Many students and parents - especially those from low- and moderate-income families - have felt the pain of forking over hundreds of dollars each semester for textbooks that are often underused and difficult to sell back. The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance found that textbook prices are rising to unaffordable levels and in a report it released last Friday entitled "Turn the Page: Making College Textbooks More Affordable," the committee offered solutions to this problem.

amed Penn's new associate vice president for research and executive director of the University's Center for Technology Transfer. In this role, he will be responsible for reorganizing and guiding Penn's moves to turn research into business opportunities - and thus possible sources of income.

Psychiatry Department professor Helen Pettinati received the Researcher of the Year award from Caron, an organization that manages treatment of people with drug addictions, last Friday. Pettinati received the award at Caron's regional ceremony, which recognized researchers and community leaders for contributions to the treatment of addictions.

35Years Bob Barker served as host of the game show The Price Is Right. He retires today.Source: The Associated Press

Almost three weeks after Penn's own commencement exercises, University Provost Ron Daniels had the opportunity to participate in another graduation ceremony across the globe. Last Thursday Daniels delivered a keynote commencement speech at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel.

Nancy Streim, associate dean for educational practice at the Graduate School of Education, will be leaving Penn on June 30 to join Columbia University as associate vice president at its Teachers College and special adviser to the Columbia provost. Streim came to Penn in 1988 and has worked closely with the public schools in Phladelphia.

Lightning lit up the sky over Philadelphia Sunday night, but it also lit up Franklin Field in the form of the women's lacrosse National Championship game between No. 1 Northwestern and No. 3 Virginia. When the Cavaliers scored four straight second-half goals to close a 11-7 deficit to 12-11, the stadium was electric.

Is your cell phone your soul mate? Do you PDA with your PDA? Does your text messaging bill exceed your phone bill? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you are exactly the kind of person Washington State was targeting when it passed a law May 11 banning people from text messaging or sending e-mails from a handheld communication device while driving.

I woke up early, got dressed, and hopped into the car with the rest of my family. We drove downtown until we reached a cemetery. Passing underneath the extended ladders of two fire trucks, we entered the area where the city buries its fallen heroes. We stood next to the graves as the procession began.

Gilly Lane used to laugh at the thought of playing professional squash. But then again, that was four years ago. That was before he had four All-Ivy and All-American selections under his belt, before he became the first Penn squash player to win the College Squash Association's Skillman award, and before he represented the U.

Villanova great Porter dies after beating Howard Porter, one of the greatest players in Villanova basketball history, died Saturday. He was 58. He was found brutally beaten in an alleyway in Minneapolis 10 days ago, and was then hospitalized until he died.

Bob Pierson, the program director of Farm to City, will speak at noon Wednesday on College Green about the importance of supporting local Pennsylvania farmers. Farm to City is a Philadelphia-based organization that, according to its Web site, aims "to unite communities, families and farmers year-round through good locally grown food . and sees a region where the sustainable family farm is economically successful.

Recently, the yearly SEPTA budget has tended to fall in the red. But $129 million is a bit excessive. So goes the logic behind the recent "Plan A" proposal, which would increase fares by about 11 percent. Unfortunately, the two Philadelphia representatives on the SEPTA board vetoed this proposal, pushing back a final decision until late June.

Jesse Carlin is a fast learner. Many runners spend most of their careers training for a specific event. She picked one up in about two weeks. By placing third in the 800-meters at the NCAA Regionals in Gainesville, Fla., on Sunday with a time of 2:06.29, the rising senior extended Penn's four-year streak of sending at least one athlete to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

This year the Penn women's lacrosse team earned its first Final Four berth, achieved its highest national ranking ever and went undefeated in the Ivy League for the first time. So it wasn't unexpected that the team would end the season on another historic note.

By Bianca Gonzalez The Summer Pennsylvanian biancag@nursing.upenn.edu You can wake up every morning to breakfast in bed with Joan Osborne's new CD that she promoted recently in Philadelphia. An acclaimed singer-songwriter, Osborne, made an appearance on May 22 at downtown music retailer F.

While Ben Franklin still is Philadelphia's most beloved founding father, excavators in Center City are uncovering some ground-breaking information about a few other patriotic men. The archeological dig at the President's House on 6th and Market streets in Center City that began on March 21 has yielded in recent weeks various artifacts that may give historians unprecedented information about this location.