to the old curriculum, then I think we should go ahead and implement it," he added. At a faculty meeting in December, CUE will present an updated proposal calling for the implementation of a pilot curriculum in the fall of 2000. If approved at that point, then the experiment will officially begin in the fall. Both Beeman and Warner said they hope to alleviate some of SAS' faculty members most pressing concerns by engaging them in conversation several months before the proposal is again raised. Some professors, particularly in the natural and physical sciences, have argued that the pilot curriculum's four categories are too confining and attempt to compress too much important material in too short a period, Beeman said. Others have raised the concern that the pilot curriculum, in reducing the number of required courses from 10 to four, would be so popular among participating students that it would easily gain support from the University.
(07/29/99 9:00am)
A recent report published in the July 22 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine shows a wide disparity in the payments that different academic teaching hospitals receive from the federal Medicare program for their medical education services. The report, written by John Iglehart, said that the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania received $103,391 per resident trainee in Fiscal Year 1996. The figure represents the amount that hospitals would receive if private, third-party insurers paid the direct costs of graduate medical education. Although HUP received substantially larger direct Medicare payments for medical education than many other teaching hospitals did -- the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis, for instance, received a total of $33,739 per resident -- it still received less federal payments than those earned by several of New York's major academic hospitals. The report predicts that these disparities in federal payments -- primarily caused by differences in the wyas in which hospitals have accounted for their respective costs of residence training -- could "complicate the efforts" of medical centers to loosen Congress's restrictive spending caps. Typically, third-party insurers have made significantly higher payments to health-care providers than have Medicare and Medicaid. Some teaching hospitals suggest that Medicare establish a national average payment, which could ostensibly compensate those medical centers that receive less payment per resident. Medicare payments have indeed been a subject of debate on Capitol Hill in the last several years. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which had the ultimate goal of eliminating the federal deficit, called in part for steep reductions in Medicare expenditures and significantly less financial support for hospitals that receive and treat a large number of indigent patients. The report notes that teaching hospitals, which are generally located in urban areas and provide large support for uncompensated care, "were particularly affected by the 1997 budget law" by having their subsidies and federal payments reduced. "On the one hand, we are these wonderful institutions. On the other hand, we're also available to everybody, and it's very expensive to operate as a result of that," said Russ Molloy, the associate executive vice president for government relations for Penn's Health System. The Balanced Budget Act is expected to save the federal budget $119 million over five years, according to the report. It is expected to cost HUP about $175 million over the next five fiscal years, Molloy said. "Teaching hospitals cannot afford to let Congress or any other entity decide their fate without first making a more vigorous effort to define the value of academic medicine to society," Iglehart's report says. According to the report, several interest groups, like the Association of American Medical Colleges, have been encouraging Congress to increase payments to teaching hospitals. But some say that the active reaction against the legislation began a little too late. "When the Balanced Budget Act was enacted, the AAMC, reflecting the attitudes of its members, registered only mild complaints about the Medicare provisions," wrote Iglehart in the report. "Someone at the major teaching hospitals was asleep at the switch," by waiting too long to voice frustration with the Balanced Budget Act, said Health Care Systems Professor Mark Pauly.
(07/29/99 9:00am)
The two students were robbed early Sunday morning on the 4100 block of Pine Street. Two Penn students were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday morning at 41st and Pine streets, according to University police. The two students, a 21-year-old male and 23-year-old female, were not injured in the incident. The robbery occurred shortly before 2 a.m. as the two students were walking north on 41st Street. They were approached by two men who were walking on the other side of the street, according to the statement the students gave to police. One man, described by the students as a black male in his late teens or early 20s, 6'0", 160 pounds and wearing a blue shirt, removed a metallic handgun from his waistband. The other suspect was described by students as a black male in his 20s, 5'11", with a thin build and black hair. Neither male reportedly said anything when they approached the students. The male student gave his wallet, a pair of keys and a black cellular phone valued at $155 to the assailants, who then removed between $60 and $80 from the victim's leather wallet and took the phone as well. They dropped the empty wallet and keys on the ground and told the two students to turn around and walk away. The assailants escaped on foot and reportedly did not take anything from the female victim, University Police officials said. The victims were taken to the Philadelphia Police Department's 18th District Headquarters at 55th and Pine streets. University Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Tom King said yesterday that no suspects had yet been identified. University Police detectives are currently investigating the case. In an unrelated incident, employees at the Commerce Bank at 3731 Walnut Street reported that an unidentified man stole $3,000 from the bank at about 2:10 p.m. on Friday afternoon, according to information obtained from the University Police log book. Employees at the bank reported that a male in his 30s, wearing sunglasses and a denim baseball cap, entered the bank shortly after 2 p.m. on Friday. He presented a teller with note demanding "big bills" and left the bank with the cash. No weapon was visible at the time of the robbery. King said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently investigating the bank robbery and has identified a possible suspect.
