Penn in the News

Tucked away in a discreet office at Brooklyn College’s Student Center, beyond the pool tables and wide-screen TVs where her classmates congregate, Rebecca Harmata discovered a lifeline. A psychology major who works in a doctor’s office to pay for her education, Ms. Harmata describes a break-even, paycheck-to-paycheck existence, with little left over for luxuries — or even for food.

With June marking LGBT Pride Month, one university is paying particular attention to the T in LGBT. The University of Arizona is planning to host an international transgender studies conference this fall and launch a transgender studies master’s program as early as fall 2017. The university’s efforts -- many of which fall under its Transgender Studies Initiative -- come as transgender people have become more visible in society and transgender issues have attracted more national attention.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center joins a discussion about campaign advertising.

They were born in another country but raised in this one, and that has made them culturally, linguistically – but not legally – American. When President Obama used executive action to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program four years ago, this was the group he was seeking to protect. They were, for the most part, children whose parents came to this country illegally, and either brought them along or sent for them later.

John Quigley, former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection secretary, is highlighted as a new Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy in the School of Design.

John Landis of the School of Design writes about development in Sydney to make it a more attractive city in which to live.

Debra Schilling Wolfe of the School of Social Policy & Practice writes about the usefulness of child-abuse reports.

A new study shows that the fees public colleges and universities charge students to use campus facilities and cover operation costs have actually risen faster than tuition. Using Department of Education data, Seton Hall University professor Robert Kelchen found that inflation-adjusted fees grew faster than tuition at state schools between the 1999-2000 and 2012-2013 academic years. During that time, fees at community colleges soared 104 percent, while tuition climbed by 50 percent.

Although the outcry over sexual assault on college campuses has intensified recently, the issue has a long history. February 1957: One of the first published studies about campus sexual assault, “Male Sex Aggression on a University Campus” appears in the American Sociological Review (Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 52-58). 1975: The term “date rape” is coined by Susan Brownmiller in reference to a dating situation in which “an aggressor may press his advantage to the point where pleasantness quickly turns to unpleasantness and more than the woman bargained for.” (Women’s Studies Encyclopedia, Vol.

A superior court judge will decide in August whether the University of California, San Diego, can schedule a new disciplinary hearing for a student accused of cheating five years ago. Last year, a state appeals court ruled that UCSD officials violated the student's right to due process when they concealed the identity of a critical witness in the case. That witness is the person the student allegedly copied from during a midterm exam. The accused student and the appellate court argue that if the student knew who the other exam taker was, he could prove he did not cheat.