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(01/16/01 10:00am)
Close to one year after being forced to dissolve, the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity remains suspended after failing to uphold an agreement with the University.
SAM lost its charter and was suspended in February for violating dry rush procedures while on social probation. The fraternity was given until the end of December to meet guidelines established by the University in order for the suspension to be lifted.
The guidelines included becoming permanently dry, completing a series of alcohol and risk-management classes and performing community service, according to Scott Reikofski, Director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs.
After meeting the guidelines, the fraternity was to petition the Fraternity/Sorority Advisory Board for permission to recolonize. The fraternity chose not to go through with this petition process, according to Wharton junior and former SAM president Jared Hendricks. Hendricks declined to explain why the fraternity chose not to pursue the process.
Reikofski said that because the fraternity did not meet the necessary guidelines, the University would not lift their suspension.
"I think it's a loss for the school, but in the same sense people need to be held accountable for their actions," Hendricks said.
The decision not to end the suspension was a mutual one made between OFSA, the fraternity and its national office, Hendricks said.
According to Hendricks, the fraternity essentially no longer exists, as it is not allowed to hold rush events or otherwise act as a fraternity.
"The chapter is prohibited from holding meetings or participating in, hosting or sponsoring campus functions, using the name of Sigma Alpha Mu, the Greek letters, nicknames or other insignia," read a statement released by OFSA last February, when SAM was suspended.
Currently, sophomore men from last year's pledge class live at the former fraternity house, located at 3817 Walnut Street. They are allowed to remain there until the end of this semester, and Hendricks said he does not think the University has decided what will happen to the house after that time.
The fraternity hopes to return in the future.
"SAM will be back at Penn very shortly," said Hendricks, who noted that the fraternity has been active on Penn's campus for over 85 years.
Reikofski agreed that the fraternity will come back to Penn. "They'll re-open in the future, just when is a big question," he said.
According to Hendricks, as of now, the fraternity does not have any concrete deadlines or guidelines to meet in order to recolonize.
"We haven't signed any formal agreement with the University," he said.
(01/16/01 10:00am)
It's that time of year again, when freshmen brave the cold January temperatures to check out Penn's fraternities and sororities in hopes of finding a match.
Rush, a two week process in which interested students attend open houses and other events designed to stimulate interest in the Greek system, culminates when the fraternities and sororities issue bids to those selected for individual houses.
Rush kicked off last night for fraternities and lasts until January 30. Sorority rush begins tonight, ending on January 28.
"We're expecting a very successful rush this year," said College junior and incoming IFC President Mark Zimring. "We're excited for it, it's going to be fun."
Director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Scott Reikofski said he advises interested students to make sure the house is right for them before selecting a fraternity or sorority.
"You're getting ready to make a lifetime commitment to an organization and you want to make sure that your values are going to match," Reikofski said. He also stressed the importance of asking current members questions at rush events.
This year, Panhel put together a new rush marketing campaign designed to attract a "different type of girl," said Kristin Moon, a College junior and Panhel co-vice president of recruitment. The plan focuses on targeting those girls who generally would not join a sorority.
"There are always the girls that come into college knowing they want to rush," she explained. "We don't target them because we know they're going to register."
According to Moon, there are 479 registered participants in this year's sorority rush, an increase of 20 girls from last year. Moon said she is especially excited because Panhel has seen decreases for the past several years.
Since fraternity rush is more informal than sorority rush, the exact number of men registered to rush is not available, Reikofski explained.
The rush period kicks off with open house events. Men are encouraged to visit all houses, while women are required to do so.
Following the open houses, the organizations hold closed or invite-only events. At these events, the chapters serve nicer food to further attract rushees, Reikofski explained.
For females, closed-event attendance is based on both the preferences of the sorority and the preferences of the rushee. Each round, the houses are required to cut a certain number of girls from their lists and the girls have to narrow down the list of houses in which they are interested.
Everything is very structured in how the sororities select women they want to come back for the next round, Moon said.
"[The houses] don't just pick girls and tell them to get lost," she said.
And having seen rush from both the perspective of a freshman rushee and a sorority member, Moon had a few words of wisdom for rushees.
"My advice would be to keep an open mind about the houses," she said. "Don't hold stereotypes. Rush is really what you make it. If you go into it thinking you have to be fake, that's what it's going to be. Just be yourself."
College freshman Nicole Green is rushing to see if she's interested in any houses, worried she will second guess herself later if she doesn't.
