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(11/07/03 10:00am)
Six months ago, three dedicated DPOSTMites walked across the stage at Franklin Field, collected their diplomas and dived headfirst into the big, bad working world. One headed to a secluded hole, where he spends 80 hours per week. Another has headed to the ice for his occupation. The third?
Well, at the moment, he's a bit of a traveling minstrel in his quest for residence in the Philadelphia metro area.
Dave "Airhead" Zeitlin, as he was dubbed on a road trip to Harvard for eating the tangy candy, has been crashing at a different house in the Philly area every night, as his search for a permanent residence continues.
Mostly Zeitlin can be seen in West Philly these days, as he continues his journalistic prowess in West Chester, Pa.
The dynamic duo of Kyle "Lara Loves Me" Bender and Jeremy "Dubes" Dubert have continued to speak despite the fact that Bender has sold his soul to corporate America.
Some would say he even sold his soul to a more fearsome force. For one, Bender does.
"I dance with the devil every day," the investment banker said.
Dubes has no compassion for the Whartonite who once devoted an OPIM project to a Web site with pink hearts on it. In case you're wondering, his girlfriend owns a cat named Peaches.
"I'm sure he whined to you about his long hours and horrible job over the phone because he does to me all the time," Dubes said. "I can only imagine."
Dubes meanwhile has been doing a fair share of relations with the underworld on his own part, or at least Beezlebub's favorite team.
"Tell Dubes sorry about the Yankees," Bender said.
Dubes, a current intern for the NHL, has been enjoying himself with such perks as free tickets to games, even the Stanley Cup finals.
Speaking of free tickets to games, thanks. We'd love 10.
While driving home from covering a triple-overtime Bishop Shanahan-Milton soccer game, "Airhead" was a bit flustered with questions about such topics as the Yankees and bashing Princeton students.
"I shouldn't be talking and driving," Zeitlin said. "I'm going to get in an accident -- get lost."
And get lost he did.
On the way back to his third living accommodation in the past week, a conversation with PrognostiQuaking HQ seemed to steer him awry.
But not to worry Zeitlin fans. He will soon find a permanent living space, maybe even by the time this goes to press.
The Quakers, on the other hand, will not get lost this weekend.
In the tradition of "Lara Loves Me," the margin will resemble the number the Kamin Cup QB wore for his high school football team. Ah, the memories.
Penn 70, Princeton 7
Name
Princeton at Penn
Cornell at Dart.
Brown at Yale
Harvard at Col.
Kyle "Lara Loves Me" Bender
Penn 63-0
Dart. 21-14 Yale 3-0
Harv. 35-27
Buck. 28-21
Jeremy "Dubes" Dubert
Penn 65-2
Dart. 27-10
Yale 38-21
Harv. 28-21
Dave "Airhead" Zeitlin
Penn 77-0
Dart. 7-6
Yale 35-24
Col. 28-27
(10/30/98 10:00am)
SPECTER vs LLOYD: Fourth term in D.C. likely for Specter SPECTER vs LLOYD: Fourth term in D.C. likely for SpecterLloyd: Underdog Democrat fails to spread his message With four days until the polls open, it is the least of Lloyd's problems. The nine-term state representative from Southwestern Pennsylvania is strapped for cash, deeply in debt, back 46 points in the polls and burdened by 23 percent name recognition among respondents to a recent survey. Lloyd, who turns 51 today, knew he faced an uphill battle against the incumbent, three-term Republican Arlen Specter. But he had no idea just how steep the climb would be. "I don't think anyone knows what they're getting into the first time they run for statewide office," said Michael Young, a politics professor at Pennsylvania State University's Harrisburg campus. Lloyd has been learning the hard way. Without money to pay a driver -- he has a small campaign staff and his parents are among the campaign volunteers -- he has driven more than 14,000 miles in a 1996 Dodge Stratus, often alone, trying to make an impression with voters. So far, it has not worked. A Millersville University poll released yesterday showed that 77 percent of those polled had no opinion of Lloyd. "That's the power of TV," said campaign spokesperson Susan Roach. Without it, there is no way to reach voters. Last fall, a victory seemed possible, even plausible. Lloyd, a well-regarded legislator with little statewide exposure, saw his chance to challenge Spector when some of the state's prominent Democrats -- Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and state Auditor Bob Casey Jr. chief among them -- decided not to run. Anti-abortion, pro-gun and pro-labor, Lloyd's profile seemed viable. A Washington fundraising firm was hired, an office was rented and the campaign got under way. "I think [Lloyd] thought the traditional Democratic sources for money would be there," Roach said. "And then they weren't." To date, he's used $54,000 of his own money to pay for the basic expenses associated with a campaign. A similar amount has come from other contributors. There is an element of tragedy in the Lloyd campaign, a note sounded time and again as groups and dollars head Specter's way. "We're just sorry that Bill ran this time around," said Rick Bloomingdale, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, the powerful labor group that endorsed a Republican candidate in a statewide race for the first time since 1982. "He would have been an excellent candidate against somebody else." The theme repeats itself: What a waste of a good candidate. Lloyd is a deeply intelligent man by all accounts, a bachelor with a reputation for spending long hours at work. Soft-spoken and articulate, Lloyd has championed various social welfare causes in his time as a legislator. He points to workers' compensation reform as one of his proudest achievements. The 1993 bill capped medical costs for injured works and cut insurance premiums for businesses for the first time in decades. A former public utilities judge, Lloyd has represented Somerset County, in Southwestern Pennsylvania, since 1981. A retiring incumbent allowed Lloyd to win his seat in his third attempt. The first, in 1976, came directly after his release from active duty as an attorney in the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs. Lloyd graduated in 1969 from Franklin and Marshall College and received his law degree from Harvard in 1972.
(10/05/98 9:00am)
From Michael Mugmon's, "The Way It Is," Fall '98 From Michael Mugmon's, "The Way It Is," Fall '98Here at Penn, someone is missing. It's not really a professor, and it's not exactly a dean. It's not really a student or a staffer, but it's not just an administrator either. I only know that this person is absent. Very absent -- and has been for nine months. And the void might hurt Penn's academic mission more than you'd like to believe. So, who is missing here at the University of Pennsylvania? A permanent provost, that's who. On Halloween Day 1997, then-Provost Stanley Chodorow -- his hands full with a very public hunt for various university presidencies and wary of drawing attention away from more pressing issues -- announced his plans to exit the position he'd held since 1994. Little more than a month later, University President Judith Rodin tapped Deputy Provost Michael Wachter to fill in as interim provost. At the time, Rodin said she hoped to appoint Chodorow's permanent replacement by summer 1998. When Chodorow officially stepped down and returned to the History Department on January 1, Wachter -- a 29-year Penn veteran and a brilliant scholar of economics and the law -- began what he believed would be a "short term" in the interim spot. Rodin and Wachter's expectations for a quick transition seemed right on track when, just 11 days after Wachter took over as interim provost, Rodin selected a 15-member provost search committee. Consisting of 11 faculty members, two undergraduates and two graduate students, the committee would be charged with conducting a national search for top provost candidates based on vision, past performance, motivational and strategic techniques and a genuine affinity for academia. And as for whether or not the committee could select an internal candidate, Wharton School Dean and Committee Chairperson Thomas Gerrity said, "The committee will consider candidates from inside the University as well as from nationally recognized teaching and research universities across the country." All signs pointed toward an efficient process and the selection of a top-notch candidate by the administration-designated July 1 deadline. Jump to the present. October 1998. Summer has long since passed, and Chodorow has attempted to shed his "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" image by scoring a job at the helm of California Virtual University. Much more important, however, Rodin has yet to announce a provost candidate, revealing the fiction of Wachter's "short term." With Rodin and committee members mum on the closed process, the situation sadly resembles the painful search for a permanent dean of the School of Arts and Sciences after Rosemary Stevens resigned in September 1996. There again, administrators and the SAS dean search committee hoped to have a dean in place by July -- well in time for the start of the 1997-98 academic year. But the search dragged on past September for another full semester until Rodin named Sociology Professor Samuel Preston dean December 15. So far, so good with Preston. He has begun to revitalize SAS departments and faculty, and he just received an unrestricted $10 million donation. Faculty and students alike seem quite happy with him. But why wasn't Preston chosen sooner? Admittedly, he had reservations about accepting the job. Nonetheless, he was right under Rodin's nose, and it should never have taken 15 months to select him. Similarly, Wachter has performed his interim duties well, namely keeping things running smoothly and preparing for an easy transition. As interim provost, he has done solid work in the realm of distributed learning, made nice progress on the construction of Perelman Quadrangle and helped to keep the 21st Century Project -- Penn's broad initiative to focus on interdisciplinary study and to provide research opportunities to undergraduates -- moving along. Nonetheless, the "interim effect" paralyzes Wachter to an extent, and since the provost is considered the University's chief academic officer, such a freeze allows Penn to run the risk of becoming stagnant in terms of academics and broader projects. Instead of allowing Wachter and the University to push full speed ahead into new, exciting territory, the excessive wait forces Wachter simply to keep the ship steady. As college house mastermind David Brownlee said last fall, "You won't find the creation of new projects under an acting provost." Additionally, the fact that Wachter doesn't know for certain if he is a candidate for the permanent provostship somewhat immobilizes him, causing him to walk on occupational eggshells. If not, the committee needs to get rolling. If, however, a short list of excellent candidates exists, Rodin is the one who needs to get rolling, and she needs to make a choice sooner rather than later. In choosing Chodorow, the old provost search committee took a mere six months to select him as the top candidate. This time, the search has gone on too long. There is no way the committee hasn't already presented a list on which at least one candidate -- be it external or internal -- would be perfect for the job and willing to come to the University. Please, for the sake of Penn academics, find the missing permanent provost now.
(06/01/98 9:00am)
Maimonides High School '96 Newton, Mass. The student center: a 24-hour nexus of campus life and student activities; a home to student groups; the meeting place of choice. Until now. After years of frustration, the University will finally get a student center as the $69 million Perelman Quadrangle is completed over the next two years. The Quad will comprise five buildings in the center of campus, with Houston Hall -- the nation's oldest student union building -- as its centerpiece. The upper stories of Houston Hall will be renovated, creating more space for student groups. The building's existing basement mall will be demolished, with new common areas, extending beneath the surrounding greens, created in the space. The campus' oldest and grandest building, College Hall, which sits across from Houston Hall, will also undergo extensive renovations. The area between the two will be transformed into the tree-lined Wynn Commons -- after a $7.5 million gift from casino magnate Steve Wynn -- extending to Logan and Williams halls on the western end and Irvine Auditorium at the eastern extreme. All five buildings will open onto the Commons. At the western end, a stone-stepped amphitheater will lead up to Logan Hall. A 330-seat auditorium and 150-seat recital hall will open onto the steps. Adjacent Williams Hall will connect with Logan through a two-story glass atrium, designed to be a 24-hour study area. Irvine Auditorium, at the eastern end, will be renovated to create increased practice space and a redesigned main auditorium seating up to 1,400. The Perelman Quad has met with widespread student approval. But the road to creating a student center at Penn was often tortuous. As originally announced, Penn administrators planned to build a student center, to be known as the Revlon Center, on the campus' northern end. As those plans fizzled, Ronald Perelman -- an alumnus and Penn trustee who made his millions in the 1980s as a corporate raider -- stepped in. Although he had originally pledged $10 million for the Revlon Center, he eventually increased his donation to $20 million -- almost a third of the $69 tab for the Quadrangle which will bear his name. The current plans will enable Penn to renovate some of her oldest buildings while fulfilling a long-standing student desire. But inevitably, not everyone is thrilled. Student groups have already begun jockeying for limited Houston Hall space. Performing arts groups have been particularly vocal in asserting that they've been overlooked. And many groups have concerns about finding adequate space for the two-year renovation period. Also, the closing of the mall -- and the accompanying eviction of its 15 retailers -- has sparked widespread concern. Only two stores have found alternate spaces near campus, and only one, a copy shop, will be leased space in Houston Hall once renovations are complete. To replace the various restaurants, a contract was awarded to Bon Appetit Management Co., who will provide students with a variety of dining formats and menu options. Many of the retailers feel Penn was not upfront with them about renovation plans and could have done more to find them alternate spaces. But with retail vacancies few and far between, Penn officials say they have done what they could. Plans, they note, were announced two years ago.
(04/29/98 9:00am)
Seven middle school students got to try their hands at journalism. The Community Times Why? Because I'm a sixth grader at Shaw Middle School, located at 54th and Warrington streets in Southwest Philadelphia. What is my name doing in the DP? It is there because I decided I wanted to see what it's like to be a journalist and put out a paper. At Shaw, I joined the Journalism Club, a way for students like me, who are interested in journalism, to write articles and produce our own paper -- The Community Times that you're reading right now. The club is a part of the AIM Community, which stands for Active Innovative Multimedia. Elaine Welles is the AIM community coordinator. The Journalism Club at Shaw was started during the 1995 to 1996 school year. According to Mrs. Garnette Davis-Gorman, the club's adviser, the club was started to "assist students to work in small group settings, to develop writing and interviewing skills, as well as learning the process of maintaining a successful newspaper business." There are seven Shaw students in the Journalism Club this year. Their names are Ebony Archer, Raynard Archer, Brittany Fritz, Jamilla DeLoatch, Desahra Outlaw, Jaunita Alexander and Tarren Lawrence. Two or three Saturdays during the semester, we all come to The Daily Pennsylvanian building and edit our stories with the DP writers. They help make our stories clearer and more complete. It is so much fun at Saturday School at the DP -- the Penn students are great. I would like to thank Mrs. Davis and everyone who helped us to put this paper together. I am in the club because I like to see my name in the paper. My other club members have different reasons why they are in the journalism club. "I would like to be a journalist and this is good practice for me," Brittany Fritz said. Even though I enjoy the Journalism Club, I would not like to be a writer when I grow up. I would like be a singer. In the Journalism Club I can learn things that will help me with my singing career such as I might have to write my own songs and I'll have to be a good writer to do that. I learn to work with people in the Journalism Club and that will prepare me for working with people in the music world. The Journalism Club has been a really good experience for me and it has helped me develop my writing and my computer skills. All students should have a journalism club in place at their schools.
(04/23/98 9:00am)
The Latino Coalition's complaints don't recognize ongoing efforts to increase minority presence. Members of the Latino Coalition have made a lot of noise this week about the University's "failure" to address Latino issues. But their concerns, ranging from low representation to high tuition costs, seem to have been made in a vacuum, without reference to the administration's current efforts -- or reality. We are all for increased minority presence and retention. Since the announcement of the Minority Permanence Plan in the fall of 1996, however, the University seems to have been taking steps toward those goals, particularly in the area of Latino representation. The number of incoming Latino students increased by 10 percent between 1996 and 1997. And the University brought in three new Latino professors last fall. Of course, these improvements are just a beginning. The University could always benefit from greater diversity. Additionally, Penn must work to hold on to minority students and ensure that quality minority professors are promoted through the ranks. It is a beginning though -- and an especially gratifying one since the numbers are plummeting elsewhere. The University of California at Berkeley, for instance, admitted only 434 Latino students into the class of 2002, in comparison to 1,045 admitted last year. The drop is due to a state-wide ban on racial preference. The Latino Coalition must recognize that dramatic positive change at Penn will not occur overnight. There is intense competition for bright minority students. And bringing in well-regarded minority professors is not as easy as sending an e-mail and having them show up the next morning. When the two Latino groups walked out of the United Minorities Council meeting last week, they said they thought they would be more successful communicating concerns on their own rather than as part of the umbrella organization. But since their departure from the UMC, the members of the Latino Coalition haven't been able to articulate a game plan for approaching the administration. The group doesn't even have a spokesperson. The UMC may not be the best possible mouthpiece. At least, though, the channels for communication are established. Administrators know how to contact UMC representatives, and they take them seriously. If you'd like to help the University's effort, go back to your high school and encourage minority students to apply. Or join the Admissions Office staff and let prospective students know about the receptive community at Penn.
