As high-school seniors make their final decisions about where to matriculate in the fall, Penn hopes that targeted outreach will sway them toward becoming Quakers. Dean of Admissions Eric Furda explained that several minority groups on campus are reaching out on their own to prospective students.

Updated April 22, 10:43 p.m. College student Neil Gajare has been arrested and charged with arson in connection with a fire in Rodin College House early this morning. Gajare, 22, was still going through processing last night and it was unclear whether he would be released on bail, according to the Philadelphia Police.

As the fiscal year wraps up and next year's budget guidelines are finalized, Penn salaries will take a hit from the economy, though not one as severe as the blow some peer schools face. Penn released its guidelines for 2009-2010 faculty and staff pay increases in last week's Almanac.

Omega isn't the average secret senior society. While Penn's other senior societies - which selected their newest members earlier this month - bring together student leaders from across campus, Omega has a distinctly Greek focus. Penn's Order of Omega's are cherry-picked from Greek chapters, representing "the cream of the crop," according to Scott Reikofski, director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs.

One professor makes assigning his book for class altruistic. For the past three years, Political Science department chairman Avery Goldstein has required students to buy a book he authored, but in exchange he has given students the choice to receive $1 back or donate $1 to a charity.

Wharton sophomore Eduardo Mayoral starts each morning by reading not The Daily Pennsylvanian or The New York Times, but El Tiempo, a Colombian newspaper, online. Mayoral, like many international students at Penn, concerns himself daily with the political happenings in his native country as well as those in the United States.

Going off to grad school can seem like entering a foreign country - especially to those coming from one. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly International Council is creating two programs to help international graduate students make this transition by connecting them with peer and alumni mentors.

Over two weeks after student government elections came and went, the transition process is not yet over. On Wednesday night, the Undergraduate Assembly will hold its annual internal elections to select members from the 2009-2010 UA body to fill the group's five executive offices.

This past weekend, roughly 200 prospective students attended Multicultural Scholars' Weekend, a preview weekend geared toward minority students accepted to Penn's Class of 2013. The weekend - which lasted Sunday through Tuesday - is an integral part of Penn's efforts to build a community of traditionally underrepresented students, according to director of multicultural recruitment David Toomer.

Violent crime has dropped significantly since Drexel University unveiled its new police department, according to Drexel's Senior Associate Vice President for Public Safety Domenic Ceccanecchio. New manpower and state-of-the-art technology means Drexel now has a public safety program comprable to that of Penn and Temple University, and University safety officials say the developments are positive for the area.

The Division of Public Safety responded to 38 Spring Fling-related incidents this year, an increase of 58 percent from 24 last year. The number of hospital cases went up from 19 last year to 24 this year. The majority of the individuals hospitalized were female.

Despite significant increases in the numbers of applicants to Penn's Ph.D. programs, the number of acceptances at most schools will remain relatively similar to past years. Some schools, such as the School of Arts and Sciences, School of Medicine, Graduate School of Education and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, saw smaller increases in applications, while others, such as Wharton and the Annenberg School for Communication, reported much larger increases.

Members of the Penn Democrats are looking west of campus to encourage civic engagement in high-school students. The group is two weeks into a pilot program that delivers interactive civics workshops in an after-school program at West Philadelphia's Sayre High School.

By JIN PYUO LEE Staff Writer lee@dailypennsylvanian.com With funding from the National Institute on Aging, Penn's School of Medicine launched a new study that aims to to identify genes that influence the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health, will provide $18.

Andrew Shatte wants to turn the fight against global warming into a war.

According to a recent report by Pew Research Center, Philadelphians are more optimistic than the rest of the country - even though they consume a record high of cigarettes and have dismal job prospects. At a time when only 20 percent of the U.S. population answered that the country is headed in the right direction, 46 percent of Philadelphians look forward to the city's future.

Violent crime has dropped significantly since Drexel University unveiled its new police department, according to Drexel's Senior Associate Vice President for Public Safety Domenic Ceccanecchio. After being officially recognized as a law enforcement agency by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office in June 2008, the department has been operational since March 15.