Opinion Columns
Alec Ward | Screen pass
It’s official — the College Houses have out-TV’d my dad. As reported in a DP news article by Ray Pomponio, starting this year College House residents will get Comcast’s Xfinity On Demand streaming service included in the ever-increasing price of rent. Even my tech-happy father, who has enthusiastically upgraded our “home theater” infrastructure every few years since my birth, hasn’t quite sprung for that yet. While I am sure that College House residents will appreciate the service, I have to confess that it seems to me an extravagance.
Emily Hoeven | If we're talking body
Before coming back to Penn, I got my first professional massage. I had been saying “I need a massage” for years before actually getting one.James Lee | Freedom
As the class of 2020 begins to settle into their new lives at Penn, if its members are anything like me, I’m sure that they’re feeling a complex mix of emotions at entering the first step into adulthood.
Jeremiah Keenan | Stereotyping
She was a cosmopolitan-looking, middle-aged doctor with the kind of precisely preserved physiognomy that I imagine develops 15 years out from an Ivy League sorority.
Alec Ward | Apologia for a Dean
I first saw the letter which University of Chicago Dean of Students John Ellison sent to his incoming freshman class on Twitter, a day or so before it hit the mainstream press. Scanning the first grainy photocopy, I could sense a kerfuffle in the making.
Alessandro van den Brink | Animal House
In May, Harvard announced a historic move to enact penalties on its Final Clubs and Greek life organizations.
Alec Ward | Don't
It’s a scene right out of a classic college film or a rose-tinted admissions propaganda leaflet — a group of college students lazing around a dorm room or lounge, late at night, arguing about politics, philosophy and the meaning of life. It probably figured, to some extent, in your high school visions of what Ivy League life would be like. I know it did in mine.
Emily Hoeven | To be or not to be proud
At the end of this past school year, my mom and I were talking about the ups and downs of my college experience when she asked, “Are you proud of the person you’ve become?” Although taken by surprise, my first instinct was to say yes. After all, I had finished two years of college, lived across the country from my family, survived several East Coast winters, taken stimulating courses with incredible professors and learned from and was challenged by the students around me.
Louis Capozzi | A tale of two Trumps
I assumed Trump would understand the national electorate. I assumed he would adjust his strategy and pivot to the general election. I might have been wrong.Meerabelle Jesuthasan | The other Wharton Graduate
Exorbitant lifestyle. Infamous interviews. A wealthy family who funded his debut as an entrepreneur.
Clara Jane Hendrickson | What's feminism got to do with it?
This week’s issue of The Nation featured two cover articles. “Why this Socialist Feminist is for Hillary,” by Suzanna Danuta Walters and “Why this Socialist Feminist is not Voting for Hillary,” by Liza Featherstone.
Alessandro van den Brink | Room for debate
Since middle school, every student has heard just about all there is to know about crafting an argument.
Francis Leong | A debate on propriety
With Penn recently considering divestment from fossil fuels, yet another college now questions the propriety of investing its endowments based on ethical inclinations.
Alec Ward | Licensed to swill
It would be pointless for me to write a column arguing that the United States should lower the national minimum drinking age to 18 for two reasons. First, it would be pointless because this is Penn, and the proposal would likely be so uncontroversial among whatever readership I have that it would verge on being a waste of time.
Amanda Reid |Student Protests and Demonstrations on Campuses
Protests are symbolic at their core. They signal a dissatisfaction with the greater system (whether it be white supremacist, patriarchal, imperialist) manifesting beneath the surface of an otherwise functional society. Nowadays, they signal change, but they don’t necessarily create it.Meerabelle Jesuthasan | What Kind of Diversity?
The contemporary tropes of International Baccalaureate scores and Radian apartments, of Western-tinted accents and Castle rushees, point to some kind of unspoken acceptance of the fact that nowadays, international Penn students just tend to be wealthier.Ben Facey | Ink’d
Currently my body is ink-free, but I soon plan on changing that. I want a tattoo and have promised three different friends that I would get a tattoo with them in the next few months. Statistically, at least one of them won’t chicken out, so it’s very likely that within the next few months my ink virginity will be taken from me.
Theodore L. Caputi | The myth about smart people
Would you listen to Albert Einstein’s political counsel? Terence Tao’s opinion on drug policy?
Louis Capozzi | Donald's trump cards
Donald Trump is not stupid. Penn students frequently dismiss him because he says stupid things, but we shouldn’t underestimate the GOP frontrunner. As Trump recently told a raucous crowd in South Carolina, “We have to be smart.