Daily Pennsylvanian

Editorial | Our UA picks

jagoda — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:25:21 -0400

Beginning today, Penn students will have the opportunity to vote for the Undergraduate Assembly president and vice president for the first time. The election is particularly important because the winners will define the roles of these new positions.

Our endorsements for these positions were not made lightly. After careful analysis of the candidates’ video question-and-answers, guest columns and performances at the debates, we have decided to endorse College juniors Matt Amalfitano and Mark Pan for UA president and vice president, respectively.

UA President: Matt Amalfitano

We chose to endorse Amalfitano because compared to his opponent, his past work is more extensive, and he seems more knowledgeable about what the UA can actually accomplish. He has developed good relationships with administrators that will allow him to enact his sensible and smart policy goals. For example, Amalfitano wants to increase the number of wet fraternity parties so that students are drinking on campus where they are in closer proximity to the Medical Emergency Response Team. We trust that he’ll be able to implement his goals because he has been successful at making changes in the past. As chairman of the UA Academic Affairs committee last year and as vice chairman for external affairs this year, he has, among other things, improved PennInTouch and AirPennNet.

Amalfitano’s opponent, College junior and UA associate member Grant Dubler, also has past accomplishments on the UA and some good ideas. We particularly liked his goals of reforming the sector requirements and making it easier for Engineering and Nursing students to study abroad. But some of Dubler’s other plans seem to reflect a lack of understanding of what changes the UA is able to make — for example, his promise to get 100 percent of syllabi online by the end of next year. Amalfitano’s ideas may be smaller in scale, but they are more likely to be implemented. And a little change can go a long way toward improving student life.

UA Vice President: Mark Pan

Along the same lines, we chose to endorse Mark Pan for UA vice president because of his background and the quality of his ideas. Twice before, as chairman of the UA Civic and Community Engagement committee and now as communications director, Pan has stepped into newly created leadership positions and used them to make a difference. There is every reason to believe Pan will do well in the new vice president position, too — especially because he has simple but smart goals, like using existing space to find more places for students and student groups to congregate. With ideas like this, we’re confident that Pan will help to solve the problems of the groups on UA Steering.

While the other presidential candidates have their strengths, neither has the experience or the concrete ideas of Pan. Engineering sophomore Emily Shaeffer’s passion for engagement in West Philadelphia is admirable, but she is not knowledgeable enough about other domains. And while Wharton sophomore Faye Cheng is articulate and has experience on the UA executive board, she does not seem to have many concrete goals beyond using Steering to increase unity.

Slip of the Chung | Competition is a good thing

jagoda — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:22:45 -0400

Cyndi Chung

Last week, I received my last medical school decision. For us applicants, it’s been almost a year of crafting personal statements, skipping class for interviews and agonizing waiting — not to mention years of science classes and MCAT anticipation. It’s finally over.

In retrospect, I will miss the knot building in my stomach every time I waited for a practice MCAT score to appear on my computer screen. While it may sound odd to view the cutthroat med-school admissions process positively, competition can be a good thing.

The cutthroat part of the process is a given. I’ve never heard of Penn’s pre-meds resorting to sabotage — though I would have loved to blame my awful organic chemistry lab results on anyone but myself — but competitiveness naturally arises in classes like Biology 101 and Physics 101. These classes are designed to gather as many anxious pre-meds in one room as possible, and when there are only so many A’s to go around, the situation can get ugly.

Competitveness gets a bad rap when applying, too. The Yale University School of Medicine Viewbook emphasizes that at Yale, you will “find friendship instead of competition.” And despite the cutthroat nature of being pre-med, mentioning competition in interviews is taboo. During one interview, I casually said that when I exercise, I am motivated to run faster by the people around me. My interviewer disapprovingly replied, “You seem to be pretty competitive.”

Of course, there is a reason why medical schools need to emphasize collaboration rather than competition. In his article in The New Yorker, “The Cost Conundrum,” Atul Gawande pinpoints collaboration as the main reason why the Mayo Clinic manages to be one of the lowest-cost yet highest-quality healthcare systems in the country. At the Mayo Clinic, physicians have a team-based attitude, pooling together all the money earned by the hospital system and accepting pay in the form of salaries. More importantly, physicians at the Mayo Clinic take weekly meetings seriously, using them as forums for discussing how to improve care. According to the article, the results of these meetings are “more thinking and less testing,” driving down healthcare costs.

So collaboration becomes more important than competition as a doctor. But is this reason to bemoan how competitive the application process forces pre-meds to be? I don’t think so. In fact, a competitive atmosphere unifies us.

