In the Nursing school, summer employment opportunities extend well beyond the halls of the local ER. Nursing students engage in a wide variety of summer jobs, from study abroad programs to community service. The most common course of action is the eventual enrollment in an externship program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania or a hometown hospital.

The University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia may soon be at the center of a revolutionary international endeavor to control the global spread of infectious diseases. Penn's Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response and Harvey Rubin, the institute's director, have developed an international plan to fight infectious diseases.

As the rain fell outside, a thoughtful crowd of 200 gathered in the transformed multipurpose room of the W.E.B. DuBois College House last Friday evening. Dimly lit and decorated in the red, black and green of the African American flag, the space invited guests to groove to notes of mellow jazz.

With ambitious initiatives on his agenda for 2008, Wharton Dean Thomas Robertson has a busy year ahead. Last Friday at the Wharton Undergraduate Leadership Forum, Robertson laid out his core strategies for the upcoming years, which include a Wharton campus expansion plan, the fundraising campaign and faculty recruitment.

If the price to pay for a semester abroad in Japan is eight weeks of couch-surfing, Wharton and College sophomore Baylee Feore is more than happy to live out of her suitcase. While waiting for the academic year to begin in April at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Feore has been living with a different friend each week while she bides her time.

Can a picture of a trash be considered art? Depends on who you ask. Last Friday Fox Leadership hosted "Sustainable by Design," an environmental art gallery that focused on raising awareness of recycling, global warming and ecological architecture. The event coincides with RecycleMania, a 10-week campus-wide initiative to reduce waste.

Standing lonely on the corner of 36th and Chestnut streets, the 'Big Belly' looks like any other trash can - barring the solar panels on its top. The quirky design serves a purpose. Big Belly is the first solar-powered compacting trash can in Philadelphia.

The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly has a new agenda and set of priorities for the semester, said Alina Badus, vice chair for communications for GAPSA. One of the biggest policy priorities for the semester is the issue of increasing graduate student stipends at Penn The stipend has been the central issue within the GAPSA Research Council for the last six months, SASgov GAPSA representative Lucas Champollion wrote in an e-mail.

Though recent changes in the nation's largest student-loan company's lending policy will halt private loans for some students nationwide, most experts say the changes are unlikely to affect Penn students. Sallie Mae, which has about 10 million customers enrolled in a variety of publicly and privately funded loan programs, announced on Jan.

The renovation and development of Penn's campus was the overarching topic at yesterday's Undergraduate Assembly meeting, the time of which was moved up to 1:30 p.m. from the usual 9 p.m. due to the Super Bowl. Attendance was not mandatory for UA members due to the changed time, leading to a significantly shorter meeting than usual.

Former Wharton senior Jason Myers, who was arrested on Nov. 29 for ten burglaries he allegedly committed in Harnwell College House over Thanksgiving break, was held for trial by Judge Deborah Shelton Griffin at his Jan. 25 preliminary hearing. Myers, a bodybuilder who won last year's Mr.

From Au Bon Pain to Pottruck Fitness Center, a growing number of Penn students are traveling with their e-mail accounts in tow. Few can deny it: The BlackBerry mobile device has earned its place in undergraduate culture at Penn. Au Bon Pain shift supervisor Tamika Deshazor said a majority of customers in the Huntsman Hall cafe approach the cashier with a BlackBerry in hand, and many are rudely preoccupied during their turn to pay.

One of Penn's top scientists received the Engineering School's most prestigious award last week. Thomas Cech, president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was given the Berger Award for not only his engineering expertise, but also for his ability to integrate engineering with other fields of science in some of the medical field's most innovative multidisciplinary research.

It was a bit like New Student Orientation all over again last night for next year's residents of the Radian, as they met with future roommates and hallmates for the first time. As construction progresses on the Radian, located at 39th and Walnut streets, its future residents gathered last night at Marathon Grill.

It took Jim Skinner more than 40 years to go from flipping burgers to managing fortunes for the fast-food giant McDonalds. Yesterday, he shared some of the secrets to his success with students at the Woodlands Ballroom at the Hilton Inn at Penn. The event was a corporate benefit banquet billed as "An Evening of Philanthropy," hosted by Penn's chapter of the Alpha Kappa Psi Professional business fraternity.

For Americans, there's July 4th, there's New Years Eve - and then there's the Super Bowl. Between the game and the grub, this annual showdown between football's best has become what amounts to a national celebration for football fanatics and novices alike.

Mayor Michael Nutter's decision last week to revoke SugarHouse's casino license for its proposed 5,500-slot parlor provided a new setback for casino developers interested in coming to Philadelphia. Nutter revoked the license in order to more completely evaluate whether the proposed casino is the best use for the land at the Fishtown site.