Despite significant increases in the numbers of applicants to Penn's Ph.D. programs, the number of acceptances at most schools will remain relatively similar to past years. Some schools, such as the School of Arts and Sciences, School of Medicine, Graduate School of Education and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, saw smaller increases in applications, while others, such as Wharton and the Annenberg School for Communication, reported much larger increases.

Members of the Penn Democrats are looking west of campus to encourage civic engagement in high-school students. The group is two weeks into a pilot program that delivers interactive civics workshops in an after-school program at West Philadelphia's Sayre High School.

By JIN PYUO LEE Staff Writer lee@dailypennsylvanian.com With funding from the National Institute on Aging, Penn's School of Medicine launched a new study that aims to to identify genes that influence the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health, will provide $18.

Andrew Shatte wants to turn the fight against global warming into a war.

According to a recent report by Pew Research Center, Philadelphians are more optimistic than the rest of the country - even though they consume a record high of cigarettes and have dismal job prospects. At a time when only 20 percent of the U.S. population answered that the country is headed in the right direction, 46 percent of Philadelphians look forward to the city's future.

Ilana Millner is a College junior from Washington Crossing, Pa. Her e-mail address is millner@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Da Vinci, Newton, Franklin: meet Rawlings. Ted Rawlings, that is. Penn Athletics' very own Renaissance man. The sophomore has his hand in four different Penn varsity programs.

This past weekend, roughly 200 prospective students attended Multicultural Scholars' Weekend, a preview weekend geared toward minority students accepted to Penn's Class of 2013. The weekend - which lasted Sunday through Tuesday - is an integral part of Penn's efforts to build a community of traditionally underrepresented students, according to director of multicultural recruitment David Toomer.

Last week, the Columbia Spectator wrote about the college's plan to add a sustainable-development major for fall 2010. Cited as "trans-disciplinary," the major would encompass multiple topics and include a fieldwork component. This degree program - which sounds like old-school environmental studies on steroids - will be the undergraduate arm within the school's Earth Institute, which works to "help achieve sustainable development primarily by expanding the world's understanding of Earth as one integrated system," according to its Web site.

Over two weeks after student government elections came and went, the transition process is not yet over. On Wednesday night, the Undergraduate Assembly will hold its annual internal elections to select members from the 2009-2010 UA body to fill the group's five executive offices.

Going off to grad school can seem like entering a foreign country - especially to those coming from one. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly International Council is creating two programs to help international graduate students make this transition by connecting them with peer and alumni mentors.

The year: 1973. The scene: the National Fencing Championships in Tuscon, Ariz. Dave Micahnik had advanced to the semifinals in his quest to earn a fourth trip to the Olympics. A year earlier Micahnik had narrowly missed a finals berth at Nationals. After his elimination in the semifinals he stood in the middle of the floor, took his epee in both hands and tried to break it - but it wouldn't break.

Wharton sophomore Eduardo Mayoral starts each morning by reading not The Daily Pennsylvanian or The New York Times, but El Tiempo, a Colombian newspaper, online. Mayoral, like many international students at Penn, concerns himself daily with the political happenings in his native country as well as those in the United States.

You are reading an eight-page newspaper today. On this day last year, you were reading a 14-page paper. And, though it's a rarity for The Daily Pennsylvanian to drop to such a low size, it is not the first eight-page paper of the semester. Unfortunately, every newspaper in the country is slimming down its print edition.

One professor makes assigning his book for class altruistic. For the past three years, Political Science department chairman Avery Goldstein has required students to buy a book he authored, but in exchange he has given students the choice to receive $1 back or donate $1 to a charity.

Penn's reputation as "the social Ivy" is well-known among the Ancient Eight, and apparently among the prospective class of 2013 as well. "I'm really impressed by the Greek life at Penn," Monica Lindrooth, a high-school senior from New York City, said during Penn Previews last week.

Violent crime has dropped significantly since Drexel University unveiled its new police department, according to Drexel's Senior Associate Vice President for Public Safety Domenic Ceccanecchio. After being officially recognized as a law enforcement agency by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office in June 2008, the department has been operational since March 15.