Matthew Canver, a Harvard Medical School-bound Engineering senior, said, “Even though each student may be directly competing [with his peers], I feel that a sense of camaraderie is created, whether spoken or unspoken, because all pre-med students have overlapping experiences.”

Any system that has many times more applicants than spots is going to create competition. But rather than feeling alienated from other pre-meds, we find solidarity in each other. The pre-med culture may be competitive, but it is also supportive — there was never a time when I did not have a friend with whom I could complain about application essays or stoic interviewers. Without other pre-meds going through the same torturous process that I was, I would not have been able to survive the application process in one piece.

Cyndi Chung is a College senior from Toms River, N.J. Her e-mail address is chung@dailypennsylvanian.com. Slip of the Chung appears on alternate Mondays.

Four up, four down for Quakers

sharf — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:21:45 -0400

Ricky Katz

Entering the weekend, Penn baseball’s greatest flaw this season was its starting pitching.

But in two doubleheaders against Mount St. Mary’s over the weekend, the Quakers starting pitchers dazzled, allowing just two earned runs in 27 innings of work.

That stellar effort earned Penn wins in all four of its games against the Mountaineers, with victories of 2-1 and 4-2 on Saturday and 8-0 and 6-1 on Sunday.

“I think that all four starters had great performances this weekend,” head coach John Cole said. “We were concentrating this year on throwing the ball in the zone and not walking people. If you get ahead of hitters and put the ball low, you’re going to be in the ballgame.”

Junior Paul Cusick had the most impressive outing of the weekend. The Penn hurler pitched a complete game shutout in the opening game yesterday, while yielding just three hits and two walks with ten strikeouts.

“I was able to command more than one pitch and throw my breaking ball for strikes,” he said. “I felt the most confident in my breaking ball that I’ve felt all year.”

Cusick also attributed both his personal performance and his team’s solid showing to a focus on keeping the ball low in the strike zone. However, he acknowledged that Mount St. Mary’s is not the toughest team the Quakers will face this season.

“It’s definitely a confidence booster for our staff,” Cusick said. “But at the same time, we’ve got to keep working hard and know that the teams we’re going to start facing are going to be better and better competition each week.”

Sophomore Chris McNulty also pitched a gem yesterday, allowing no runs in 7.2 innings.

“The pitching staff definitely struggled in Florida, and there was a lot of adversity,” McNulty said. “I’m really proud of how we pitched this weekend, and we’re really trying to show other teams in the Ivy League that we’re a pitching team and that we have the arms to do that.”

This weekend’s performances on the mound show a departure from last year’s subpar effort, when the team recorded an earned run average of 6.74 on the season.

The opening game on Saturday was the closest the Mountaineers would come to a victory. Starting pitcher Vince Voiro allowed just one run in the first six innings of the game, and Penn trailed 1-0 going into the seventh and final inning.

Junior Adrian Lorenzo drove in the tying run before crossing the plate for the game-winner on senior Tom Grandieri’s grounder to first.

“The seniors do a really good job of making sure that in the late innings, we’re completely confident we’re going to win the game, whether we’re up a run or down a few,” McNulty said.

Though Cole was not content with his team’s hitting, he was very impressed with the Quakers’ ability to manufacture runs.

“We didn’t swing the bats well this weekend, but we had an emphasis on the running game and the bunt game,” Cole said.

The Quakers are currently on a five-game winning streak and will face Villanova Wednesday as they continue to prepare for the Ivy season, which begins in less than two weeks.

That's What Schwenk Said | Bells not ringing for Quakers

jagoda — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:15:26 -0400

Alyssa Schwenk

Over spring break, I got one of the biggest wake-up calls possible to remind me that I am (practically) a full-fledged adult. No, not another graduation e-mail, though I wasn’t exactly thrilled to pick up my cap and gown. It was a breathy, excited phone call from my oldest friend in the world — her boyfriend had proposed, and she wanted me to be a bridesmaid in her summer 2011 wedding.

Was I excited? Of course. I think they’re fabulous together, and they’ve been discussing this for a while now. And as I’ve quickly discovered, browsing bridesmaid dresses is an excellent way to pass time in class. Or a meeting. Or when I’m supposed to be doing homework. You get the picture.

But this isn’t the first wedding of a close friend I’ve been invited to. This month alone, I’ve (Facebook) RSVP’d to two weddings — both this June — and successfully navigated a bridal registry to purchase a shower gift. They’re all for high-school friends, but they’re not so different in temperament from my Penn group — brainy, driven, ambitious — which made me question my earlier logic: that it’s simply what happens when you move from a smallish town to the big city.

