Cheers and jeers

CHEERS

To the citizens of Pennsylvania, for finally voting outgoing Sen. Rick Santorum out of office. He was simply too far out of the mainstream to represent this state anymore.

To the University's information technology officials, for being one of the first schools to push forward with plans to outsource its e-mails services. It's good to see Penn trying to be on the leading edge of technology for a change.

To Mayor Street and City Council, for finally putting politics aside and passing a smoking ban in restaurants and bars. (You'll get another cheer next year if it's actually enforced, effective and not completely watered down)

To the University, for lengthening winter break by a week. All your students (except seniors, who will be long gone) are very grateful. Now, how about the Wednesday before Thanksgiving?

To the Pennsylvania Superior Court and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, for retrying alleged rapist and former Neurology professor Tracy McIntosh. Judge Rayford Means earlier let McIntosh off with house arrest - then allowed him to go to Italy.

To the Pennsylvania legislature, the largest full-time legislature in the nation, for pushing forward with plans to reduce the body's size.

To students and Penn Leads the Vote, for their successful efforts to get students and faculty to the polls for the midterm election.

To President Amy Gutmann, for her handling of the controversy surrounding the photo she took with a student dressed in terror garb, as well as for not cancelling next year's party.

To History professor Walter Licht, Provost Ron Daniels and Ira Harkavy, for the creation of the new Civic Scholars program.

To Penn's Facilities department, for the lack of floods, burst pipes and other disasters this semester.

To the Undergraduate Assembly, for giving Penn students access to the Ruckus music service.

JEERS

To the School of Arts and Sciences' information technology officials, for the unforgivable outages that have plagued the SAS e-mail server this semester.

To newly re-elected Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). If he really had the best interests of Philadelphia - and not himself - at heart, he would have given up his seat in Congress while running for mayor.

To Penn students, for the increasing number of assaults (often involving alcohol) on each other, which have taken away valuable time and resources from the Division of Public Safety.

To the Division of Public Safety, for its short-lived decision to stop reporting the affiliation of crime victims.

To the University, for its insistence on holding classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a time when many professors end up cancelling classes anyway.

To SEPTA, for its current budget deficit (which will surely result in another crisis) and for its continual reliance on tokens, even when its turnstiles and buses have card-reading capabilities.

To the University, for still allowing Scott Ward to remain on the faculty - and to teach - after sentencing for a sex crime in 1999. Ward was charged again this year for a number of sex crimes.

To the University, for its frantic response to ClassBuster. Its unfortunate that a student had to step in to provide a valuable and wanted service the University couldn't provide for students itself.

To the city and the state Department of Transportation, for taking decades to finally move forward with rebuilding the dilapidated South Street bridge, which is literally falling apart.

To University administrators, for the lack of information and communication about the future of Hey Day. Students should be kept in the loop.

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