Dia Sotiropoulou

In the fall of 1969, in an act of quiet gallantry, a Penn biology professor with a fondness for mountain climbing hoisted himself up the flagpole in front of College Hall and restored its flag to full staff.

For many Penn students, post-graduation plans begin to cast their shadow early, in a hazy and frequently terrifying way. Some manage to ease the anxiety with an unambiguous post-grad trajectory.

Both those reluctantly jumping through the hoops of Penn’s foreign language requirement and those taking up a new tongue for pleasure or professional advantage have gotten to know the mixed bag of characters that is Penn’s Romance Languages department. The department’s squad of lecturers samples every kind of language specialist imaginable — from linguists and literature wonks to pedagogy experts and translation specialists.

Of the regions that hosted Penn study-abroad students for the 2013-2014 academic year, Europe overwhelmingly led the pack, netting a whopping 59 percent of all participants. 

In a nondescript house on Chestnut Street, the Red and Blue Call Center hardly bears the appearance of a fundraising center that brings millions to campus each year. 

Among the gaggle of bankers and consultants that seem to overwhelmingly comprise Penn’s alumni pool, 1999 College graduate Doree Shafrir, executive editor of BuzzFeed, cuts a unique figure.

The ICA has mounted a retrospective of a sample of work famed artist Nicole Eisenman.

Penn professor Gwendolyn Shaw gave a presentation on American art as part of the Lighbulb Café public lecture series. 

As I’ve scrolled through my Facebook news feed recently, I’ve stumbled every so often on emphatic promotional blurbs urging me to “beat Harvard.” With a “like” to the Daily Pennsylvanian’s Facebook page, apparently, I can stick it to those sneering Cambridgeites and help overtake the popularity of their altogether-too-revered Crimson.

Tanja Kral is an associate professor in the School of Nursing