Mighty sweet for Jemmott: When the School of Nursing elevates someone to one of its eight endowed chairs, it’s not content to just issue an announcement and leave it at that. Especially if it’s someone as respected in her field as Loretta Sweet Jemmott who’s being elevated. To celebrate her appointment to the van Ameringen Chair in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, the school invited a panel of experts in the fields of AIDS research and family planning—plus her family and her pastor, the Rev. Jacob L. Chapman—to discuss her research and attest to her influence Oct. 24. The assembled panelists, which included Ann O’Leary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Family Planning Council Executive Director Dorothy Mann and Dianne Rausch, deputy director of the Center for Mental Health Research on AIDS at the National Institute of Mental Health, spoke on how Jemmott’s work on AIDS prevention in youth has influenced their own research.

Ben’s birthday buddies: President George W. Bush has tapped six people—four from Pennsylvania, two from Massachusetts—to serve on the commission planning the national celebration of Ben Franklin’s 300th birthday, and two of them have Penn connections: President Judith Rodin CW’66 and former Executive Vice President John Fry, now president of Franklin and Marshall College. Many of you will also recognize a third person named to the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Commission—Ralph Archbold, veteran Franklin impersonator.

Ask the doctor: Got questions about health issues? “Health Quest Live,” hosted by Sara Lomax-Reese, gives you the opportunity to hear Penn Health System experts discuss health topics of interest to African-Americans. The program airs monthly on WURD (900 AM); the next edition, on Dec. 3, deals with dermatology and features Jacqueline Hopkins of the Health System. For more information, call 215-573-5597 or 1-800-789-PENN.

Off to Berkeley? Word reaches us here on the Right Coast that Professor of Law Edward Rubin may be in line for a major career move. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Rubin is on the short list to succeed John Dwyer as dean of Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. His three rivals for the job are Christopher Edley of Harvard, E. Thomas Sullivan of Minnesota and Stephen Yeazell of UCLA. The four were chosen from a field of more than 200 candidates nationwide. UC Chancellor Robert Berdahl is expected to announce the new dean next month.

Dodsonsaurus: Two years ago, we reported that two former students of Penn paleontologist Peter Dodson had named a fossil frog found in Montana in his honor. Now there’s a dinosaur in China that bears his name. Former student You Hailu has dubbed the horned dinosaur he unearthed in Inner Mongolia Magnirostris dodsoni. The find appears in the current Journal of the Geological Society of China.