34th Street Magazine's "Toast" is a semi-weekly newsletter with the latest on Penn's campus culture and arts scene. Delivered Monday-Wednesday-Friday.
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I am a fan of the show Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, each episode takes a myth, dissects it, tests it and proves it either factually true or not. Let's see what Adam and Jamie might discover when this approach is applied to Colin Kavanaugh's recent column where he called for Wharton to "Open the gates to the ivory tower.
Quite soon, students will hopefully be able to register for more than classes through Penn InTouch.
Under a new bill currently being proposed in Congress, nicknamed the VOTER Act, students will be able to register to vote at the same time they register for courses.
During the past year's financial crisis, we have all certainly learned that years of gains can be wiped out in a matter of days if we are not careful.
The office of College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS), though, is threatening years of gains in order to find an easier way to solve a long-term problem by deciding to temporarily stop admitting freshmen into Rodin College House.
As we close in on the final days of the school year, Spring Fling and Hey Day begin to overshadow our scholarly duties once again. Fried Oreos and skimmer hats are just a lot more fun than exams, obviously. But unlike last year, when many juniors were uncertain about whether or not they could attend Hey Day because of its scheduling, this year we all find ourselves with a new twist on tradition.
Moving out of campus housing will be a little less hectic this year, as students will have an extra five hours to pack up the wagon and head off from campus. After a survey last year showed widespread dissatisfaction with the quick turnaround between exam period and the move-out deadline, the Undergraduate Assembly and Housing and Conference Services teamed up to extend the deadline by five hours - a change that they estimate will give 98 percent of students at least 24 hours to pack before they have to be out of the dorms.
In a recent set of undergraduate business school rankings from Business Week, the Wharton School was ranked third behind the University of Virginia and the University of Notre Dame business schools, respectively. This was quite a shocker to a school full of students accustomed to ranking dominance in their undergraduate division.
The stimulus bill that passed the House and the Senate in February included an amendment that has potential to void the job offers of international students who wish to stay in the U.S.
The amendment restricts the hiring of foreign workers with H-1B visas by firms accepting funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
When I first heard about Ward Churchill's dismissal from the University of Colorado, it was hard to suppress my glee.
Churchill is considered a propagandist for extremely liberal viewpoints. In 2006, a committee of the professor's peers found him guilty of serious academic misconduct.
This year, Penn sent congratulatory letters to 3,926 students out of the 22,939 that applied - an acceptance rate of 17.11 percent. But last year, the acceptance rate was (gasp!) 0.10 percent lower. A minute fraction of a percent, but unfortunately many students - and this newspaper - seem to think such an increase in acceptance is a "situation.
In defense of Brandeis
To the Editor:
As a proud graduate of Brandeis University, it was disheartening to read Ashley Takas' piece on 3/25/09 ("Selling cultural cred to the highest bidder"). Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz has said repeatedly that select art works would only be sold if necessary.
It does not take an economics major to understand how bad things are right now. If you need an indicator for the health of the economy, talk to any senior about their plans for next year, and you will see everything from desperation to exasperation. For those of us who grew up during the boom years of the post-Cold War era and have never seen a rainy day, the harsh reality of this economic downturn (and its direct effect on us) has come as a great shock.
Many Penn students (read: haters) tend to harbor a certain disregard for our peer institutions, as exemplified by basketball fans' over-enthusiastic trash-talking at basketball games and the obligatory groan-plus-rolling-of-the-eyes reaction whenever anyone mentions the word Princeton.
On March 30, 2009, Colin Kavanaugh wrote a column praising Sen. Arlen Specter for his recently declared opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. We wish to respond to his piece and explain why we, and many others, view Specter's decision as a gross betrayal of the working people in this state who have so long supported him.
Rodin College House recently announced that, for the next two years, it will no longer admit freshman.
There are several sound reasons behind the decision. The communal culture in the high rises - something most consider essential for a successful freshman year - is not nearly at the level of the Quadrangle, Hill or King's Court-English.
The Daily Pennsylvanian's annual gag issue has a long history, of which another chapter has been written today. Every year at about this time, tradition dictates that DP editors turn their usually proper paper into a playful parody.
Although the DP used to publish a gag issue on or about April Fool's Day, the issue was moved to Washington's birthday in 1962.