Sandy Smith

Service runs deep in Penn’s blood. The notion that service is an important part of education was part of founder Ben Franklin’s original vision, which saw “an Inclination joined with an Ability to serve Mankind” as “the great Aim and End of all Learning.”

A persistent rumor circulating around campus has it that President Judith Rodin will run for office after she steps down next June.

Congratulations, neighbor: Your Buzz correspondent would like to salute Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for being honored as the nation’s best pediatric hospital in the annual U.S.

It has become a rite of summer at Penn: The students depart and the construction crews get busy. Over the summer, a number of construction projects ranging from the modest to the major were either completed or begun all over campus, including:

The National Constitution Center (NCC), which opened on Independence Mall July 4, is designed to offer visitors a serious look at America’s central governing document in an engaging fashion. It also represents an opportunity for Penn, the center’s educational partner, to take its scholarly mission to an entirely new audience.

The study of crime now has a department all its own at Penn. At their June 20 meeting, the Trustees approved the creation of the first criminology department in the Ivy League. The new department in the School of Arts and Sciences will have Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations Lawrence W. Sherman as its first chair.

See movies like a student: Now’s your chance to see first-run films in a first-class setting for chump change. The Bridge: Cinema de Lux at 40th and Walnut streets is running a special promotion for Penn and Drexel faculty and staff through Aug. 31—show your faculty/staff ID at the box office and pick up tickets for you and a guest at the student discount rate.

STAFF Q&A/Penn network security guru Dave Millar fiddles around with friends and colleagues If it’s noon Thursday, it must be string-along time. That’s the time when Dave Millar and a bunch of his friends and colleagues on and off campus gather in Steinhardt Plaza behind Steinberg-Dietrich Hall for a folksy jam session.

Penn’s student performing arts organizations are coming closer to a new home in Stouffer College House. Work is now under way on a new performing arts hub in the former Stouffer basement dining hall. When it opens in August 2004, the facility will offer much-needed rehearsal and meeting space for the Performing Arts Council’s 43 member groups.

With the opening of Levine Hall, the School of Engineering and Applied Science took a big step into the high-tech future. The next step will begin in mid-June, when demolition begins on the Pender Laboratories connecting the Towne and Moore buildings. In its place will rise Skirkanich Hall, the new home for the Bioengineering Department.