Penn in the News

With the Wildcats' stellar season and buzzer-beating final shot for the national championship, Villanova University officials weren't sure whether they would see a flood of admitted students enroll by the May 1 deadline. In fact, with the team ranked No. 1 nationally for several weeks before admission decisions were to go out, the university decided to make a few hundred fewer offers this year than last year, just to be on the safe side.

A long list of Asian-American groups plans on Monday to call for federal investigations of Brown University, Dartmouth College, and Yale University for alleged discrimination in admissions. The Asian American Coalition for Education, consisting of more than 100 local, state, and national Asian-American organizations, intends to ask the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the three institutions.

It's a familiar question: Do the liberal arts need saving? The answer here Thursday at a conference on the topic — yes — was familiar, too. But keynote speakers at the opening of the conference at the University of Chicago focused less on the question itself than on from what and whom a broad education needs rescuing.

The Board of Curators of the University of Missouri System violated academic freedom in dismissing Melissa Click, a former assistant professor of communication studies at the Columbia campus, according to a new investigatory report by the American Association of University Professors. As a result, AAUP could vote to censure Mizzou’s administration at the association’s upcoming meeting.

Beth Linker of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about the effects of World War I on medical practice.

Adam Grant of the Wharton School shares his opinion about how procrastination can be a good thing for decision makers.

Claire Leinweber of the Wharton School comments on the resources business schools offer to MBA students.

A 2004 poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center about Native Americans’ opinions about the Washington Redskins’ name is mentioned.

As an undergraduate, Rose S. Perea never doubted her ability in physics. That changed in her master’s program. "The math just got super hard," she says. "I started questioning my performance compared to the other students and wondered whether I belonged in graduate school." Ms. Perea, who is Hispanic, had set her sights on a doctorate. She knew she had hurdles, like low GRE scores, and at New Mexico State University, she failed to pass a qualifying examination.

Douglas Wallace of the Perelman School of Medicine is quoted about a mitochondrial replacement technique.