AlliedBarton's treatment of its security guards has always proved a thorny problem for Penn. For many years, the University passed the buck on the whole issue, arguing that any involvement with the guards' unionization efforts would be inappropriate. But since 2005 - when AlliedBarton suspended and transferred five guards because they petitioned President Gutmann for more benefits -- Penn officials have slowly become more involved in the situation.

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.

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.

Engineering junior Joan Jose Martinez, a native of the Dominican Republic, can't vote in a presidential primary this spring. But that doesn't mean he's not paying attention to the election campaigns. "Of course I'm concerned with the outcome," he said. "Who becomes the president of the United States affects everyone in the world, whether they care for politics or not.

It was a nightmarish few minutes for Penn, but the ending was as good as anyone could have dreamed. The Quakers had just seen a 16-point advantage vanish in only 12 minutes. Down by two with 6.5 seconds on the clock, Dartmouth had one last opportunity to complete a miracle comeback.

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.

Avery Lawrence is a College senior from Charlottesville, Va. His e-mail address is lawrence@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Do you know of the Heavenly Mother? Many students do now, after recent encounters with teams of missionaries on campus. Members of the World Mission Society Church of God have been proselytizing on campus over the past few weeks, approaching students on various street corners and outside University buildings.

AlliedBarton security guards at Penn and Temple University received significant increases in wages and sick leave last week. The adjustments to the security guards' contracts, effective last month at Penn and today at Temple, provide for up to three days' paid sick leave at both Penn and Temple and a wage increase from $9.

The wrestling team had better get some rest tonight. They're in for a long day tomorrow. With dual meets scheduled at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. against Gloucester County (N.J.), Maryland and North Carolina, respectively, the Quakers have a full slate of wrestling on tap tomorrow at the Palestra.

For seniors, February marks the start of their last round of midterms, their last Super Bowl to watch at Penn and Feb Club, a month-long celebration for seniors to attend events together across Philadelphia. "It's geared toward giving seniors a better perspective of Philly as a whole in their last few months," College senior and class president Puneet Singh said.

If second-year physics graduate student John Alison were a few years older, he would have studied at Fermi, a famous physics lab in Chicago. Instead he will head to Switzerland this summer to study particle physics. Geneva, Switzerland boasts the world's premier particle accelerator thanks to a 1990s budget cut that halted construction of a similar model in the U.

There are two blackened pots sitting in my kitchen cabinet. One features a pasta pattern, while the other has charred Rice-A-Roni permanently glued to its steel surface. Speaking of cooking casualties, one of my plastic bowls perished last year due to a bad interaction between a microwave and chocolate chips.

Mingling with a group of older and wiser graduate students are numerous undergraduates hoping to gain experience and knowledge. The concept of taking graduate-level classes either for submatriculation or for experience has long been a tradition for undergraduates at Penn.

A home in Pearlington, Miss. was sinking and Engineering graduate student Kyle Sirianno was determined to find out why. He encountered the home - which had sunk by two inches because the septic tank underneath it was broken - while testing the quality of well water in Pearlington, an area still suffering from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.

In the past, Penn might have overlooked a Dartmouth squad coming off a nine-win season and picked to finish dead last in the Ivy League preseason poll. Not this year, though. For one, Quakers coach Glen Miller doesn't put any stock in Dartmouth's preseason ranking.

Students don't need alcohol to have fun To the Editor: With regard to last Friday's article "Building school spirit one brewski at a time" (Jan. 25, 2008), the column failed to mention that the state of Pennsylvania must grant a liquor license to any venue that intends to sell alcohol.