News Archives

Out & About: Rebuilding pride on Baltimore

Baltimore Avenue is a busy place. With trolleys rattling up and down the street every few minutes and a steady stream of car traffic, this is one of the most traveled arteries in the city. The stretch between 45th and 50th streets has also become something of an urban hub, with eclectic restaurants and African boutiques amid the usual lineup of laundromats, barbershops and cell phone vendors.

Surf the ’Net while soaking up rays

For those who use wireless technology to send e-mails or quickly check a fact on the Internet, the grass just got greener. That’s because over Spring Break, Penn’s wireless service provider, PennNet, expanded its wireless coverage to include College Green. In the coming months, it will continue to expand around campus. Service is now available in the Computing Resource Center, around the Franklin Building and in front of the Penn Bookstore, in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, the Graduate Student Center, Houston Hall and Penn Commons, and Hamilton, Harnwell and Hill College Houses.

Good sport

Although the Ivy League was established as a sports conference, its reputation today restsmore on academic than athletic prowess. Penn, however, is a slight exception to the rule.

News briefs

Pro Bono Singer/songwriter/social justice activist Bono will deliver the address at Penn’s 248th Commencement exercises May 17. The Irish musician, lead singer for the rock group U2, is also known for his work on behalf of causes such as AIDS, poverty and famine in Africa. In 2000, he co-founded the organization Debt AIDS Trade Africa to raise public awareness of three factors that stymie Africa’s development—crushing debt, the spread of AIDS and trade restrictions. Preston steps down

Staff Q&A: Helen Anderson

Since the Penn Models of Excellence program was introduced in 1999, hundreds of Penn staff members—250 to be exact—have been recognized for service above and beyond the call of duty.

At Work With...Bill Corsetti and Neal Fischer

A great day for a walk

India poised for future success

With its fractious politics and ethnic and religious strife, it seems India is constantly on the verge of falling apart. Yet noted Indian author and United Nations Undersecretary-General for Communications and Public Information Shashi Tharoor argued in a March 3 talk that the country is poised for success in the 21st century. The Center for Advanced Study of India invited Tharoor to deliver its annual Fellows Lecture on modern India, giving him an opportunity to update some of the insights in his 1997 book “India: From Midnight to the Millennium.”

Book critics honor two Penn faculty

For Lecturer in English Paul Hendrickson, the third time was the charm. “Sons of Mississippi” (Knopf), Hendrickson’s meditation on the legacy of the civil rights era in the South, received the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction at an awards ceremony in New York City March 4. Hendrickson had been nominated for the prestigious literary award on two previous occasions.

Editor’s Pick: The artist as rock star

The influential artist Laurie Anderson has performed at festivals, contributed music to films and created installations that span the arenas of sculpture, photography, lithography and music. In 1983, the Institute of Contemporary Arts recognized Anderson’s impressive body of work in a mid-career retrospective, “Laurie Anderson, Works from 1969-1983,” curated by then-Director Janet Kardon.