Sneha Deshpande

The Black Students League is trying to help some students avoid skyrocketing textbook prices next semester. The group organized a textbook drive May 6-13 to help give books to Penn students struggling with financial aid. "Our goal is to help out classmates who have to go through hardships to get textbooks," said College sophomore and BSL community outreach chairwoman Jolecia Flournory.

"Big Bellies" aren't easily filled - at least when it comes to trash. Facilities and Real Estate Services has installed Big Bellies - energy efficient, solar-powered trash and recycling compactors - outside the Penn Bookstore and the Wawa at 38th and Spruce streets, and within the next week, five more machines will be installed along Spruce and Walnut streets.

Last month, Penn completed its second year in the RecycleMania competition. While the national competition will release results on Friday, by Business Services' calculations, the school did not reach event organizers' goals. Spanning a 10-week period, the competition works to increase recycling and reduce waste across college campuses nationwide.

Art is the latest subject of an ongoing trend to become more environmentally friendly at Penn. For the next three weeks, world renowned sculptor Patrick Dougherty will work on an all-natural sculpture approximately 22-feet tall at the Morris Arboretum, Penn's historic public garden and educational center.

At this year's Spring Fling concert - which will take place at Franklin Field on April 17 - alternative rock group Guster will share the stage with hip-hop artist Akon. Each year, Fling's musical guests are selected through the Social Planning and Events Committee's student-body survey.

In September 2008, Classical Studies professor Campbell Grey went on paternity leave to welcome a new child into his family. The move was not unusual for a Penn professor, as the University has moved towards policies that acknowledge the ability of both mothers and fathers to take charge of early parenting.

At a demonstration Monday at The Susquehanna International Group Center for Graphics, a student volunteer attached sensory markers to her legs, and a crowd watched as her cartwheels were imitated on a screen by an animated pair of legs. The demonstration held for graduate students showed off the center's new motion-capture studio, the largest academic motion-capture studio in the region, and part of renovations to the building completed in January.

Penn is taking its initiative to help the environment beyond the dining halls to the food trucks on campus. The Undergraduate Assembly is working with the Penn Environmental Group to encourage food trucks to use environmentally friendly containers rather than Styrofoam.

Not many women would turn down an offer of $10,000. But some women might if it means selling their eggs. Ivy League women are being targeted by various agencies to sell their eggs for anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000. "College students are in the right age group to become donors, tend to have more flexible schedules than older, working women and are reasonably intelligent and motivated," said Dawn Hunt, president of Fertility Alternatives, an agency that has intermittently advertised in The Daily Pennsylvanian for about seven-to-eight years.

The upcoming renovations to DuBois College House mark yet another step in Penn's college house makeover. In the past 10 years, about $325 million have been devoted to improving on-campus residences. Throughout the renovations, all college houses have received new security, sprinklers and fire alarms and laundry-facility upgrades, among other things, according to Business Services Executive Director Douglas Berger.