"I thought I should exhaust every possibility," she said. "I don't know if I'll pledge or anything, but I thought I should see what my options are."
The Greek system at Penn remains strong, Moon and Zimring said, despite a national downward trend in Greek involvement.
"We really believe there's a house for you," Zimring said.
Both Reikofski and Moon said they remain confident that the recent deactivation of several former Chi Omega sisters following their participation in an Internet video likely will not affect this year's turnout.
"I'm fully confident they'll continue to do very well," Reikofski said.
(12/01/00 10:00am)
It used to be that a medical resident could depend upon at least one relatively easy rotation -- but not anymore.
At a forum held Wednesday night entitled "Are We Mis-Financing Medical Education?" panelists discussed this issue of increased pressure on aspiring medical practitioners -- among many other problems in medical learning.
About 100 Medical School students, undergraduates and faculty members gathered at the Biomedical Research Building II/III to hear distinguished panelists -- ranging from an osteopath to a Wharton professor -- argue over the current situation in medical education.
Sandy Shea, the director of the Boston Committee of Interns and Residents, represented the view of over-worked residents.
"Residents are demoralized, depressed and angry," Shea said. "It's bad news out there."
She added anecdotes about overworked residents, arguing that the graduate medical system should be more fair.
Some panelists answered the question posed by last night's forum with a simple "yes," saying that the country is misfinancing medical education.
Association of American Medical Colleges President and CEO Jordan Cohen spoke of the distinction between financing hospitals and financing undergraduate pre-med education.
"I think we have plenty of money," he said. "The question is: Do we have our priorities straight?"
Representing non-mainstream medicine, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean Kenneth Veit emphasized the unclear path of medical school fees.
"Students come to my face and say, 'Where's my tuition going?'" Veit said in his opening remarks. "Our answers get less and less satisfactory."
"If you try to follow the money, you get stuck in a maze," he added.
Veit described the osteopathic model for allocating medical funds as functioning like a tricycle.
"The big wheel is education," he said. "The smaller wheels are research and service delivery."
Wharton Professor Sean Nicholson wore the economist's hat Wednesday, emphasizing the favorable market for medical education.
He said students will likely be paid back for the price of their education from a profession with an average income of $200,000 a year.
Afterward, the engaged audience had many questions for the panelists.
Most students stayed throughout the entire two-hour debate.
First-year Medical School student Eric Stern said he and his peers attended the event for a simple reason: The topic hit close to home.
"We're medical students and have no money," he said.
(11/14/00 10:00am)
Sure, there are negatives -- you can fall and hurt yourself, you whiz by so quickly that you can't say hi to friends -- but scooter riders prefer to focus on the positives of their chosen mode of transportation.
Like the fact that they're portable. Like the fact that they're much faster than your average pair of walking shoes. Like the fact that a 10-minute walk becomes a five-minute ride.
Since the beginning of the year, Penn students have been bitten by the scooter bug. On any given sunny day, undergraduates race the length of Locust Walk on a set of wheels that have become a nationwide trend.
Of course, they're not quite the fad that skateboards were back in the 1980s, but scooters have become a convenient alternative to bikes, as well as a manageable way to get from Beige Block to Bennett Hall.
"A lot of people seem to have them on the Walk," says Engineering sophomore Michael Jue, a scooter rider himself. "I think it's a bit of a fad so people
like to hop onto it."
But what students seem to like most about the scooter craze can be summed up in two simple words: extra sleep.
"I can wake up like five minutes before class and still make it," says Nursing freshman Siam Sukumvanich, who explains that using a scooter can shave six to seven minutes off of a 10-minute walk.
Not surprisingly, area stores have noticed the trend. In the fall, when the fad boomed, they were quick to supply the demand among students.
How can the phenomenon be explained?
Stores aren't sure, but some venture a guess like this: "Feeling like you're experiencing something you always wanted to experience as a kid, but your mom didn't buy for you," says Alia Cole, assistant manager at Urban Outfitters. "Or you just want to get back to what it felt like in childhood to have something like that."
Ma Jolie, another store on campus, began selling the apparatus about six weeks ago.
"They're the latest thing," says Peggy Rittenhouse, the store's regional manager. "They're definitely a fad, and they sell."
"They're fun," Rittenhouse adds. "They're just fun, harmless fun."
