News Archives

NEWS BRIEFS

Genomics grant The Penn Genomics Institute and the Penn Center for Bioinformatics recently received a planning grant that will help them stay on the cutting edge of technology. For five years, PGI and PCBI will receive $250,000 annually to lay the groundwork for a national center for comparative and integrative computational genomics at Penn. The National Institutes of Health grant will go toward administrative development and piloting seed grants for other related areas of research.

Fels Institute, WPHT Radio Partner in Poll Watching Project, Election Coverage of Philadelphia Mayor's Race

PHILADELPHIA -- The University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government has organized a new poll watching project to track election-day voter turnout in dozens of key precincts in Philadelphia.  The captured data will be announced and analyzed on WPHT Radio, providing the first-ever analysis of the Philadelphia mayor's race in real time.

Day of the living dead: A fall fantasy

On a beautiful day, when there was just a nip of fall in the air, I went for a scenic walk through Philadelphia’s distinguished past—not in Old City, not in Society Hill, but just a few blocks from Penn at Woodlands Cemetery. I had seen it from the train, but never visited. I found, to my amazement, sunlit rooms, the Philadelphia Social Register circa 1900 at rest and a riot of romantic Victorian iconography.

Welcome home, sisters

For Homecoming weekend, the Penn Women’s Center throws open its doors to alumnae, students and the general Penn community in celebration of its 30th anniversary. The festivities start with an open house at the Women’s Center, 3643 Locust Walk, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, and continue into Saturday with speakers, panel discussions and alumni events. Additional events are scheduled for December and next May.

30 years of sisterly study at Penn

This year marks the 30th anniversary of women’s studies at Penn. Not coincidentally, the campus Women’s Center is also celebrating its 30th year. Separately and together they are sponsoring a yearlong series of programs—lectures, seminars and conferences that highlight the enormous influence the women’s movement has had.

Senior Fellow: Sarah Kagan

When Sarah Kagan came to Philadelphia from San Francisco in 1994, and was greeted by an ice storm that blanketed the city, she wondered fleetingly if she had made the right move.

Cat people

A composer’s voice emerges from the gulag

High atop the campus, with the bright lights of Center City twinkling in the distance, the rooftop lounge of Hamilton College House played host to a resurrection of art and history on Oct. 20. Oleg Timofeyev brought the hauntingly beautiful strumming of Russian seven-string guitar to a crowd of Penn faculty and students. Timofeyev, acclaimed as the foremost expert in the United States on the traditional Russian instrument, performed his series entitled “Guitar in the Gulag,” comprised of music by the late composer Matvei Stepanovich Pavlov (1888-1963).

BOOKQUICK/New from the University Press

From robber barons to titanic CEOs, from the labor unrest of the 1880s to the mass layoffs of the 1990s, two American Gilded Ages—one in the late 1800s, another in the final years of the 20th century—mirror each other in their laissez-faire excess and rampant social crises. Both eras ignited the civic passions of investigative writers who drafted diagnostic blueprints for urgently needed change.

EDITOR’S PICK: Strung Out

The yarn paintings of the Huichol Indians of northwest Mexico are a relatively new art form that has achieved worldwide popularity in recent years. The University of Pennsylvania Museum’s new exhibit, “Mythic Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman,” connects this art form to the most ancient legends and practices of the Huichol culture.