Yet when I look around Penn and at my classmates and friends, even the ones in years-long relationships are nowhere near putting a ring on it. In true Carrie Bradshaw fashion, I started to wonder why the same type of students are making divergent life choices. Would (gasp) some of my college friends be next?

Not likely. A few of the students I polled pointed out that they don’t know where they’re living in three years, let alone five. Chasing the perfect jobs and the best grad programs requires us to be flexible about location and even a little transient right now — hardly ideal for settling down behind the white picket fence. According to Penn Career Services director Patricia Rose, almost 80 percent of students “work for two or three years, and then many of them go to graduate school.” Altogether, more than 80 percent of College grads will eventually earn another degree, upping the chances that we’ll want or have to make a big move.

Partially because of that, recent grads “are not really at a place where they feel like they’re ready to settle down, [at least not] until their late 20s,” Rose added. And Penn students are pretty national and international — students who went to a more-regional college are probably less likely to make a big move post-college.

The mystery was finally settled when I looked at the data surrounding marriage. Statistically — even in Iowa, where I’m from — the friends tying the knot this summer are a little ahead of the curve: According to the Pew Center, the national average age for a woman’s first marriage is 26; for men, it’s 28. And just based on where everyone plans on living next year, Penn students have a while to sow the oats before saying “‘til death do us part”: The average ages in California, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are about two years higher than the national averages; in Washington, it’s a good four years higher.

So it’s probably going to be a while before I get the phone call from a college friend. Right now, I’ll just take these summer weddings in stride, pray for an open bar and smile as some of the girls I pretend-planned weddings with in fourth grade actually walk down the aisle.

Alyssa Schwenk is a College senior from Ottumwa, Iowa. She is the former editorial page editor of the DP and editor of The Report Card. Her e-mail address is
schwenk@dailypennsylvanian.com. That’s What Schwenk Said appears on Mondays.

Conference celebrates women engineers

gormisky — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:07:41 -0400

Christina Mancheno

To commemorate its 60th anniversary, the Society of Women Engineers held its Regional Conference here at Penn for the first time in over 50 years.

Over 300 people representing various schools of the Mid-Atlantic region were in attendance.

The conference, which was held on Friday and Saturday, was organized by both the collegiate section of the SWE and the Philadelphia professional section, said Melissa Cedarholm, Engineerng sophomore and one of the conference chairs.

“The most important part of the conference is that it allows different women engineers to come together and see how other schools experience engineering,” said Alexandra Malikova, Engineering senior and co-chair of SWE at Penn.

Friday night featured a reception at the Sheraton Hotel called “Sweets and Beats,” according to Cedarholm.

During the event, there was a chocolate fountain, performances by Penn a cappella groups and a make-your-own 60th anniversary mug activity.

But Saturday was when the bulk of the conference took place, Cedarholm said. The events occurred in Houston Hall and varied from workshops and speakers to 18 companies holding interviews.

This is only the second time that Penn has hosted the conference — the last time being 55 years ago. Malikova said the group began planning for the events about a year ago.

“I thought everything ran really smoothly. It was well organized and the schedule was well made out,” said Engineering sophomore Sheetal Rajagopal.

The event — “What Not to Wear on the Job Hunt” — was helpful, fun and interactive, Rajagopal said. It was based on the show What Not to Wear.

One of the highlights of the conference, according to Alexis Wallen, doctoral candidate in Engineering and a member of the Philadelphia professional section of SWE, was a speech given by Alma Forman, one of the founding SWE members who received a standing ovation.

“I think it was a great success,” said Danielle Dunn, professional publicity committee chair of SWE.

Penn students showed “top-notch involvement” and having enthusiasm among students is really important, Dunn added.

Penn drops slim meet to Big Red

mgold — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:40:03 -0400

The Penn gymnastics team came close to upsetting Cornell but couldn’t overcome the recently crowned Ivy League champion’s powerful presence in the floor competition.

After falling behind in the initial event, vault, Penn demonstrated its depth in the bars and the beam.

Freshman Dana Bonincontri was the high scorer for the Quakers in those events and won on the bars.

While the Quakers entered the floor competition with a slight lead, Cornell’s talent in the final event ultimately proved too much.

“The meet is not guaranteed to anyone,” Penn coach John Ceralde said. “It depends on who wants it most each day.”

Penn received another strong performance from its freshmen. Kirsten Strausbaugh was Penn’s top individual scorer on the floor.

Earlier this week, Strausbaugh was named Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Rookie of the Week. Joining her on the honor roll was Bonincontri, who received the ECAC Coach’s Choice award.

In Bonincontri’s debut to the All-Around competition, she took home top honors.

“It feels really good to be back competing again in that event,” said Bonincontri, who was hampered by injuries earlier this season.