While scooters may indeed be fun, expert scooter riders have some advice for the novice: Riding a scooter isn't as easy as it seems. And riding a scooter on Penn's campus, for that matter, isn't easy at all.
"You have to watch out for cracks -- the wheels will get stuck there," Sukumvanich warns.
"Penn has a slope, so it's easy to go to class," Engineering sophomore Alex Rhee explains. "But you can't ride it back; it's like impossible because it's all uphill."
Rhee, who no longer uses his scooter as often as he once did, says there are dangers associated with scooter use.
Like with any product, being a savvy consumer helps. Ma Jolie sells scooters for $99. Urban Outfitters' scooters are currently marked down to $48 from an original price of $120.
If you're looking to purchase a scooter of your own, you better act fast -- Penn's bookstore no longer carries the popular device and Urban Outfitters won't carry it for much longer.
"Our store is about being on the edge," Cole explains. "We were one of the first to have them, but when everyone followed, scooters became passe. We will sell our scooters until our stock runs out."
Hence the sale.
While zooming by all those students still trekking to class the old fashioned way, it is sometimes difficult for scooter riders to say hello.
"They're never [close enough to me], so I can't say hi to them," Sukumvanich says. Nonetheless, a bond does develop amongst the scooter population. So, do scooter riders ever get teased? But of course.
"People just say, 'Hey scooter boy,'" Rhee says. "My friends crack comments, but later they're like, 'Hey, where'd you get that?' I'm sure everyone wants a scooter."
Rhee remains unfazed by the occasional scooter heckler. After all, "What's so embarrassing about it?" he asks.
(11/09/00 10:00am)
In a talk that combined religion and government, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad addressed the relationship between politics and Islam before a crowd of roughly 40 students in Houston Hall last night.
Ahmad, the president and director of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, the author of three books and a teacher at both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, came to Penn as part of this year's Islam Awareness Week.
Other sessions in the past several days have focused on the role of women in Islam and Jesus' relationship to Muslims.
This week of "awareness" is not a new idea and has been an annual event for at least a decade, according to Muslim Students Association board members.
Ahmad was booked, according to one of the students involved in the event, because his topic fits in perfectly with the current election.
"We chose to focus on politics given the political energy at this time of year," said College freshman Ben Herzig, an MSA board member.
While munching on cookies and sipping coffee, the crowd listened to a history of the Islamic legal system.
"Islamic politics evolved by a process of discovery," Ahmad said. He added that one must look upon the laws of mankind with the same eyes that one looks at the physical sciences of physics or chemistry.
"The physicist assumes there is an objective law of gravity and his attempt is to discover what that law is. Muslims approached the law of humankind in the same way," he said.
Ahmad emphasized that Islam is, first and foremost, a monotheistic religion.
"What I always tell my audience is that if you forget everything else that I say, please remember that the fundamental teaching of Islam is that there is only one God because everything comes from that," he said.
He then attempted to clear up some misconceptions regarding Islamic history and law.
"The idea that Islam is spread by the sword is absolutely false," he said. He further explained the irony of this comment by explaining that throughout history Islam has usually spread faster when on the losing end of the sword.
Ahmad then opened his discussion to questions and began discussing the current political situations in both the U.S. and the Middle East.
Ahmad shed light on Muslim political inactivity in this country. "A great debate among Muslims is to what degree political activity in this society is permissible," he explained. "This system is so corrupt that any participation results in an endorsement of corruption.
"So I would never vote for someone who is going to do an immoral activity," Ahmad emphasized.
Ahmad further pushed voting for a third-party candidate. "If they [third parties] had gotten a million Muslim votes, it would have been noticed," he said.
For College sophomore Ahsen Janjua, Ahmad's most important message was that of communication.
"What is very important is... to bring out your ideas so you can learn even if your idea is wrong. It's important to get it out to help people better understand what is right," Janjua said.
(10/04/00 9:00am)
Working around the clock, forgoing a salary and sharing a single phone line, Chris Alden and his partners started from scratch and wound up building a virtual empire in the process.
That empire is Red Herring Communications, Inc., a publisher of technology business news in various media, including a magazine, a Web site and a television operation.
Alden, the corporation's chief executive officer, spoke to a packed crowd of mostly Wharton graduate students yesterday afternoon about his entrepreneurial experiences.
Wharton's eCommerce Club sponsored the lecture.
"I want to encourage people to be entrepreneurs," he said following his talk. "It's fun, you don't have to know all the answers before you try -- but to be successful you have to have the right motivations, the right will."
