With the Ivy League trophy already on its mantle, the Penn women's soccer team is ready for its close-up on the national stage. The Quakers' second season begins this afternoon in Morgantown, W. Va., where the Red and Blue will take on James Madison of the Colonial Athletic Association in the first round of the NCAA College Cup.

Before the season began, Penn women's basketball coach Pat Knapp said that somebody would step up on offense to replace the scoring void left after the Quakers graduated their top three scorers last year. After chipping in 46 points in the team's two games this season, that person appears to be Carrie Biemer.

Thanksgiving may be around the corner, but smokers and their allies weren't going cold turkey at the Great American Smokeout health fair and information expo. Research shows smokers are most successful at kicking the habit when they have positive support, which event organizers hoped to instill in attendees.

As Penn continues to discuss changes to its hiring practices, the possibility of a self-disclosure question for faculty has the University treading in uncharted waters.

It was already a busy week for Cornell wide receiver Shane Kilcoyne. With exams and a game against Dartmouth coming up that Saturday in late October, the last thing Kilcoyne expected was the news that raging wildfires had come within five miles of engulfing his home in San Diego.

After just two games, the men's basketball team realizes that wins will not come as easily as they did last season. "Our seniors bailed us out at times [last year]," guard Mike Kach said. "This season we don't have that individual talent. We need to play hard as a team every minute.

Wanted: recipient of a Purple Heart applying to the School of Nursing. No, the description is not from a personal ad. Rather, it's a more specific set of requirements for one of Penn's many endowed undergraduate scholarships, which make up about 15 percent of the $92 million financial-aid grant budget.

It's hard to imagine a more appropriate location for last weekend's Ron Paul rally than Independence Mall. The National Constitution Center, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall provided the inspiration for his political beliefs; the nearby U.S. Mint and Federal Reserve branch, he wants to do away with.

A training program at Penn is bringing nurses out of the hospital and onto the crime scene. This week at the Nursing School, 42 professional nurses participated in a 15-year-old training program to learn the information and skills necessary to become a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.

The Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee (SHIAC) has started its annual assessment of the Penn Student Insurance Plan (PSIP). This is my second year as part of SHIAC and I'm excited, because we have a couple of long-term projects in development and we have another good group of people this year to help us move these projects forward.

Inform yourself. This was the overarching sentiment yesterday evening when Penn Democrats, Penn Forum and Fox Leadership Program sponsored "A Democratic Presidential Primary Forum" in Huntsman Hall. Yesterday's forum gave students a chance to explore the policy views of the three leading Democratic nominees for the 2008 presidential election: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

By now, students have probably heard of the infamous Jena Six case that triggered national outrage. While the gross injustice in this display of modern-day Jim Crow certainly should be redressed, I'd like to shift the attention to the less-obvious ethnic tensions that silently permeate our campus.

With the volleyball team's second-place finish in the Ivy League already secured, the Quakers fell, 3-1, to champions Princeton last night. For the Tigers, it was the final win in an undefeated Ivy League season. The Quakers' four seniors will graduate without an Ivy League title, but even they never expected to ever come this close to the trophy.

Joanne Tong is a Wharton senior from Manila, Philippines. Her e-mail address is tong@dailypennsylvanian.com.

One year removed from a No. 5 final ranking, the Quakers enter this season looking for similar achievements. "It adds a little more pressure," coach Craig Thorpe-Clark said. "Excellence is no longer hoped for; it is expected." Still, there are many questions entering the season.

The Graduate and Professional Students Assembly has been working with the University over the past two years to create more on-campus housing for graduate students, but there may not be a point. With a nominal stipend and a more established group of friends, many graduate students say living on campus is simply not worth the convenience of being closer to classes.

It's what every 21st-century woman doesn't want to hear. "The Rules - they actually work," a friend of mine told me over coffee last week, referring to the infamous dating book that teaches women to play games, be passive and above all, wait for him to call.