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(03/07/01 10:00am)
STA travel, a student travel organization on 37th and Chestnut streets, has booked about two hundred groups to well-known party destinations.
"The most popular spots for Penn students who have booked through us have been and still are Cancun and Jamaica," said Ian Prauss, a STA travel agent.
Exotic locales provide both relaxation and rowdy fun, plus new people and new experiences. For many, spring break has become almost synonymous with tan lines and tropical drinks.
"I'm not a noble kid. I want to go where there will be sex, shots and sand," said Ethan Kay, a Wharton sophomore traveling to South Padre Island.
But while the majority will travel to Mexico and Europe to let loose, others will embark on a completely different experience -- service-oriented spring breaks, which are growing in popularity nationwide.
Next week, Alternate Spring Break, a student run organization based in Civic House, will send 100 Penn students to destinations around the country. Located as close as Virginia and as distant as New Mexico, the ASB projects range from Habitat for Humanity programs, where students construct houses, to community volunteer outings, which match students with local residents.
"I wanted to do something that would be fun but wouldn't just be helping me have fun," said College sophomore Julia Blank, who will head to Columbus, Ga.
A local Habitat project is sending 14 students to Columbus on a housing blitz -- a program aimed at quickly constructing new homes. The group will build six new houses in one week.
The ASB trips are moderately priced from $145 to $300.
And students don't mind opening their wallets for the cause.
"I consider the money spent on the trip as going toward charity in a sense," said College senior Shana Sethi, who is also journeying down south for the housing blitz.
Students say ASB's allure is simple -- kids are looking for an alternative to the traditional drunken debauchery of spring break.
"The people we attract are kids looking for something cheap and fun to do for Spring Break," said Meredith Chiaccio, co-chairwoman of ASB. "A lot of people get sick of spending spring break in a drunken haze."
Aside from the opportunity to give back, ASB allows students some unique bonding time.
"You are living and working together," said Chiaccio, a College junior. "You watch people have to struggle with all of these real life issues and from that you get to know them really well. You literally return to Penn with fourteen new friends."
Many students have been so thrilled with past ASB excursions that they've signed up again.
Jen Bolson, a College sophomore who stumbled upon ASB by accident, will return for a second break -- this time as a site leader.
"I knew I wasn't going home so I figured I would go to Cancun or something, then I saw the ad for ASB. I really had no idea what I was getting into," Bolson said. "Its just really great to be with such diverse people from Penn and go away and bond. A lot of my closest friends now are people I met there last spring break."
And some altruistic students leave the country for their own causes.
Separate from ASB, other nationally run programs send students to foreign locales like El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. There, students get an added bonus -- trying out newly acquired foreign languages.
Trina Dasgupta, a Wharton junior, looks forward to spending her break in a Dominican Republic orphanage.
Dasgupta will travel with two Penn friends on a program called Orphanage Outreach, which sends students all over Latin America to work with underprivileged children.
"We all did a party thing last year and this year I wanted to do something different," Dasgupta said. "I wanted to work with kids, practice my Spanish and do something worthwhile."
(03/06/01 10:00am)
Writing seminars are rarely something to joke about, but author and playwright David Sedaris' visit to the Kelly Writers House yesterday proved to be hilarious.
Sedaris spent the day with professors and students as part of the Writers House Fellows Program. The program, a seminar taught by English Professor and Writers House Director Al Filreis, brings well-known authors to interact with students.
"A few of us wet our pants," Filreis said in his introduction of Sedaris' reading later in the day. "It's not so often that people in an Ivy League university can say they wet their pants in an English seminar, but we did."
For nearly two hours Sedaris entertained a crowded Kelly Writer's House -- reading excerpts from his recent book Me Talk Pretty One Day, articles from Esquire magazine and bits from his personal journal.
The journal, as well as the stories, gave witty insight into Sedaris' life and detachment from mainstream society.
"He is the consummate outsider," said Tim Donza, a College junior and student in the Fellows seminar. "It is as if he were an alien sent to Earth to learn our ways."
