Through
4/26
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
Penn In the News
Liberal education has many critics these day, so how can its purveyors and supporters better defend it? That was the subtext of several panels at a conference on whether liberal education needs saving Friday at the University of Chicago. For Julie Reuben, the Charles Warren Professor of Education at Harvard University, liberal education doesn’t need saving as much as it needs “reviving,” starting with a redefining of terms.
Penn In the News
Patrick McGovern of the Penn Museum says, “All indications are that ancient peoples, [including those at this Chinese dig site], applied the same principles and techniques as brewers do today.”
Penn In the News
Apollo Yong, one of many college-bound students nationwide who were left in wait-list limbo this spring, is headed to the University of Virginia. The 17-year-old from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., was featured last month in a Washington Post report on how numerous students are forced to cope with the stress of competing in overtime for college admission. Yong had been admitted to U-Va. in January but placed on wait lists in March by the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College.
Penn In the News
Katherine Milkman of the Wharton School is cited for co-authoring a study about setting reminders to help remember tasks.
Penn In the News
A rebellious slate of candidates who this year upset the normally placid balloting for the Board of Overseers at Harvard has failed to secure positions on the board, which helps set strategy for the university. Calling itself Free Harvard, Fair Harvard, the group ran on a proposal that Harvard should be free to all undergraduates because the university earns so much money from its $37.6 billion endowment. It tied the notion to another, equally provocative question: Does Harvard shortchange Asian-Americans in admissions?
Penn In the News
It’s a waiting game at Western Illinois University, and one with high stakes. As Illinois’ budget standoff moves into its 11th month, people at the state’s public colleges are wondering: When the state turns on the financial tap, what kind of money will come back? Who will still have a job? What programs will still be open? The impasse in Illinois is particularly drastic, but it is symptomatic of the instability of state support for higher education.
Penn In the News
In what appears to be a growing trend in colleges and schools across the nation, Yale has decided to introduce gender-neutral bathrooms. The school is promoting the policy changes on it website ahead of its 315th commencement. And in addition, Yale will also allow transgender graduates to use on the diploma their preferred name rather than the name on their birth certificate, according to the Associated Press.
Penn In the News
Carlo Siracusa of the School of Veterinary Medicine comments on cat health and safety.
Penn In the News
This week the Obama administration released a final rule that will extend overtime pay to millions more American workers, including hundreds of thousands of lower-level salaried employees on college campuses. Much of the attention has focused on the impact on postdoctoral fellows, the overworked, underpaid backbone of the academic research enterprise. But it’s not just postdocs who will benefit from the rule, which will double the annual salary cutoff below which workers are generally eligible for overtime pay, raising it to $47,476.
Penn In the News
Research at universities in the Middle East and North Africa is “very often underreported” because academics see their work as private, says a senior academic administrator at a Moroccan university. Gina Cinali, director of the office of institutional research and effectiveness at Al Akhawayn University, believes that scholars in the region -- which is sometimes abbreviated MENA -- often do not share their research because they feel that they “do not owe it to the institution.” “They have a feeling that ‘this is my research,’” she said.