For this year's graduation speaker, the College of Arts and Sciences is bringing anything but "Ordinary People." R&B; musician John Legend, who graduated from Penn in 1999 with a degree in English with an emphasis in African American literature, will return for the 10th anniversary of his own graduation to address the College's Class of 2009.

Last Sunday, Brian Tierney made national headlines when he filed Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. - owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com - for bankruptcy. Just five days later, Tierney - CEO and founder of PMH and 1979 Penn alumnus - visited Leadership Hall for the Fox Leadership Program's "Leadership Lunch" series.

Green is the new blue on Capitol Hill. On Friday afternoon, Vice President Joe Biden, six members of President Barack Obama's cabinet, Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter were just some of the political figures gathered in Irvine Auditorium for the first meeting of the Middle Class Task Force.

Unlike in the rest of the world, journalism is thriving at Penn. To add to options already available through the English department, the Annenberg School for Communication and various writing hubs on campus, the College Dean's Advisory Board is working to develop and propose a new journalism minor.

The School of Arts and Sciences budget cuts are revising Fox Leadership's summer plans but not deterring students from helping to renew New Orleans. Due to an announced 10-percent cut affecting all SAS programs and departments, the second-annual Fox Leadership in New Orleans summer internship program has been cancelled for 2009.

Mar. 1, 3:45 p.m. The College announced today that R&B; singer and songwriter John Legend will speak at the school's 2009 graduation ceremony. A '99 College alumnus, Legend has won six Grammy awards, including Best New Artist in 2005. During his time at Penn, Legend - known by his given name, John Stephens -ÿwas an English major and sang with jazz and pop a cappella group Counterparts.

This Sunday, the Undergraduate Assembly will vote on budget requests from the six student government branches and organizers of New Student Orientation. On Feb. 15, the UA's Budget Committee released a list of preliminary suggestions. Undergraduate Assembly Treasurer and Wharton Senior Ben Coulter emphasized that the UA has not yet endorsed any of the proposals.

"Eating greasy food without bread is what gives people herpes." "A woman will get a female cold by sitting on anything cold." "Men are so horny they would try to fuck a fly while its buzzing around." These are only a few of the lessons that shaped the way Andrea Dezso, an assistant professor at Parsons the New School for Design, ate certain foods, acted around men and behaved every day of her life in Transylvania, Hungary.

Shots were fired early this morning outside Philly Diner, located at 3901 Walnut St. No injuries were reported and Penn Police made three arrests, according to Sgt. Ray Evers of the Philadelphia Police. The Division of Public Safety's PennComm Center received a call at about 4:15 a.m.

Architect Michael Van Valkenburgh unveiled the model for Penn Park yesterday before the University's trustees. Penn Park, a $40 million, 24-acre project, will integrate athletic fields in a park-like setting to serve as the athletic hub of campus. It is part of the Penn Connects initiative, the University's urban development plan.

The Division of Public Safety today confirmed that DNA recovered from Dominique Wilson, 23, of S. 51st Street, positively links him to both the sexual assaults at 44th and Spruce streets and 9th and Clinton streets. Wilson was arrested in Lock Haven, Pa., last week on 36 criminal counts, 12 of which relate to an incident during which he allegedly held three students with a knife against their will and sexually assaulted two of them.

Penn's Office of Affirmative Action has been without a director since December 2007. "As is the case in any search, we want to find the right person," said Joann Mitchell, vice president for institutional affairs, to whom the OAA reports. But the vacancy has been met with a degree of skepticism among Penn's minority community.

Penn's endowment dropped 19.4 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year, falling from $6.2 billion to $5 billion from July to December 2008, according to Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli. This is a slightly lower decrease than the 22.5 percent decline that colleges and universities across the United States and Canada experienced in the first five months of FY 2009, according to a recent survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute.

In response to Governor Ed Rendell's Tuition Relief Act, Republican state Senator Jeffrey Piccola proposed an alternative plan, which cuts state funds to Penn by $15.5 million. Unlike Rendell's plan, which advocates putting legal video poker machines in bars around the state, Piccola's Affordability, Accountability, and Choice in Higher Education Act would make money by reducing funding for several dozen museums and universities around the state.

The global economic crisis has left Philadelphia's City budget with a $1 billion deficit and President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not step in to help. The stimulus plan will affect Philadelphia by cutting taxes, creating jobs and improving infrastructure, but according to city officials, direct fiscal assistance is not in the package.

The recent economic downturn has not only affected people trying to enter the sphere of higher education as students. Graduate students hoping to get jobs as professors are also experiencing difficulties because of the recession. Hiring freezes, funding shortages and a decrease in the number of retiring professors are among the reasons many graduate students are concerned about finding employment.

Graduate studios in the School of Design sometimes travel across the world to work on real-life, client-based projects. Past groups have worked on projects in the Netherlands, Venezuela and India. Students in Michael Larice's graduate Urban Design Studio, called The Public Realm, returned from a trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to create a plan to redesign the city's Central Business District.