It’s a running joke among the entire student body that Penn hates holidays. Even though entire halls become vacant during the Jewish High Holidays and the weekend of Good Friday, classes remain in session. Professors try their best to cope with half-full classrooms, and are careful to be politically correct in their e-mails informing us that “despite the religious holiday,” lecture will still be held that day.

President Gutmann dressed as Willy Wonka in 2005 (Gustavo Centeno)

The academic calendar’s overt political correctness is a little annoying, but we all get used to it. I’ve gotten used to the fact that the only holidays Penn acknowledges are (insert your favorite December gift-giving holiday here), Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Thanksgiving and, as I started to realize in my classes on Monday, Halloween.

The same professors that sent e-mails a month ago about doing all they could for any student that had to miss class for the “religious holiday” (heaven forbid they should just call it “Yom Kippur”) were suddenly showering us with candy and spending a few minutes of class time talking about the holiday. One even showed us a picture of his dog dressed up as Rocky for the occasion.

It’s pretty cool that while professors have to hide from religious holidays to avoid even the slightest appearance of political incorrectness, they don’t mind having a little fun with the secular ones. Even University President Amy Gutmann gets in on the fun every year by holding a party at her house for Halloween.

Every once in a while, it’s good for us to look past our stuffy Ivy League roots and not take ourselves so seriously. It’s nice when professors, students and even our President can share a few moments of non-academic fun. And even if you think it’s a little weird for holidays to be acknowledged on a college campus, you have to at least admit that nothing makes a lecture go by faster than free candy.

Even though Penn could probably stand to have a looser policy regarding religious holidays, we’ve managed to get the fun ones right. Now all that remains to be seen is: How will President Gutmann manage to top last year’s Willy Wonka costume?

One month ago, Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron hailed Penn’s newest building, Skirkanich Hall, as “the city’s best new building in years.” Well, Inga, I have no architecture degree, but you should really be out of a job. To me, this building is nothing more than a giant glassy booger.

I’ve yet to find a voice on campus–other than The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Opinion Board and Amy Gutmann–who approve of this structure. Skirkanich fits into Penn’s skyline about as well as a Sumo Wrestler working out on the main floor of Pottruck Gym.

Speaking of Pottruck, it’s architecturally a pretty cool building. So is Huntsman Hall. But why didn’t the architecture critics step up to bat for these structures? Our side of the Schuykill is also blessed with the awesome Cira Centre, but Inga Saffron arrogantly calls the creation “standoffish.” She also believes that “the difference is that Cira is a commercial office tower and Skirkanich is a work of art.”

Maybe Skirkanich hall is just a butterface, and her real beauty lies on the inside.

That’s way too optimistic. After speaking with students and employees who work in the building, I’ve learned that Skirkanich isn’t even awesome inside. The temperature is either hot or too cold, and the windows are so big (without shades) that they inflict a blinding West Philadelphia sunlight on whoever walks through the labs. It got so bad that people taped up large pieces of paper on the windows.

And what irks me even more is that this building cost $42 million. Just think about how many functional structures that fit in with Penn’s old-world charm could have been built for that price.

The journey from Penn student to toast of the hip-hop community may seem unlikely, but two alums are proving that it can happen.

Jabari “Naledge” Evans and Michael “Double-O” Aguilar–2004 and 2001 College alumni, respectively–together make up the rap group Kidz in the Hall and are set to drop their debut album, School Was My Hustle, on October 31.

Rather than attempt to hide their Ivy League roots, the Kidz put their background up front and use it to send a message about the importance of education. In stark contrast to the implications of fellow Chicagoan Kanye West’s College Dropout album, Naledge and Double-O want to shed light on the opportunities that most of urban America isn’t seeing. More lighthearted than typical political or conscious hip hop, this group’s music is the perfect medium for the pro-education message. In a time when rappers are the new role models, that balance between the political and the mainstream is especially critical.

While rapping might not be on any Career Services list of ways to use our degree, Naledge and Double-O prove that our options are far broader than we imagine and that our Penn education can have benefits no matter what we chose to do. Keep your minds open and go check out this CD. I predict it now, they’re going to be huge.

Last year while entering the DuPont Pavillion to watch a Villanova basketball game, the back of a spirited student sporting a t-shirt
stating “Freshman girls–get ‘em while They’re skinny” caught my attention. I was horrified, especially since this frat dude was quite the pudger himself, chomping on a pizza slice and sporting a hefty beer gut.

