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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Spring Fling is overrated.
. Please don't hurt me.
Somebody had to say it, though, and I know I'm not the only person on campus who feels that way. (I'm not saying it's a widely held opinion, but there are 10,000 undergrads here. There's some law of probability that says someone else agrees with me.
After seven months of class and only-God-knows-how-many exams and papers, there's little doubt that if Penn students are entitled to anything, it's Spring Fling this weekend. We've worked hard, and now it's time to take a break and bask in some of our favorite Fling things: bounce houses, dunk tanks, a capella performances, trying to sneak alcohol into the Quadrangle (don't try, freshmen, it won't work) and, of course, those fried Oreos.
The most recent turn of events in the never-ending Philadelphia casino saga - a new location for the proposed Foxwoods casino - has the city going all in on the developer's demands. At a Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board meeting last week, Foxwoods revealed that they were now planning to move into the former Strawbridge & Clothier building at 8th & Market streets.
When I came to Penn freshman year, I brought my Confederate flag with me. Growing up in the Georgia heartland, the Confederate flag had been a constant presence, gracing T-shirts and garnishing license plates. It embellished Dixie-themed trinkets and toys, and often flapped proudly alongside the Stars and Stripes.
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.