News Archives

Staff Q&A: Amy Calhoun

STAFF Q&A/Call it luck or call it craft, but Amy Calhoun has managed to float into her perfect job “I actually have often thought that my career was sort of as if there’s a river and I’m standing on the bank, and various rafts come by, and people are on the raft and they wave and say ‘Hi! Jump on!’ “And I do, and I don’t know where it’s taking me, and I get further downstream, and I get off and another raft appears.”

Roger LaMay

When Roger LaMay (G’99) created the “Ten O’Clock News” at Fox-owned WTXF (Channel 29), he was not afraid to break the rules. He hired anchors who hardly qualified as “pretty” by TV standards, his reporters had hard to pronounce names like Schratweiser and he reserved valuable time for coverage of arts and culture. Although he was a great success and was promoted from news director to general manager of Fox Philadelphia, somehow it seemed ordained that he would break out of the corporate mold.

Shops we'd like to see

The University City retail revolution begun with the University Square project is now largely complete, with just about all of the available retail space on campus filled or soon to fill with tenants. That doesn’t mean that we can’t improve on success, though. We at the Current are sure that even the people in Business Development who guided the revolution can think of a few more merchants they’d love to see on campus if they could. We asked some of our staff for their suggestions, and they run the gamut.

Permit-holder asks why car was towed

Illustration by Bo Brown Dear Benny,I have a permit to park in Garage 14 at 38th and Spruce streets. In the past, if you drove a car without your permit sticker into the garage, you received a warning. This time, my car was towed and I was charged $100. When I appealed the bill, they denied my refund. You cannot enter this garage without a key card, so why was my refund denied?— Stuck in Park

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

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.

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.

Caroline Couture