And despite the loss, Bonincontri is confident heading into next Saturday’s ECAC Championships.

“We’ve worked all season for this and put in a lot of hours at the gym.” she said.

The Quakers viewed Saturday’s match as preparation for the upcoming championship meet.

“We just need to put it together for our next meet,” he said. “They know exactly what they need to take care of.”

Hawks sweep doubleheader

silcox — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:39:23 -0400

Phil Leguichard

Just as softball coach Leslie King had hoped when Penn’s season began, the Quakers’ defense was relentless against Monmouth Saturday.

But ultimately, the Hawks clawed their way back to win both contests of a doubleheader, setting Penn back to a 3-8 record this season.

The Red and Blue surged to a 2-0 lead in the top of the sixth of the first game, when, with runners on the corners, junior Alisha Prystowsky laced a double to left field.

But Monmouth (4-8) rallied off Penn pitcher Chelsea Ott. Hawks’ junior Emily deLong led off the bottom of the sixth with a triple to right field. Two batters later, senior Jessica Nicola brought deLong in with a sacrifice fly to cut the score to 2-1.

Freshman Kayla Weiser led off the bottom of the seventh with a double for Monmouth. A sacrifice bunt moved her to third, but a key strikeout of sophomore Chelsea Paprocki moved the Quakers within a single out of earning their fourth win of the season.

With a composure beyond her age, Monmouth freshman Kate Kuzma hit a blooper up the middle to tie the game. An error by Penn freshman third baseman Brooke Coloma in the extra frame gave the Hawks a 3-2 win.

The Monmouth victory gave Ott the loss despite a fine outing in which she fanned four.

The Red and Blue also turned their first double play of the season in the second inning, and senior centerfielder Keiko Uraguchi threw a runner out at the plate to end another scoring threat in the third.

Monmouth carried its momentum into the second game of the afternoon, scoring a run in each of the first two innings. A five-run romp in the ninth iced the game for the Hawks.

The Quakers will play next on Wednesday when they visit Lehigh for a doubleheader.

Giffin’s All-American dream

plotnick — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:35:10 -0400

Kevin Esteves

When asked at the beginning of the wrestling season what his goals were, junior Scott Giffin had a lofty, albeit simple, aspiration.

“I want to be on the podium more than anything,” Giffin said at the time. “I want to be an All-American.”

On Friday night at the NCAA Wrestling Championships in Omaha, Neb., that goal became a reality.

After a first-round loss to the eventual 174-pound weightclass national champ, Jay Borschel, and three wins in the consolation round, the unseeded Giffin upset Oklahoma State’s No. 6 Mike Benefiel with a 3-1 victory to clinch the honors.

The match went right down to the wire, and Giffin’s two-point takedown toward the end of the final period made the difference.

But the Penn junior’s season was not over yet.

Though Giffin would go on to lose his next match in the consolation quarterfinals, he then defeated Northern Iowa’s Jarion Beets the next day by injury default at the four minute mark. The win earned Giffin seventh place overall.

The victory was the finishing touch on a long journey to the podium for Giffin, who first reached the NCAA Tournament two years ago.

“My first year … I wanted to be a qualifier, and I did that,” he said. “Last year I wanted to win a [NCAA Championship Tournament] match, and I did that.”

It seems only fitting then, that this would be the year Giffin gained the elusive honor.

Giffin’s performance headlined a weekend that saw the Berlin, N.J., native and five of his fellow Quakers compete on wrestling’s biggest stage.

The team’s combined performances yielded a 38th place finish out of 78 squads. Iowa took home the national crown, while Cornell came away with the second-place finish.

Juniors Bryan Ortenzio (133), Zack Kemmerer (141) and Gabe Burak (165), and freshman Micah Burak (197) all made their first trip to the Tournament. Of the four, Ortenzio and Burak were the only two able to come away with their first NCAA Tournament victories, as both went 1-2.

Meanwhile, senior co-captain Cesar Grajales (149) ended his Penn career in Omaha. After losing a first-round match to Oklahoma’s No. 3 Kyle Terry, Grajales moved into the consolation bracket, where he went 1-1.

And though the season-ending tournament signaled the end of the road for one of Penn’s best — Grajales’ 110 career wins ties him for fifth in school history — the postseason has given the recently struggling Penn program a boost.

For Penn coach Rob Eiter, both Giffin’s seventh-place finish and the team’s unexpected second-place finish in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships will help put Penn “back on the map.”

Eiter also said he expects Giffin’s victory to motivate the rest of the team and hopes it will spark interest in the Penn wrestling program.

For Giffin’s part, his taste of victory has left him hungrier than ever.

“Seventh place is just the beginning.”

Midseason scare in New Haven

silcox — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:34:27 -0400

Jennifer Scuteri

If Saturday’s game at Yale is any indication, Penn’s Ivy opponents are going to make the Quakers work hard to claim their fourth straight Ivy title.

For the first time since March 22, 2008, the Quakers found themselves trailing a conference opponent at halftime.

But despite entering the locker room down 2-1 to a Bulldogs team that finished last season at the bottom of the Ivy standings, the Quakers were able to grind out a 7-5 victory.

“Both teams only had four shots the first half,” coach Karin Brower Corbett said. “The difference is, they had the ball a lot more than us. We didn’t, unfortunately, create that many opportunities for ourselves.”

The Bulldogs’ (3-4, 1-1 Ivy) attack came out ready to make the most of every chance they could get against the highly touted Penn defense, which was bolstered by the return of senior Emma Spiro from an ankle injury.

Yale started the scoring just after five minutes of play, when Spiro fouled Yale junior Kaitlyn Flately. The Bulldogs midfielder/defense converted the ensuing free position for her first of three goals on the day.

Her second came nine minutes later, as she scored unassisted on Penn senior goalkeeper Emily Szelest to put the Bulldogs up, 2-0.

Meanwhile the Yale defense clamped down, holding the Quakers scoreless for the first 19 minutes of the half.

“Yale did a really good job of stalling and not giving us the ball,” senior midfield Ali DeLuca said. “If they have the ball in their possession, we can’t really have the opportunity to score like we usually do.”

Even when Penn did have possession, it was unable to capitalize on opportunities on offense due to mistakes in its transition game.

The Quakers finally got on the board when junior attack Bridget Waclawik scored off of a pass from freshman Erin Brennan.

“I thought that we were a little sloppy. We weren’t holding it, there were a lot of turnovers.,” Corbett said.

“Bringing the ball down the field, we threw the ball away, or we ran out of bounds, both of which aren’t characteristic of us.”

But the second half proved to be a different story The halftime deficit lit a spark, and the Quakers came out firing.

DeLuca set the tone as she won the draw control and scored a free position shot — in just ten seconds.

“Once the second half started, getting the draw controls, and getting down and making good opportunities — that’s when we started scoring,” she said.

The Quakers took the lead for the first time off another free-position goal scored by Brennan. Soon after, Brennan assisted DeLuca’s second goal to put the Quakers ahead 4-2.

Yale, however, would not go down without a fight. With nine minutes left in the second period, the score was tied at five.

“I called a time out, and we talked about what we needed to do,” Corbett said. “We ended up being able to control a lot of the last part of the game.”

Waclawik came through once again. Her second goal of the game — which came with just under five minutes remaining — put the Quakers ahead by one.

And after Giulia Gordano gave her squad a two-goal lead, the Quakers effectively stalled for the remaining three minutes, nabbing their second League victory.

“Every team needs these kind of games as a reality check to where they are at to make you step back,” DeLuca said. “If you start beating every team by a lot, you’re never really going to realize when it’s close what to do.”

Presidential personalities: Dubler

sharf — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:32:29 -0400

College junior Grant Dubler knows how to juggle.

“I can pretty much juggle any object,” the political science major said, “through my legs, around my back, running, jumping — I do it pretty much whenever I see three objects of equal weight.”

But like-weighted objects are not the only thing that Dubler can juggle.

Throughout his childhood in southern Florida, Dubler engaged in a wide variety of activities — ranging from Model Congress to founding a non-profit organization aimed at raising awareness for the crisis in Darfur.

Despite his involvement in other activities, Dubler said, he founded the organization because he was “just kind of bored” after being accepted to Penn under Early Decision.

“It became my entire life second semester of my senior year, and a lot of my freshman year at college was spent working with people back at home,” he said.

And since coming to Penn, Dubler’s multi-dimensional interests have only expanded.

In addition to serving on the Undergraduate Assembly, Dubler is involved in the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, the International Affairs Association and Hillel, acting as outreach coordinator for Kesher last year.

To keep up with so many responsibilities, Dubler has developed an impressive work ethic, according to his roommate, Engineering junior Joe Weinhoffer.

“Seeing him work so hard definitely helps me and our other roommates to reflect that in our own work,” Weinhoffer said.

What sets Dubler apart, though, is his ability to balance this diligence with a “bubbly personality,” said College junior Danny Urgelles, Dubler’s roommate and frequent classmate at the Penn Washington Semester Program last fall.

“He knows how to conduct himself in a professional way, but he’s very easy to relate to,” Urgelles said. “He truly can balance the work and play aspects of life.”