Penn in the News

Marybeth Gasman of the Graduate School of Education joins a discussion about the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on students.

A college student says, posts, or does something racist. The university condemns the act, expresses outrage, and investigates. In some cases, the student is then suspended or expelled. The final leg of that process — the discipline — plays out in a much-less-public arena than the first two. And it’s often a more-complex endeavor than a casual higher-education observer might imagine. As campuses across the country respond to a spate of racist incidents, it’s worth looking at what disciplinary options a university has and what its ultimate goal should be.

It may be hard for today’s undergraduates at elite colleges and universities to imagine that many of their institutions -- as recently as the 1960s and 1970s -- would not admit female students. These days when coeducation is in the news, it is typically a women’s college deciding to admit men. But the reality is that coeducation at elite institutions that were once all male did not happen overnight -- and didn’t happen without considerable backlash from alumni and others.

Rebecca Bernstein and Lindsay Gallagher of the School of Veterinary Medicine are featured for appearing in Animal Planet’s new show “Life at Vet U.” David Levine, also of Penn Vet, is highlighted.

Pressure keeps rising on large college and university endowments, even as early returns show their investment performance falling. Last week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized universities, alleging they do not use enough of their tax-free endowments to assist students with tuition, and then dangling the idea of killing federal tax breaks for wealthy institutions that don’t lower costs sufficiently. Trump included the idea in a speech coming just nine days after the U.S.

Chinese students at top-ranking universities are less creative than those at less prestigious institutions, a new study has found, with the authors blaming China’s exam-dominated education culture and intense university workload. The research sheds further light on the long-running debate over whether Chinese graduates lack creativity and critical-thinking skills or if it is simply a comforting Western stereotype about a rising rival economic power.

Wayne Guay of the Wharton School comments on Wells Fargo’s decision to “claw back” compensation of executives for allegedly not doing their job well.

David Bell of the Wharton School is quoted about online shopping and consumers’ demand for free shipping.

Economists like Paul Krugman see it as a drag on the nation’s economy and a barrier to innovation. Barack Obama has gone further, declaring it the "defining issue of our time." Pope Francis frames it in moral terms, calling it "the root of social evil." They are all talking about inequality, a word that now peppers news stories and new books, and has come to describe a post-recession anxiety for policy makers, activists, philanthropists, and grant makers.

Jason Karlawish of the Perelman School of Medicine discusses being an arbiter in difficult talks between aging parents and their adult children care-givers.