(03/26/98 10:00am)
From Mike Madden's, "Opiate of the Masses," Fall '98 From Mike Madden's, "Opiate of the Masses," Fall '98For a newspaper that's read by more than 14,000 people every day, The Daily Pennsylvanian can be awfully mysterious. Every day, decisions are made about every story in the paper that affect how readers get their news. If a story goes on the front page, that influences how people receive its message, and if something gets buried on page 10, that says something, too. Or take corrections. In tiny print on the bottom of page 2, they can seem almost like they're worded specifically to be incomprehensible to anyone who didn't already know about the error they're correcting. How useful is it to know that "Yesterday's DP should not have given the impression that College senior Mike Madden put a bomb in College Hall," if you don't also get an explanation of what really did happen? Or why the paper made the error in the first place, or how it was discovered? In fact, very few people around campus know much about how the DP works. To the vast majority of casual readers, the paper may as well be a monolithic, monopolistic, self-styled, all-knowing Penn version of The New York Times, put out by a staff that toes some organizational line on every issue and never disagrees about coverage. To make matters worse, so much ignorance and obfuscation surrounds a paper that purports to scrutinize the entire University, from the largest department in the Office of the President to the budget for the smallest Student Activities Council group. The DP, on a daily basis, holds everyone else at the University to rigorous standards of conduct and behavior -- without making any attempt to report on its own organization or decisions. Fortunately for the DP and for Penn, there's an easy way out of this bind. The Daily Pennsylvanian needs a real ombudsman. And it's long overdue. The paper's bylaws say the executive editor serves as the ombudsman, or reader representative. That means the executive editor is supposed to hear reader complaints -- or compliments -- and present them to the rest of the staff, so the paper isn't put out from some sort of ivory tower, totally closed off from the rest of campus in the windowless "Pink Palace" at 40th and Walnut streets. In practice, though, this just doesn't work. Most executive editors only write about the paper when they're announcing some "bold new stroke" that the staff wants readers to get excited about. Three years ago, it was the launch of the DP's then-fledgling World Wide Web site; two years ago, the debut of color and a new design; this year and the last, plans to focus heavily on editorial content. But no executive editor -- or anyone from inside the paper's staff -- has written candidly and openly about flaws in the paper's coverage in the nearly four years I've been at Penn. Quite naturally, in fact. It would be practically impossible for anyone who spends 50 hours a week putting the paper out to take that crucial step away from its content required to analyze the paper and ask, "Is this the best they could have done?" In fact, I'm a good example of this problem. As the managing editor last year, a news editor the year before and a beat reporter for a year before that, no matter how much I tried I couldn't look at the DP's news stories with an entirely unbiased mind. And it took me until this semester to realize the full implications of that problem. Although in retrospect I wish I'd had an informed eye glancing over my shoulder, I still never thought much about an ombudsman until this semester -- the first one in three years where I'm only an occasional visitor to the DP's office. The way things are now, the entire campus suffers a disservice. No one voice can be counted on to hold the DP accountable -- regularly, within its own pages -- for what it prints. Similarly, no one outside the paper's staff gets a good understanding of the dynamics of what goes on every Sunday through Thursday night to put the paper out. On one hand, that's a shame, because you're missing some pretty interesting stuff. I've been involved in more than a few all-out screaming matches in the middle of the newsroom over how the paper should play a certain story -- what its angle should be, where it should run or whether it's even a story at all. There's often quite a bit of dissent within the DP over what it prints. And the evolution of big stories from when the idea comes up to when the papers hit the stands can be more convoluted than most people might imagine. But most importantly, readers miss out on the opportunity to see what would happen when the DP turns its staff's considerable reporting skills loose on itself. The paper never puts itself under the glare of the klieg lights it tries to shine all over everything else. Last February, for example, I approved an idea that seemed good at first glance, and never thought twice about it until it was too late. For a story about an alleged robber who had worked at Uni-Mart, the DP ran a photo of the counter where he used to work -- with a young black man working behind it. I thought the photo would be useful, because it would show exactly where in the store the robbery suspect had worked. In fact, what no one at the paper realized at the time was that the photo also seemed to imply that the young black man behind the counter --Ewho seemed to match the DP's description of the suspect -- was the alleged robber. He wasn't. My decision to run the photo was a terrible one, though I genuinely made it without thinking of the likely impact. I instantly regretted it, but I deserved to be called on it -- in the paper's pages, and by the newspaper itself, as well as by the many readers who correctly said the photo should never have run. But beyond pointing out the DP's faults, an ombudsman could also explain why the paper chose to take controversial stands. Last October, when the paper aggressively covered a student's charge that he'd been assaulted by three varsity football players, a lot of people wondered why the DP was making such a big deal out of it. In fact, the editors and I had reasons for the coverage. Briefly, we thought the alleged assailants were public figures, as football players, and so their role in the incident seemed newsworthy. If the paper had an ombudsman last year, I would have had to explain in print why I decided to pursue the story -- exactly the way reporters force University officials to explain their own decisions every day. Readers could have evaluated my rationale for themselves, because they would have known what it was. An independent ombudsman -- who knew the paper well and knew the people involved in decision-making -- would be able to call attention to questions like that, find out what or even whether the staff thought about the issue and report back to the rest of the University community. All in the pages of the DP itself. It would be as simple as dispatching one of the paper's 20 or so regular beat reporters to the ombudsman beat next year. By reading the paper carefully, paying attention to what gets printed -- and how -- and talking to a wide range of readers and sources all over campus, a DP ombudsman could really make a difference in how people look at the paper, for good or for bad. Only about 40 papers around the country have a regular, independent ombudsman to critique their content or report on news inside the organizations, but the ones that do include some of the best in the nation. The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as some excellent smaller papers, all recognize the need for the press to act as its own watchdog. Letters to the editor and "guest columns," of course, also help keep a paper in line, but it's a much bolder step toward true integrity when a newspaper can appoint someone who knows the organization to take a hard look at it on a regular basis. A regular, institutional critique on the Editorial page rings much more powerfully -- both in and out of a paper's walls -- than sporadic letters from people who may or may not know the whole story behind what they're complaining about.
(09/11/97 9:00am)
Plus, we have the added protection of separation of church and state. Based on these protections, can we assume that, as a culture, religious bigotry doesn't exist? Or, even if it does, Penn students are too enlightened? Unfortunately, we cannot. In the last several years persons in the Penn community have painted swastikas in the Quad on Hitler's birthday, phoned bomb threats to Hillel during Holocaust Remembrance Week and made bomb threats to the Muslim community and their friends during the Persian Gulf War. While I would hope most of the Penn community, regardless of religious affiliation, is appalled at such extreme behavior, religious bigotry usually takes a subtler turn on this campus. I define religious bigotry as any hurtful or potentially harmful behavior which imposes itself on "the other," whether an individual or a group, which has its basis in the belief of the innate superiority of one's own religion and the innate inferiority of the religion of the other. And, such behaviors and prejudicial attitudes are always condoned as being divinely justified. Christian bigotry usually takes the form of harassment. During the first semester it is usually a total stranger (or new acquaintance) telling you "I really like you but I fear for your soul if you don't come to Jesus." Translated this means "My religion is the only one with merit and your spiritual experience, religious belief, God, or lack thereof is dead wrong." Of course other Christians, whose religious experience or beliefs are different are not exempt from this kind of harassment either. Unfortunately, an arrogant presumption of being right can and is used for justify bashing sexual minorities, verbally and physically, imposing restraints on women's freedoms, allowing double standards for men and women, continuing idolatry of the male, not to mention bombing family planning clinics, and painting swastikas on the doors of a Jewish classmate. As a pastor, I am supportive of a strong commitment to one's God or obedience to one's religious moral code. But, if in our zeal and religious "commitment" we shut out the possibility of broadening our own understanding of God or if we condense the complexities of the spiritual journey into a simplistic, one line ideology, then our so-called "commitment" is not only self-righteousness but borders on bigotry. Of course it is satisfying to be right. It is indeed very comforting to be able to say, "And God agrees with me because the Bible says so and that makes you wrong." College years are a time to blow open the safe confines which kept our worlds small during childhood. It's a time to question and possibly to challenge some of the values and beliefs of our community and family. If we will apply the same intellectual quest to our faith and religion as we do to the other areas of academic life, contrary to losing our religious convictions, we may instead lose the naivete of a childhood belief system that life is predictable, and that mystery can be solved like a Sherlock Holmes novel. The wisdom from spiritual insights can rarely be condensed to a bumper sticker or a one sentence sound bit. By opening our minds we may discover that we gain a deeper faith, a greater appreciation for complexity, and an understanding that mystery is far greater than we had imagined. This may cause us to humble ourselves when we speak of God, our religion, our faith, or lack thereof. This shift in attitude is the antidote for religious bigotry. It opens the door to interfaith dialogue and prevents religiously inflicted wounds. This humility is what starts us on a mature, spiritual pilgrimage lasting throughout our lives. And humility is the beginning of wisdom. Have a great year and may we all become wise.
