Penn in the News

Salamishah Tillet of the School of Arts & Sciences pens an op-ed concentrated on the Black Panther Party and feminism.

Let’s talk about fairness, the word no one can quite pin down. It echoes in high-school hallways and campus quads, in editorial pages and judicial opinions — wherever people have something to say about college admissions. But what is fairness, really? Ask the applicant, for whom an admissions decision from a selective college arrives like the last judgment. An acceptance rewards years of studying deep into the night, excelling in extracurriculars, and shelling out for those SAT-prep courses. And rejection is condemnation.

The challenges facing college admissions leaders just keep growing. As has been the case in recent years, many colleges struggle to fill their classes, according to the 2015 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Admissions Directors.

George Hajishengallis of the School of Dental Medicine is featured for studying a protein that prevents periodontitis and could eventually help prevent bone loss.

For now, the largest public university in Georgia remains the predictable one: the University of Georgia. But a four-year school in Atlanta is close on the heels of the flagship in Athens and is gaining widespread attention for innovative efforts to keep disadvantaged students on track toward a degree. Georgia State University had nearly 33,000 students in fall 2014, 25,000 of them undergraduates. Its undergrad enrollment has grown 50 percent since 2000. U-Ga.’s enrollment was 35,000, including 27,000 undergrads.

Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business has won plaudits for its tech-focused offerings and been ranked the top school in the nation, if not the world. The two-year M.B.A. program admits just 6% of applicants, counts among its alumni General Motors Co. Chief Executive Mary Barra and maintains a powerful network in Silicon Valley.

Doctoral candidate Andrés Castro Samayoa and Marybeth Gasman of the Graduate School of Education share their views on the College Scorecard.

Adam Grant of the Wharton School pens an op-ed about men acknowledging inequality in the workplace.

Students, parents and educators increasingly obsessed with college rankings have a new tool: the Obama administration’s College Scorecard. The new database focuses on a college’s graduation rate, graduates’ median earnings 10 years after graduation and the percentage of students paying back their college loans.

Two reports issued Wednesday by organizations that advocate for Palestinian rights ring alarm bells about what they characterize as organized and widespread efforts to suppress debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on American campuses.