News Archives

Teacher helps students go native in Russia

Summertime meant going home for Ludmila Oleinichenko, but it was no vacation. While some of her colleagues used the time to relax, dive into long-neglected hobbies, or catch up on research and writing, Oleinichenko took inquiring students across the world and exposed them to foreign cultures and languages. The adjunct professor of Slavic languages and literatures escorted a group of 10 students to Russia for the Penn Summer Abroad program run through the College of General Studies.

A song in the key of LIFE

U.S. falls on social progress index

The bad news is that the United States ranks 27th on the latest Index of Social Progress. The worse news is that we are moving in the wrong direction. The report, produced every five years, measures 40 factors, including the ability of nations to meet the needs of their citizens for health and education, human rights, political participation, improved women’s status, military spending and environmental protection. In 1990, the U.S. was ranked 18th.

AWARDS & HONORS

Diana Liu, the I. Grant Irey Lecturer in Law and partner in Wolf Block’s Real Estate Practice Group, has been elected to membership in The American Law Institute. Institute members are selected on the basis of professional achievement and interest in improvement of the law. Liu concentrates her practice on the acquisition and development of commercial real estate and in the representation of lending institutions in loan transactions and complex loan workouts.

Course raises doctors’ cultural consciousness

The Western scientific medical model has produced stunning achievements in extending life and treating disease. But in the relentless march of science, some say, the doctors have lost sight of the patient. A required course for all first-year School of Medicine (SOM) students, “Culture Matters,” aims to put the patient back in the doctor’s sights.

Caroline Couture

Summer cram courses move to fall

Anything about President John F. Kennedy is sure to make a few people take note. A lecture on JFK’s sex life, then, is sure to turn heads. But a lecture on JFK’s sex life delivered in just 60 seconds? Seems like a challenge for the speaker, but Bruce Kuklick, the Jeanette P. and Roy. F. Nichols Professor of History, easily rose to that challenge and met it. As the first to speak in the resurrected 60-Second Lecture Series on Sept. 3, Kuklick had the formidable task of captivating an audience and making a point in about a minute.

The skinny on the French? They eat less

Why are the French thinner than Americans? In the land of six-cup-holder SUVs and super sized fries, the news from Psychology Professor Paul Rozin is that it’s the portion size, stupid. “We saw what every tourist knows,” said Rozin, “but we measured it. Not only are portions smaller in France, people spend more time eating.” His findings were published this month in Psychological Science, the journal of the American Psychological Society.

News briefs

Numbers look good In three Penn-sponsored West Philadelphia schools, students have improved math test scores more than counterparts in chartered or privately managed sites, according to a recent report by The Philadelphia Inquirer. According to a school district report, restructured schools, like Penn Alexander, reduced the number of students scoring below basic levels on the annual Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test by 15 percent in math and 11.3 percent in reading.

Eternal vigilance is the price of security

Just because those messages about a “movie,” “your application” or a “wicked screensaver” have stopped clogging your e-mail doesn’t mean that you can relax now. The W32.Sobig.F virus, which flooded e-mailboxes worldwide with bogus messages from late July until Sept. 10, may have shut itself down, but it is only a harbinger of things that may come.