We get it. Our economy is collapsing around us. The bailout plan doesn't bail us out. Seniors are having a hard time getting jobs. While we shouldn't ignore the urgency and ripple effects of this economic crisis, we also can't allow it to overshadow preexisting global concerns that threaten our existence, especially ones that we can actually control.

Spring Break 2008 saw 175 Penn students make the pilgrimage that care forgot. Their work was hardly a big easy: Students cleared wreckage, rebuilt houses and even helped out at an animal shelter. But the sad truth is that despite these students' best efforts, New Orleans will still succumb to the next major storm.

For the Divine Nine, it's till death do us part. Membership within the Greek world is for life: once a member, always a member. But membership within the nine historically African American sororities and fraternities, known collectively as The Divine Nine, is for life - and then some.

It's been 12 years since the Penn women's soccer team last lost to Cornell. And it's been 30 days since the Big Red (1-6-1) last walked away with a victory of any kind. Yet the Quakers (5-3-1) are still expecting a physical battle in Ithaca, N.Y., on Saturday - although, coach Darren Ambrose was quick to point out, not quite a war.

It wasn't always edge-of-your-seat exciting, but Penn got the job done at Franklin Field this afternoon, downing Dartmouth, 23-10, for its first win of the season. After a first half that saw just 189 yards of aggregate offense, 12 punts and a 7-7 stalemate, the Quakers got the ball rolling in the second half behind sophomore running back Michael DiMaggio.

Penn Medicine's newest facility, the $302 million Raymond and Ruth Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, formally opened its doors yesterday evening. The building's lofty atrium was host to the opening festivities, where food, drink and a live band kept guests content.

Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller knows his team is going to see Cornell's best game when the Quakers (6-0-3) take on the Big Red tomorrow at Charles F. Berman Field in Ithaca, N.Y. "Here's an opportunity to turn their season around and there's no better way to do it than against Penn," Fuller said.

From the sexing of fossils to horses' harems, Stanford history of science professor Londa Schiebinger spoke on gender in science and engineering in College Hall. The largely female audience heard Schiebinger's manifesto for the sciences. She began with the relative lack of women in science - "the woman problem" - by noting that past solutions focused on teaching women to act more like men and "left the man's world unchanged.

As more students turn to energy drinks to help pull all-nighters, health concerns about the beverages are also on the rise. The energy drink industry raked in $477 million in 2006-07, a 34-percent leap from the previous year, according to an Information Resources report.

Though hundreds of companies come to campus to recruit interns and employees each year, many are narrowing their search to reach a more diverse group of students. Four of these companies - Google, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and PepsiCo. - did just that with a recruiting event in Irvine Auditorium hosted by Lime Connect, a company that helps companies recruit students with disabilities.

Election officials shouldn't be fashion police. Thanks to vaguely defined state laws banning "passive electioneering" in the polling booth, some counties in Pennsylvania plan to prevent voters from wearing campaign buttons or t-shirts when they cast their vote.

The year was 1896. Gas cost four cents a gallon, Grover Cleveland ruled the Oval Office, "separate but equal" was all the rage and Dartmouth's football team visited Penn's newly erected home stadium for the first time - falling 16-0 to the two-time defending national-champion Quakers.

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.

The Penn Project for Civic Engagement (PPCE) is built on this premise: "We dream about what we value, then work to turn those dreams into reality." Put another way, the work of citizens in a democracy is to define the public interest and to build common ground for actions that will further the public interest.