Penn in the News

Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School co-writes an article about a better way for Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte to apologize.

rank Furstenberg of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on teenagers transitioning from high school to college and moving away from home.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center compares the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Ryan Lochte.

So, with all the controversy swirling around students’ use of laptops in the classroom, have you decided to prohibit them or not? Advocates of allowing laptops took a took a punch in the gut with a recent study out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finding that students -- unable to resist the Sirens of the internet during class -- performed better when laptops were not permitted in the classroom. Of course, as with critical-thinking courses and outcomes assessment, everyone and their dean has a theory on the subject.

For months, officials at the University of Iowa have been saying that they would launch a Bias Assessment and Response Team this fall. Such teams exist at many other colleges and universities and typically use the acronym BART. Many advocates for minority students have pushed for the creation of BARTs, and the Black Student Union at Iowa reviewed and approved the idea of starting one. But on Thursday, the university's chief diversity officer, Georgina Dodge, announced a change of course. The university will not be unveiling a BART at the start of the academic year, she said.

Imagine living in a room smaller than a parking spot. Now imagine sharing that room with another person. For students in one residence hall at the College of Wooster, this scenario is a reality. They live in pods much smaller than typical dorm rooms, with singles measuring about 72 square feet and doubles measuring about 108 square feet. (The most common area of a parking spot in the United States is about 161.5 feet.) The trend runs in contrast to dormitory rooms that -- either by choice of the college or the students -- feature lavish amenities.

Mathias Basner of the Perelman School of Medicine says, “Attention, creativity and insight can all be impaired by not getting enough sleep, either acutely or chronically.”

Brian Daniels of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is quoted about people who risk their lives to protect their heritage.

Last week, a player for the University of Florida’s football team was cleared of responsibility for an alleged sexual assault against a female student. The woman he was accused of assaulting was not present; she boycotted the proceedings to protest the person the university chose to decide the case. The university appointed Jake Schickel, a former assistant state attorney, to decide whether the leading wide receiver should be punished for sexual misconduct.

The Scheie Eye Institute and Jean Bennett of the Perelman School of Medicine are mentioned for medical advances and treatment to end types of blindness.