School of Arts & Sciences

College-age women who participate in sorority rush largely describe the process as negative but report a sense of belonging and support once they’re in the group, according to research from University of Pennsylvania psychologist Melissa Hunt and Penn alumna Colleen Kase.

The tragedy of the commons, a concept described by ecologist Garrett Hardin, paints a grim view of human nature. The theory goes that, if a resource is shared, individuals will act in their own self-interest, but against the interest of the group, by depleting that resource. 

Boyang Qin, a third-year Ph.D. student, stands on stage in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the University of Pennsylvania’s Houston Hall in front of 50 high school students and parents.

With the hopes that their children would receive a better education, the parents of University of Pennsylvania student Alisha Chowdhury left Bangladesh the year before she was born and settled in New Orleans. 

Through the generosity of alumni and others in the entertainment industry, seven University of Pennsylvania students in the Cinema and Media Studies program have the opportunity this summer to intern at film, television and digital media companies. 

Even before coming to the University of Pennsylvania, Hannah Fagin knew she wanted to study the humanities, but she knew she had found her major after her first history course at Penn, “History of the American South.” 

Politicians’ race-conscious speeches have broad, and sometimes unexpected, consequences, according to a new book from Daniel Gillion of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Would you rather eat an apple or a banana? Read Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities? Is a cup or a mug holding that coffee? How quickly the decision gets made matters. That’s because the longer someone takes to draw a conclusion, the more likely that person will disengage from the process altogether and simply never decide.

Two students from the University of Pennsylvania, Daniel Blackey and William Dossett, have been awarded Critical Language Scholarships. They are among approximately 560 U.S. undergraduate and graduate student CLS scholarship recipients this year.

The University of Pennsylvania’s commitment to civic engagement is a model example that’s now being shared with higher education leaders around the world.