Penn in the News

The nation’s name-brand colleges have made virtually no progress in admitting more low-income students over the last decade, according to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which is calling for a “poverty preference” in college admissions. In 2013 Pell Grant recipients accounted for 17 percent of first-time, full-time students at the 193 institutions with the most competitive admissions, according to the foundation, which crunched federal data for a newly released report. That was up one percentage point from 16 percent in 2000.

Katherine Milkman of the Wharton School is cited for researching how “temporal landmarks” can spark goal-directed activities.

Graduate students Josh Bevan, Sonja Lengel and Joseph Mester of the School of Design submit a case study as a part of a course taught by Chao Guo of the School of Social Policy & Practice.

Philip Tetlock of the Wharton School and the School of Arts & Sciences is mentioned for his involvement in a project called Good Judgment.

When New York University’s teaching assistants gained the right to collective bargaining 16 years ago, they became the first graduate students at a private institution to do so. Soon, others followed suit. But the students unions were short-lived. Opposed to student labor organization, administrators from four schools including Brown appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Bush-appointed board members ultimately ruled in their favor – that students aren’t actually workers, thus revoking their collective bargaining rights.

Rahul Kapur of the Perelman School of Medicine comments on those that would benefit from motion-control shoes.

The Wharton School was cited in a Bloomberg study on pay gaps between business school graduates.

The pressure on colleges to step up prevention and handle sexual-assault cases more effectively has intensified since April 2011. That’s when the federal government signaled stricter enforcement of the gender-equity law Title IX, which compels colleges to resolve students’ reports of rape, whether or not the police are involved. Students began filing federal complaints against their institutions, alleging missteps at nearly every juncture. This project tracks federal investigations of colleges for possible violations of Title IX involving reported sexual violence.

Robert Kurzban of the School of Arts & Sciences joins a conversation about hypocrisy.

Rogers Smith of the School of Arts & Sciences is mentioned for advancing what he called the “multiple tradition thesis” of American political culture.