News Archives

Snapshot: Talk, music and lots of camaraderie

George Crumb, 72, and George Rochberg, 82, longtime friends, retired Penn professors and noted classical composers, reunited to hear their music played and to talk about the musical world they greatly influenced in a Nov. 10 event sponsored by the Society for Music Theory and Penn’s Department of Music. As I entered Irvine Auditorium for the event, a hushed audience waited with anticipation to hear music by “the Georges.”

Editor's Pick: Yule cheer for Philadanco!

The Lord & Taylor light show. “Black Nativity.” The tree in Rittenhouse Square. Add “Xmas Philes” to this list of Philadelphia holiday traditions. The Philadelphia Dance Company’s exuberant tribute to the Christmas season, commissioned by Dance Celebration in 2000, returns to the Annenberg Center stage Dec. 6-9. Featuring a jazzy rendition of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” and a childlike version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” choreographer Daniel Ezralow’s “Xmas Philes” was praised as “infectious fun” by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Books and Readers in Early Modern England”

“Books and Readers in Early Modern England” examines readers, reading and publication practices from the Renaissance to the Restoration. The essays draw on an array of documentary evidence to explore individual reading habits in a period of religious dissent, political instability and cultural transformation. This new book is the third in the Material Texts Series, edited by Penn Professor of English Peter Stallybrass et al.

Kill-a-watt

Penn’s hard look at its energy use, which began last summer, is now reaping praise from external agencies. Associate Vice President of Facilities Operations Barry Hilts said the school has garnered recognition for its approach to energy conservation from governmental offices like Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Research: Little labs for quick reactions

What if you could carry a complex scientific experiment right in the palm of your hands? A recent $1.26 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration to Penn researchers can help make such portable laboratories a reality. Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Haim H. Bau is leading Penn’s investigation of microfluidic systems.

“I think they realize more than the adults that this is a clash of cultures, something we haven’t seen in a thousand years.”

—President Judith Rodin, on the younger generation’s response to the war on terrorism (Newsweek, Nov. 12)

Penn women throw some party

U.S., Canadian And Mexican Representatives Meet To Combat Sexual Exploitation Of Children

PHILADELPHIA -- Representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico will meet Dec. 2-3 to develop a plan to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children, including the problems of child prostitution, pornography and sexual trafficking.The North American Regional Consultation on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children will include 100 governmental and non-governmental representatives from law-enforcement, human-services and child-advocacy groups in the three nations. The conference is being held at the University of Pennsylvania.

Penn Names Deputy Director For Fels Center Of Government

PHILADELPHIA -- Christopher Patusky has been named deputy director of the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Center of Government and its master degree program. Patusky, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm Mahon Patusky, Rothblatt & Fisher, will serve as the chief operating officer of Penn postgraduate education program for government leaders.

Drowsy Fruit Flies Illuminate First Molecular Pathway, In Any Species, Known To Regular Rest And Wakefulness

PHILADELPHIA - Working with sleep-deprived fruit flies, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered the first molecular pathway, in any species, implicated in the shift between rest and wakefulness.