News Archives

AWARDS & HONORS /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.

TSOP at VP-DLC

“The Sound of Philadelphia: Classical, Jazz and Pop on Records” is the theme of the 37th annual conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, which takes place in Houston Hall May 28-31. The opening reception will take place amidst an exhibition of 19th-century American sheet music in Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center’s Kamin Gallery. Panel discussion participants include Joe Tarsia, owner of the legendary Sigma Sound recording studio, and Cameo/Parkway Records producer-songwriter Dave Appell. Registration $150 for full conference, $60 for one day.

Dante Keyes

Mountains move professor and his students

As you read this, a group of Wharton MBA students are winding up the experience of a lifetime, and Professor of Management Michael Useem is completing one more lesson in leadership using an unorthodox case study. The experience and the case study are one and the same—the annual Wharton Leadership Ventures trek up Mt. Everest. Each spring for the past six years, Useem—an avid mountaineer—has led 15 to 20 MBA and Executive MBA students into the Himalayas to experience what he called “decision-making where it really makes a difference.”

Our short summer

Summer’s coming, so it’s time for the Current to break out the shorts. Our two summer issues will be four-page affairs, published on June 12 and July 17. Deadlines for submitting story ideas are May 7 and June 4; events calendar deadlines are June 4 and July 9. We will take August off completely and resume our regular publication schedule on Sept. 4. You can find our publication schedule online at www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2003/schedule.html. Have a great summer!

SARS: Scare worse than the disease

Images of Beijing residents shielded behind face masks have now become a familiar sight on the nightly news. This phenomenon, along with the beating suffered by Asian economies, took root as news of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) began to spread. But some Penn experts say the reaction to SARS, which they link to the media’s alarmist coverage of the disease, have been overblown.

Staff Q&A: Kerry Sherin Wright

If, a few decades hence, people elsewhere speak of Philadelphia as a great literary town, we can credit Kerry Sherin Wright (C’87), among others, for the transformation. The chemical engineering-turned-religious studies major was not one of those present at the creation of the Kelly Writers House. Nevertheless, she has left a deep imprint on the place that has become the epicenter of a burgeoning citywide creative-writing community in its eight years of existence.

BOOKQUICK/New from the University Press

“A Natural History of the Romance Novel”

Desmond Tutu, Wolf Blitzer, Ed Rendell Among Speakers at Penn Commencement Ceremonies

PHILADELPHIA  Anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu, CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer and notable Penn alumni, including Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, are among the dignitaries who will address graduates at the various University of Pennsylvania commencement ceremonies May 18-19.Desmond Tutu will deliver the address Monday, May 19, at Penns 247th commencement ceremony at Franklin Field, 33rd and Spruce streets. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m.

Penn GSE Partners With Wharton Business Plan Competition For Student Entrepreneurs

PHILADELPHIA  Education projects made a strong showing in this years Wharton Business Plan Competition, with two dozen education plans submitted in the Education Track, a special industry track, offered as part of the University of Pennsylvania/Goldman Sachs Foundation Entrepreneurship in Education Program.