Fall Cheers and Jeers

CHEERS * To College seniors Lipika Goyal and Ari Alexander, for winning two of academia's most prestigious awards. Goyal's Rhodes Scholarship and Alexander's Marshall Scholarship are testaments to their hard work and the contributions of the new Center for Undergraduate Research Fellowships; * To Chemistry Professor Alan MacDiarmid, for honoring both the University and this country by winning a Nobel Prize in Chemistry; * To the University and the Undergraduate Assembly, for their collaboration to finally bring a much-needed 24-hour diner to campus. We only hope that the new El Diner will live up to its high expectations; * To 1998 Wharton alumnus Brandon Slay and 1994 College alumna Sarah Garner, each for bringing home medals from the Sydney Olympic Games. Slay did America proud with his gold in freestyle wrestling, while Gardner earned a silver in lightweight double sculls; * To the residents of University City, for graciously donating their $100 tax refund checks to local area elementary schools; * To University President Judith Rodin, for protecting the right of free expression and allowing members of the Penn community continued access to Napster until a more definitive legal position can be determined by the courts; * To the City of Philadelphia, for hosting a wildly successful Republican National Convention that showcased all the region has to offer and pulled in millions of dollars for the local economy; * To the University, for establishing PenNetWorks, a mechanism which allows the Penn community to bring their creative ideas to the marketplace; * To the Penn Football team, for garnering its second Ivy League title in three years. The road to the championship was long and hard, but it provided Quaker fans with some incredible moments along the way; * To the Athletic Department, for responding to the calls of basketball fans by allowing supporters of the Red and Blue to stand during men's basketball games; and for working with two private donors to make much-needed renovations to the Palestra corridors; * To the University, for the long-awaited opening of Perelman Quadrangle.

JEERS * To former Health System CEO and Medical School Dean Peter Traber, for turning his back on the University and the troubled UPHS after just three months on the job; * To the University, for failing to fill empty retail spaces on campus with reasonably-priced shops and restaurants, and for unneccesarily closing the Quad commissary, McClelland Marketplace and Chats; * To Mayor John Street, for his inability to handle multiple issues in a definitive and timely fashion. Street's failure to handle the threatened teachers' strike and the stadium issue at the same time nearly destroyed the chances for success on both matters; * To Connaissance and the Social Planning and Events Committee, for bringing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to campus as the fall speaker. Jabbar failed to entertain even the few individuals who managed to show up for his speech-turned-book reading; * To the University's financial advisers, for failing to keep the performance of Penn's endowment on par with that of comparable institutions -- even in a lucrative bull market; * To the Institute for Human Gene Therapy and IHGT Director James Wilson, for failing to put their house in order after a full year of inquiry into major IHGT research deficiencies. Wilson has brought nothing but frustrations to the beleaguered research arm, and should be relieved of his duties; * To President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, for failing to visit Penn's campus even once during the campaign season, and for prolonging Election Day by more than a month; * To the editors of U.S. News & World Report, for ranking Princeton number one among American universities. Obviously, there's a flaw in their methodology.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.