The intersection at 39th Street and Lancaster Avenue once appeared rough around the edges, drab with worn buildings itching for a helping hand - and preferably one holding a paintbrush.Beautification efforts eventually took root, and a ceremony Monday morning honored the completion of five autumn-themed murals in the area. The largest, entitled "Just Before Fall," is the product of a Penn class.

The University has increased the clinical staff of Counseling and Psychological Services by almost 25 percent, affirming what administrators are calling a strong commitment to mental health. Four full-time psychologists and one part-time psychologist have been hired as permanent staff members, CAPS Director Ilene Rosenstein said.

Cruising around Philadelphia in a BMW will no longer be an activity limited to those students who have made it to 21. PhillyCarShare, a car-sharing service, allows anyone over the age of 18 that chance. The service, which calls itself the only in the country catering to customers between 18 and 20, allows members to hold keys to a car that they can reserve at any time, or to rent vehicles on a one-time basis.

And you thought excuses like "the dog ate my homework" stopped in high school. According to a Center for Teaching and Learning discussion, being faced with lame attempts to get out of work is just one of the challenges teaching assistants face at Penn. The session given in Van Pelt Library yesterday - called "Dealing with Penn Students" - was designed for graduate students to discuss challenges in managing relationships with Penn undergraduates.

Avery Lawrence is a College junior from Charlottesville, Va. His e-mail address is lawrence@dailypennsylvanian.com.

The volleyball team's four-game winning streak hit a wall yesterday, as the team suffered a loss to the Villanova Wildcats, 24-30, 25-30, 22-30.

In 2005, the Columbia football team started out 2-0 and then proceeded to lose its next eight games, including all seven in the Ivy league. It was the Lions' 41st losing season in the last 44 years.

The Penn Health System's fleet of helicopters is about to grow. The four-rotorcraft PennSTAR Air Medical Services will receive a delivery of two American Eurocopter EC135s, advanced aircraft that can carry six or seven passengers and come equipped with night-vision goggles, according to Rotorhub, a source for helicopter-related news.

Harvard can count on running back Clifton Dawson for 100-plus yards every game, but recently, there has been a new guy handing him the ball every game. This week it will be Richard Irvin, the fourth starter in the Crimson's last four games. After Irvin transferred from Tulane last fall, he was immediately plugged in as the starting quarterback in the Crimson's opener.

VILLANOVA, Pa. - This game had it all. Tough physical play, broken records and inconsistent officiating were all present in the Penn field hockey team's 3-2 loss to No. 16 Villanova (9-3, 2-0 Big East) last night at Villanova Stadium. Although the Quakers played the first half stronger than expected, the team was unable to build off the momentum of a Nyssa Liebermann goal 52 seconds before halftime.

Top universities across the country want to make themselves accessible to low-income students. And it seems the increasingly popular way of doing so is with a bold appeal to families whose income fall below a set level. Columbia University is the latest school to jump on this financial-aid bandwagon.

David Hollenberg's vision for the future appearance of Penn has some things old, some things new, some things borrowed and some things - green. As the new university architect, Hollenberg plans to mix his ideals of urban design with the realities of University City and Philadelphia.

At Penn Women's Health Services, 11 is the number of the day. Eleven of what exactly? Flu shots, rectal exams, spinach-poisoning outbreaks? Actually, this number represents 11 filled prescriptions. Eleven students who walked into Penn Women's Health Services last Monday and requested Plan B, the only form of emergency contraception on the market.

For 18 years of my life, drug addicts, alcoholics and rehab facilities were only things I saw in movies. Depression and therapists seemed out of my world. But I have certainly learned that life is never the way it looks from the outside. As a junior in high school, my life seemed perfectly on track: great friends, yearbook editor and varsity sports.

Amidst the assassinations, protests and riots of 1968, a rising senior at Penn hitchhiked across Europe. Thirty eight years later, Joe Mack has finally published the story of his travels. Mack returned to Penn last night to present and read excerpts from 1968 and I'm Hitchhiking Through Europe to an small audience at the Penn Bookstore.

This past weekend in Providence, R.I., Brown fell at home to Harvard, 38-21. But if history repeats itself, Brown can look past its loss to the Crimson and battle for a second-straight Ivy League title. Last year, the Bears opened their season by defeating Georgetown and losing to Harvard before winning eight straight games to capture their first-ever outright Ivy League Championship.

Harvard University proved that its trend-setting ability extends outside the Ivy League yesterday, with the addition of the University of Virginia to the ever-growing list of schools nixing their early admission policies. Applicants to the UVA Class of 2013 will have to wait until the spring to find out if they have been accepted, UVA officials said.