Elaine Wilner

When Roger LaMay (G’99) created the “Ten O’Clock News” at Fox-owned WTXF (Channel 29), he was not afraid to break the rules. He hired anchors who hardly qualified as “pretty” by TV standards, his reporters had hard to pronounce names like Schratweiser and he reserved valuable time for coverage of arts and culture.

Sociologists call it “commodification.” But the musicians David Grazian met in the tourist-oriented blues clubs in Chicago just call it “the set list from hell.”

Wharton West, the Wharton School’s new Left Coast facility in San Francisco, graduated its first class of MBA for Executives students on August 24, 2003. The 59 graduates began their MBA studies in August, 2001, when the Wharton School opened its new facility in the historic Folger Building, near the city’s business and financial district.

Did you see the July 4 cover of Time with Ben Franklin looking like an aging rock star? Or the recent two-part PBS documentary? Did you know that in Barnes and Noble and Borders bookstores across the country, books on Ben are getting the prominent entryway display?

Undergraduates at Penn do it. Of course, the educators and social workers do it. Even the doctors, lawyers and vets with pets do it. Community service participation is the common thread that runs through all 12 schools of the University of Pennsylvania. Here are some snapshots of what some of the schools are doing and information on how to learn more about their projects.

Ira Harkavy began by acting locally, but now he’s thinking globally. Penn’s director of the Center for Community Partnerships (CCP) has embarked on a hugely ambitious project that aims to do nothing less than give universities primary responsibility for civic education. Not coincidently, it spreads the Penn gospel of community engagement and community service to a worldwide audience.

Move over, Tracy Samantha Lord. Meet the leading lady of a real “Philadelphia Story.” Her name is Joanne Natale Spigonardo (CGS’81). This is a tale that is short on Main Line mannerisms, long on hard-working immigrant ethos, and made possible by a network of Ivy League connections that intersect on Locust Walk.

STAFF Q&A/Tracy Byford has worked for more than two decades to keep Penn’s botanical garden a place all can enjoy “It is just such a surprise to see this on an urban campus.”

“Don’t Hang Up” by the Orlons rattled the Gothic-style rafters of the Class of 1949 Auditorium in Houston Hall, but no one got up to dance.

Like the enchanted village of Brigadoon, the tents and traditions of Alumni Weekend appear on campus for only a few brief hours then disappear into the mists to return the following year. This year that will be May 16-18.