News Archives

Kofi Annan, Five Others to Receive Honorary Degrees During Penn's 249th Commencement May 16

WHAT:  University of Pennsylvania's 249th Commencement ceremony WHO: U.N. Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan will present the main commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.Other honorary degree recipients are Grammy-award winning musician and producer Quincy Jones, philosopher Saul A. Kripke, Comcast founder Ralph J. Roberts, journalist Judy Woodruff and Nancy Fugate Woods, dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing.WHERE: Franklin Field, 33rd and South streets

Penn Partnership Schools Present "Strings for Schools" Student Concert

Penn Partnership Schools Present "Strings for Schools" Student ConcertWHO:Strings for Schools and children from West Philadelphia Penn Partnership Elementary Schools  WHAT:Community concertWHEN:Thursday, May 19, 9:30 a.m.WHERE: Lea School auditorium, 47th and Locust streets

Clutch Hitters and Choke Hitters: Myth or Reality?

PHILADELPHIA Sports announcers already know it, and now Elan Fuld has proven it: clutch hitters really do exist.  The 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania junior studied the phenomenon of clutch hitting in baseball, and his calculations provided statistical evidence that players such as Eddie Murray, Frank Duffy and Luis Gomez were clutch hitters.A surprising finding in the study was that Bill Buckner, who has gone down in history as one of the game's worst "choke artists" for his Game 6 World Series error, was statistically proven to be a clutch hitter.

New Details of President Bush's Social Security Plan

Mark SternProfessor of Social Welfare and HistoryUniversity of Pennsylvania School of Social WorkPresident Bush's plan for revamping social security has gone from "bad to worse," Stern says."Social Security has been a spectacularly successful program because it got the balance right between Americans' belief, rooted in market principles, that benefits should be earned and that pooling risk is a prudent way of dealing with life's uncertainties.  

Two Penn Professors Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

PHILADELPHIA -- Two scientists at the University of Pennsylvania are among the 213 members of the 2005 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Gideon Dreyfuss, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Madeleine M. Jouille, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, were acknowledged by the Academy for their scientific leadership and contributions to society.   Fellows are nominated and elected to the Academy by current members.

The muse of desire

  Features Let’s be rational—or not The muse of desire

Ask Benny: Why should I care about the Penn Relays?

Dear Benny, I’m new to Penn and have heard the Penn Relays are just around the corner. The thing is, I don’t know much about the event. So tell me—what’s the big deal?—Don't Know Anything About Track Dear Potential Relay Fan, The Penn Relays are one of the biggest social events of the year in Philadelphia, and one of the signature meets in all of track and field.

Home court advantage

Q&A/College basketball has seen a lot of changes since Fran Dunphy took over as Penn’s men’s basketball coach in the late 1980s. One thing that hasn't changed? Dunphy is still among the nation's best. When his alma mater came calling last summer with the opportunity of a lifetime, Fran Dunphy had to listen. Because he’s one of the nation’s most successful coaches, Dunphy is often mentioned when top head coaching jobs come open. Last year, the job in question was the spot at LaSalle—the school Dunphy starred at in the late 1960s.

Birds do it, bees do it ... now robots?

Vijay Kumar, a professor of mechanical engineering, spends a lot of time thinking about squid. And harvester ants. And killer whales. The director of Penn Engineering’s GRASP (General Robots Automation Sensing Perception) Lab, Kumar believes nature may hold the answers to some of the most complex challenges in the world of robotics. Specifically, he’s interested in the way some animals exhibit collective behaviors—swarming, flocking and the like—to accomplish a task, and how studying those behaviors could inform the design of large networked groups of robots.

At Work With...Cynthia Arkin