Penn in the News

Federal education officials have launched an investigation into how the University of Mary Washington handled threats made against feminist students on the messaging app Yik Yak. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is probing whether the university administration subjected students to a hostile environment by failing to properly respond to sexual harassment on social media, according to a letter provided Wednesday by an attorney for the students.

Dean Denis Kinane of the School of Dental Medicine comments on the effects of long-term use of teeth-whitening strips.

Emily Conant of the Perelman School of Medicine comments on three-dimensional mammography, or tomosynthesis.

My father spent his life openly searching for meaning. He served as deacon of our Presbyterian Church, followed an Indian guru through the ’80s and ’90s, and channeled with seers to get in touch with his past lives. The bookshelves of my childhood held the mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Edgar Cayce’s prophecies. It was not your average household. When Dad told me he wanted to give George Mason University $10 million to establish a center to spread the study and practice of “finding yourself,” it’s safe to say I was a little concerned.

Just eight days after a gunman massacred nine people at a community college in Oregon, two more students were killed in separate shootings on college campuses in Texas and Arizona. In many parts of the country, the shootings prompted a call to arm students and faculty. Only in America do we respond to shootings by claiming a need for more guns. Arming college campuses will do little to reduce mass attacks and will likely lead to more shooting deaths. There are already 300 million civilian firearms in the United States. That's more than one for every adult.

Rita Hodges of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships says, “When you look at big institutions…like colleges and universities – they have a lot neighborhoods that they can and should be partnering with.”

In January 2014, Donald L. White and a few of his faculty colleagues at Kent State University gathered for an event with the trappings of great import. Mr. White, a mathematics professor, had been summoned to Rockwell Hall for an emergency meeting of the Committee on Administrative Officers, a group empowered by university policy to interview all of the finalists for major administrative posts. But as the committee began its questioning of Beverly J. Warren, a candidate for the university’s presidency, Mr. White could not help noticing a frenzy of activity outside the door.

Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School talks about fundamental index ETFs.

Kartik Hosanagar of the Wharton School writes about issues in India’s food tech sector.

When Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed legislation this month banning concealed weapons on school campuses, the nation was in the midst of one of the worst spasms of gun violence at colleges in recent years. There were three such shootings, including one in Oregon that left 10 people dead, as the bill sat on Mr. Brown’s desk. But the new California law went against the grain of what lawmakers in many other states have sought to do.