Red Herring was not Alden's first try at entrepreneurial success. In 1990, he constructed a company to teach people how to use a Macintosh computer. The theory of the company was this: A client would call up asking for a tutorial on, for example, Microsoft PowerPoint. Alden would then read a PowerPoint instruction book and teach the client the material for $75 an hour.
Sounds good, right? But Alden soon figured out that making $75 an hour doesn't make one a millionaire in this world.
So, in 1992, Alden -- a Dartmouth College alumnus -- hooked up with an old friend and an experienced magazine executive and started Red Herring, a San Francisco-based business magazine.
The name refers to the preliminary prospectus with red binding that budding companies create to market their ideas. It is fitting for the magazine because the product shows a "glimpse of a company before it's gone public," Alden said.
But as well-known as the magazine is today, starting it was just as difficult.
"We didn't have any money to pay anybody anything," Alden explained.
So the trio developed creative ways to advertise their product.
Alden joked that the best ad came when the group showed a list of people subscribing to the magazine. However, the magazine had limited subscribers at best, so the list was comprised of "silly names," including characters from popular TV shows.
The idea worked; soon people were calling to find out how they could get their names on the list.
Red Herring, Alden boasted, offers its readers something new -- a different type of business article because the businesses featured in the magazine are barely off the ground.
"We were willing, prepared and excited to cover ideas at their inception," Alden said, adding, "We were covering an area that no one else was covering."
Alden offered some words of advice to those prospective entrepreneurs in the audience.
"Being an entrepreneur is very, very hard," he warned. "You won't succeed unless you're prepared to stomach the down cycles."
A question-and-answer session followed the talk.
"I thought it was outstanding," said Rich Chism, a first-year MBA student. "It was very interesting to hear [Alden's] story, to see how he made his company. It's inspiring."
(09/22/00 9:00am)
Wearing a sleek brown suit, black patent leather shoes and with her curly red hair elegantly pulled back, Esther Wachs Book is not afraid to express her feminine side.
And Book, the author of the newly released, Why The Best Man For This Job Is A Woman: The Unique Qualities of Female Leadership, encouraged other women to do the same at a talk last night at the Penn Bookstore.
Book's work profiles 14 female chief executives who exhibit powerful leadership skills, and her talk repeatedly emphasized these leadership qualities throughout her talk.
"Women have the ability to be aggressive, decisive, and strong," she told the crowd of 12 people in attendance -- only three of whom were male.
In her talk, Book, a writer whose work has appeared in Fortune, Forbes and Marie Claire magazines, highlighted several of the women profiled in her book.
"I [tried] to attract people who are not just interested in business, but who are attracted to good stories," she explained. "And these women have great stories to tell."
Book first depicted Patricia Fili-Krushel, the former president of the ABC Television Network, as a model female executive. She explained that Fili-Krushel used her talent in listening -- a characteristically female trait, Book said -- to revitalize the failing network. Fili-Krushel began listening to focus groups, and as a result made the decision to bring the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to the network.
Book next cited Shelly Lazarus, the CEO of advertising powerhouse Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, as another example. Lazarus, Book said, "viewed power differently from many of her male peers." For instance, she stayed in her old office and chose to dress in plain clothes despite her high position.
According to Book, her close relationships with her clients and her firm allowed her to take greater risks. Case in point: She revamped the ad campaigns of Discover Card, which now features comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
To illustrate the importance of accessibility, Book next discussed the career of Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay. Whitman, who is worth over one billion dollars, personally takes calls from 10 to 15 enraged customers a week and still works in a cubicle.
One of the few males present last night, Phil Eidelson, a member of the Senior Associate program at Penn and a longtime friend of Book's father, saw Book's topic as a call to action for men.
"The title certainly appeals to woman," he explained, "and sets a challenge for man."
Book began promoting her book in Westport, Conn., before heading to Penn. She'll also visit Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia universities.
Before Book leaves Penn, she plans on talking with Wharton Women about her book, according to the organization's president, Wharton senior Eliza Hay.
"Being encouraged to have confidence and being encouraged to be yourself is just good advice that you can't hear enough, especially when it's coming from women who have made it to the top," Hay said.
Book concluded her talk by emphasizing three major lessons she learned from the women she has met: Be confident and take risks, be flexible and customer driven and remember to be yourself.
"And if you're a woman," she said, "don't be afraid to be feminine."