(07/03/97 9:00am)
There are few athletic activities that offer substantial personal reward no matter how you finish. Running is one of them. Whether you are a beginner huffing and puffing to finish one mile or an accomplished runner flashing to a sub 15-minute 5K, every day of running is an opportunity. You can go farther, you can run faster, you can explore new trails or roads or you can just relax over a familiar route. Running is addictive, and contagious. My own experiences have taught me some lessons that can be valuable to any level of runner. First mistake. Never try to jump into running too fast, let alone trying to run too fast initially. It's a sport that is best eased into. I didn't run another road race for almost a year, and barely ran once a month after the half-marathon. Instead, start by slowly running a mile to three miles -- whatever you can handle initially without suffering intense pain after the run or the next day. Run this distance two or three times a week. Your running should be done at a comfortable, not painful pace. You can increase your mileage per run as you grow more accustomed to the length of your runs. Generally, your body adapts to a particular run after you have done it about 12 times. After that, your level of fitness will only improve if you either increase the mileage of each run or if you increase the intensity of each run. Don't increase either too rapidly. No pun intended, but you're not in a race. There are several roadblocks that you, especially if you are a beginner, may encounter. I'm happy to say that many of them are preventable. Here is a list of five of the most common problems beginners discover, and tips on how to solve them: 1. Cramps. They happen to almost everyone, but they are preventable. First of all, make sure you go to the bathroom before you run. Second, drink plenty of water before and during the run. Do sit-ups to tighten the stomach muscles. Some discomfort comes from your internal organs bouncing around. Last, but maybe most important is breathing right. Try to vary your breathing so you do not get in a pattern of exhaling each time the same foot hits the ground. But if you feel a cramp starting to come on, this becomes a way you can get rid of it. If the cramp is in your right side, per se, you should exhale exaggeratedly only when your left foot strikes the ground. 2. Heat, especially now that it is July. It causes dehydration, which can cause cramps, and even nausea. Make sure you drink plenty of water all day long, and plan your runs wisely. Try to run before 9 a.m. or after 7 p.m. when it is coolest. 3. Safety. Don't run, particularly in Philadelphia, after dark or before sunrise. It's not safe for you, and in the event that someone else is out at that time, a person running from behind is not very pleasant either. Similarly, avoid isolated places. One of the best places to run in terms of safety in numbers is Kelly Drive beginning at Boathouse Row. 4. Soreness or stiffness. Make sure you stretch. There are mixed opinions on how much it helps. I don't stretch at all before I run, but I spend at least 10 minutes after a run stretch. Some people prefer to stretch before they run, and still others prefer both before and after. Also use ice when necessary. If your legs are very sore, try aiming a cold shower just on your legs. It works for racing horses, and it works for humans. Some runners may get a tingling sensation in one or both arms. That's just your heart adjusting to pumping more oxygen-carrying blood to your extremities. Slow down if you have to. 5. Boredom. Find a partner to run with if possible. Another solution is to vary your courses. When I first came to Philadelphia, I used running as a way to learn the streets and different sections of the city. Obviously, that has its limits. I still don't know a street north of SpringGarden. But nothing compares to telling people you ran to New Jersey (over the Ben Franklin Bridge) and seeing their reaction. From Center City, though, it's just a six-mile run to there and back. If you can, mix in days of easy cycling or maybe even lifting for a total body workout. If you follow a simple plan, you will find that running can be fun, plus it's great exercise, and it's addictive. In November, I finished my first marathon. My running prompted two friends to begin training for their first marathons. Furthermore, my fiancee who started running faithfully last September can now run eight miles comfortably, and is preparing to run in this year's half-marathon. The rewards to running are there, you just have to get started, be smart about it, and stay with it.
(06/26/97 9:00am)
Last week, we took an important step in the implementation of our full campus master plan: We held the ceremonial groundbreaking for Sansom Common, which, when complete, will add more than 300,000 square feet of retail, dining, and residential space to our campus. At the Nov. 13, 1996 University Council meeting, I brought the campus community up to date on the expansive and fresh thinking taking place at Penn about the quality of campus facilities, the condition of student residences, and recreational opportunities and retail amenities, both on campus and in the area surrounding the campus. But at least as important in the long term are the principles and goals that underlie the planning process here: · A vibrant, attractive, and safe campus. · Facilities that support the academic initiatives articulated in Agenda for Excellence, our strategic plan. · Contemporary, high-quality student residences. · Greatly expanded recreational and retail opportunities for the campus community. · The highest and best use of our existing facilities. · Robust economic development to support community revitalization. These emphases build on the campus master planning principles articulated in 1992 by Venturi Scott Brown. I said, too, in November that there is much we must do. Many academic facilities no longer support the changing way we teach and learn at Penn. Student residences are dated and must be made more attractive and responsive to students' needs. We need to improve recreational opportunities for all who study, work, and live here. The retail amenities on and surrounding the campus must offer more quality and choice than they do now. Those at the University Council meeting also heard me point to other particular developments that were underway -- and that have advanced over the past eight months -- including: · The construction of facilities for the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, which continues on schedule and on budget; the state-of-the-art facilities are scheduled to be completed at the end of October. · The receipt of the Biddison-Hier analysis of our housing stock and the recommendations of the Residential Planning Committee, better known as the Brownlee Report. Both will guide our thinking as we address the work that must be done, both physical and otherwise, on and in our student residences. · The anticipated delivery this summer of recommendations by our consultant on campus recreational facilities, based in major part on a survey of students, faculty, and staff to glean their opinions on the quality and quantity of the facilities. · The renovation of College Hall, Logan Hall and now Irvine Auditorium -- to be followed by the renovation of Houston Hall and parts of Williams Hall -- which will bring new vitality to the "heart" of campus as we transform these historically significant buildings into useful space for academic and student life -- the Perelman Quadrangle. Like these other vitally important projects, Sansom Common is critical to Penn's future and to the future of our community. That's precisely why City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, City Council President John Street, Mayor Ed Rendell, and so many others in city government are so excited about the project. It means jobs. It means opportunities for businesses in West Philadelphia. It means economic growth. But, perhaps most important, it is symbolic of Penn's commitment to the city of Philadelphia and, more specifically, to West Philadelphia. It will create a vibrant area, with activity day and night. It will create an area with a critical mass of retail and public spaces. It will create an area with a stronger sense of neighborhood.
(05/23/96 9:00am)
University students must seek stimulus outside the bounds of campus. Did you ever get the feeling that the walls of your bedroom are closing in around you? Does Locust Walk seem to be getting narrower each passing day, only to squeeze you into the stronghold of campus, never to be set free? Did you ever just get a burning desire to hop on a train with a one-way ticket to nowhere, or a place called "anywhere but here?" Are you ready for an escape? My apologies for sounding like shameless ad campaign for a local travel agency. However, my point still remains: do you ever leave the confines of campus? Now that you may have officially established West Philadelphia as your home, doesn't it seem time for a long overdue, well deserved break? So, lose yourself in the music. Drown in the words of someone's distant past. Immerse yourself in the diversity. And open your eyes and ears to the world of people and art that exist outside of Penn.
(12/07/95 10:00am)
To the Editor: There is no room for complaints about the UA not representing the student body. All of us as undergraduates have the right to vote for the UA, and when only 13 percent of us do so we can blame no one but ourselves. With voter participation that low, it should not be hard for any group to gain more than adequate representation. If the UC seat is worth having, it should also be worth the minimal amount of work needed to gain the seat, under the current system. The solution proposed by the DP editorial staff is less representative than the current system. They suggest that the NEC, a smaller group, select two thirds of the students to sit on UC. While well intended, this would only shift the blame for the lack of representation, not solve the problem. If you want better representation don't waste your time changing the system, spend that time using the current system to your advantage. Sean Marzolf Engineering '98 Protest Raises Important Issues To the Editor: Having just read "The Pseudo 60s," I must protest. I was one of the protesters on last Friday involved with the classic Berkeley activism example, the Clinique protest. The protest was not silly and sophomoric. The issues it brought up were and are important. There was not one focal point like make-up. It was an event that posed many questions from education to womens self-image in which many different people participated. There was not one point of view and there was not one spokesperson. Elliott Witney, half the time with his name is misspelled, is mentioned constantly. He was an involved member, but not the leader or the maker of the "brain-child" protest. There were many people who organized it and participated in it. A lot of work went into planning it. In the end, I believe the crowd was entertained, lisened, and thought about the issues involved. The absent parent rules the universities imposed where the focal point of the protests in the 60s, as well as were the strict university educational programs. The activist students protested the freedom of speech (saying the F-word at Berkeley) and the educational programs their university had. It was not until the end of the 60s when the protests got political, making Vietnam the focal point well into the 70s. The womens movement also had its start in the 60s. Apart from job opportunity and equality, the women protested make-up. In the Miss America protest, they dressed up a sheep and burnt lipsticks -- street theater entertainment. Karina Sliwinski College '98 n To the Editor: Abby Beshkin ends her column about the Clinque protest, "Covering Up Issues" (DP 11/30/95), by stating, "If the protesters could channel their energies a little more concretely next time, they might just do some good." As a participant in the protest, I take strong offense at this remark. Beshkin implies that we, the protesters, wasted our energy, were too abstract and in turn, were ineffective. She also implies that the protest did no good. On all of these counts, Beshkin is wrong. Hundreds of people passed by as we protested in front of The Book Store. Most of them were curious as to what was going on -- a group of costumed, poster-waving people yelling loudly about issues is not commonplace on Locust Walk. Many people stopped to see what we were all about. Some ridiculed us, I am sure. But more, I think, were amused by the catchy chants tossed back and forth and were intrigued by the unusual guerilla-theater style format for the protest. And as people stopped to watch the entertainment, they were forced to think, for at least a moment, about the questions we were raising. In the two weeks since the protest, numerous people have approached me, many of whom I'd never met before, wanting to talk about the protest. The vast majority of these people thanked me for the effort we made in bringing awareness to issues that they considered extremely relevant on our campus and in society as a whole, but had too often been ignored. They spoke of the satisfaction they felt in seeing these issues being brought to attention and expressed overwhelming support for our attempts to raise awareness about these issues. Abby Beshkin, in her column, hoped that maybe next time, we protesters "might just do some good." Abby, I think we already have. Holly Shere College '98 Title IX Anyone? To The Editors: As a big fan of both men's and women's basketball here at Penn, I was pleased to see as I picked up the Nov. 27 DP issue that it was the annual "Preseason Basketball Issue." Unfortunately, I have somehow gotten a copy which covers only the men's team. Was this an error which occurred across the entire print run? Are there complete and/or corrected copies available? Shelley Krause Graduate School of Education student Undergraduate Admissions staff member
(06/30/94 9:00am)
Fox Chapel Area High School '93 Pittsburgh, PA African American residents of W.E.B. DuBois College House and Jewish students living in Cleeman, a dormitory in the Community House section of the Quadrangle, found common ground in the experience of harassment this year. Students were the target of harassing phone calls and bomb threats in DuBois, and students found swastikas taped to a fire door in Cleeman. On the University's campus, where the issues of student self-segregation, free speech and civility arouse strong feelings, such demonstrations of hatred and intolerance indicate the existence of racial tensions, but not pervasive racism, according to visiting Sociology Professor Paul Root Wolpe. "There is an enormous focus on identities which divide us, rather than commonalities which unite us," the University alumnus said. "You're always going to have people who exploit that climate to express their own biases." In a series of events which outraged the University community last October, anonymous bomb threats and racially-motivated harassing phone calls were received at DuBois, forcing an evacuation of the building. "We consider this extremely serious, and we've taken steps to increase the structural and personal safety of the people in the dorm," University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich said at the time. These steps included a "short-term" ban on non-residents in the building, unless signed in by a resident, a policy instituted by DuBois House staff. However, this procedure remained in effect through the fall and spring semesters. College senior Nicole Brittingham, former editor-in-chief of the African American campus newspaper The Vision, characterized the calls as "scary," saying they made campus feel "very threatening." After the first threats were phoned into DuBois, students living in Stouffer College House, Van Pelt College House, Graduate Tower A and an off-campus house at 40th and Locust streets also received harassing calls. Call recipients urged students, regardless of race, to stand together in opposition to the incidents. The perpetrators, however, were not caught. In late March, two DuBois residents were again victims of anonymous calls threatening that "the niggers are going to die tonight." At about the same time, signs saying "The Jewish God Eats Human Shit" and paper swastikas appeared repeatedly, taped to a fire door in Cleeman in the Quad. Community House residents were nauseated and disturbed by the discoveries, which were followed by bomb threats to both Hillel and Lubavitch House. "It makes students more insecure because they have no idea where the threats are coming from," said Nursing freshman Bonnie Sherman. "You should be able to feel safe where you live," agreed Wharton senior Dave Schlosser, the resident advisor on duty during the incidents. Black Student League President Robyn Kent, a College junior, characterized the appearance of swastikas in the Quad as "disheartening and tragic." "It's as if nothing was learned from October," she said. "I see the two incidents as being related. It just goes to show that Penn isn't immune to what goes on in the larger society." Rabbi Howard Alpert, executive director of Penn Hillel, said the harassment did not affect the daily lives of Jewish students on campus. Nevertheless, Interim Director of Victim Support Barbara Cassel urged the University community to respond in a unified manner. Wolpe dismissed the idea that mandatory racial sensitivity classes would prevent future harassing behavior. "Racial tolerance grows through daily interaction and honest dialogue," he said. Acting Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum encouraged this type of dialogue about the episodes which affected the campus this year, despite its paradoxical effect. "It both builds and breaks the ties between people," she said. "That's the sad thing."
(04/12/94 9:00am)
"We're working within the Asian group and teaching these kids who although they look Asian, are really white inside. " "I really look back and sort of regret that I was involved with [the Asian-American movement] and ... I felt I was really not in touch with other cultures. I consider myself very American and it's weird how people define it being blue-blooded or WASP-like." "I'd feel a little smaller walking in a room without Asian Americans in it. To adopt, to succeed, to advance, you have to shed your ethnicity. You owe it to yourself to be successful." eing an Asian-American college student means being a part of the most complex and agonizing minority group on campus. The above quotes reveal only an inkling of the massive and exhaustive issues surrounding the concept of what it means to be Asian-American. Unlike the highly volatile African-Americans or the relatively inconspicuous Native Americans, Asian-Americans are endlessly balancing both extremes, oppressed enough to rise and shout yet prosperous enough not to. As a result, the Asian-American identity becomes the source of unending bitterness and uncertainty. For example, the frustration of being stereotyped, the resentment of a professor's ignorance, and isolation felt by having too many Asian friends are all feelings and situations we've encountered as Asian Americans -- and with great difficulty, too. But how we resolve this difficulty, how we justify our action or inaction is the genesis of the great Asian-American Question -- a question that extends far beyond the problem of race to the problem of self. What does it mean to be Asian American? More importantly, what does it mean to be an authentic Asian-American? The Asian-American movement (specifically on college campuses) appears to provide the answers to these questions. By creating specific issues that address the growth and development of Asian Americans, it becomes the source of identity -- a tangible way to assert and solidify one's role in the community. This continually happens at Penn through the formation of political advocacy groups such as SAA (Students for Asian Affairs), the search for a tenure-track Asian-American professor, and the slow materialization of an Asian-American Studies program. As a result, the movement becomes synonymous with self-identification; one's membership in it a reclamation and clarification of one's identity. However, this also means that the people in the movement are given the awesome freedom and power to mold and define an entire generation of Asians and subsequently, map the proper course for future Asian-Americans. By advocating progress for the Asian-American community, the movement grants itself the right to monopolize the identity, touting its constructed definition as inherent fact. It unwittingly constructs a dichotomy composed of those who are "true" Asian-Americans versus those who are assimilated, uneducated, apathetic, white-washed individuals. The movement never questions whether this dichotomy is in fact, a polarization of two distinct sides whose separation is a product of opposition. Instead, it believes that if you call yourself Asian-American, then you must naturally want to support a movement whose only aim is to empower and expand this very identity. If you don't, what does it mean to call yourself Asian-American? What it means to the Asian-American movement is a fear of losing legitimacy, losing electoral power, for activists comprise only a small percentage of the Asian-American population at Penn. The conclusion then, is astonishing for it means that there is a silent, "apathetic" development of an Asian American identity outside of the movement -- that it is in fact, a silent majority. It also means that the backbone of the movement, its very people, want nothing to do with it. Finally, it means the Asian-American movement is failing in its endeavors for unification -- that somewhere buried deep, there's something very wrong. However, rather than face the brutal task of re-examination, the movement finds it easier to dismiss the majority as apathetic, misguided, and misinformed individuals. Rather than confront the problem, the movement suppresses it -- eliminating the existence of pluralism in the process. Contrary to the movement's emphasis on democracy and equality, it enforces and supports a massive hegemony, one in which politicization is inescapable. The result of all this is even more horrific than the cause. After four years of advocating a multi-cultural society, the people in the movement find themselves living, dating, eating only with Asians. They discover that the joint-minority movement really only meant communal space on a flier, an agenda, or on a board. And finally, after countless semesters of protesting, fighting, and recruiting, they realize the relative ease by which they ascended to power came only because college offers no risk. The ethnically diverse community which they hoped to build and maintain becomes less discernible as they step into mainstream society, discovering that success hinges on the subtle shedding of their race and finding that the movement made them even less prepared to face the real world -- a world devoid of privileged minority havens. We need to question the very fundamentals of calling ourselves Asian-American and we need to understand fully the implications of forming a unified identity. We need to deconstruct the movement and find out why, after thirty years, it still cannot convince even half of its people to join. Most of all, if we believe in development and progress, we need to move away from the self-defeating, static definition of Asian-Americanism. Without this revision, redefinition, and perhaps reinvention, the Asian-American Question will never be answered. Betty Liu is a junior English major from Philadelphia. She is the editor of Mosaic, the Asian-American literary magazine.
