The Center for Outreach, Research, and Education — the newest of Penn's neurological, behavioral, and intelligence-based research initiatives — is launching this January.

In this week's edition of Is Stat So?, we look at several individual and team records that were broken this weekend, as well as a few key numbers that allowed men's squash and women's basketball to emerge victorious.

“You’ve got to look at the dismissals in context: It’s one part of a much larger package that’s going on,” Civil rights attorney and senior fellow at Penn Law David Rudovsky said.

“It really should not matter what your family means are or what you were born into, but that a good education should always be accessible,” an administrator from the School of Social Policy & Practice said. 

Following the sweeps, two stars of the Penn men’s and women’s basketball programs, sophomore forward AJ Brodeur and freshman center Eleah Parker, were named Ivy League Player of the Week for their contributions.

After multiple attempts to gain funding through different channels, the group was told in November last year that even though they were recognized by SAC, they were not eligible for SAC funding. 

"We would like to honor our amazingly talented, passionate, intelligent, kind and devoted Whisk copy editor, Blaze N. Bernstein," the food magazine Penn Appetit wrote on Facebook. 

Just a week after freshman Andrew Douglas’ comeback win to beat No. 6 Rochester, Penn needed another ninth game win to beat Yale 5-4. Meanwhile, Penn’s women fell to the Elis by the same score. Against Brown on Sunday, both teams eliminated any chance for a dramatic ending by sweeping the Bears 9-0.  

How first-generation, low-income students navigate an empty campus during winter break

 “Professor Hazard was a true giant in American law,” Penn Law Dean Ted Ruger said in a statement published by Penn Law.  

There is a minimum number of school days which all universities must meet, and that often influences the decision of whether or not to suspend operations.

Both Red and Blue squads struggled in their final Ivy League meet of the regular season. The Quakers’ men fell to Harvard, 181-108, while the women fell respectively to Brown and Harvard by scores of 178-119 and 197-100. 

Experience certainly reigned supreme for Penn wrestling in their first conference dual against Army on Sunday, as Penn's senior wrestlers — Joe Olivia, Joe Velliquette, May Bethea, and Frank Mattiace — led the Quakers to their 19-18 victory on criteria. 

Penn fencing had an up and down weekend against some of the top fencing programs in the country.   The Quakers (11-4 for both men and women) had a busy weekend in State College, Pa. The men and women defeated North Carolina and Haverford but fell short to Columbia, Penn State, and Duke.

A year after opening the 2017 season with an impressive second-place finish at the Lindsey Ferris Invitational, Penn gymnastics struggled to match that effort this time around, finishing in last place with a score of 190.375. 

Carton Rogers will retire in June. He has worked in Penn Libraries since 1975, becoming the vice provost and director of libraries in 2004. In his role, he oversaw 18 separate University libraries. 

Kwanzaa was founded as a non-religious Pan-African holiday to celebrate core themes, such as creativity, faith, and purpose, which are represented by candles lit from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.