Sedaris said he has been keeping a journal since he was a teenager, adding that he began his career by reading pieces from his memoirs at comedy clubs in Chicago, where he was discovered and asked to speak on National Public Radio.
Since then, Sedaris has written four books and several plays, while still airing regularly on NPR.
Sedaris' latest book was published late last year. It is a collection of stories and essays taken from his everyday life.
The book has been lauded by critics and scholars alike.
"It has one of the most stunningly written endings I have ever witnessed," Filreis said.
The two-hour talk encompassed several readings on topics from American tourists in Paris to homosexuality in England.
Audience members were curious about Sedaris' tendency to exaggerate in his books and stories, especially those stories concerning his family and his childhood.
During a question and answer period, one audience member tried to delicately broach the subject.
"The question was, 'How much do I lie?"' Sedaris said.
Sedaris answered that he rarely lies but does occasionally embellish for the sake of the story.
"Some people lead very interesting lives," Sedaris said, but "my life is not inherently dramatic."
Sedaris attracted a diverse crowd of about 120 undergraduates, graduate students and members of the Philadelphia writers community. With a waiting list to get into the talk, all present were huge Sedaris fans.
"I thought it was absolutely amazing," said Rebecca Sills, a College freshman. "He articulated all his ideas and humor so well. He was even more amazing in person."
(02/28/01 10:00am)
Sometimes even The New York Times makes mistakes.
This was a recurring theme yesterday afternoon in a panel discussion that addressed newspaper coverage of the turbulant 2000 presidential election.
"I don't know whether or not we got it all right," New York Times National Correspondent B. Drummond Ayres said. "There were times when I felt we were reaching too hard."
The panel discussion, moderated by Annenberg School for Communication Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, drew a huge crowd to Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge. Over 250 people filled all available seating options, including the floor, tables and windowsills.
The large attendance startled even the two panel members.
"I had no idea so many people would want to listen to reporters talk," Times Metro reporter Somini Sengupta said. "Frankly, I'm gratified. A lot of people are under the impression that young people don't read newspapers. This proves them wrong."
Ayres and Sengupta spoke for an hour about their experiences covering the 36-day standoff that followed Election Day 2000. The event was part of the Provost's Lecture Series.
Sengupta, who admitted that she usually does not cover politics, was sent to Tallahassee in November to join half the country's journalists in pursuit of new stories, daily.
"We had to think about what extra we could bring to the story," Sengupta said. "How could you, as a newspaper reporter, exploit your own medium better?"
A major criticism of media election coverage is the convention of calling exit polls before they are closed, according to experts. Early in the discussion both reporters admitted that all journalists must amend the problem.
"I think, in the end, something good will come out of this," Ayres said. "It really was a disaster waiting to happen."
Jamieson broached the subject of sexist dialogue in the press surrounding Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, while the audience further explored the issue with their questions.
Sengupta called it "outrageous" that the press would create a dialogue centered on how Harris dressed, carried herself and applied her makeup.
Students left the forum with mixed reactions about what they had heard. Overall, most agreed that it had been an interesting and accurate display of the facts.
"I thought it was excellent," College sophomore Matt Butler said. "I could tell that they were experienced journalists because they didn't reveal their personal feelings on any decisive issues."
But some felt that the discussion was limited.
"The premise was interesting, but I thought the moderation could have been more tolerant of the questions being asked," College junior Erin Phalon said. "It impeded the flow of the reporters' answers."
Others were displeased with the reporters' responses to audience questions.
"Both were pompous in their style," College junior Jordan Burg said. "I was a little disturbed by their lack of accountability, but I wasn't surprised."
The forum provided the kind of discourse on journalism that Jamieson says she finds helpful to society.
"I think that the questions focused on important issues," Jamieson said. "They suggested that a paper like The New York Times needs to step back during the process and do it a little better."
(02/19/01 10:00am)
Business school has never been more musical.
For 25 years, the Wharton Follies have given audiences a satirical glimpse into business school life.
The Follies, which began in 1977, have grown into a hallmark of the Wharton community and are now one of the largest and oldest groups on campus.
