Penn in the News

State budget crunches and political turmoil have set off rumblings about a mass faculty exodus from public colleges in some states. High-profile defections stoke the rumors. But have professors really fled in droves? It appears they haven’t. But the threat of departures has led to plenty of maneuvering behind the scenes, and to other consequences as well.

Philip Gehrman of the Perelman School of Medicine says, “People tend to feel better in summer months. There’s a slight elevation in our mood. More positive emotions are reported.”

One had just finished his first semester of college; the other was beginning his last. Both were accomplished athletes at prestigious universities who ended up making national headlines for the wrong reasons, when they were expelled for sexual assault. The cases of Brock Allen Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer, and Jack Montague, a former Yale University basketball player, have other common elements. Each student was catapulted into the national news largely because he was able to afford top lawyers who vigorously defended him. Mr.

Susan Wachter of the Wharton School comments on Chinese buyers who are attracted to purchasing residences in college towns.

Matthew Levendusky of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on partisan media and the coverage of Donald Trump during the current presidential election season.

Frank Matero and recent graduate Preston Hull of the School of Design are featured about a project to preserve Pennsylvania industrial history.

The federal government provides more than $150 billion in grants, loans and work-study funding for college students, yet the number of high school students filing out financial aid applications to access that money is waning. A trove of data released this week by the Department of Education shows fewer high school seniors are turning in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) than last year. As of June 3, submissions among high school seniors nationwide were down 4 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute continues to face criticism after lawyers representing the university alleged that a student who was sexually assaulted during a study abroad program in Puerto Rico is partly responsible for her rape. The argument was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the victim against the university. Experts on rape and advocates for those who have been attacked say that it is unethical and shameful to focus on the decisions of rape victims rather on the actions of rapists.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mindy Weston scrawled a message on a whiteboard in a library here at Brigham Young University: "Sex without marriage = bad." That’s the entirety of what young Mormons are taught about sex, she said. At 18, that was all she knew. Then, just weeks before she was supposed to start her first semester as a BYU undergraduate, she was drugged and raped. "I didn’t tell anybody for years," said Ms. Weston, who is now a 41-year-old graduate student in mass communications at the university. "I knew that I would be judged. I knew that I would be blamed.

University of Louisville President James Ramsey will step down and the school’s governing board will be reorganized under a leadership shake-up that Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) announced Friday. Ramsey, the university’s 17th president, took office in 2002. Bevin said at a news conference in Frankfort that he is appointing an interim board of trustees to oversee a public university that has weathered a period of extended turmoil, with controversies involving sports, financial issues, the board and the president. The date of Ramsey’s exit and the terms remain to be determined.