(02/09/94 10:00am)
From Rob Faunce's "With Bells On," ' From Rob Faunce's "With Bells On," 'Now for something different. I'm going to try my hand at storytelling while making social criticism. Envision Schererazade dating Voltaire in my mind. Cut to the end. It's nearly dawn, and I'm numb with exhilaration. I finally understood that "Fuck the system" mentality that eluded me in high school. My heart pulsed with young blood, rebellious blood. I had the highest form of pride and respect for our age group. We are the movers and the shakers, the ones who get things done. We are Generation X, hear us roar. We fight inhumanity and bad hair. Of course it was at about this moment of ideological bliss that reality (and Katie Couric) woke me from my rapture and I screamed over Willard Scott's hair piece, "My God! I'm not a slacker, I'm just a complacent whiner! Help me, lords of acid, help me..." When was the last time you went to a protest? For that matter, when was the last time you COMPLAINED about something more substantial than the food at Stouffer? I have a theory on this. We are Ivy Leaguers, and we thus look down on everyone who isn't -- this includes Brown, Cornell, and Columbia, who make us look like Oxford on the Schuylkill. As a result, we tend to be "dignified" about the ways we protest. Taking over a building would be vulgar; boycotting classes would be uncivilized. In short, we're snobs. In fairness, we're nice snobs. Our ignorance stems not from malice but from this benign posture of politesse that allows us to keep our hands clean. We've become our parents without blinking a lash, and we're too ignorant to notice! The joke is on us, peer groupies: our groovy train docked at Wesleyan. It's not too late for us, though. Disillusionment is an ugly concept (and word), but there is clichZd hope for the future in our buried past. When I was a wee lad, idealism ran free. Within the realm of my imagination, I solved innumerable social ills. You feed the hungry, I'll clothe the fashionably disastrous. It always ended happily, with communal cooperation to terminate world problems. Picture "Hands Across America" while singing "We Are the World." You know what I mean. There were many lessons in our collective childhood that we have forgotten with the passage of adolescence. "Beavis and Butthead" are a fine, if twisted, example of this. Ignoring their famed feeble-mindedness for just a moment, Beavis and Butthead are modern, self-sufficient children. They see things without complication; they live without the presence of parental or authoritative figures. They do whatever they damn well please. They do what they think is just. Granted, they are a poor example of what is just, but apply the lesson to ourselves, and we can affect change much faster than commissioning reports on strengthening the community. Please! Actions get results, not reactionary fluffernutter like that report. She has no talent, but Mariah Carey said it best when she uttered the line: "If you believe in yourself enough to know what you want, then you're gonna make it happen." We need to stop accepting everything; we need to terminate our resignation to our parent's fate. Find your sandbox ideals; find your preoccupation with fire, and burn to your heart's desire. Call me a flaming liberal, but let's torch the commission report and strengthen the community with some heart instead of our mouths. Our children will thank us. Rob Faunce is a freshman undeclared major from Manchester, New Hampshire. With Bells On appears alternate Wednesdays.
(04/29/92 9:00am)
Although I have never wanted to be an entrepreneur, I have always considered Penn the ideal environment for student entrepreneurs. Between the Whartonites who come here to learn how to start their own company, the Entrepreneurial Management Department and the entrepreneurs of tomorrow at the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center, I assumed that the University advocates student entrepreneurship. I was wrong. It helps stifle it. The Social Planning and Events Committee, supposedly a student-run group intended to serve students, has effectively organized a T-shirt monopoly. I don't know how the student body feels about other aspects of SPEC, but I've only been forced to deal with the T-shirt people. Last year, my friend Jason Lee, now a College sophomore, won the Spring Fling T-shirt design contest only to find out SPEC was unwilling to print his artwork. The T-shirt committee felt that having a woman and a man on a T-shirt would be derogatory to women. Certainly it wasn't P.C., they felt. And having a man on the T-shirt without a woman -- well that, of course, wouldn't reflect the school's "diversity." Instead, they forced Jason to change the winning design to the more "P.C." version that showed an ape swinging from a vine, instead of a man and a woman. Then, without his knowledge, they changed the colors into horrible florescents. Jason called ahead this year to see if he could enter the contest with a design containing both men and women enjoying Mardi Gras. The answer was again no, so instead of facing the same restrictions as last year, Jason and I printed our own T-shirts to sell for Spring Fling and obtained permission to start up this venture through the Entrepreneurial Club. Later, I discovered that it isn't even the students on the SPEC T-shirt committee that approve or disapprove of the designs. The person with final responsibility to decide whether or not the Penn students will like or dislike the artwork is, in fact, not a student at all -- but rather a University administrator in the Office of Student Life. I called the Office of Student Life to reserve a table on Locust Walk for the week of Fling. The person who took my call didn't ask what I was selling, but did explain that there were no tables available. She said I was free to stand on the Walk myself. But while I and another group of entrepreneurs were selling our shirts on the Walk that week, a number of students -- obviously members of SPEC -- suspiciously asked about the price and quality of our T-shirts. Eventually, one of the SPEC T-shirt people asked me whether or not I had a permit to sell T-shirts on Locust Walk. I replied that I had already spoken with the Office of Student Life to reserve a place on the Walk. The SPEC person seemed taken aback that I had gone through official channels. But still unsatisfied with my response, he threatened that someone would be coming around checking for permits. Evidently, SPEC didn't have permits either. A few minutes later, I saw him walk back to the SPEC booth with three permits to sell their products on the Walk. Not far behind, a University police officer arrived and began asking all of the many people who were selling on the Walk that day whether or not they had a permit. It is interesting to note that the University rarely, if ever, checks for permits, even when students pick up their tables from the Office of Student Life. Coincidentally, the single University office that lends tables for selling on the Walk also coordinates Spring Fling, and believe it or not, decides who gets permits to sell on Locust Walk. When I went to speak with the director of the Office of Student Life, she refused to give me a permit to sell shirts on the Walk. Huge surprise. She then explained that there are two reasons why students selling unauthorized Spring Fling T-shirts cannot get permits from the her office. First, since we would receive personal profit from sales on University property, we would jeopardize the University's tax-exempt status as a non-profit institution. Funny how the University's tax-exempt status isn't jeopardized when the Entrepreneurial Club holds Entrepreneurial Day, when people sell posters on the Walk at the beginning of the school year or when SPEC itself invites people to sell arts and crafts -- yes, for personal profit -- on the Thursday and Friday of Spring Fling. The director's second problem was that our T-shirts had the words "Spring Fling" printed on them. She said that we were not permitted to sell any shirts on campus with the words "Spring Fling" -- except for the official ones, of course. In effect, the Office of Student Life was trying to trademark the words "Spring Fling." Of course, this is impossible, since various other universities also have their own "Spring Fling." What the Office of Student Life really did was monopolize T-shirt sales at Spring Fling by refusing to grant permits to anyone selling Spring Fling shirts besides SPEC. It didn't seem to matter whether or not we were working through the Entrepreneurial Club. We were competing with SPEC, and that was enough. Since I know of at least two other "illegal" Spring Fling T-shirts various groups tried to sell this year, plus at least two other people who approached me on the Walk asking how to sell their own shirts -- before I told them how difficult SPEC and the Office of Student Life would make it for them -- there seems to be a healthy discontent with SPEC's "official" design. While I don't mean to offend the artist of the SPEC shirts, a market for other Spring Fling designs obviously exists. In fact, SPEC and the Office of Student Life's resistance to these "bootleg" T-shirt sales proves that they fear such healthy competition. What this extra "competition" would do is keep their designs in check, guaranteeing that SPEC's T-shirt efforts are still in line with what University students want as a souvenir from Fling. SPEC -- or whoever is actually in charge -- certainly isn't serving the student body by using our "special projects" money to market a single Spring Fling T-shirt design that they aren't even sure Penn students want to buy. What are they afraid of? Would the "bootleg" shirt sales cause SPEC to lose money? Then perhaps SPEC should change their T-shirt design standards until their shirts do become competitive enough to sell. Or if they aren't good enough to sell against other shirts, maybe they shouldn't sell at all. Harvey Fine is a Finance and Strategic Management major from Houston, Texas, and finance manager of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
