News Archives

Research: The play’s the thing on video, now

Try to write about the phenomenon that was Frank Sinatra without ever having seen him or heard him. Now apply the same issue to the musical theater of the past. That’s part of what David Fox has to do when researching old musicals. Fox, a lecturer in Theatre Arts, is probably most widely known on campus as associate director of College Houses and Academic Services. But musical theater is his first love. And a lot of the theater he talks about is theater he has neither seen nor heard.

Staff Q&A: Teresa Leo

Teresa Leo has enough material for 10 impressive resumes. There is no street on the Philadelphia literary map that she hasn’t covered, from columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer to editor of the Painted Bride Quarterly. And now, after 10 years as a technical writer for Penn’s Information Systems and Computing, she’s lending her creative energy to Penn’s literary arts hub, the Kelly Writers House, helping put together a jam-packed schedule of 150 programs per semester.

Just about all wrapped up

Clang, clang, clang...

…goes the Historic Holiday Trolley through the streets of University City. A vintage 1947 trolley is now running through Dec. 24 in a loop using 40th, Spruce, 42nd, Chester, 49th, Woodland, 42nd, Spruce, 38th and Filbert streets. Rides on the trolley, which operates from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, are free thanks to support from the University City District, SEPTA, Penn, the freshgrocer, Philadelphia on the West Side and the University of the Sciences.

Wrapped wishes

The season of giving is upon us, but here at the Current we can’t help but indulge in a little selfishness and ask, “What do we really want for the holidays?” To get some ideas, we scoured the campus and got responses that ranged from the wild and wacky to the more simple and mundane. So don’t be shy. Ask yourself what you want—you might just get it. Happy holidays! YOKO MAKISHIMA Professor of Japanese “Accessories— from Tiffany. I am a typical Japanese person.”

Awards & Honors: Double honor a first

- Larry Hunter, an assistant professor of management at Wharton, has snagged two awards from the Industrial Relations Research Association, and is the first to be honored with both. He received the Young Scholar Award for the best contribution to research that addresses an industrial relations/employment problem of national significance. And he was the unanimous selection for the Excellence in Education Award for outstanding teaching in the academic area of human resources.

Time to get back to the humanities

The Penn Humanities Forum, which is in its third year, is now taking a look at the concept of time, and tomorrow it will feature New York University Dean Mary Carruthers and medieval vocal ensemble Anonymous 4 in an event titled “Time, Space and Memory.”

Cheer, sigh, boo, hiss. It’s a pantomime.

Alas, Gary Smith’s children, now off to college, had never been to a British pantomime, panto for short. Smith, who is chief of the Section of Epidemiology and Public Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine, is from Birmingham, England, and had grown up on pantomime, a play based on a fairy or folk tale, usually performed at Christmas. “Every English child goes to pantomimes,” he said.

More information, more security

Literacy to grow at Tech.21

With technology looming large at work, it’s little wonder that Penn’s National Center for Adult Literacy is using a recently awarded $2.4 million federal grant to push the link between technology and literacy. NCAL Director Dan Wagner said the U.S. Department of Education grant will help fund Tech.21, a resource for those—educators and learners—looking for what to buy in adult education and literacy technologies.