Penn in the News

Jay Conover, a professor of mathematics and statistics at Texas Tech University, got quite a surprise when he learned three of his former students graduated from the business school's graduate program this year. He was surprised because he had given the students grades so low he thought they wouldn't be able to graduate. He wondered how they could have walked away with their M.B.A.s. The university answered the question Tuesday, releasing a faculty panel's report that found the dean of the business school arranged for the grades to be changed.

The passion that ousted the heads of the University of Missouri after protests over racial discrimination on campus is spreading to other colleges across the country, turning traditional fall semesters into a period of intense focus on racial misunderstanding and whether activism stifles free speech.

The term "first generation" tends to be thrown around a lot by educators and policy makers. But what does the term mean? Does a first-generation college student come from a home where neither parent earned a college degree? What if at least one parent graduated college? What if their parents attended college but didn't graduate? Does it matter if it's a biological parent that attended college or some other adult residing in their home?

Students are highlighted for participating in the Mr. and Ms. Penn bodybuilding competition.

College campuses across the country have plunged into an intense debate that pits free-speech advocates against those who want to rein in insults, slurs and other offensive expressions. Student uprisings at Yale, the University of Missouri and elsewhere show a passionate desire to confront racism and bigotry in all its forms, from the disgustingly overt — a fecal swastika smeared on a bathroom wall in Columbia, Mo.

Research by Katherine Milkman and alumnus Jihae Shin of the Wharton School about how backup plans may cause a person to be less motivated is cited.

It's early in the semester of your English literature course and one of your students has already missed four classes. The student seems fatigued and out of sorts, and writing assignments are dominated by themes of hopelessness and despair. The student may just be anxious about the start of classes or could be showing symptoms of more serious mental distress. But what to do? Increasingly, faculty are being urged to intervene at the earliest signs a student may be in trouble.

Racial tensions were merely the tip of the iceberg leading to the dramatic resignations Monday of University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, according to professors, students, state lawmakers and others. Both men made a series of enemies among faculty, graduate students and legislators, these people said. As students’ discontent over a series of recent racial incidents escalated, they found few ready supporters around campus, they added. State Rep. Steve Cookson, chairman of the Higher Education Committee, called for Mr.

It was around midnight on Friday, Oct. 30, when Steven Leath saw more than a half dozen students pile into a car outside a dormitory. The scene alarmed him. One student, clearly drunk, had climbed into the vehicle’s trunk, yet his friends piled into the car and began driving away. Leath, president of Iowa State University, was heading from one location full of partying college students to another.

Sigrid Veasey of the Perelman School of Medicine talks about evidence that supports the theory that Alzheimer’s disease can be worsened by sleep deprivation.