(03/04/92 10:00am)
She withdrew from school and from her friends. She could not hold a job because she could not talk to male customers. She always had to double-bolt the doors and turn off the electric garage door because she was afraid that someone would come in and "get" her. Even now, the Harvard University student who said she was raped last January by a University Zeta Beta Tau fraternity brother does not go out after dark, and carries mace and a "zapper" wherever she goes. "My life was just a mess," said the woman, who asked that her name not be revealed. "I didn't trust anybody." The woman, who spoke softly, praised the University's decision to expel the ZBT brother after the University's judicial system found him guilty of raping her at a January 1991 party in the house. "I felt as though I had gained some of the personal power back that this guy had deprived me of," she said earlier this week. "I knew he would have to seriously think about what he had done." The ZBT brother, whose name has not been released, was a sophomore at the time of the incident. ZBT President Matthew Feinsod did not return messages left at his room last night. The woman, who was a Harvard freshman last January, said she was visiting her sister, who is a University student, at the time of the incident. She said this week that she does not want to be identified because her sister is still a University student. After filing charges against the University student with the Harvard University Police Department in March, the woman met with Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Dianne Granlund, whose office then decided the case would not be prosecuted. The woman said the lack of physical evidence, the youth of the perpetrator and the delay in reporting the incident all factored into the decision. She added that she was told that in "a case between two Ivy League students . . . a Philadelphia jury would not be sympathetic." But she said the University stood by her, continuing to investigate her claim. "[And after the ruling] I felt as though someone had listened to me and believed my story," she added. "It was a great feeling for me." The woman said she was raped during the ZBT party after she had drunk three beers in less than 45 minutes. The woman said that despite the alcohol, she could think, but could physically feel the effects of the beers. She said the University student took her to an upstairs bedroom, then fondled her, performed oral sex and forced her to have sex. After the incident, between midnight and 12:30 a.m., the woman said she went downstairs and told her sister they "had to leave," although she did not tell her that she had been raped. She said she asked her sister if her lips were fat, if she had a hickey on her neck and if her hair was messed up. Her sister said "yes," she said. The student said the two women then went to another fraternity party. She said she went to the bathroom at the second party and noticed she was bleeding. At this point, she said, she insisted that they leave and told her sister "this guy had hurt me physically." "She was stunned," the woman said. "She didn't reply. I just think she didn't expect that to happen." The woman added that her sister did not know the ZBT brother who she said raped her. Over a year after the incident, the woman said she is still trying to get her life back in order. "I'm back at Harvard . . . I took about a year off to regain my life," she said. "I've begun to get over my fear of people. At first I was afraid of everyone, I wasn't even able to talk to a man." But now, she said, she knows that all men are not like the one who she said raped her. But the woman said she no longer goes out to parties, preferring to stay at home where she feels safer. "I will never put myself in that situation again," she said. "I would much rather stay at home than go to a fraternity party." The student said she did not tell her friends about the incident or report it to authorities right away because she was denying it herself. But after frequent bouts of crying, she said, her relationships began to change. "I didn't tell all of them," she said. "But they saw the bruises all over my body and they could tell something had happened. After a while, I pushed everyone away. [Then] they definitely started to treat me differently." "I used to be afraid of the stigma of rape but now I'm not," the woman added. The student said she encourages all women who have been raped to "speak out" about what has happened to them. "They can't be quiet about it or else it's going to continue," she said. "Yes, it does happen to you or someone you know. Yes, it happens at Penn, at Harvard, at Ivy League schools. By keeping it to yourself, it's not going to go away." And the woman said she hopes to use her experiences to help other women who have been raped talk through their own traumatic experiences. She added that she is studying to become a lawyer and hopes she will be able to enact legislation that will improve the judicial processes associated with rape cases. "Very few men are prosecuted for the rapes they commit," she said. "If you can get [rapes] more easily prosecuted, more women will come forward and fewer men will do this."
(02/25/92 10:00am)
Some members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee are seriously considering leaving University Council, representatives said yesterday. "The probability is that the faculty will withdraw [from Council]," said City Planning Professor Anthony Tomazinis. Tomazinis and Faculty Senate Past Chairperson Almarin Phillips said SEC would be least likely to remain on Council in its present form. They sit on a three-member SEC subcommittee headed by Phillips which has been examining the structure and function of Council. Phillips added that his subcommittee's report will include "constructive" suggestions for Council reform and said that ultimately SEC "might continue to participate." But other SEC members have mixed feelings about whether SEC should withdraw from Council. Faculty Senate Chairperson-elect David Hildebrand said last week he has still not decided where he stands. "[My position reminds me of] a sign in [Deputy Provost] Dick Clellend's office -- 'the answer is maybe and that's final,' " Hildebrand said. "That's where I am on Council right now." Some SEC members have criticized the atmosphere at Council meetings, saying that many student members are only interested in furthering their own agendas, while others have suggested the problems lie with the large size of the body. Hildebrand said he finds Council meetings "frustrating." "Nothing works," Tomazinis said. "[It's the] administrators dueling with two or three students -- that's not a University Council." Hildebrand added he does not blame Council members, although the structure causes a lot of the problems. Phillips said the SEC subcommittee will "recommend significant changes" to the existing Council by-laws. He would not specify which by-laws the committee would suggest changing in its plan, which will be presented to SEC next week. "As I perceive it, it's time that something be done," he said. Two years ago, Council members attempted to reform the format of the body's meetings by creating the role of moderator, a job that had been previously assumed by President Sheldon Hackney. Most Council members said they agree the atmosphere at Council has improved since the addition of an independent moderator. But SEC members disagree over whether the situation has improved enough to make Council an effective advisory body. "[Council members] have been better behaved in the past two years," Phillips said. He added he is unsure whether to attribute the improvement to the moderator or to changes in what Council discusses and the consituencies' representatives. Finance Professor Emeritus Jean Crockett said she hopes SEC members remain in Council because the changes made in Council have "greatly improved, if not solved" any problems in the body. While students leaders do not take the faculty members' threat of Council withdrawal very seriously since they discuss it annually, student Council members said yesterday they hope faculty members will not desert the body. Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Mitchell Winston, who in the past has urged SEC members to remain on Council, said yesterday the format has improved the meetings and he is willing to discuss possible structural changes with SEC members. "I don't think they'll leave this forum," Winston said. But he added that he can understand faculty members' complaints because "no one gains from a waste of time." Graduate student activist Elizabeth Hunt said she is angered by SEC's "remarkably childish" threats. "Students are using University Council to its fullest advantage," Hunt said. "[If we have to,[ we will continue the forum as best we can without them. The faculty should quit [threatening to] take their toys and go home."
