4/16
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American power not permanent
Popular wisdom has it that “globalization” might just as well be “Americanization” — that the world is losing its cultural diversity to the sweep of the United States, and that no military political power can stop the deadening march of McDonald’s, Coke, and “Seinfeld” to the far reaches of the earth. Fareed Zakaria doesn’t agree.
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Survey kicks off honor code revival
First the good news: Cheating is a violation of their personal honor code, said 93 percent of Penn students who responded to a University Honor Council (UHC) survey on cheating. Next, the bad news: Nearly half of respondents didn’t think that copying homework was cheating. And even worse, nearly 40 percent believed fabricating lab data was OK. Hello-o. Fabricating lab data OK?
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Handle with care
The executive director of the Hillel Foundation at Penn was the latest victim of a recent rash of terroristic threats across the country, according to the University Police. All of the incidents reported so far have been similar to the one that threatened Rabbi Howard Alpert at Hillel April 25. In each case, someone received either a letter or package filled with a substance that the sender claimed was anthrax or an anonymous phone call from a person who claimed to have placed the potent toxin inside a building.
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“Whatever you do, you’re going to have to kill one of the holy cows of cosmology, throw away one thing that people believe a lot in.”
Max Tegmark, assistant professor of physics, on how new photographs taken by a balloon-borne telescope suggest the most popular version of the Big Bang theory may need some adjustments (The New York Times, April 27)
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“We’re not the resource for ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’”
We were intrigued by a factoid that crossed our desk a few months back: the State Data Center, the clearinghouse for statistical information about Pennsylvania, had cited the University of Pennsylvania Library’s reference desk as the most-frequently-consulted resource in the state for data on the state. We thought that was a big deal. Actually, it’s really trivial. It’s only a small part of the reference desk’s mission.
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Two Guggenheims, 11 Fulbrights
Among 182 scholars and artists designated to receive this year’s John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships are Penn faculty members Hai-Lung Dai, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman of Chemistry, who will study chemical reaction control, and Robert Blair St. George, Ph.D., Professor of Folklore and Folklife, who will study the spoken language and oral poetics in early New England.
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Up against the wall
Jane Golden started out as a graffiti-buster, turning Philadelphia “writers” into legitimate muralists and Philadelphia into the mural capital of America through the city’s Mural Arts Program. Native Philadelphian Stephen Powers managed to avoid her influence, and now “improves” metal security grates across New York with his bold tag “ESPO” (Exterior Surface Painting Outreach).
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Five first steps
The University committee charged with reviewing Penn’s research on human subjects has identified five things Penn can do right now to improve its methods, including requiring researchers to disclose conflicts of interest and hiring outside monitors for research projects whose funding does not provide for them.
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A challenge to old sex rules on campus
For the better part of a decade, a group of subversives within the University has been spreading its radical agenda to an unsuspecting audience. Along the way, it did raise a few minor ruckuses, but by and large it has been quietly successful, converting others here and at other campuses to the cause. The radical notion these subversives have been promoting is that sex should be a matter of mutual consent and respect. And on April 24, they and their supporters met in the Fox Student Art Gallery to celebrate the publication of their latest manifesto.
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Do these numbers add up?
Critics of affirmative action now tout plans that guarantee college admission to a percentage of a state’s high school graduates. Last month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report urging caution in using such plans. We spoke with Commission Chairperson Mary Frances Berry about why the commission decided to enter the fray. Here’s what she said: