Just two years ago, Princeton was the team to beat in the Ivy League. But while four starters from that 2006 Ivy League Championship team are still around to guide the Tigers' 2008 campaign, Princeton will need stronger defensive play to regain elite status in the Ancient Eight.

Awareness. It's being raised all around you, all the time, and seldom with your consent. Studies have shown that even simple acts such as waking up in the morning or walking down Locust may increase your awareness to near-toxic levels. So it's with a sincere apology that I attempt to raise awareness about everyone's favorite substance that is processed using a combination of heat and water and is subsequently smoked.

For Jonathan Boym, the USTA Intercollegiate Competition this weekend is the beginning of his swan song, a final chance to wash away the bitter taste of his junior year campaign. Boym, along with the now-graduated Jason Pinsky, co-captained the Quakers to a 12-11 mark in their 2007-08 season.

DVDs and blow-up dolls from the American Heart Association may soon save lives on campus. Part of a take-home kit, these tools can teach anyone - regardless of medical background - how to perform CPR through a 22-minute hands-on video tutorial. Efforts at getting these kits subsidized and available to students have been pioneered by College senior Kirk Lozada and Benjamin Abella, clinical research director for Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science.

On the first possession of its second game of 2007, Brown lost tailback Dereck Knight to a foot injury. He had run for 208 yards on Opening Day, but that misstep put Knight out of commission for the rest of the year. With him went any semblance of a running game.

Last year, Harvard's football team lost just two games - one on a 40-yard pass with 19 seconds remaining to Holy Cross, the other on a fumble return for a touchdown with 30 seconds left against Lehigh. In the Ivy League, the Crimson rolled to six straight victories, setting the stage for an epic matchup with 9-0 and 11th-ranked Yale to determine the 2007 Ancient Eight champion.

In February, athletic director Steve Bilsky became the first prominent Ivy League official to speak out against financial-aid competition among the conference schools, which he believes could give some a serious leg up on recruiting and relegate others - the poorer ones, to be blunt - to a second tier.

David Thornburgh was recently appointed executive director of the Fels Institute of Government, Penn's graduate program that educates and trains leaders to achieve results in public work. Thornburgh will succeed Donald Kettl, who recently retired from the position and returned to full-time research and teaching in the Department of Political Science.

They've come from all over the country: New York, New York, California, New York, Maryland, New York, New York, Colorado and . New York. Although they've just arrived on campus, the men's lacrosse team's newest members should fit right in at Franklin Field - four of the nine played with either their fellow recruits or current Penn players in high school.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last two weeks, you've probably seen the Teach for America advertisements around campus. TFA is certainly doing a good job getting its message out, and it's paying dividends: 27 College graduates from the class of 2007 reported to Career Services that they signed on with the program, making it the College's top employer.

Two years ago, Lafayette's Maggie Condon, then a sophomore, picked up an unassisted tally against the Quakers. As it turned out, that would be the Leopards' only goal over the schools' four meetings since 2004, all won by Penn. They battle again tonight in Easton, Pa.

Uncertainty and confusion over this week's financial meltdown drew more than 1,000 students to Zellerbach Auditorium last night to hear Wharton professors' take on the situation. Penn students were shocked to hear on Sunday that Bank of America would acquire Merrill Lynch & Co.

Janice Dow is a College sophomore from Rowland Heights, CA. Her e-mail address is dow@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Crime is down nationwide and in Philadelphia, according to the FBI's annual crime report for 2007. This week, the FBI issued its annual Crime in the United States report, a compilation of crime statistics for the nation, states and individual agencies. The report also includes arrest, clearance and law-enforcement employee data.

His colleagues joke that he's the brains of the program. They're really only half-joking. True, football operations director Daniel Kuhn - DK to anyone inside the Franklin Field hash marks - does not call plays. Nor does he hit the road to find the next star Quakers.

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission unanimously recommended yesterday that the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment approve plans to build an 11-story hotel at 40th and Pine streets. For the past year, the hotel has been a source of contention between developers and local residents.

It was no surprise that inviting the son of the Democratic vice presidential nominee to campus during election season would spark student interest. So when 1991 alumnus Joseph "Beau" Biden spoke Monday as part of the College Alumni Mentoring Series, he let students know he was "happy to talk about Barack and Joe" as well as his own path to becoming attorney general of Delaware .