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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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Around Africa in an afternoon
The folkways, fables, fabrics and food of Africa are the focus of the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s 13th annual Celebration of African Cultures on Saturday, Feb. 16.
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“The Last Landscape”
“For years we wasted land with impunity,” William H. Whyte writes in this classic work now returned to print. “Now we no longer can.” Called “the best study available on the problems of open space” by The New York Times when it first appeared in 1968, “The Last Landscape” introduced many cornerstone ideas for land conservation, urging all of us to make better use of the land that has survived amid suburban sprawl.
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Ambrose case keeps spotlight on Childers
When the news of historian Stephen Ambrose’s plagiarizing of History Professor Thomas Childers’ “Wings of Morning” broke on Jan. 4, Childers figured the brouhaha would die down in about a week. When we spoke with Childers in his College Hall office Jan. 25, he was still fielding calls from reporters and wading through oceans of e-mail.
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American Youth: Religion an Important part of their Lives
PHILADELPHIA An overwhelming majority of American youth believe religion is an important part of life.Eighty-six percent of Americans aged 11 to 18 believe that religion is an important part of their lives, according to a national survey of 2,004 randomly selected households done in 2000 by the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work. Researchers Ram Cnaan and Richard Gelles say that new-millennium American youth are very much like previous generations, despite some people views that today youth are less religious than previous generations.
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Religions' wings clipped by polygamy
Mark Twain made the trip. So did P. T. Barnum. They, along with a slew of 19th century European travelers, could not resist the draw of Salt Lake City, Utah. The attraction? The Mormons and their many wives. But as Penn Professor of Law Sarah Gordon shows in her book, “The Mormon Question” (North Carolina, 2002), the Mormons’ practice of polygamy did more than just spark curiosity, jokes and gossip; it left a legacy in constitutional law and political theory that still governs religious life in America.
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How to accumulate and use paid time off
Dear Benny, I’ve been at Penn for six years, and I still don’t know how my vacation time accumulates, or when I can use it. —Needs a Break Dear Needy, According to the Human Resources Policy Manual, if you have been employed at Penn in a year-round full-time position for at least five years, you receive two days paid time off each month. Part-time employees accumulate days off based on a percentage of the full-time rate.
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Penn Team Awarded $1.12 Million for Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide with Computing Infrastructure in Ghana
PHILADELPHIA Engineering students and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and an African university have received a grant of Hewlett-Packard equipment and services totaling $1.12 million to lay the foundation for a high-speed information and communication infrastructure in Ghana.
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Slang: It may not be the King's English, but it sure Helps to Know It
PHILADELPHIA Learning and speaking English is one thing, but learning and speaking English slang can be quite another. Ask any foreigner who has come to study at an American university.That was why Bill Kelly organized his informal, non-credit "Slanguage" classes through the Christian Association at the University of Pennsylvania.Kelly, a retired economist, started teaching the class in 1997 after teaching English to Russian immigrants at a church in the Philadelphia suburb of Collingswood, N.J.
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Penn's Afro-American Studies Program Names Film Maker Louis Massiah Artist-in-Residence
PHILADELPHIA-- Independent documentary film maker Louis Massiah will visit the University of Pennsylvania Feb. 6-7 as artist-in-residence in the Afro-American Studies Program. "Louis Massiah has distinguished himself as a producer of films that document major issues and concerns facing urban communities," said Tukufu Zuberi, director of the Afro-American Studies Program. Massiah's award-winning documentaries have been seen widely on public television and at international film festivals. He is the founder and executive director of Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia.