Penn in the News

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says, “The media stream is normalizing name-calling.”

Deborah Small of the Wharton School is interviewed on the impact of celebrities on disease fundraising and research.

The arrival of annual reports on the job market in various humanities fields this year left many graduate students depressed about their prospects and professors worried about the futures of their disciplines. English and foreign language openings were down 3 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively. History jobs fell 8 percent. On Sunday, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences released several new collections of data that show that these declines, part of a continuing pattern, are far more dramatic when viewed over a longer time frame.

A recall effort against a California judge was announced on Monday in a sexual assault case at Stanford University that ignited public outrage after the defendant was sentenced to a mere six months in jail and his father complained that his son’s life had been ruined for “20 minutes of action” fueled by alcohol and promiscuity.

Robert Lull of the Annenberg Public Policy Center co-authors an article about narcissism research in relation to reality television.

At Ohio State University, a Chinese student took tests for Chinese classmates for cash last year, guaranteeing an A. At the University of California, Irvine, some international students used a lost-ID-card ruse to let impersonators take exams in place of others. At the University of Arizona, a professor told of Chinese students handing in multiple copies of the same incorrect test answers. A flood of foreign undergraduates on America’s campuses is improving the financial health of universities. It also sometimes clashes with a fundamental value of U.S.

Three years ago, William S. Klug helped a struggling doctoral student revise his dissertation, recover from a shaky oral exam, and successfully defend his Ph.D. The student thanked Mr. Klug for being his mentor and headed to Minnesota to begin a career in industry. Last week, after killing his estranged wife, the former student, Mainak Sarkar, climbed into his 2003 Nissan Sentra, drove nearly 2,000 miles back to the University of California at Los Angeles, and gunned down his mentor, according to the police. Then he turned the gun on himself.

A study by Mary-Hunter McDonnell of the Wharton School on disciplinary punishments imposed by the American Bar Association is referenced.

Angela Duckworth of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about recent college graduates taking their time to find their passions.

Driven by negative attitudes toward women and misperceptions about rape and consent, more than half of athletes surveyed for a new study say they have pressured women -- through physical and verbal threats -- into having sex with them. And it’s not just big-time basketball and football players who are guilty of sexual coercion, which is defined as “any unwanted oral, vaginal or anal penetration as a result of verbal or physical pressure, including rape.” The athletes included in the study were mostly those who play recreational, not intercollegiate, sports.