News Archives

Blast from the past at record conference

“Don’t Hang Up” by the Orlons rattled the Gothic-style rafters of the Class of 1949 Auditorium in Houston Hall, but no one got up to dance. Two of the men who made Philadelphia one of the brightest lights in the popular music galaxy, Joe Tarsia, founder of Sigma Sound Studios, and Dave Appell, who worked as a composer, engineer and producer at Cameo-Parkway Records, nodded their heads in time to the driving beat. They were at Penn as featured speakers when the national conference of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections met here May 28 to June 1.

A big check is a minor headache

Illustration by Bo Brown Dear Benny,I recently received an e-mail and saw an item in the Almanac about cashing checks drawn on Penn’s account at Mellon Bank. What are we supposed to do with checks over $5,000? I need to cash an advance in excess of $5,000 annually and haven’t found an easy way to do it. Does the University have a system in place to help individuals like me? — Need Cash in a Hurry

BOOKQUICK/New from the University Press

At the heart of the tumult that marked the 1960s was the unprecedented scale of student protest on university campuses around the world. Identifying themselves as the New Left, as distinguished from the Old Left socialists who engineered the labor protests of the 1930s, these young idealists quickly became the voice and conscience of their generation.

Fine Arts faculty lend sculptor a hand

Former Penn student and world-renowned cartoonist Charles Addams (FA’34,Hon’80) would not have missed the reference. The new entryway into the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall—the Kelly Family Gates—bears a striking resemblance to one of Addams’ most memorable characters, Thing of the Addams Family.

Water served with every meal

STAFF Q&A/David Millar

STAFF Q&A/Penn network security guru Dave Millar fiddles around with friends and colleagues If it’s noon Thursday, it must be string-along time. That’s the time when Dave Millar and a bunch of his friends and colleagues on and off campus gather in Steinhardt Plaza behind Steinberg-Dietrich Hall for a folksy jam session.

Campus Buzz

Commencement roundup: The weather couldn’t have been better and the spirit was celebratory at Penn’s 247th Commencement May 19. The tenor of the times, however, was manifested in the more subdued form that celebration took.

Penn Researchers: Hikes in Unemployment, Rents -- Not Welfare Reform -- Push Families into Homeless Shelters

PHILADELPHIA -- Families are more likely to be driven into homeless shelters by increased unemployment and by hikes in rental-housing costs than by welfare reform or by the occurrence of substance abuse or disabilities in heads of households.

Maniaci Wins Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation

PHILADELPHIA  Vince Maniaci, who recently received a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, is the 2003 recipient of the John Grenzebach Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Philanthropy for Education.Maniaci's dissertation was titled "The Relationship of Annual Giving and Endowment Payout to Future Tuition Dependency at Private Master's Universities."

Penn's Library Receives Rare Work of Early English Fiction

PHILADELPHIA  The University of Pennsylvanias library has added to its collection of more than 5 million books a unique and rare copy of the Urania, a major work of early English fiction.  The Urania was written in 1621 by Lady Mary Wroth, one of the most prominent women writers from the time of Shakespeare.  Women writers of this era and their works were only rediscovered in the past 25 years.  Their works have changed perceptions about writers and readers of early English literature.