04/15/08 5:00am
Senior societies are all about big names - big-name leaders on campus and their own big names scrawled all over Locust Walk.
With three of the oldest senior societies at Penn - the Sphinx Senior Society, the Friar Senior Society and the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society - admitting their new classes this past week, each claims to have snatched up the best and brightest campus leaders around.
04/02/08 5:00am
When College freshmen Everett Benjamin and Ryan Jobson applied for housing as incoming students, they listed the same top three preferences: DuBois College House, DuBois and DuBois.
Now the two roommates and Political Co-chairs of UMOJA - the umbrella organization for student groups of the African Diaspora - are fighting to keep DuBois at the top of other students' lists by pushing for renovations of the 36-year-old college house.
03/31/08 5:00am
They used to hold parties in the basement of the ARCH, plastering newspapers over the windows to protect the anonymity of the attendees.
But for the current Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender community on campus, these carefully guarded gatherings are a thing of the past.
03/27/08 5:00am
They've been together for two years, but they still can't hold hands in public.
Kate, a College sophomore, began dating Dan, a University of Charleston sophomore, while still in high school. Still together, their biggest relationship issue isn't that they are long distance - it's that they are a secret.
03/26/08 5:00am
It was all about the purple fishnets.
College sophomore Cameron Clark spent the past few weeks preparing for his debut as Britney Spears last night, and he couldn't have done it without the "proper purple fishnets."
In towering black lace-up boots and a pink miniskirt, Clark was just one of the many Penn performers who participated in the second-annual gender-bending drag show last night.
02/28/08 5:00am
On Sunday, the Undergraduate Assembly urged the University to examine whether the presence of on-campus blood collectors who are bound by an FDA policy banning certain blood donors violates Penn's non-discrimination policy.
Despite a national blood shortage, millions are prohibited from donating by the Federal Drug Administration's lifetime ban on men who have had sex with men (MSM) since 1977.
02/26/08 5:00am
For some, the costs of studying abroad include more than just plane tickets, hostel fees and European bar tabs.
With some study abroad programs in the Southern Hemisphere beginning as early as mid-July, students heading below the equator for fall semester will see their breaks cut in half and formal summer jobs and internships possibly impacted by their academic calendars.
02/18/08 5:00am
With an ocean, a twenty-four-hour plane ride and a closet door separating him from his family and friends in Australia, College freshman Alec Webley was facing the frightening prospect of coming out without a clear support system.
Unsure of how to approach his friends and family "who had only known me as straight," Webley sought the help of the Queer Student Alliance's program for questioning and closeted students.
02/18/08 5:00am
Penn prides itself on hosting the "largest community of color in the Ivy League," according to interim Admissions Dean Eric Kaplan.
But that figure can be deceiving as Penn simultaneously ranks low when it comes to Latino students.
College junior Angel Jacome, chairman of admissions and recruitment for the Latino Coalition - the umbrella organization for Latino student groups - hopes to reconcile Penn's small Latino population with its reputation for diversity with a series of recruitment initiatives targeted at Latino students.
02/12/08 5:00am
With the presidential election fast approaching, College freshman Atlee Melillo thought it would be the perfect occasion for some wedding cake.
Adorned with two grooms on one side and two brides on the other, Melillo said she hopes the white cake she passed out yesterday in Houston Hall will serve as an educational - and delicious - reminder that gay marriage is still very much an election issue, she said.
02/05/08 5:00am
It was Friday, and it was time to feel good.
Last week, outfitted with cushions and clementines, the Penn Women's Center kicked off Feel Good Fridays, a weekly program featuring free public workshops, with a seminar on nutrition led by local health counselor Jillian Bird.
02/04/08 5:00am
If the price to pay for a semester abroad in Japan is eight weeks of couch-surfing, Wharton and College sophomore Baylee Feore is more than happy to live out of her suitcase.
While waiting for the academic year to begin in April at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Feore has been living with a different friend each week while she bides her time.
01/31/08 5:00am
On Tuesday night, The Lambda Alliance, the umbrella organization for campus groups serving the LGBT community, elected a new board.
Wharton sophomore Dennie Zastrow, stepping up as chairperson, will use his term to push for policy changes at the University level and to further collaboration with the LGBT community both on campus and off.
01/29/08 5:00am
They went for the beads. They left for their lives.
Amidst a hotly disputed election and the deadly violence that followed in its wake, five Wharton MBA students and a professor spent two weeks in Kenya this winter break.
The group is working through the Global Consulting Practicum, a Wharton course in which students consult for international firms.
01/24/08 5:00am
5,151 is a big number.
When translated into meals, it is enough to feed roughly half of the undergraduate class.
It is also enough to feed an extra 5,151 hungry mouths.
01/16/08 5:00am
Former University Chaplain William Gipson is making the leap from the chapel to College Hall.
As the new Associate Vice Provost for Equity and Access, a position created this semester within the Office of the Provost, Gipson is taking the lead in maintaining Penn's reputation for prioritizing diversity in higher education.
12/11/07 5:00am
The "Making History" campaign is living up to its name, Penn administrators say.
With $1.69 billion in the bank, the five-year fundraising effort is already at over 48 percent of its $3.5 billion goal after being launched publicly this past October.
12/07/07 5:00am
This year, the Grinch has a new name: Facebook.
The social-networking Web site has ruined the holidays for many users whose private online gift purchases were publicly displayed on the Facebook.com News Feed, inspiring potential lawsuits and a massive wave of online protest.
12/06/07 5:00am
With a new multi-million-dollar endowment, the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program is about to get a whole lot foxier.
Robert Fox, a 1952 College alumnus, and his wife Penny Grossman Fox, who graduated from the School of Education in 1952, announced their gift of $10 million to support and expand the School of Arts and Sciences program, which will bring the family's total contribution to the program to $23 million.
11/09/07 5:00am
Last Thursday, the eight people who direct the fate of over 800 undergraduates met for the first time this year.
Their decisions could involve something as simple as planning the next study-break party or Disney movie marathon, or it could mean influencing housing policy across the board.