The freshman 15 is something that plagues the minds of many new students, especially females, who are on their own for the first time–without mom’s healthy cooking or a regimented schedule. A typical college student consumes late night snacks, drinks heavily and often puts exercise to the wayside, all contributing to the alleged 15.

When I was a freshman on fall break, I remember returning home and attending my high school’s homecoming football game. My peers gossiped about who had the new boyfriend, who had gotten her nose pierced, and, more importantly, who had gained the freshman 15. Individuals were scoffed upon for the weight they put on and elaborate stories were conjured up about what caused that weight gain.

But target="_blank">studies are showing that the freshman fifteen is now more like the freshman five or seven, followed by the sophomore two or three. While college students across the country may be breathing a sigh of relief, this may not actually be as good as it sounds. This gradual weight gain is more detrimental, for the eating behaviors and lifestyle changes adopted in college may be harder to discard upon graduation. This smaller weight gain may be harder to lose than one may think.

And while the shirt that my favorite Villanova boy wore implied that freshmen girls are the only ones who gain the lbs, this new study also showed that males are apt to gain more weight than females. Freshmen gained an average of 5.6 pounds while women gained approximately 3.6 pounds.

So boys–before you prey on “skinny” freshman girls, take a look at your own bodies. No one is going to want a pudgy frat boy in the real world, and the weight you put on now is going to be harder and harder to lose as college continues. So girls and boys, fear the freshman five or seven and the sophomore two or three. Take mom’s advice and eat healthy and exercise from the get-go; make that a freshman zero.

As we tiptoe perilously close to Election Day, us political animals hungrily anticipate the dirty plots strategically hatched to swerve campaigns into the ditch a mere days before we vote. Alas, it is the October Surprise, and no election comes without it.

In 2000, the Gore campaign’s exposure of George W. Bush’s DUI arrest in 1976 the weekend before the election drew the polls well inside the statistical margin of error. The revelation also could account for Bush’s losing the popular vote, though there is no evidence to support that.

In a season so hostile with so many vulnerable races, this country is wont to see a platitude of conniving, deceitful and undeniably entertaining surprises in this final week. Sen. George Allen, (R-Va.), led the parade when he leaked to Drudge and Fox News hypersexual passages from novels written by his challenger, Jim Webb (D-Va.).

There is this passage included in an Allen press release, from the book Lost Soldiers:

“…shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”

What?

Some Democratic critics say this bomb is sure to backfire, but I think it will work in Allen’s favor. The nature of the charge is salacious enough to keep the fury alive just long enough to allow Allen to run away with the lead.

There has long been speculation that the October Surprise at some point in Bush’s presidency would be the capture of Osama bin Laden, but that looks highly unlikely right now. These calls are more like Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories than the product of any real evidence. But that leaves every other possibility open. With eight days left now, we can expect high-scale derailment with great anticipation.

I know the eighties are back, but Penn’s new “Cross Cultural Analysis” is so twenty years ago.

In the 1980s, it was chic for enlightened, progressive universities to create a requirement designed to expose their largely homogenous student bodies to diversity. A lot of the requirements were designed like Penn’s: existing courses about minority or foreign cultures were selected to fulfill the requirement.

But alas, just as Penn caught up it fell behind. The faculty at Williams College in Massachusetts noticed some big problems with their “People’s and Cultures” requirement (which is very similar to Penn’s “Cross Cultural Analysis” requirement) and decided to amend the program. The selection of courses that fulfilled the requirement were often seemingly picked arbitrarily and weren’t reliably rigorous. The requirement was also silly for growing population of international students at Williams–many of them took classes about their own cultures to boost their GPAs. In addition, the requirement didn’t include classes from the gender and sexuality studies departments.

Williams has tried to remedy these problems by revamping their program. Gender and Sexuality studies classes are now included. There is also more quality control in the program. Professors have to write a proposal to make the class qualify as fulfilling the requirement. All classes also now have a self-reflective element in them–all students are asked to determine which cultures they are part of and how those cultures relate to the cultures studied in the class.

