After surgery and a long recovery, Lauren Pears is back for her senior season and ready to help lead Penn women's basketball back to respectability after a dismal 5-22, 3-11 Ivy record last year. Pears, leading the Quakers in nearly every statistical category through the first eight games of last season, tore her ACL against American in December.

Stringent security To the Editor: Rene Alvarez's opinion article, ("Students' Fears of Crime are Largely Unfounded," Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/3/06) made some very interesting and valuable points on crime in West Philadelphia and its effects on Penn students.

Politicians, take note: Incumbents need not apply. PA Clean Sweep boldly proclaims this message on its Web site, and means it. No exceptions.

While GET-UP argues professors aren't teaching many classes, it's lecturers - not grad students - who are teaching most of the rest.

Splurging on a $26.50 cab ride to catch a plane for Thanksgiving is now a thing of the past. At least, that's the Undergraduate Assembly's plan. On the heels of its successful shuttle bus program last year - pioneered by Wharton senior Brett Thalmann, now the UA chairman - the UA is rolling out a revamped program for the holiday breaks.

Wharton's No. 1 again. But the publication that named it as such isn't too happy with Penn's business school. Last week, national magazine Business Week ranked Wharton as the top business school for undergraduates. Getting enough information to rank Wharton, however, was a bit of a struggle for the magazine.

The disappearance of a painting of Robert McNeil, who helped fund the creation of the center, is a tragedy.

Josh Owens, a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, moved one step closer to playing his college basketball for the Quakers this weekend. But Owens' status is still very much up in the air until he gives a commitment to one of his suitors. With that decision, Glen Miller will find out whether or not he has landed a player who could be the gem of the Ivy League Class of 2011.

As a high-school senior in Texas, Justin Allen knew he wanted to study art in college, but family finances left him without a lot of options. Expensive art schools were out of the question, and remaining in-state seemed very likely. But then Allen found one school that was affordable for anyone - The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City.

Student leaders have spoken: Green is good. In a unanimous decision, the Undergraduate Assembly voted Sunday night to support environmentally sound practices at Penn. The UA proposal calls for a University-wide policy supporting environmentally sound practices, such as campus-wide recycling, energy conservation and buying from vendors who are committed to the environment.

As the Penn men's soccer team learned last Saturday, destiny is a fickle thing.

Homicides for the year in Philadelphia are now projected to surpass 400 after a brief downturn in crime in September, according to city police.

More money should be directed toward mental, physical health offices.

The "art of networking" has some very big fans at Penn- - namely Barbara Hewitt and her team of career counselors at the University's Career Services office. "I found my job through networking," Hewitt said. "I'm a believer." In a small room packed with about 30 students yesterday, Hewitt, an associate director at Career Services, expounded upon the merits of social and professional networking as paths to employment in a seminar she called "Networking 101.

Zeta Beta Tau initiated 12 sophomores and juniors on Saturday, putting the fraternity one step closer to an official return to campus. But the process of recolonizing has come with a major challenge for ZBT - re-establishing itself as a legitimate fraternity, separate from the underground group that many students associate with the name ZBT.

Cornell has had three captains from the start of the season, but for the first time this year, it sent three to the captains' meeting. The late Jaime McManamon, who died after his freshman year in a car accident, was honored this season as a tri-captain in what would have been his senior season.

Penn's Center for Bioethics announced Friday that it will team up with Sermo - a Cambridge-based company that provides online resources for doctors - to give doctors more up-to-date ethical guidelines for their practices. "The partnership with [Center Director Arthur Kaplan] . is one of many steps Sermo is taking to . handle information that can substantially affect the public health," Sermo chief executive Daniel Palestrant said in a statement.