News Archives

“I’d seen the exit-poll numbers … and thought Kerry had won. The subsequent articles trying to explain what had happened made no sense to me." ”

—Steven Freeman, visiting scholar at Penn, on the reason he began researching exit-polling after the presidential election. (Seattle Times, November 25)

At Work With...Robert Chaney

Analyzing Freud

Freud could have used an analyst. That’s according to University of Chicago philosopher and psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear, who spoke at Logan Hall Nov. 17 as part of the Penn Humanities Forum on Sleep and Dreams.

Hitting the books

As Board Chairman Emeritus of Pearl S. Buck International and author of the acclaimed book, “Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography” (Cambridge, 1996), Interim Provost Peter Conn is the natural person to ask about Buck and her work. Apparently, Oprah Winfrey thinks so, too. Conn, who is also the Andrea Mitchell Term Professor of English, is acting as principal literary consultant to “Oprah’s Book Club”as the TV magnate and her viewers read the Buck classic, “The Good Earth.”

Penn Playbook: Drexel win a hoops turning point?

After what could only be described as a turbulent start to its 2004 season, the Penn men’s basketball team found its footing in a late November matchup with West Philly rival Drexel. And it seemed, at least as of this printing, that the win may have marked an early turning point to the Quakers’ season.

Come into my house

If you’re interested in the history of footwear, you’ll find a good selection—from Egyptian burial sandals to the ’70s platforms Sally Struthers wore in “All in the Family”—at Philadelphia’s Shoe Museum. If history’s your thing, be sure to stop by the Declaration (Graff) House, a replica of the residence where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. And if you’re an art lover eager to see one of the area’s finest collections of contemporary art, the Pennsylvania Convention Center has the goods.

News briefs

University City hosts Winterfest University City District and Class of 1923 Ice Rink will host the 7th Annual Winterfest on Thursday, December 16th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. For an admission fee of a dollar you’ll get complimentary cocoa, fountain sodas and holiday treats, plus free skate rental. For more information, visit www.ucityphila.org or contact Lori Klein Brennan at 215-243-0555. Bookstore offers chance to win

AWARDS & HONORS

Albert J. Stunkard, professor emeritus of Psychiatry, has been awarded the 2004 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health by the Institute of Medicine. The $20,000 prize was awarded for Stunkard’s contributions to psychiatry and mental health, particularly for his research on eating disorders.

Penn Museum Archaeochemist and International Scholars Confirm 9,000-Year History of Chinese Fermented Beverages

PHILADELPHIA -- Chemical analyses of ancient organics absorbed, and preserved, in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Northern China have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced as early as 9,000 years ago, approximately the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East.  

Two From Penn Win Marshall Scholarships

PHILADELPHIA- University of Pennsylvania students Harveen Bal and Gabriel Mandujano have been named Marshall Scholars, Bal selected in the New York region, Mandujano in the Washington, D.C. region.  Bal, a senior health and societies major in the College of Arts and Sciences, is from Bloomfield, N.J., and a University Scholar at Penn.  She will take an M.Phil. in development studies at the University of Oxford.