For most students, the years spent at Penn are fairly self-absorbed. It's time spent boosting a resume, or partying, or studying for final exams. From Wharton to Nursing, a Penn education is a ticket to a better life, but it's a ticket that bears a very high price: a responsibility to do everything we can to contribute to our community and to our world.
Barbaro coverage To the Editor: Thank you for the continual coverage of Barbaro ("Barbaro recovering under Penn vets' care," DP, 8/31/06). I'm not involved with horse racing at all, but I was really touched by the courage of this horse, the wisdom of his jockey and the dedication of Dean Richardson.
The School of Arts and Sciences e-mail system didn't even wait to for the semester to begin before its first breakdown. On Sept. 1, the thousands of professors and students who check their e-mail via SAS's Webmail system were unable to access their account for more than 8 hours.
This July, many full-time employees of the School of Medicine received a pleasant surprise in our mailboxes - a $500 bonus, to be credited to our September paychecks.
New Student Orientation is over, which means a whole new class of freshmen is about to learn that college is not only about partying - unless you're an upperclassmen crashing NSO again. Those same freshman are about to learn that their peer advisors, those beacons of maturity during orientation, will most likely show up to Thursday-morning class quite hung over from Wednesday-night sink-or-swim at Smokey Joe's.
Amira Fawcett is a College senior from Houston.
Amira Fawcett is a College senior from Houston.
Barbaro coverage To the Editor: Thank you for the continual coverage of Barbaro ("Barbaro recovering under Penn vets' care," DP, 8/31/06). I'm not involved with horse racing at all, but I was really touched by the courage of this horse, the wisdom of his jockey and the dedication of Dean Richardson.
The School of Arts and Sciences e-mail system didn't even wait to for the semester to begin before its first breakdown. On Sept. 1, the thousands of professors and students who check their e-mail via SAS's Webmail system were unable to access their account for more than 8 hours.
In one of the more defining moments of my Penn life under Amy Gutmann's reign, 34th Street asked the University president if she believes art has to be beautiful. "No," she answered flatly, definitively. Next question. The notion of what art truly is and what it looks like is a topic that connoisseurs and dilettantes debate with equal tenacity - what qualities make something art? What makes a Jackson Pollack "art" over, say, a larger-than-life rendering of a fictitious Philadelphia icon? The Philadelphia Museum of Art has wondered that recently, as it fought to preserve its artistic hegemony over a city proposal to set an eight-foot-six-inch bronze Rocky Balboa statue at its steps.
Back in 1982, my mom was studying for her teaching certificate when she met my dad in an English class. He mustered the courage to talk to her one day over verb conjugations, and they began dating. It was love. In 2006, the game hasn't changed too much. A significant proportion of women still find their husbands while they're attending school.
I begin this new academic year at Penn grateful to be a part of a University community so joyfully infused with the desire to learn and the commitment to serve. Thanks to our dedicated move-in and New Student Orientation teams - who did a fabulous job helping new students navigate the transition to life at Penn-our campus is bustling with more creative energy and camaraderie than ever.
David Anderson is a College senior from Denver. His e-mail address is dga@sas.upenn.edu.
Bryn Mawr 150, Penn 5. That's a painful-looking score for a Penn student. Those numbers show students' participation in the Quaker Consortium, an arrangement in which students at Penn, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore and Haverford colleges can take classes at any of the other schools.
If an Ivy League professor were to be arrested for importing child pornography, most people would be shocked and surprised. And that was the case when police arrested Marketing professor Scott Ward, 64, for importing child pornography. When police apprehended ward at Dulles Airport, his baggage contained a laptop, DVD discs and a digital video camera, all of which allegedly contained videos of young children engaging in sexual acts - some of them with Ward.
This school year marks the 40th since Penn adopted its modern undergraduate-admissions policy. Not that you'd know: The University hasn't held any essay competitions or thrown any parties, as it did last year in honor of Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday.
Abdi Farah is a College sophomore from Owings Mills, Md. His e-mail address is abdi@sas.upenn.edu.
Welcome (or welcome back) to Philadelphia. Chances are, you're not from around here. In fact, most of the incoming class hails from outside of the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and 12 percent crossed the Unites States border to study here.
Back in the stone age, when I was a freshman, one of the first things that Penn sent me was a copy of Practical Penn - a handy guide to life on campus. It reminded me of that time when my parents handed me a book on sex. It had lots of great pictures, but it didn't tell me any of the good stuff.
Drug policy at Penn To the Editor: Something is missing at Penn. While students across the country are fueling a powerful grassroots movement to end America's longest war, Penn students have not yet joined the fight. As The Summer Pennsylvanian reported ("Student groups aim to lessen drug penalties," SP, 7/20/2006), Penn does not currently have a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the country's leading student organization working to end the War on Drugs.
Last week, Stephen Morse wrote a column urging support for Israel in its fight against Hezbollah. It is a just fight. Hezbollah -- a terrorist organization with a lengthy history of attacks against Israel, the United States and other Western targets -- attacked a sovereign state in its own territory.
Kaitlin Baggott is a College junior from Floral Park, N.Y. Her e-mail address is kbaggott@sas.upenn.edu.
Solutions by The State News
