5/18
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Environmentalist gets military recognition
Christian J. Lambertsen has been awarded the U.S. Special Operations Command Medal, the organization’s most prestigious civilian honor. As professor of environmental medicine and founder of the Institute for Environmental Medicine, Lambertsen invented the first self-contained underwater circuit-breathing apparatus and was the first U.S. self-contained diver. The naval special warfare community calls him “Father of U.S. Combat Swimming.”
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People's Choice: Hearts and flowers at the library
Valentine’s Day is one week away, so naturally, our thoughts turned to love. Love and books (we’re eager readers around here). So we went wandering through Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, asking any staffers we found how they plan to show their love on Valentine’s Day. Not surprisingly, we got lots of flowers, dinners and candy in response. But there were a few people who had more adventurous ideas. Dan Applegate Evening Circulation Desk“Flowers and chocolate. If anyone will take it.”
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At Work With...PennCard center staff
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Pulitzer Prize winners to visit Penn
Three Pulitzer Prize-winning writers will be at Kelly Writers House this spring as part of its annual Fellows Program. This year’s Writers House Fellows are fiction writer Michael Cunningham, poet John Ashbery and playwright Charles Fuller. Cunningham, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel “The Hours,” will be on campus Feb. 11 to 12 (see “What’s On”). “The Hours” imagines Virginia Woolf’s last days before her suicide and a group of contemporary characters grappling with love and despair.
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The master performer as a 19-year-old grad student
Mimi Stillman is all of 19 years old—the same age a Penn sophomore would be. But she’s pursuing an M.A. in history. And while she pursues her degree, she is continuing with her impressive career as a concert flutist.
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Chief nursing officer named
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has appointed Victoria L. Rich chief nursing officer. Rich comes from University Community Hospital in Tampa, Fla., where she oversaw the pharmacy, laboratory, neurodiagnostics, emergency services and nursing unit. As a noted expert on patient safety, Rich will help HUP develop procedures to further clinical accuracy, professional responsiveness and compassion in all aspects of hospital service.
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How to improve on excellence
A better way to recruit and retain faculty and a greater focus on graduate education—which could take the form of more stipends and benefits for graduate students—are among the academic priorities proposed for the University’s next five-year plan and unveiled by Provost Robert Barchi and Executive Vice President John Fry at a recent open forum, held at College Hall on Jan. 28. The plan, a new set of institutional, organizational and academic priorities, follows the “Agenda for Excellence,” the successful previous five-year plan.
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Something old, something new
With the Bush administration trying to take a bite out of the budget of the Smithsonian Institution, University of Pennsylvania Museum Director Jeremy A. Sabloff suddenly found himself in the media in December, trying to protect the Smithsonian’s scientific research programs. The media fuss has quieted down, but Sabloff was circumspect about the final outcome.
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News briefs
Laptop loaners Books aren't the only things on loan at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library. Penn library patrons can now check out laptop computers for three hours, the length of time of a battery charge. Each of the 20 laptops, available at the Goldstein Undergraduate Study Center on the ground floor, is equipped with software such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Internet Explorer. And to make electronic transfers easy, the library has added data transfer stations, allowing borrowers to send their documents to their e-mail accounts or transfer them to Zip or floppy drives.
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Campus Buzz
Cancer-killer smile: Katie Harmon, Miss America 2002, brought her campaign against breast cancer to the Penn campus Jan. 18. In a morning news conference, Harmon acknowledged that being Miss America helped get her message across—“This is my megaphone,” she said of her tiara as she showed it to the assembled reporters and doctors.