News Archives

Home and work get a helping hand

Whether you want to improve the morale at work or lead a less hectic life, you can count on help from the folks at Human Resources. Take advantage of these upcoming Learning and Education classes and Quality of Worklife workshops to improve your career and personal well-being.

The future in concrete and glass

With the opening of Levine Hall, the School of Engineering and Applied Science took a big step into the high-tech future. The next step will begin in mid-June, when demolition begins on the Pender Laboratories connecting the Towne and Moore buildings. In its place will rise Skirkanich Hall, the new home for the Bioengineering Department.

Ask Benny: Plant fan wants the name of the rose

Dear Benny,I’d like to know what kind of roses are planted on the trellises at University Square. They have the loveliest flowers, and they appear to be quite durable—I can’t seem to get my own roses to climb that well.— Lover of Blooms

Appointments

Effective June 15, Les Hudson will be joining Penn as Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives. Hudson, who comes to Penn from Pharmacia Corporation, will guide the University’s technology-transfer and entrepreneurial initiatives as well as corporate relations; integrate Penn’s involvement in regional economic-development initiatives; develop a cohesive approach to commercialization; and oversee the Center for Technology Transfer and the new Office of Corporate and Industrial Relations.

Cashmore elected to NAS

For shedding new light on plant behavior, Professor of Biology Anthony R. Cashmore has been honored with election to the National Academy of Sciences. Cashmore, director of Penn’s Plant Science Institute, studies the mechanisms by which plants respond to light. His 1990s research that identified cryptochrome, a plant photoreceptor that detects blue and ultraviolet light, has since been extended by others to animals. Cashmore came to Penn from the Rockefeller University in 1986.

The inheritance

“Becoming a Catholic was the most Protestant thing I ever did.” So says the title character in Michael West’s one-man play “Foley,” the final production of the 2002-03 Penn Presents season.

At your service

A CURE for cities

The sins committed in the name of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s continue to haunt efforts to redevelop our great cities. Tearing things down was the easy part; deciding what to put in their place is the real challenge.

RESEARCH/From marsh to desert and back—if…

Where exactly was the biblical Garden of Eden? Some scholars think it was in the fertile wetlands where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet in southeastern Iraq. For thousands of years, the area was home to people known as the marsh Arabs, who made their living fishing, growing rice and tending water buffalo.

Living for the weekend

Like the enchanted village of Brigadoon, the tents and traditions of Alumni Weekend appear on campus for only a few brief hours then disappear into the mists to return the following year. This year that will be May 16-18. Alumni Weekend is an alternate University. Although the alums may be a bit grayer than the regular inhabitants of planet Penn, their activities are a mirror of actual campus life—going to lectures, asking questions, checking out the new Philly scene, meeting old friends and making new ones. The only thing missing is exams.