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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

Let’s be rational—or not

TALK/Renowned economist talks about “rational choice” and some of its alternatives. Where philosophy, politics and economics collide is where Thomas Schelling is most at home. Best known for his 1960 landmark book on game theory, “Strategy of Conflict”—which was named one of the 100 books that have most influenced the West since 1945—Schelling has spent time at the White House, the Rand Corporation and Yale. For 30 years, he taught economics at Harvard, and on April 14 he spoke at Logan Hall for the annual Goldstone Forum lecture.

Out of the classroom, into the art gallery

When the new exhibit “Framing Exposure: Process and Politics” opens April 29 at ICA, 10 undergraduates will breathe a sigh of relief. For these Penn students the exhibit represents the culmination of a yearlong seminar on contemporary art and the art of curating. It also stands as living testament to their ability to negotiate loan agreements, handle insurance forms, deal with the headaches of moving art from A to B, and, in short, think like curators.

Out and About: Birds-eye Penn

There are many ways to get a good look at Penn. You can hoof it around campus, walking down narrow walkways and making your way through the hidden recesses of the 269-acre campus. You can bike, too, for a similar view at a faster speed. But pretend for a moment that you could soar above the campus. What exactly would you see from a bird’s point-of-view?

Penn offers acupuncture for pets

As Corrina Snook Parsons appeared before leaders at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine to pitch the idea of starting an acupuncture program for animals, she says she expected skepticism. To her pleasant surprise, she got support. “Actually the response was quite favorable,” says Parsons, V’99. “I was very excited about that. & But the way we pitched it was, “Look, we’re not practicing voodoo here.”

News briefs

Speaking the language Wharton’s biweekly online magazine, Knowledge@Wharton, has just expanded its global reach. The magazine, which features articles on research and books from business school faculty, as well as interviews with professors on current business topics, is now publishing a Chinese language edition, China Knowledge@Wharton. The site is published from Shanghai and is intended to reach the burgeoning Chinese market. Easy riders