Penn in the News

A strike threat hovers over labor talks at New York University this week, more than a year after the school, in a watershed decision, recognized its graduate-student employees as part of a union. Graduate students say the school’s commitment to collective bargaining is ringing hollow, as negotiations that began in 2014 still haven’t led to a contract. To some of them, they are unionized in name only.

During a brief recess in an honors course at Eastern Michigan University last fall, a teaching assistant approached the class’s three female professors. “I think you need to see this,” she said, tapping the icon of a furry yak on her iPhone. The app opened, and the assistant began scrolling through the feed.

Throwing another wrench into the belief that higher education is the great equalizer, a new paper suggests that African-American graduates from elite institutions do only as well in getting jobs as white candidates from less-selective institutions.

Unveiled in 2009, Drexel's Sacramento, Calif., campus was supposed to be the first of five new locations in growing U.S. cities that would help the university expand its reach. And it was supposed to be the first step in a larger plan to open a 5,000-student undergraduate campus on a large swath of land in nearby Placer County. That's what the late Drexel president Constantine "Taki" Papadakis envisioned.

Sweet Briar College’s sudden decision to close may cause other struggling private colleges to do the same by creating a new paradigm for when a college should call it quits. That’s the fear of Richard Ekman, the head of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents many small private colleges across the country. He worries Sweet Briar's decision will influence other trustees. "My hope is that it will not,” Ekman said.

Tensions between University of Idaho administrators, a fraternity and the chapter’s alumni have ended with the university’s dean of students suddenly announcing his resignation after less than three months on the job. Just prior to the announcement, sanctions brought against the fraternity over hazing allegations were dropped.

Sweet Briar College’s closure seems all the more stunning given how much money it has socked away: more than $80 million in its endowment. The women’s college in rural Virginia announced this week it would close at the end of the spring semester.

Adam Grant of the Wharton School co-authors an article on how workplace equality is beneficial for men.

Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem of the Wharton School write about coping with large-scale disasters.

When the president of Sweet Briar College announced that the school would close forever this summer, many women burst into tears. But then a common refrain began to echo through the small Virginia school’s close-knit alumnae: Not if I can help it. A Web site appeared, complete with slogans (“Think is for girls” and “Save Sweet Briar”) shared happy memories of life on the pristine Southern campus, and one very ambitious goal.