For their latest production this past weekend, the Follies spent almost two-and-a-half hours on a stage adorned with a larger-than-life TI-85 calculator. Using reworked pop songs by artists such as Britney Spears and David Bowie, the troupe poked fun at everything from pre-term to Palm Pilots to "how little work they really have to do to pass here."
In celebration of their anniversary, the student-run Follies had all of their music professionally recorded two weeks before the show -- making the anniversary CD available at every performance. This was a major undertaking for the cast and crew, since it required a tighter deadline for perfecting both their writing and music.
Other anniversary highlights included an a cappella piece celebrating 25 years of Follies -- sung to the tune of Boyz II Men's "Motown Philly" -- as well as a spoof of VH1's Behind the Music -- a 10-minute video depicting a mock history of the Follies.
Work for this production began last summer, but the final script was not delivered until right before Christmas. Since mid-January the cast has been practicing six days a week.
"It has been a very condensed schedule from a cast perspective," said Andy Stack, a cast member and third year MBA student.
The intense schedule was not without its benefits. The cast and crew said they were elated with their final product.
"I'm very happy with it," Stack said. "It was a very well-rounded show in that all 23 cast members were given their chance to shine. The clever writing and incredible directors helped us to pull off a show with a very good plot that was able to really come together in the end."
Nearly 200 cast and crew members were needed for the show.
"We made sure that we selected an extremely talented cast that was well balanced and could interpret the show as artistically as possible," said Artistic Director Priscilla Yu, a second-year MBA student.
The Follies presented five shows this past weekend at the Seaport Museum on Columbus Avenue. A sixth show will run this coming Saturday in New York City.
"The New York show should be a significant one this year because of the anniversary," said Yu. "We are expecting a lot of Follies alumni."
(02/12/01 10:00am)
Alexander Garvin, a Yale professor, wants to invite the world to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Garvin, a native New Yorker and planning director of New York City 2012, presented his plans to an audience of about 100 students and faculty on Thursday evening in Meyerson Hall.
"[I will] go to no end of lengths to figure out how to do this," he said.
According to Garvin, there are three main criteria that the planning committee must meet in order to have a competitive chance at gaining the Games.
The first of these requirements is finding a single site within the urban jungle of New York City to construct an Olympic Village able to accommodate more than 15,000 athletes and coaches for the duration of the Games, as well as a site for an Olympic Stadium that can accommodate 80,000 spectators.
In Sydney this past summer, the city accomplished this by constructing a suburban Olympic Village 15 miles from the central business district. This would be unacceptable in the New York scheme.
"The 2000 Games were a suburban Games," Garvin said. "In New York, we would want to have an urban Olympics."
New York would also have to construct an efficient transportation system that could carry an extra half-million people -- the number of visitors that the Olympic Games usually bring to a city.
The third and most essential requirement is financial feasibility.
"To hold the Olympics in New York, it would be necessary to do it without spending a penny of the taxpayers' money," according to Garvin.
Audience members were skeptical about the plausibility of this goal.
"The money won't add up," said Dan Campo, a doctoral candidate in city planning. "The committee will have to solicit a lot of money from corporations and it isn't true that it won't cost taxpayers a dime."
Garvin's proposal, a 600-page, three-volume bid packet, will be reviewed by the United States Olympic Committee in June 2001. The USOC will make its decision from a pool of seven other applicant cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati, Tampa and the Baltimore-Washington area.
Carrie Rothfeld, a student in the Graduate School of Fine Arts, said, "Compared to other cities, it's a good argument, but I wonder about the politics."
Politically speaking, the C ity of New York will contend with a number of challenges. Garvin's proposal calls for the construction of several new subway connections, a new football stadium and a full ferry mass-transit system on the East and Harlem rivers.
All of this construction would have to be completed in less than seven years, after the International Olympic Committee makes its final decision.
