Ever wonder why you see the same faces year after year in student government? It may be because after freshman year, few people run who aren't already in office. Last year, the presidential candidates for the classes of 2007 and 2008 ran unopposed. Several positions, such as treasurer for the Class of 2007 and College representative for the Class of 2009 even remained vacant, with no contenders vying for their spots.

The Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia is an area that has seen quite a bit of development in the last few years. It is quickly becoming one of the city's hottest spots, and is already home to an array of trendy restaurants and shops.

You may think you are too nice to make it in the cutthroat world of investigative journalism, but, according to Judy Bachrach, even nice people can be good reporters. At an intimate lunchtime conversation in Kelly Writers House yesterday, Bachrach, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine, spoke with a dozen Penn students about her experiences as an investigative reporter.

Maybe it's the lucky number. Or maybe it's the all-natural ingredients. Maybe it's the skill of chef/owner Michael O'Halloran.

Dim-sum is unlike any eating experience you have at a typical restaurant, a chaotic yet gratifying experience.

Former Penn Anthropology professor Arjun Appadurai challenged America's top research universities to redefine themselves yesterday. The past three decades have brought a knowledge explosion, Appadurai said, and that revolution and its digitization have diluted the university's role as a place for research.

Yesterday was the last day for voter registration in Pennsylvania, and Penn groups will soon see whether their efforts to bolster the student electorate paid off. While an official count is not yet available, elections experts say that voter registration is generally up in Philadelphia, but not as significantly as during a presidential election year.

Amira Fawcett is a Engineering sophomore from Houston. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

It's rare that a victory is a wake-up call, but that's exactly what happened to the football team when it narrowly escaped losing to perennial Ivy pushover Dartmouth two weeks ago. But after closing out its non-conference schedule with a decisive win against Bucknell on Saturday, it was clear that Penn had responded.

In many sections of campus, Penn's sidewalks are in shabby condition.

Both Cuban and American, Achy Obejas says she still has a firm sense of identity. And countries, as well as people, need to reconcile contradicting images of themselves, she says. The writer spoke yesterday afternoon at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center in the Carriage House about identity and its implications in society.

This is a takeout campus, not a restaurant campus. We've got Qdoba, the Greek Lady and food trucks galore.

The number of black students on Penn's campus would significantly decline if the University were to end affirmative action in the next 25 years, a new study predicts. Economists from the University of Virginia and Princeton University projected that without the program in place, significantly fewer black students would attend college.

New men's basketball coach Glen Miller has yet to run an official practice, but the first-year coach has already landed his first two recruits for the Class of 2011. First, point guard Harrison Gaines committed to the Quakers last week. Gaines is 6-foot-1, 175 pounds and plays for Serrano High School in Phelan, Calif.

In the metaphorical game of dodgeball, Penn just may be the fat kid sitting on the sidelines.

When Division I-AA Montana State recently upended a mediocre Division I-A Colorado football team, the result was considered a monumental upset. So imagine a sport in which top varsity teams are consistently threatened - and often beaten - by a club-level squad.

Following a nail-biting double-overtime victory against Columbia and on the heels of a No. 3 ranking in the Northeast Division by the NSCAA, the men's soccer team is riding high. It's been four years since the Quakers (7-2-1, 3-0 Ivy) and Scarlet Knights (7-6, 4-4 Big East) last met.