(07/29/99 9:00am)
I was born nearly 16 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I never saw little John-John salute his father's casket. I vaguely remember reading about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s career as a lawyer. I barely glanced at the numerous pictures of him in newspapers and magazines, and I paid but minimal attention to his journalistic labor of love, George. Yet, like many Americans, I have been recently captivated by John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death and fascinated by his all-too-short life. When I learned that his plane was missing two Saturday's ago, I maintained guarded optimism that he, his sister and his sister-in-law were somehow still alive. When I later learned that all three were presumed dead, I was immediately saddened. That three young people with such promise died well before their time is an unspeakable tragedy in itself. That the Bessettes lost two children is a devastation words can not adequately express. That the Kennedy family lost yet another life seems almost unfair. Here was a man with unbounded charisma, impressive good looks and a decent soul. A man who had a great deal going for him and, by all accounts, even more awaiting him. A man whose designer suits juxtaposed sharply against his rollerblades and backwards hat, whose vivacious personality complemented his seemingly down-to-earth, personable demeanor. For that, for these three tragic deaths, our nation collectively grieves and remembers. Yet, there's clearly much more going on here. There must be a reason why hundreds of absolute strangers lined up at 4 a.m. outside the Church of St. Thomas More to pay their respects; an explanation for why the plane crash received banner newspaper headlines across the country; some logic for why thousands upon thousands are mourning the death of a man they never knew. This reaction, I would argue, is not solely caused by the fact that one of the victims was a Kennedy, nor is the extensive coverage simply indicative of the media's tendency to blow a story out of sensible proportion. And it is not, as others might argue, a reflection of Americans' penchant for excessive sentimentality. Neither I individually nor my generation as a whole can fully comprehend the reaction. We never lived through the Kennedy era. Yes, we get the sadness. Of course, we understand the inherent tragedy of a plane crash that takes the lives of three young, healthy individuals. Sure, we recognize that JFK Jr.'s death could indeed go down in the annals of late 20th century American history. Talk, however, to many people of my parents' generation, the so-called Baby Boomers, and they'll tell you a different story. They'll tell you what it was like to be young when Kennedy was elected president. They'll tell you how he was charting a new course of optimism, youth, vigor and passion heretofore unseen in America. They'll tell you how John was the very essence of virility, how Jackie epitomized feminity and how the two of them together represented the American Dream. They'll tell you how they remember photographs of John-John cavorting underneath his father's desk or being kissed by elder sister Caroline. They might even say something similar to what Ted Kennedy said about his nephew at last week's funeral: "The whole world knew his name before he did." Indeed, talk to people from an older generation and not all, but many, will wax nostalgic and discuss how JFK Jr.'s death marks the end of an era, the end of a legacy, the veritable end of their youth. They are not now what they once were; nothing could accentuate that point more than the painful fact that the suave John F. Kennedy Jr., previously the darling White House baby, is now dead. What a different era we live in now. That type of adoration for a politician is almost entirely lost on me. Whatever chance Bill Clinton had to posture himself as the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy fell by the wayside long ago, any possibility that he had to impress me with his charisma cheapened as his deceitful nature became ever more evident. Never mind that Kennedy might have been this or could have done that -- nobody knew at the time. I can't imagine feeling the kind of devotion for Clinton and his family that my parents and their generation felt for the Kennedys. Their sentimental attachment to him -- and, by extension, to his son -- is almost remarkable today, especially given the fact that JFK has been dead for more than 35 years. So today, as I and my generation mourn the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., we do so because he was a well-known public figure, a seemingly all-around good guy with a good spirit, who died all too soon. At least for me, that's more or less the crux of the meaning. The Baby Boomers, those who remember Camelot, those who dreamt of being like John and Jackie and Bobby, have a much more complex attatchment to his death -- one that defies any simple explanation. It is a relationship that harkens back to an entirely different time. It is a death that symbolizes the end of an era. It is reason, for many, to mourn.
