Amira Fawcett is a Engineering sophomore from Houston. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

During warm-ups, the Penn volleyball team was all smiles and visibly loose heading into its match against La Salle. As it turned out, the Explorers couldn't wipe the smile off their opponent's faces, as Penn cruised to a 3-0 win last night at the Palestra.

A proposed federal database for tracking college students could ease the application process and make institutions more accountable - but some say it will come at the cost of student privacy. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the creation of such a database as one of her priorities last week.

After three weeks of Ivy League football, the dust has begun to settle a little. The standings have become more orderly, and already there is some separation between the good teams and the not-so-good teams. The first intra-league games seemed to validate the non-conference records, especially with the luck of three teams with .

Online degrees usually don't carry much weight in the business world, but one new program promises to be different. At least, its creators are. Newsweek magazine and test-preparation company Kaplan are teaming up to create what the organizations believe is the first Internet-based business program run by a magazine.

As students returned to campus this fall, many got their first glance inside Skirkanich Hall - and just about everyone was impressed.

Tickets are selling out fast for this week's fall concert featuring alternative pop artist Rufus Wainwright. So far, 900 of the available 1,100 tickets to Friday's concert in Irvine Auditorium have been sold.

MySpace.com wants you to "Declare Yourself." The social-networking Web site, which boasts more than 114 million users, joined its competitor Facebook.com in trying to increase voter awareness by setting up its own voter-registration page last week. The new feature of MySpace allows users to enter their zip code and personal information, after which they receive a registration form to print and send to local election officials.

Since blogging began, outrageous claims and personal dramas have made their way onto the Internet for all to read. But when university faculty members are the bloggers, they're sometimes finding themselves in hot water. At a number of schools around the country, personal Web logs are getting professors - and the administrators they write about - into trouble, raising questions of exactly how much freedom of speech the Internet allows.

Coach Mick Statham will pace the Rhodes Field sidelines once again this evening. But this time the former Penn women's soccer assistant will be leading Lafayette against the Quakers. Statham assisted head coach Darren Ambrose at Penn in 2004, helping the team to a 9-6-2 record.

Student leaders will finally announce the official debut of the free music-subscription service Ruckus with an e-mail to students today. The official site, which allows users unlimited music downloads, went live last Thursday. Users have been able to sporadically access a test version of the service since late August as contract negotiations between the University and Ruckus were pending.

There's a game at the Class of 1923 Ice Rink this Friday night, but the players lacing up their skates aren't varsity athletes.

Abdi Farah is a College sophomore from Owings Mills, Md. His e-mail address is farah@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Penn Leads the Vote isn't resting on its laurels. Student participation in elections has skyrocketed since the group's inception in 2004, and members are now trying to triple turnout for the vote this November. 2006 College grad Jason Oberman founded Penn leads the vote in collaboration with Joseph Tierney and John DiIulio of the Fox Leadership Program.

Penn's School of Medicine is potentially interested in purchasing a vacant former Dupont lab in nearby Delaware County. Med School officials said they are not sure how much of the nearly 125,000 square foot property the school is considering purchasing but that the research-and-development location will most likely be used as interim or storage space.

The Penn-Princeton rivalry is just a sham, because a real rivalry has to extend beyond just the basketball court.

Wharton professor Justin Wolfers is not ashamed to admit that he knows nothing. In fact, he hoped that his audience would walk away from his research presentation on the death penalty knowing nothing, too. As part of a criminology lecture series, Wolfers spoke to students and colleagues in Huntsman Hall on Friday about the effects of the death penalty as a crime deterrent.