Sandy Smith

Why would a group of scientists spend more than a decade building an enormous cave deep underground just to hold a large bottle of water? Because that bottle of water would help them solve a nearly 30-year-old puzzle concerning the nature of the sun, a solution that made Science magazine’s list of the 10 Top Breakthroughs of 2001.

When Executive Vice President John Fry came here seven years ago, he came to a place that had, in his words, “great people with great ideas, but for some reason [they] couldn’t get over the implementation barrier”—Penn’s deliberative, consensus-seeking institutional culture.

A night in “Olde Penn”: To celebrate its 100th anniversary, The Pennsylvania Gazette went back into its archives to pull out some literary gems. An audience of about 200 invited guests for the Gazette’s birthday party at the Inn at Penn Feb.

Last fall, we told you about Start on Success, a program that gets University City High School students with learning and developmental disabilities on track for success in the world of work (Current, Nov. 8, 2001).

Why did Ira Winston cross the street Feb. 4? First, he wanted to get the lunch he was on his way to order when a car struck him at 34th and Walnut Jan. 22. Second, he wanted to call attention to the issue of pedestrian safety on area streets, and more than 200 people helped him do that by crossing Walnut with him at lunchtime.

Penn’s Community Service Directory began six years ago as a loose-leaf binder listing courses and programs that engage Penn students, faculty and staff in service to the surrounding community.

It was just an old, battered, handwritten book of recipes, purchased for a dollar from an antiques dealer. But in it, Janet Theophano (Gr’82) found the life of an overlooked woman—a life that set Theophano off in search of the ways cookbooks transmit more than just instructions on preparing food.

You’ve heard of the two-career couple. Meet the two-career individual.

Mimi Stillman is all of 19 years old—the same age a Penn sophomore would be. But she’s pursuing an M.A. in history. And while she pursues her degree, she is continuing with her impressive career as a concert flutist.

When the news of historian Stephen Ambrose’s plagiarizing of History Professor Thomas Childers’ “Wings of Morning” broke on Jan. 4, Childers figured the brouhaha would die down in about a week. When we spoke with Childers in his College Hall office Jan. 25, he was still fielding calls from reporters and wading through oceans of e-mail.