Penn in the News

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center is interviewed about President Obama’s recent graduation speeches.

Arlen Price of the Perelman School of Medicine is mentioned for studying sisters with large disparities in weight.

Colleges have been roiled in recent months by students demanding more diversity on campuses. Their concerns are far from new. Diversity has been a hot-button topic since federal desegregation efforts began more than 50 years ago. Yet efforts to increase the numbers of minority faculty, staff, and students on campuses, create inclusive communities, and infuse the curriculum with diverse perspectives have met with limited success. It’s not for lack of trying — on paper, at least. So how do colleges make sure they live up to their promises?

When the University of Connecticut wanted to help its black male students improve their graduation rate, officials decided to try something new. They created a living-learning community, set to open this fall, that is designed to help black men transition into college more successfully by grouping them among other students in the same boat and supporting them as they navigate academic and social hurdles. Any male student can apply for one of the roughly 50 spots in the community, which is part of a larger dorm.

Richard Berk of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on the increase in homicide rates in major U.S. cities.

Graduate student Steve Jasinski of the School of Arts & Sciences is mentioned for identifying a 12-million-year-old dog fossil.

Daniel Polsky of the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School is cited for studying the Affordable Care Act’s effects on patients’ access to care.

Any day now the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Fisher v. University of Texas. The case concerns a lawsuit filed by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who was denied admission to UT. Fisher argues that her race played a role in the admissions decision, and this, she claims, constituted a violation of her rights. The higher education community is waiting apprehensively for the Supreme Court’s verdict. Many worry that the decision could drastically limit the ability of colleges and universities to be racially diverse.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in 1958 in the aftermath of the Sputnik launch, part of a determined effort by the Pentagon to ensure that the United States and its military always have access to cutting-edge technology. The agency now has an annual budget of close to $3 billion, which over the years it has used to develop such major technologies as synthetic biology, carbon nanotubes, and the Internet itself.

When faculty members at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point took away students’ computers and tablets in an introductory economics courses, their students' grades jumped. The study of those faculty members' findings, published this month by the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests that male students and students with high grade point averages at the beginning of their college careers are most susceptible to their grades suffering from device-induced distraction.