Penn in the News

Neil O. Fishman of the Perelman School of Medicine is quoted on infectious disease brought by insects.

Victor Pickard of the Annenberg School for Communication writes about the news media coverage of presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Just one week before North Carolina passed a bill restricting transgender access to bathrooms at public colleges in the state, a college president in New York City announced his institution would be moving in exactly the opposite direction. Bill Mea, acting president of the Cooper Union, informed his campus via email that soon all the college's bathrooms will be gender neutral.

Within two minutes of Villanova's men's basketball victory over Kansas on Saturday night, the Rev. Peter M. Donohue received 280 text messages from alumni and other excited fans, looking forward to the Final Four. "Houston, here we come." "God bless you and the entire Nova community." "How can I get tickets?" The Villanova University president couldn't answer right away. He was busy hugging team cocaptain Ryan Arcidiacono, a moment captured on national television.

In fairness to the Modern Language Association and other makers of popular academic style guides, citing sources -- if always tedious -- was once relatively straightforward: journal articles like this, books like that. But the proliferation of media sources -- especially electronic ones -- in recent years has made writing citations confusing at best (and purgatorial at worst).

Eric Furda of Admissions is quoted on the early decision process.

William Puka spoke into a megaphone, surrounded by hundreds of cheering students holding picket signs. “I just wanted to say,” he told the crowd, “that the class is going very well so far.” It wasn’t technically a class, but at the same time, it had to be. Without the protections Puka had created by calling the gathering a class, hundreds of students could face the consequences of protesting without permission.

Victor Pickard of the Annenberg School for Communication writes what about happens when commercialism overpowers democracy.

Right about now, anxious high school seniors are learning which colleges will admit them. There’s bound to be excitement, and probably some tears. But once the euphoria wears off, there are questions every student should ask a prospective school before making a commitment.

When black student activists at Princeton University began protesting last fall against what they saw as a poor racial climate on the campus, Joshua Freeman just didn’t get it. Mr. Freeman, a sophomore, is black and describes himself as a liberal — a background shared by many, if not most, of the recent protesters here. He’s an engineering major, and he can count on one or two hands the number of African-American and Hispanic students in the program, which enrolls about 60 students. He’s never had a black or Hispanic professor.