Penn in the News

Starting in the mid-20th century, academe became idolized, in good times, as embodying everything right about America, and demonized, in bad times, as embodying everything wrong. It’s neither, and both — a crazy, amorphous amalgam of interests and histories that couldn’t have been planned and won’t become extinct. It was ragtag and subpar until World War II, then enjoyed a 30-year golden age.

Steven Berkowitz of the Perelman School of Medicine offers his advice on how to discuss the violence in Paris with children.

Marybeth Gasman of the Graduate School of Education writes about the college experience for African-American students at HBCUs.

Are you part a MOOC at your school? Have you taught, developed, TA’d, facilitated, designed, filmed, edited, assessed or communicated about an open online course at your college or university? The most vocal opinions on MOOCs seem to belong to those who have never worked on a MOOC.  Let’s give the practitioners a chance to talk about their experiences. Here are 5 ways that I have observed how creating and teaching MOOCs can impact residential teaching and learning:

Arthur van Benthem of the Wharton School co-writes an article about the battle against deforestation.

With foreigners enrolling in U.S. schools at record numbers, students such as Noah Hernandez, a freshman at the University of California, San Diego, are getting a global view of the world without leaving their home state. The school has thousands of Chinese students, including Mr. Hernandez’s roommate, who pay three times the in-state tuition. “If I were running a school, it would make sense” to accept them, said the biology major, as a clutch of Mandarin-speaking students walked by.

Matt Blaze of the School of Engineering and Applied Science is quoted about encryption.

Coren Apicella and Sudeep Bhatia of the School of Arts & Sciences are quoted about humans sticking with their default bias.

Students are protesting at campuses across the country, more fervently than ever in the wake of demonstrations at the University of Missouri that forced the resignations of the university system president and the chancellor last week.

Marybeth Gasman of the Graduate School of Education is cited for highlighting racist incidents on college campuses in 2014.