Penn in the News

Bill Andresen of the Office of Government and Community Affairs is quoted about the purpose and usefulness of grants for scientific research.

In an 1862 letter, Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University’s first president, described his idea of a great university: “It must have the best of Libraries -- collections in different departments -- Laboratory -- Observatory -- Botanical Garden perhaps …” The university's gardens were created over 70 years later, and they were called the Cornell Plantations. Today the Plantations contain a botanical garden, an arboretum, and a network of nature preserves. But the name, opponents argue, evokes the language of slavery.

A University of Alabama junior is asking that a building on campus be renamed to honor an alumna, the author Harper Lee, rather than a former senator who was a Confederate general and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Her petition, which had nearly 2,000 digital signatures within days of being posted online after Lee’s death, joins a growing number of calls at universities across the country to reconsider traditions, names and symbols of the past.

Sandra González-Bailón of the Annenberg School for Communication is profiled and explains the rise of slacktivism.

When the Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, suggested last month that students majoring in French literature should not receive state funding for their college education, he joined a growing number of elected officials who want to nudge students away from the humanities and toward more job-friendly subjects like electrical engineering.

Officials at California's four-year public universities are reaching out to an estimated 10,000 undergraduate students who might qualify for a special loan aimed at reducing their tuition — a program that further distinguishes the state as a national trendsetter in providing services to immigrants who are in the country illegally. The California DREAM low-interest loans are designated for such immigrants who are enrolled at University of California or California State University campuses. Gov.

When Rep. Jackie Speier first glimpsed a damning confidential report outlining a sexual-harassment investigation of Timothy F. Slater, conducted by the University of Arizona when he was an associate professor of astronomy there, the U.S. congresswoman was deeply disturbed. Ms. Speier, a Democrat from California, said the problem wasn’t just his inappropriate conduct — which, according to the report, involved a pattern of sexually charged jokes and open leering at female students, and at least one lunchtime trip with a graduate student to a strip club.

It may appear to outside observers that colleges and universities have made tremendous progress in regard to racial attitudes and practices over the past several decades. Certainly, their brochures and other public-relations materials would lead to this conclusion, as do the messages on their websites and social-media platforms. But the intensity and frequency of demonstrations conducted by students of color at campuses across the nation during the last few months do not reconcile with the sense of racial harmony that the institutions have attempted to convey.

Paola Esmieu of the Graduate School of Education, a Law School student, writes about Hispanic-serving institutions.

Laura Perna of the Graduate School of Education is quoted about the importance of high schools on students’ journey to college.