Penn in the News

George Washington University has for years pushed back against the notion that it is a pricey school for rich kids. The school grew its financial aid and ditched a requirement for applicants to submit admission test scores — measures intended to underscore a desire to recruit students from all levels of family income.

Global higher education access targets are likely to be missed, according to a study that found that women are at the back of the queue when university enrollment widens in the developing world. An analysis of higher education participation rates in 35 countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa by University of Cambridge researchers detected “extremely low” rates for people under 25 in almost all of them: below 10 percent in 31 of the countries, and below 5 percent in 20.

Catherine McDonald of the School of Nursing comments on teen drivers playing Pokemon Go.

First-time graduate student enrollments were up 3.9 percent last fall from a year earlier, according to a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools. Each of the last four annual surveys has found that enrollment has increased, but 2015’s bump was one of the biggest since 2009. Contributing to that growth was an increase in the share of underrepresented minority student enrollees, which could be a response to national conversations and institutional initiatives on faculty diversity. At the very least, it’s a possible start to broadening the eventual faculty applicant pool.

You can always chide higher education by referring to innovation in the sector. Or, rather, the supposed lack of it. The criticism should be familiar: Paradoxically, in an industry full of thoughtful people, the imaginative ideas are strangled by dull leadership and organizational bureaucracy. That swipe is at the top of an article on higher education’s "16 most innovative people" in the current issue of Washington Monthly.

The former dean of UC Berkeley’s law school filed a lawsuit Thursday, accusing school officials of singling him out because of his race for a second investigation of sexual harassment allegations.

When asked by a reporter about how he would handle one of his players protesting racial inequality by not standing during the national anthem, Clemson University's head football coach, Dabo Swinney, said he would not resort to discipline. Then Swinney continued to speak for eight minutes, criticizing athletes who have not stood for the anthem in recent weeks and comparing their form of protest unfavorably to the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Of those protesting police violence, he said, “Some of these people need to move to another country.”

Lynn Schuchter of the Perelman School of Medicine is quoted about the legacy and foundation of her patient Tara Miller.

Eric Schneider of the School of Arts & Sciences is quoted about the history of many black Americans distrust of law enforcement and being excluded from the formal labor market.

M. Kit Delgado of the Perelman School of Medicine comments on his study on treatment of violent injury victims in the emergency room.