Your meal plan is now your ticket to world-class cuisine. At least, it can be. Once a month. That's the idea behind Penn's Guest Chef program, a series of nights at campus dining halls in which big-name area chefs are invited to prepare one dish for one evening.

The second annual Penn World's Fair 2007, held in Houston Hall yesterday evening, truly lived up to its name as representatives from over 40 groups gathered in the Hall of Flags to share information with interested students. The Office of the Provost, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and Penn Abroad were among the event's sponsors, and a variety of groups ranging from academic organizations to cultural groups to service-based organizations were present.

Despite the University's endowment hitting $6.6 billion, many alumni say that a wealthier Penn doesn't affect their overall inclination to donate to their alma mater.

Seniors kicked off the Senior Class Gift Drive yesterday, beginning the year-long process of encouraging the class to leave a financial mark on the University.

Pens and pencils? Check. Notebooks and paper? Check. Computer? Check. Cell phone equipped with a GPS device linked to your school's public-safety division? For students at schools like Fairleigh Dickinson University and Georgia Gwinnett College, the back-to-school-shopping list has gotten a little bit longer.

After Fadeke Agboke walked out of her Penn admissions interview two years ago, she thought her responses were dull and her chances of getting in were slim. "I thought I was saying things they've heard before," she said. But much to Agboke's surprise, her worries turned out to be superfluous - she got in.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Prosecutors showed that Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya had spyware on her computer and presented DNA analyses of human and animal hair, but it's unclear how strongly that evidence links Malinovskaya to the December 2004 murder of Irina Zlotnikov.

It's hardly a surprise that college diplomas generate higher salaries than their high school counterparts. But it turns out that they also generate more voters, non-smokers and community-service volunteers, a study says. According to a College Board's report entitled "Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society," college graduates are more likely to be healthy, to volunteer, to vote - and even to be more tolerant of different opinions.

If you're looking for a major that expresses your artistic side, you might want to try Engineering before heading into the art studio. Computer Graphics at the University of Pennsylvania - a subset of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences' Computer Science department - is the umbrella for all programs in computer graphics at Penn, from high school to Ph.

It seemed everyone who gathered at Columbia University yesterday had an opinion. Here's what some people have to say about the remarks by both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger: On Bollinger's introduction: n "Bollinger's introduction . laid out the case quite well.

Outside financial experts agree: Penn's Office of Investments is certainly on the right track. The University's endowment returned 20.2 percent growth on its investments this past fiscal year, bringing the grand total to $6.6 billion. This positive growth reflects strategies that Penn's prime competitors, Harvard and Yale universities, have been using for years: an emphasis on international equities and a slow increase in alternative investments.

Its victims need morphine, Percocet, Percodan - anything to relieve the pain in the blood vessels as they squeeze through the joints. The silent attacker is sickle-cell disease, and last night at Logan Hall, Penn's Zeta Phi Beta sorority sponsored an event featuring two sickle-cell experts who discussed what sickle-cell disease is and how community members can help sickle-cell patients.

While watching the CW tonight, you might recognize the balding guy wearing a green Science and Technology Wing T-shirt from your Computer Science class last year. And that's because 2006 Engineering alumnus Will Frank is a contestant on the hit reality show Beauty and the Geek.

They drove you to soccer practice; they guided you through the college application process. When it came time for dorm shopping, they made checklists. And now that classes are in full swing, they expect daily e-mails. Some people call them "helicopter parents," and, somewhat improbably, they might just be the next big thing in college fundraising.

NEW YORK - Columbia University was a hotbed of conflict yesterday as free-speech pundits, politicos, national media, New Yorkers and Columbia students gathered to voice their divergent views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the Morningside Heights, N.Y., campus.

Accused murderer Irina Malinovskaya allegedly falsified an e-mail from her ex-lover Robert Bondar, according to evidence presented for the first time yesterday. The document - for which she has been charged with attempted tampering with physical evidence - is the first major change in a case that has ended twice with hung juries.

With the number of homicides in Philadelphia inching past 300, police and community officials are now calling on black males in the city to curb violent crime. Last week, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and civic leaders called for 10,000 men to sign up Oct.