(09/24/91 9:00am)
Stevens, the new dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, has been at the University for 12 years and she is committed to maintaining its rich intellectual life. More importantly, perhaps, Stevens really likes working here. "There really is a sense of this being a practical place," said Stevens last week. "I'm a very practical person. I like the sense of learning as an almost tactile thing that you do. Here, you're not isolated from the world." Sitting at a conference table in 116 College Hall after most of the office staff has gone home, Stevens wondered aloud why students often speak negatively about the University despite what she calls its "great learning environment." "We're not brash as some places are," Stevens said. "We don't go out and pat ourselves on the back the whole time. I think it's time, generally, to go out and blow our horn a bit about how good we really are." Described as a warm person and rigorous scholar by her students and colleagues, Stevens incorporates both those skills into her job as dean. Unlike her predecessor Hugo Sonnenschein, who came from Princeton University, Stevens has 12 years of experience on the University faculty which provides her with the personal contacts and behind-the-scenes insight that will help her maintain contact with faculty and students. Not only was she a faculty member and chairperson of the History and Sociology of Science Department, but she was given a courtesy appointment in the Engineering School and has worked with faculty in the Medical School and the School of Social Work. "I think I have a head start on the role of dean because I have been here," Stevens said. "I have a much better idea of how the University works and how the dean's office appears from the point of view of a chair and the point of view of a faculty member, and I will have to continue to remind myself of that over the next few years." Sonnenschein's departure has raised concerns among faculty that the dean's post is being used as a stepping stone for ambitious administrators. The high turnover of SAS deans has led some to call the position a "revolving door." Of the five deans since the School of Arts and Sciences was created in 1974, only one -- Vartan Gregorian -- held it for more than three years, and he left after five. All of them moved on to higher-level administrative positions. Because of her long experience at the University, many hope that Stevens will stop the revolving door in its tracks. Music Professor Lawrence Bernstein, who chaired the search committee that selected Stevens, said the committee concentrated on candidates from within the University in the hope that someone with a deep commitment to the school would be most likely to remain here. According to H&SS; Professor Nathan Sivin, a long-time colleague of Stevens, the new dean will not be lured away from her post easily because her ambitions are scholarly rather than administrative. "She is the first dean we've had since I have gotten here that I have any conviction will hold the job for five years," Sivin said last week. Stevens echoed this sentiment. She said although the dean's position has been used as a training ground for administrators in the past, she does not intend to leave the University. "I love this school. I love being part of this faculty," she said. "I see my future here." She added her next career plan is to write another book. The dean's current concerns include reaching SAS's goal of $250 million in donations as part of University's $1 billion fund drive. While Stevens said she sees many uses for the money, the expenditures she suggests are primarily reinforcements of existing priorities such as graduate fellowships, endowed professorships and increased research space. Stevens's commitment to research facilities has made her an advocate of the controversial construction of the future Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. The IAST has drawn fire from people seeking to prevent the demolition of Smith Hall, the proposed building site, and from those afraid that the IAST will conduct weapons research in return for federal Defense Department funds . As both a resident of Smith Hall, a century-old building which houses the H&SS; department, and a former member of the University Committee on Research, Stevens has personal attachments to both sides of the debate. "I think it is a great pity to change the geography, the historic sense of place, of that particular section of campus," she said. "But at the same time, we do need additional research facilities on the campus. I think it's one of those very difficult trade-off situations." The issue of weapons research hinges on the secrecy such research would require, according to Stevens, secrecy which she feels is incompatible with an academic setting and would try to avoid at the University. Stevens's own research has been in the field of health policy. She received a B.A. in English literature from Oxford and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale, where she remained as a professor. Before coming to the University, she taught at Tulane University. Her most recent book, In Sickness and in Wealth, is a study of American hospitals in the 20th century. In the classroom, she has translated her philosophy of learning as a tactile experience into action. For example, last spring she took a graduate H&SS; seminar on an overnight field trip to conduct research in the Rockefeller Archives in Tarrytown, New York. Third-year H&SS; graduate student Jennifer Gunn described Stevens as a rigorously demanding academic who is also warm and accessible to her students. "I like the way she participates in the course and brings her own research into it," said Gunn. "I think that she respects her students and treats us in a very collegial fashion and is very stimulated by the research everyone else is doing." Search Committee Chairperson Bernstein said Stevens's commitment to teaching and innovative scholarship recommended her for the post. Stevens is the first woman dean of SAS. H&SS; professor Sivin said her hiring is an indication that the selection process is less sexist than it was in the past. "It means that we are picking the best dean on the basis of quality and talent, rather than on the basis of gender," he said. "I assume that any process that has put only men into the position may be biased, and I see this as moving away from gender-based choice." Stevens said the atmosphere of academia has changed significantly since she was at Oxford in the late 1950s. She studied in an all-female college there, an experience which she said bolstered her identity as a serious scholar at a time when most potential role models in the field were male. She said she, like most women in her generation, was strongly influenced by the women's movement. While most of her classmates pursued careers but took time off to raise a family, Stevens found the academic work schedule flexible enough to allow her to continue working even while her two adopted children were young. "I took two weeks out, all together," she said. "I'm not very good at doing part-time work. I love working, and I tend always to gravitate to full-time work." Another transformation Stevens has witnessed during her academic tenure is the introduction of computer technology. She said that while she did not learn to type as an undergraduate for fear of being pigeon-holed into a secretarial career, she now word processes and uses computers in her research. She is concerned with helping faculty use new technology, even if it means teaching them techniques their students have grown up with and consider basic.
(09/24/91 9:00am)
Fast Eddie made a fast exit. At a meet-the-candidates forum last night, all three of Philadelphia's major mayoral candidates gave short speeches and mingled with students to answer questions. All but Democratic candidate Edward Rendell, that is, who after giving a polished, five-minute speech, quickly left the forum. Denise Wolf, chairperson of PPU, added that Rendell's lead in the polls might have led to his exit. "Rendell . . . has the election in the bag. We're expendable in his eyes, unfortunately," Wolf said. Reilly added that Rendell's assistants gave no reason for Rendell's brusque exit. Despite Rendell's unplanned departure, the organizers of the event said the gathering was a success. Reilly said she was "pleased with the turnout" of over 100 people, and also with the number of voters who were in the Castle crowd. In another break with the planned format, Republican Joseph Egan arrived late, prompting a twenty-minute gap in the middle of the program. Beginning by saying that "Philadelphia is at a crossroads," Rendell proceeded with a carefully worded speech primarily dealing with the city's economic problems and education. Rendell said the city is in such dire economic straits that innovations without expenditure are the only answer. For example, in education Rendell proposed to install a health clinic into every high school in the city, to add counseling at all levels and to implement programs for latch-key children. Contrasting Rendell's carefully executed, issue-oriented speech, was independent candidate Dennis Wesley's attack on the "ethical corruption" of city government and the Republican party machine, the Philadelphia press, and the New York-based sources of Rendell's campaign funds. Wesley said the city spends millions of dollars on legal consulting while already having sufficient legal resources in the City Solicitor's office. He also questioned the "40 straight years" of city contracts awarded to Republican party boss William Meehan. "This [Meehan] is a Republican. You know how the Democrats are making out," Wesley said. On the topic of the University paying user fees to the city, Wesley succinctly said, "Oh yes, you got to pay." Wesley mingled with students while the group waited for Egan to arrive. Egan, who was picked by Republican leadership to replace the late Frank Rizzo, said the city's workforce and electorate must be made enthusiastic about the city. But he also said voters should "hold accountable" the Democrats after 40 years in power. "The city is bankrupt fiscally and morally. The work force is totally demoralized," Egan said. Egan did not outline specific programs, but he did call for a change in the City Charter and "Peace Corps in the city." American Civilization Lecturer Frank Luntz, who teaches a class on political consulting, said after the presentations that there was another dimension behind Wesley's independent candidacy besides his desire to change the city. "What the students don't understand is what you saw from Wesley was set up from the Rizzo campaign to divide the [Democratic] vote and get a win for Rizzo," he said. Wharton junior Steven Foecking did not think that the session was very informational. But he was able to form opinions about the individual candidates at the forum, which was co-sponsored by the PPU, Connaissance, and the Castle's Community Service Living-Learning Program. Reflecting the sentiment of other students, Foecking said "Rendell was slick. [You could] tell he was a trained politician."
