News Archives

High School Students Say They Need More Current-Events Study

PHILADELPHIA – High school students engaged in a national civics project say that they don't have enough information on the impending war with Iraq to come to a consensus. As a result, students have called for more integration of current events into their studies.The lack of discussion about current events is just one of the concerns mentioned as part of a youth-engagement initiative overseen by the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania involving 13,000 students from 20 high schools in the Philadelphia area.

“Beyond the Century of the Child: Cultural History and Developmental Psychology”

In 1900, Ellen Key wrote the international bestseller “The Century of the Child.” In it, she proposed that the world’s children should be the central work of society during the 20th century. Although she never thought that her idea would become a reality, in fact it had much more resonance than she could have imagined.

Smooth-sailing careers with HR’s help...

The folks at Human Resources can shape you into the top-notch professional that you dream of being. Take advantage of these Learning and Education classes for your career. For course locations and more information, call 215-898-3400 or visit www.hr.upenn.edu/learning. Registration required for most programs. If Looks Could Kill

Jeffcoat a first for SDM

An award-winning dental researcher from the University of Alabama (UA) will become the first female dean of Penn’s School of Dental Medicine this summer. President Judith Rodin has announced that Marjorie K. Jeffcoat has been selected as the next dean of the Dental School, succeeding Raymond M. Fonseca. A graduate of MIT and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Jeffcoat is currently assistant dean of research and professor and chair of periodontics at UA’s School of Dentistry.

“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. We should not let people die with their rights on.”

—Dennis Culhane, professor of social welfare policy, on laws that let police and city officials forcibly take homeless people off the streets when temperatures drop below freezing (The Boston Globe, Jan. 23)

Pink-collar ghetto lives on

It’s been almost 40 years since the passage of equal rights and equal pay legislation, but women are still getting paid only three-fourths of what men get paid. This is just one of the many statistics featured in “A Change of Pace: Accelerating Women’s Progress,” a new report published by Penn’s Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender in collaboration with Womens Way and Solutions for Progress, Inc.

Campus Buzz

Notes on a new camp: There’s a new addition to the wide array of summer camps on campus this year. PennKids, a day camp from the Department of Recreation, offers education, games and fun, plus swimming every day, for first through sixth graders. Each of the six one-week sessions, from June 23 to Aug. 1, is organized around a theme, such as animals, world cultures, creativity, water and the Olympics. Hot lunches are included as well, and early and late extended hours are also available. Sound interesting? There’s an information session on the camp Feb.

Carol Bowers

Reporter driven up a wall

Who hasn’t dreamt of clinging to overhangs a la Peter Parker and his alter ego Spider-Man? Well, now at Penn, mere mortals can have such thrills. I recently got a chance to flex my superhero muscles at the climbing wall of Penn’s spanking-new Pottruck Fitness Center. So, okay, you may not reach skyline heights, but with a 38-foot wall and a climbing rope, you can come pretty close.

Staff Q&A: John Shea

When John Shea (Gr’84) came to Penn to pursue a doctorate in English, he fully intended to pursue a career in academe, researching and teaching English literature. He ended up with a career in academe, and one involving English literature to boot. But the literature in question has turned out to be magazine and newspaper articles for Penn publications—first for The Pennsylvania Gazette, then for this newspaper’s predecessor, The Compass, and now for Penn Medicine and other periodicals produced by the Health System’s Office of Public Affairs.