Ernest Gomez

I'm used to being the bearer of bad news. As a former ITA manager, I've delivered many copyright-violation notices to on-campus residents who were caught downloading and sharing copyrighted music and video. Most downloads do not result in lawsuits, but if the House of Representatives passes the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, colleges might lose eligibility for federal student financial aid if they fail to address illegal downloading on their campus networks.

'Everyone's a little bit racist," according to a song from the Broadway musical Avenue Q. The recently terminated Whole New World diversity training program at the University of Delaware told 7,000 dorm residents otherwise. The program came under scrutiny after students complained that they were pressured into accepting politically slanted views on sensitive topics including race.

In a paper released on Oct. 31st, Donna Nelson of the University of Oklahoma highlights the lack of tenured and tenure-track underrepresented minority faculty in the top 100 departments of science and engineering disciplines. Nelson states that having fewer underrepresented minority (URM) faculty members creates a shortage of mentors for minority students that can decrease the appeal of academia.

Think of any 10 undergrads at Penn. Would you believe that four or five of them might be depressed? According to a national survey of 13,500 college students published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, 45 percent of undergraduates reported experiencing depression severe enough to prevent them from functioning day to day.

We might be unranked in football, but we've almost cracked the top 10 in the world's most-played sport. Penn took 11th place in the second annual Sexual Health Report Card, a ranking of sexual health resources at 139 U.S. colleges and universities released by the makers of Trojan condoms.

As a Penngineer, I've been prejudged as a socially awkward Asian who's good at math but inept at the English language. This stereotype is almost true: I'm actually not very good at math. Self-mockery aside, I find that the typecasting of engineers as poor speakers and writers manifests a common tendency to create a divide between the arts and sciences.

Scheduling Spring Fling and Penn Previews for the same weekend is a disaster waiting to happen.

Students should be responsible on public forums, since slanderous information online can affect job offers.

Allowing students to use cheat sheets in class prevents them from learning how to commit information to memory in life.

Greater opportunities are needed for non-work-study students seeking out part-time jobs on campus.