The first time Bryan Wolf went out to lunch with his newest lab research assistant, then-College freshman Joshua Cook, he was struck by Cook's discourse about the plant on their table at the White Dog Cafe. "The first impression you got was that he is very driven and very excited about science," said Wolf, Medical School professor and Pathologist-in-Chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Cultural centers are already affordable To the Editor: Ms. Steinberg's column last week ("Catching up with culture" 2/5/08) shows that she is oblivious to the realities of student discounts to cultural institutions in the U.S. as well as our basic system of a federal government.

We've all experienced the thrill of finding that perfect class. You know, the one with the 1.38 difficulty rating that fulfills that annoying requirement? It's a great feeling. It also illustrates why the College's curriculum is fatally flawed and needs to be scrapped in favor of a core.

With its members scrambling to stay on the vanguard of financial-aid generosity, the Ivy League may do one of two things. It could keep its current model of need-based aid, or it could - theoretically - form a new one. Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky said the current model will result in a competitive imbalance.

Legal proceedings against Wharton junior Felix Qu are continuing, as a trial date has been set for this spring. Qu was arrested and charged with simple assault and reckless endangerment of another person after an argument with his girlfriend over winter break allegedly turned violent.

Last season, the Harvard women's basketball team broke away from the pack to claim the conference crown by four games. This year, with the bottom three teams a combined 1-15 in Ivy play, there was bound to be a little more congestion at the top. A month into the Ancient Eight season, the defending champs find themselves in a three-way tie for first with Cornell and Dartmouth.

A haven for wordsmiths, the Kelly Writers House last night shared its spotlight with music lovers as well. A crowd of 40 gathered in Penn's Kelly Writers House last night to hear a presentation by Ben Ratliff, a New York Times jazz critic. Ratliff signed copies of his new book, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound.

"We're not like those anti-rape guys on campus. We want to be the pro-women guys." So declared College freshman and Phi Kappa Sigma member Matt Amalfitano. He is an active member of One in Four, a national organization that aims to reduce sexual assault by empowering both men and women.

Five percent. That's the current intra-conference road winning percentage of Ivy League teams not named "Cornell." Brown is 0-1. Yale is 0-1. Penn is 0-2. Princeton is 0-3. Dartmouth is 0-5. Harvard is 0-5. Columbia is a real road warrior by comparison, with its relatively sparkling 1-3 record away from Levien Gymnasium.

Grand Text Auto is a blog, but it's also at the forefront of a new method of editing print publications. University of California at San Diego communications professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin is publishing his in-progress manuscript on the blog - which he helps run - in addition to submitting it through the traditional peer review system at MIT Press.

Jennifer Lesser is a College sophomore from Minneapolis, MN. Her e-mail address is lesser@dailypennsylvanian.com.

The School of Arts and Sciences received a $15 million donation this month from alumnus Christopher Browne to establish five endowed professorships across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. "I'm completely delighted," SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell said.

Since its formation in 1954, the Ivy League has been perhaps the most stable conference in Division I. It has enjoyed a remarkable level of parity and is still the only D-I league whose membership has never changed. But the distribution of financial aid money - and its effect on athletics - is threatening to upset that balance.

Today is the day to think about love. But this Valentine's Day, some social scholars are taking a new perspective: they want to know what love means and where traditional notions of it have gone, especially on college campuses. What is love at Penn? Hard to define, if anything.

A central component of University President Amy Gutmann's Penn Compact is engaging globally. Now, a former U.S. President wants to help colleges to do just that. Next month in New Orleans, Bill Clinton will launch the Clinton Global Initiative University, or CGI U, a project aimed at bringing students, faculty and global leaders together "to discuss [global] problems and take action," he announced in a conference call yesterday.

Penn plans to work with interest groups in order to modify the Higher Education Act so the legislation corresponds with the University's interests, according to Bill Andresen, head of Penn's office in Washington. The Higher Education Act was renewed by the U.

Wharton senior Lisa Jiang wanted to take her business education outside of Huntsman Hall and into Philadelphia. Jiang and four other classmates founded the Social Impact Consulting Group, an organization that offers free consulting services to local non-profit organizations, which include conducting cost analyses and coming up with marketing strategies.