Penn in the News

The fight to save a federal loan program for the neediest college students failed Wednesday as the Senate blocked legislation to extend the Federal Perkins Loan Program. A bipartisan coalition in Congress had rallied around the program, with the House unanimously voting in favor of a reauthorization bill introduced by Reps. Mike Bishop (R-Mich.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) earlier this week. But all it took was one dissenting voice to effectively end the campaign. Sen.

Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School talks about his book Will College Pay Off? A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You’ll Ever Make.

It’s a familiar scenario at many colleges: a professor sends a student an email containing important information about a course, but the message gets lost in an inbox flooded with news about blood drives, intramural softball and spam. Many faculty members, administrators and staffers are searching for ways to improve how they communicate electronically with students. Some academics argue colleges should be active on whatever platform students regularly use, whether it be email, Facebook or text messaging.

There has been a plethora of recent articles on the prevalence of sexual assaults on America’s college campuses, and questions about whether recent studies provide accurate measures of the quantum of sexual assaults.  Whatever the number and whether it is higher or lower than in past decades, unwanted non-consensual sexual contact is surely an issue that must be addressed – whether it involves 2 percent or 25 percent of all students.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently finalized a rule forcing businesses to share data with workers that expose how much more their chief executives make than they do.

The 1,300 adjuncts at Temple University came one step closer to becoming part of the faculty union this week. The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board approved a request to allow an election, and if a simple majority of adjuncts who vote say yes, the adjuncts will become part of the Temple Association of University Professionals. If approved, the move would nearly double the size of the faculty union, which currently has about 1,400 members. Art Hochner, president of the union, said he expected the election to take place by December.

Olivia Mitchell of the Wharton School contributes her views on Chile’s retirement system.

Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School is highlighted for co-authoring a new book, Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both.

Joseph Turow of the Annenberg School for Communication comments on what consumers think about data privacy.

Twenty-two percent of undergraduate women at Princeton University surveyed last spring said they were victims of sexual contact without their consent in incidents ranging from touching to penetration, the Ivy League school reported Tuesday. The share of undergraduate women who said they suffered non-consensual penetration — “commonly called rape,” Princeton noted — was 8 percent. In general, those findings echo others reported last week in a separate survey on sexual assault and misconduct at 27 research universities.