Opinion Columns
Amanda Reid | (Public) Spatial Awareness
Public space is always around, which is maybe why we forget its potential for discourse. With larger growth in online spaces, social networking sites specifically, physical public space no longer holds tangible influence over us. Yet following the wide-scale flyer incident, then the homophobic preachers and their counter-protesters, we are reminded of the presence of human voices expressing opinions in the public sphere.
Harrison Glicklich | Pro-NSO; Pro-ANA
When I was in high school, eating disorders were coming into their own as a public health menace.
Ashley Stinnett | Healthy self-contempt
Why did I first want to take the monk class, back when I first heard about it in freshman year? It would be a fantastic way to get the cheekbones I’ve always wanted; I’ll be able to read the shit I definitely should have read by now (Ulysses, anyone?); I’ll finally have time to write and be super introspective and know my true self and I’m totes contemplative and everyone will think I’m badass and wise. Why do I want to take the monk class now? I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going to happen. That’s precisely the appeal.GROUP THINK | Amy Gutmann's relationship with the student body
GROUP THINK is the DP’s round table section, where we throw a question at the columnists and see what answers stick.
Alec Ward | To raise, rather than to lower
This past Saturday, just before the start of Penn’s first home Varsity football game, two members of the Penn cheerleading squad “[made] a statement,” according to a photo tweeted out by the Penn athletics department.
Amy Chan | If God is love, what is homosexuality?
I believe in God. I’m almost hesitant to start with that, because I know immediately many people will write me off.
Emily Hoeven | Elevator pitch
I dread waiting for the elevator in Penn’s high rise buildings almost as much as I dread the actual elevator ride itself. I dread standing in the awkwardly clustered group of people waiting for the elevators, all of whom make sure to maintain a certain distance from everyone around them and constantly look downward, faces buried in their phones.
Aaron Cooper | Butting in = Heaven
Last Thursday, the two worst preachers in America showed up on Penn campus. As far as I could tell, they failed to convert a single student to the word of the lord.
Cameron Dichter | How we remember
To commemorate last week’s anniversary of September 11th, members of Occidental College’s Republican Club planted 2,997 American flags — one for each victim of the attack — on their campus green, all of which were later removed by student protesters.
James Lee | The myth of the "Penn Face"
Midterms loom, recruiting rages on. Winter cannot be far behind. Having been away from Penn for the last two years, I naturally couldn’t wait to get back and live the good life.
Group Think | Flyering & Penn party culture
GROUP THINK is the DP’s round table section, where we throw a question at the columnists and see what answers stick.
Joe Tharakan | Overlooking Opioids
Opioid dependency – and subsequent heroin addiction – has skyrocketed over the last 15 years.
Jeremiah Keenan | Penn’s “gender wage gap”
Two weeks ago The Daily Pennsylvanian highlighted a claim in a recent Senate Committee report that there is a gender wage gap at Penn.
Alec Ward | We can cause accidents too
You may not have heard about this, but OZ sent a sleazy email which got leaked. Just kidding. Unless you live under a rock, you know about what I’m now calling #OzGate. Personally, I have mixed feelings about how campus has reacted to the exposure of the crude poem. Let me be clear, I have little interest in defending the email itself. The sentiments expressed in the lines of truly terrible poetry indicate some attitudes I find deeply troubling.
Alessandro van den Brink | Trust falls
Over the summer, Penn introduced a major tweak to its Early Decision application process that prevents students from applying Early Decision to Penn and Early Action to another private university.
Amanda Reid |Owning labels
I’ve never doubted who I was. Asian, White, Mixed, Girl, Young—any of these could apply, but none of these mattered.
Ashley Stinnett | Beyond the draft
I call myself a writer, but I haven’t published anything in the three years I’ve been at this university.
Harrison Glicklich | We need more writing seminars
I was arguably a better writer after four years of high school than I am now, after four years of some of the most expensive postsecondary education that money can buy.Group Think | Is TAP Effective?
GROUP THINK is the DP’s round table section, where we throw a question at the columnists and see what answers stick.