(03/21/00 10:00am)
Alcohol at Penn: Change for the better Alcohol at Penn: Change for the betterStudents involved in creating alcohol policy In practice, not that much has changed, at least not in a way that would take away our right to make our own choices. The changes have been subtle, and appear to be for the better. Penn administrators haven't forced an incredibly strict policy on us. Rather, they have tried to give us guidelines to help make drinking safer at Penn -- regardless of whether one chooses to drink or not. At the start of this year, I was selected to act as the chairwoman of the Undergraduate Assembly's Alcohol and Other Drug Committee. When I began, I thought I would serve as a watchdog, guarding student interests in the face of this new University policy. Much like most of the student body, the UA thought that the rules were going to forever change the face of Penn's social scene. We felt it was our duty, as the voice of the students, to form a committee dedicated to the rights of the entire student population involving alcohol -- and we did so. We held a forum, we met regularly with the task force and with Stephanie Ives, the alcohol policy coordinator. We were going to make sure students didn't have to worry about undue restrictions on their social lives. Surprisingly, we ended up not having all that much work to do because it turned out that the changes were reasonable and not overbearing. It also turns out that Penn students' view of our drinking habits might be inaccurate. You may have recognized the "Once a week or less" posters around campus and the ads in the DP about the amount of drinking that goes on at Penn. I saw those numbers over winter break and was at first a little shocked. My first reaction was to think, "Maybe not everyone at Penn drinks, but most everyone I know does." After a while of thinking about it, I realized that wasn't true. I know plenty of people who don't drink. I know plenty of people who drink in moderation and I know plenty of people who do this and still have a blast at all of the same parties I attend. The posters just made me think a little harder about how much drinking I was doing when I went out for the night. These ads and posters make me think about what the alcohol policy has done to affect our lives in the past year. Much like Michael Tobin's death, the policy has served as a wake-up call. Working on alcohol-related issues, I have been ready to relate students' major concerns about the new policy to the administration. Not too many have appeared. From my point of view, this means that the administration has done a good job of working with the students to formulate a decent policy. So, we can still have fun -- and isn't that what we were worried about anyway?
(09/28/99 9:00am)
Until recently, no one other than the Office of Student Conduct was notified of your citation. Not anymore. The law that had long protected student privacy rights -- the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, a.k.a. The Buckley Amendment -- has recently been amended by Congress to allow universities to disclose to parents certain instances in which their sons and daughters have violated the school's drug and alcohol policy. Universities across the country are suddenly faced with creating "parental notification policies" to govern when they will release such information to parents. Now the question is, what will Penn do? The University released a statement in The Almanac today detailing a series of recommendations concerning parental notification. The new policy will not be made official until after a consultation period extending through October 15. Under the recommendations, parents would be notified in one of two cases: first, if the student faces eviction from a University residence by virtue of previous citations for underage possession or consumption; second, if the student has injured themselves or others in connection with an alcohol violation. The reasons for this policy may not at first seem apparent. Most Penn students are legal adults over the age of 18 and are responsible for their own actions. But considering that multiple infractions are required before a parent is notified of their child's alcohol citations, the proposed measure seems intended to promote health and safety, rather than serve as a punitive measure. Under no circumstances will a student be penalized for receiving treatment at HUP. This is not a closed issue. Some students feel that a three-strikes policy should be considered, with the first infraction being wiped from a student's record after attending alcohol education. Others have stated that the policy should only pertain to citations given within a two-year period. But to students who think that notification is a severe infringement on personal privacy, we would ask the following: If after receiving multiple citations and attending seminars and counseling a student continues to commit alcohol-related infractions, perhaps the University has done all it can. Isn't it then time to ask for support from parents and family? And to students who think that the new alcohol notification policy is a good idea, we would ask a different question: Aren't you concerned that the University would be infringing on your right to personal privacy? Shouldn't each student be responsible for themselves? In any event, students should seriously consider the implications of parental notification. This measure concerns the privacy, personal privileges, and safety of all undergraduates at Penn. The Undergraduate Assembly would like to invite your participation in an open forum with the administration on Wednesday, September 29, at 6 p.m. in Logan Hall, Room 17. Your thoughts and concern do matter. Make them heard.
