Emily Fox

This year's Hey Day saw the usual tossing of flour and condiments and shooting of milk-filled super-soakers - but in smaller doses than in past years. According to College Senior and Class of 2009 President Brett Perlmutter, this slight shift away from hazing - a custom that began in 2002 - is a result of a pledge nearly 1,600 seniors signed promising to go easy on their younger classmates.

As part of the AT&T; Aspire initiative, AT&T; Pennsylvania donated a grant of $300,000 over three years to Penn's Netter Center for Community Partnerships's College Access and Career Readiness Program. The donation was a portion of the nearly $800,000 in grants to programs throughout Philadelphia related to high-school achievement and post-graduation preparation.

Next Year, the Undergraduate Assembly and the Civic House Associates Coalition are making New Student Orientation more civic-minded. The UA's Civic and Community Engagement committee is introducing five new proseminars - courses taken by incoming freshmen during NSO for no credit - that will focus on community service and civic involvement.

On April 1, Rabbi Michael Uram entered the Eastern State Penitentiary - the penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue that has housed the likes of Al Capone and Willie Sutton. He was there to dedicate the Alfred W. Fleisher Memorial Synagogue, a chapel built in the 1960s and restored and renovated for use today.

It was in a conversation with a friend that 2007 alumnus Cho Kim, now a graduate student in the School of Social Policy and Practice, heard about the Davis Projects for Peace Foundation. Kim took one day to formulate his idea to win the $10,000 grant and one more day to write the proposal for the foundation, which grants students funding for projects to be implemented this summer. He received the award on March 16.

Early Sunday morning at a house on 55th Street in West Philadelphia, the students of JAM for Philly - a community service and religious group comprised of Muslim and Jewish students - put aside their differences and picked up paint brushes to renovate the home for a family in need.

When the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children gathered in the Civic House living room Tuesday night to teach other students how to "step" - a dance form using hands and feet to create intricate beats and rhythms - it was clear a celebration had begun. The event was just a taste of Civic House Week, a series of activities commemorating the 10th anniversary of Civic House on Penn's campus this week.

Student-athletes often seek a close, caring community within their teams. The 30 or so Penn athletes involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Action are looking for something more - they are on a quest toward a more enlightened path. Lacrosse player and College junior Jill Taylor and several other members of varsity sports teams at Penn founded The Fellowship at the end of last year in order to give student-athletes a place to celebrate their shared faith alongside their shared passion on the playing field.

By EMILY FOX Staff Writer fox@dailypennsylvanian.com In the final hours of February, Penn seniors gathered at Smokey Joe's Saturday night to mark the end of Feb Club, as well as of a surge of success for Seniors for the Penn Fund. During the night, the Unite ONine team - the group responsible for recruiting donations to the Penn Fund - made an 11th-hour comeback.

Between studying biochemistry and economics and researching tuberculosis and enzymes in a lab on campus, College junior Tariro Mupombwa managed to find a way to give back to her home country of Zimbabwe. Mupombwa is in the process of starting a nonprofit to collect sewing machines in the United States and send them to the Salvation Army-affiliated Bumhudzo Old People's Home in Zimbabwe.