Penn in the News

Robert Vonderheide and Carl June of the Perelman School of Medicine are highlighted as directors of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

The distrust and even disdain with which many practicing Hindus view the scholars who study their religion would likely surprise many outside the confines of the field. A cultural and religious war is raging in which Western academics are the enemy. Disputes over alleged mischaracterizations of Hinduism and India by Western scholars are long simmering and boil over from time to time. This happened in 2005-6, when Hindu groups battled with scholars over proposed revisions to descriptions of the religion in California middle school textbooks.

A new study of admissions officers calls into question selective colleges’ claims that they have fully embraced holistic admissions as a means of promoting diverse enrollments. The study, based on an unusual experiment involving more than 300 admissions officers at selective colleges, found that a large share of the institutions gave holistic consideration only to midrange applicants. They used academic cutoffs based on grades, standardized-test scores, or the academic rigor of high-school courses to admit those at the top or reject those at the bottom.

Undergraduate Zoe Blickenderfer of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about physicians “prescribing” children fresh produce which is often supplied by local farmers.

Racist messages were written alongside campaign slogans for presidential candidate Donald Trump on sidewalks at the University of California at San Diego, as a wave of pro-Trump chalk messages has been spreading on campuses across the country.

The majority of the faculty of Oberlin College have signed a statement condemning anti-Semitic statements made by a colleague on social media, though a vocal minority have refused to lend their names. Meanwhile, it appears the college is formally looking into the conduct of Joy Karega, the assistant professor of rhetoric and composition in question. “Bigotry has no place on the Oberlin campus (or anywhere),” reads the statement, with 174 signatories across the arts and sciences.

Marybeth Gasman of the Graduate School of Education encourages students to examine a college’s success at graduating African Americans rather than just the overall graduation rate.

Yale University has made progress in minimizing its endowment portfolio’s exposure to less environmentally sound investments such as stocks of companies that contribute to climate change, a letter released on Tuesday showed. Yale generally does not manage its own investment directly but hires outside money managers to make decisions. Nearly two years ago, the Yale University Investment Office asked the firms that managed its endowment, then $20.8 billion, to assess their investments.

Harvard University police are investigating allegations that a recording device was illegally documenting students conversations at the university’s law school. The recorder was found last Tuesday taped under a table in the Caspersen Student Center Lounge, according to the Harvard Crimson.

Four members of the student activist group Divest Harvard were arrested Tuesday afternoon after they staged a sit-in at the Boston Federal Reserve. The group was protesting Harvard Management Company’s recent decision to invest in a private equity fund that supports struggling oil and gas companies. After learning of the investment in February, members of Divest Harvard sent an open letter to Stephen Blyth, Harvard Management Company CEO, and requested a meeting to discuss their concerns.