The Student Activities Council is looking for ways to support student performing arts groups that have been shut out of funding due to shortage of rehearsal and performance space in recent years. Groups that wished to be recognized by SAC - which provides funding and other support for groups on campus - traditionally needed to recognized by the Performing Arts Council first.

Citywide, assaults on officers for the first half of 2008 are up 19 percent compared to last year. The death of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Patrick McDonald - who was killed in the line of duty on Sept. 23 and whose funeral was held Tuesday - is the most recent incident of the overall trend of violence against police in the city.

Everybody loves a freebie, especially these days. For Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art, offering free admission has more than doubled its number of visitors. The museum, located on 36th and Sansom streets, has always been free for the Penn community but charged $6 for outside visitors.

For many of Penn's out-of-state students, the question is not if, but where, to vote during this year's presidential election. Students hailing from states like Colorado, Virginia, Florida and Ohio, where polls still indicate close races between Democratic presidential nominee Sen.

Cell phone text messages may not be an effective way of getting information out in an emergency, according to a recent report by a Georgia Institute of Technology professor. But Penn's Division of Public Safety officials say they are confident the UPennAlert emergency system - which sends notifications through text, e-mail and voice messages - will work if it is needed.

Transparency in politics and public policy isn't just figurative anymore. When construction is completed for the Annenberg Public Policy Center next summer, students will be able to see more clearly into what's going on inside - literally. That's because the structure, located on 36th and Locust streets, is being built entirely out of glass.

Less than a day after its first successful run, the Large Hadron Collider - the largest particle accelerator in the world - ran into its first glitch on Sept. 11 and has been shut down since. Penn researchers who were participating in the project say they are disappointed but still have plenty of work to take care of while waiting for the accelerator to be fixed.

Unresponsive elevators are fast becoming a thing of the past for Harnwell College House residents, though they may experience inconvenience on the way up. Over the next year, the building will undergo $1.75 million of extensive elevator renovations, which have already been finished in Rodin College House and will occur in Harrison College House following work in Harnwell, according to Mariette Buchman, director of Design and Construction Management.

White Dog Cafe owner Judy Wicks considers herself an independent thinker. So when she decided to stop selling bottled water at her establishment early this year, the decision was based on her commitment to preserving the environment, not local or national trends.

With the current bleak economic situation on the forefront of many peoples' minds, last night a panel of Penn professors turned to similar situations abroad to brainstorm potential financial solutions. Members of the panel, which was held at Steinberg-Deitrich Hall, included Wharton professors Luzi Hail, Bulent Gultekin and Marshall Meyer and Political Science professors Jennifer Amyx and Heiner Schulz.

Wharton named Marketing professor Z. John Zhang the first chairman of the Murrel J. Ades Professorship last week. Zhang, a Marketing professor who specializes in pricing, retail management and competitive strategies, has been a professor at Wharton since 2002.

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Penn's endowment may have shrunk over the past fiscal year, but a spending rule and an upward trend in donations to the endowment mean the University won't be feeling a squeeze yet. The University takes certain steps in the way they plan endowment spending to ensure that year-to-year fluctuation in endowment returns does not have an immediate or large effect on the operating budget.

This year's Greek Week kicked off on Monday night with bowling at Strikes and a new resolve for campus-wide Greek collaboration. The Panhellenic Council and the Interfraternity Council are working more closely with the Multicultural Greek Council this year than in the past in order to strengthen relationships between all members of the Greek community.

"Focus on your strengths, not weaknesses," Marcus Buckingham, a well-known motivational speaker, said at Zellerbach Theater last night. Buckingham discussed his latest book, The Truth About You, which directs readers toward self-empowerment. The Truth About You focuses on identifying one's strengths at an early age and developing the unique traits that every individual possesses.

Most college-bound high-school seniors are hesitant to fill out a more arduous application than necessary. But college admissions counselors and students alike agree that for seniors from low-income families, filling out a QuestBridge application is well worth the extra effort.

In addition to text messages and e-mail notifications, many colleges are now turning to siren-alert systems to make sure their whole campuses are aware during emergencies. A survey conducted by the Campus Computing Project in fall 2007 found that 17 percent of private research universities and 38 percent of public research universities in the United States had