Texas volleyball is big - only California can boast of having more talent in the sport. And Lone Star State volleyball players, like most Texans, have a tendency to stick close to home. So high-school teammates Anna Shlimak and Julia Swanson weren't exactly following the crowd when they chose, three years apart, to play for the Quakers.

NEW YORK - Columbia University was a hotbed of conflict yesterday as free-speech pundits, politicos, national media, New Yorkers and Columbia students gathered to voice their divergent views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the Morningside Heights, N.Y., campus.

Accused murderer Irina Malinovskaya allegedly falsified an e-mail from her ex-lover Robert Bondar, according to evidence presented for the first time yesterday. The document - for which she has been charged with attempted tampering with physical evidence - is the first major change in a case that has ended twice with hung juries.

With the number of homicides in Philadelphia inching past 300, police and community officials are now calling on black males in the city to curb violent crime. Last week, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and civic leaders called for 10,000 men to sign up Oct.

A man was robbed at gunpoint this Saturday after entering a cab on the 4000 block of Walnut Street, according to the Philadelphia Police Department and Division of Public Safety officials. The victim, a 19-year-old male unaffiliated with the University, reported that he entered a cab at about 2:30 a.

The Undergraduate Assembly meeting on Sunday night focused more on general student-body interests and less on internal affairs for the first time this year. Issues included improving the add/drop period and New Student Orientation, distributing free national newspapers to students and better management of campus security.

Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller must feel like he's playing "Whack-a-Mole." He knocks one problem down, and another pops up. Last year, his team had trouble closing out games. This year, it can't open them. In 2006, the Quakers were prone to fading in the second half.

Former Economics graduate student and convicted sex offender Kurt Mitman has been granted parole and may be allowed to resume classes at Penn, state and University officials said yesterday.

From the happy pinks and greens of Lilly Pulitzer to the earth-toned evening dresses of Nicole Miller and the furs and sunglasses of Zinman, the runway at last evening's 14th annual Philadelphia Phasion Phest portrayed many unique areas of fashion. The Phasion Phest, held this year at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Center City, displayed upscale fall trends for both men and women from various retailers and salons.

While watching the CW tonight, you might recognize the balding guy wearing a green Science and Technology Wing T-shirt from your Computer Science class last year. And that's because 2006 Engineering alumnus Will Frank is a contestant on the hit reality show Beauty and the Geek.

This is a sad fact to many, but, unfortunately, Penn is not Hogwarts. Not even close. Sorry. We don't even have a talking hat to sort first years into Houses. No, we have "Assignments Operations" for that. Nothing magical here. Instead of housing students by their year in a dorm system, like most colleges, Penn tosses the freshmen into various College Houses.

If you're looking for a major that expresses your artistic side, you might want to try Engineering before heading into the art studio. Computer Graphics at the University of Pennsylvania - a subset of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences' Computer Science department - is the umbrella for all programs in computer graphics at Penn, from high school to Ph.

It seemed everyone who gathered at Columbia University yesterday had an opinion. Here's what some people have to say about the remarks by both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger: On Bollinger's introduction: n "Bollinger's introduction . laid out the case quite well.

I'm not sure exactly what Brian Walker was thinking as he walked off the field on Saturday, or when he got up the next morning, or every morning since then. But if I were in his place, I know what I would be thinking about. Me. Or, more specifically, why me? Why me - on the bench and not on the field - and why me - rotated out time and time again to invest more PT in a younger and stronger version of myself? It's times like those that make you question all the two-a-days and push-ups.

Cuddle parties. Until accidentally picking up an old New York Times this past summer, I had never even imagined that such a thing could exist. But there it was, wedged under a photo of happily intertwined people lying on pillows and holding hands: an invitation to a cuddle party taking place right in the heart of inhospitable Manhattan.

VILLANOVA, Pa. - How did four Villanova defenders record their first career interceptions on Saturday? Easy - they were in the zone.

Outside financial experts agree: Penn's Office of Investments is certainly on the right track. The University's endowment returned 20.2 percent growth on its investments this past fiscal year, bringing the grand total to $6.6 billion. This positive growth reflects strategies that Penn's prime competitors, Harvard and Yale universities, have been using for years: an emphasis on international equities and a slow increase in alternative investments.