This week on Locust Walk, "vagina" is the new "register to vote." As part of a week-long campaign to eliminate a taboo and promote the play, members of The Vagina Monologues have been inundating passersby with the word "vagina" from their table outside the Penn Women's Center.

Starting next month, a few more squirrels will call Penn home. The Penn Art Club will be placing between 20 and 25 larger-than-life squirrel statues on Locust Walk and College Green between March 16 and April 19. The group is following in the footsteps of cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles which in the past have featured cows, angels or other figures decorated by prominent artists.

When it comes down to it, we respect and follow the leaders we feel we personally know best. So really, that's rarely Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Tiger Woods. Instead, the leaders we tend to emulate are those we directly interact with. One of those leaders is Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist who travels all over the world to report on the world's most heinous crimes against humanity.

Valentine's Day in New Haven. This Penn team just can't catch a break. But after a historically bad weekend in Philadelphia - in which the Quakers endured their first Ivy League weekend sweep at home since 1968 - Yale's cozy John J. Lee Amphitheater might not be as bad as it seems.

The University of Pennsylvania Press received a grant of $1.16 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation last week. The money will go toward publishing scholarly books on literatures of the non-Anglophone world. Penn Press will share the grant with Fordham University Press, University of California Press, University of Virginia Press and University of Washington Press.

Are you frustrated by the lack of silverware in 1920 Commons? Think Hill needs air conditioning? This might sound like the beginning of a freshman's campaign speech for student government, but don't worry, it's not. The UA has (yet another) survey out, and this time, they want to know .

Two students have been hospitalized with meningococcal infections and 100 others who may be been in contact with them have been preemptively treated, according to Student Health Services Director Evelyn Wiener. One student is in stable condition after treatment.

Alumni pay PGSE's worth forward To the Editor: In his column "A Tough Lesson in Economics," (DP 2/06/2009) Ryan Benjamin poses the question "At what point do we say, 'Enough is enough', and let the overall health of the Commonwealth come first?" Good question, but the better question is what is truly best for Pennsylvania? Ryan suggests that the Governor's School programs here in Pennsylvania will not be missed.

Last night, mayors from all over the country congregated in Houston Hall for the opening night of the 43rd national session of The Mayors' Institute on City Design. The event featured speeches by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joseph Riley.

If momentum is what the Quakers were looking for, they surely have it. Coming off a huge win over Cornell last Saturday, the Penn women's basketball team is looking to continue its confidence in this weekend's matchups. The Quakers (4-15, 1-4 Ivy) will host Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow.

Lately, the Temple-Saint Joseph's series has done wonders for the Owls' postseason prospects. The two teams met in the Atlantic-10 tournament finals last year, and Temple's dramatic victory earned it the league's automatic NCAA bid. Similarly, last night's matchup was less about Big 5 bragging rights than about the A-10 horse race.

To kick off this Valentine's Day weekend, Penn women - and a few men - sipped cocktails and nibbled pastries in support of breast cancer research. As part of Women's Week, the Chesed Committee of the Orthodox Community at Penn hosted an event called "Pink Dessert.

After beating Brown by 21 Friday, the Quakers went into New Haven, Conn., and hung tough for their third Ivy League win, 68-63, over Yale. Harrison Gaines was everywhere in the first half, racking up 14 points and four boards, two of which came on the offensive end on one possession that resulted in two made free throws.

Forgive Brown coach Jesse Agel for sounding less than concerned about his backcourt. "We'll do our best to free our guys up," Agel said of his guards, waving off the question. Though Brown's dismal 0-6 Ivy record (6-14 overall) has a lot to do with how different the Bears' perimeter looks this year - Agel lost his All-Ivy guard duo of Mark McAndrew and Damon Huffman to graduation last spring - his squad's outside presence isn't what he'll need against Penn (5-13, 1-3 Ivy) tonight in Providence, R.

For Leandra Kern, a staff member at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Valentine's Day last year meant a ski trip to Vermont with her boyfriend. But the state of the economy this year has forced them to take their celebration down a notch. "We are doing dinner and a few presents this year, nothing big," said Kern.

Columbia's wrestling facilities may be much closer to the iconic building, but recently it has been the Cornell grapplers putting the "Empire" in "Empire State." Despite their name, the Lions (2-10, 0-4 EIWA) are much tamer than the Big Red (8-2, 1-0), who rank third nationally.