Penn asked why, and the Social Planning and Events Committee answered - with fried Oreos, a cappella performances, human bowling and two days of full-out partying. Penn's annual Spring Fling weekend took place this past Friday and Saturday in the Quad and on College Green.

Coming into this weekend's matches against Harvard and Dartmouth, Penn found itself right in the thick of things, just half a game behind the first place Crimson. But its hopes for a third straight Ivy League title were likely dashed after a 7-0 loss at No.

The school from Athens brought multiple Olympians to the NCAA Gymnastics Northeast Regionals , and for one day, Penn's Marissa Rosen got to be their teammate. Rosen was paired with the No. 1-seeded Georgia team, whose Courtney Kupets and Courtney McCool were both part of the silver-medal-winning U.

Even the pouring rain couldn't dampen spirits at the Spring Fling concert Friday night. Hosted by the concerts and SPEC-TRUM subcommittees of the Social Planning and Events Committee, the concert featured rock group OK Go and indie hip-hop band Gym Class Heroes along with rapper Ludacris, who headlined the show.

It's tragic that Penn's most common crime is also the most preventable. Despite the Division of Public Safety's Theft Awareness Program, thefts from buildings have skyrocketed, increasing over 150 percent from last year. And a large portion of these thefts - over 60 percent - are of unattended property.

Unfortunately for the Quakers, Ludacris' Friday performance was much more inspiring than the men's lacrosse game on the same field the next day. After a 25-minute lightning delay, Penn (5-5, 3-3 Ivy) had its offense shut down for a second straight contest in an 8-5 loss at No.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination, focused on crime as she campaigned in West Philadelphia last week. At the YMCA located at 51st and Chestnut streets on Friday, Clinton announced a $4-billion-a-year anticrime initiative that she said is aimed at halving the murder rate in large cities.

Yesterday's early triumph in the resumed game saw the visiting Cornell Big Red undergo a visible transformation in the second doubleheader. All of a sudden, a team that hadn't been hitting hit. A team that hadn't been pitching pitched. And most importantly, a Cornell team that hadn't been winning grabbed a pair of convincing victories - 8-1 and 16-5 - to leave the Quakers stunned at Meiklejohn Stadium.

Last night, Penn's entire girl's varsity soccer team volunteered at the Hillel Soup Kitchen's first-ever going-away party. The soup kitchen is part of the University City Hospitality Coalition program which runs soup kitchens five nights of the week in University City.

As engineering becomes an increasingly global profession, officials at the Engineering school say their students are going abroad more than ever before - but still not as much as they would like them to. Getting more students to go overseas is a tricky issue, they argue - and one that will require changing student perceptions about the feasibility of such opportunities.

With its back against the wall, the Penn women's tennis team got the job done. The defending Ivy League champions emerged triumphant from both of its Ivy conference showdowns this weekend, beating Harvard 6-1 and Dartmouth 5-2 to stay alive in their title defense.

Jess Lupardus is glad that she won't be facing Cornell's Samantha Hare again anytime soon. In game one of yesterday's doubleheader, Lupardus allowed just three runs in eight innings. The first came off a Hare solo home run in the fourth inning, the first hit that Lupardus allowed.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton looked somber following her speech at the AFL-CIO convention last week. "We need to do something so that our party and our people can make the right decision," she said. The reporters in the room looked around eagerly and uncomfortably, wondering where this speech was leading.

In the past few weeks, my friends who were prescient enough to realize that suffering through painfully dull finance classes would one day be worth it, started to receive their signing bonuses. Payoff at last! Suddenly burdened with a few thousand dollars, many of them sought out the sagacious and venerable advice of their hairiest friend: yours truly.

After a convincing 5-2 victory in game one of Saturday's doubleheader at Meiklejohn Stadium, Penn seemed to be rolling. The Quakers had weathered the excessive rain delay, and after taking a 6-1 lead in the first three innings of game two, they looked to be on their way to an easy sweep.

For the second-straight year, the men's golf team used the Princeton Invitational as its final tuneup before the Ivy League Championship. And for the second-straight year, the host school defeated all of the participating Ancient Eight foes. "If there's such a thing in golf as home-team advantage, then Princeton had it this weekend," Penn junior Michael Blodgett said.

Photos by Carmela Aquino, Will van Eaton, Matt Cianfrani, Priscilla des Gachons, Mustafa Al-ammar, Alvin Loke