The reviews aren’t in on Penn’s requirement–it is only half way through its first semester–but it seems fated to suffer the same shortfalls as Williams’ program. For instance, I was looking at the list of requirement fulfilling classes offered in spring 2007. To educate myself about diversity, I, who spent 13 years at a Jewish school, could pick one of two “Themes and Jewish Tradition” courses. I haven’t taken any “Cross Cultural Analysis” courses but if the “Quantitative Data Analysis” courses are any indication, quality control may be an issue. I took Oceanography last semester, and I don’t recall analyzing any quantitative data.

If cultural awareness is important enough to Penn to make its study a requirement, then the requirement shouldn’t be a joke. There should be real evaluation of the success of the program at the end of the semester and necessary changes should be made. Preferably before 2026.

“Hi, my name is Jessica. I’m from New Jersey…and I’m an alcoholic.”

Okay, that’s not exactly your typical NSO introduction. But for a few select students living in Harrison College House next fall, it might be. Yesterday, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that a new residential program for recovering substance abusers could begin as early as Fall 2007 and would likely be based in Harrison.

I am fully in favor of increasing facilities available for students in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. After all, a college campus is hardly the easiest place to try to stay sober. But a residential program may not be the best way to do that. While the eight-person program would be completely voluntary, it still presents the very real possibility that the students would be branded as addicts and potentially ostracized.

Let’s face it: Penn students love gossip. Everyone would know exactly what hall was “That Hall.” Anyone who admitted that they lived there would have as much anonymity as someone who said they lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. A supportive environment is good, but if the benefits are going to be offset by isolation from the university community, it becomes pointless. The Undergraduate Assembly told the DP that maintaining students’ privacy is a concern, but in a small campus community, that seems nearly impossible.

Put the money into establishing an incredibly well-funded support group instead, or establish campus branches of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Former addicts could attend meetings and events without having to tell anyone and could keep their past addictions as private or public as they wanted. No one should have to “out” themselves just to have full access to the University’s support systems.

If the University is as concerned as they say they are about maintaining the privacy of students in the program, maybe they have an amazing proposal up their sleeves that could get me on board. But until then, University money should be focused on support resources that don’t force users to broadcast their problems to the entire campus.

The Native Americans were only half right when they said that the camera steals your soul. It takes away far worse: your mystery. And your marketability.

You need to have control over your own image. At the end of each weekend, there are hundreds of new pictures of Penn students up on Facebook, doing glamorous and respectable things like flipping off the camera, vomiting, urinating on Ben Franklin and making out with members of the same sex. Everyone likes to be a student celebrity, and to feel courted by the roving lens of the Pennparazzi (the friend with the digital camera). But overexposure now means less mystique later. The real truth that I must face is that if I want to be successful later, I’m going to have to keep a paper bag over my head right now. And this isn’t just to avoid One Night In Paris -type debacles. This is because I want to be a Serious Writer with a good jacket photo.

Don DeLillo’s reclusive protagonist in Mao II said that, “when a writer doesn’t show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God’s famous reluctance to appear.” Well, I want to be God.

I appreciate the approach of J.D. Salinger. There are probably about three extant headshots of dear Jerome David, and the last one to appear on a dust jacket was taken in 1951. There was one taken in 1998, but who knows if it’s even the same guy since no one had seen him in four decades? Talk about enigmatic! Despite his alleged creepiness and penchant for macrobiotic foods and teenage girls, I will always think of him as a fresh-faced, affable youth of 32. There are about six photographs of Virginia Woolf, but they all send the same message: character-nose, serious, intense. Shakespeare, similarly, had a good trademark image (though it was a drawing, not a photograph). Great writers from Lord Byron to Pynchon have kept a low profile. Nowadays, such image maintenance is near impossible.

Up until the fall of 2005, you could only have one photograph of yourself on Facebook. Oh, the agony and pleasure of deciding how to present yourself to the world! It is wretched to have a photograph that reveals your homeliness, but it is also embarrassing to choose a picture that is too flattering. You must strike the right balance, and vigilantly de-tag.

Be iconic. Be elusive. Be modest with your image; don’t whore it out. The next time someone sticks a camera in your face, tell him to save it for the mortals. You’ve got a legacy to build.

The same institution that charges us forty grand per year has decided that the University should start giving away its assets.

The University is donating an old pipe organ to the University of Oklahoma. This organ, which is considered extremely rare, was played in the Philadelphia Civic Center before the University blew up that historic structure to expand the hospital.

According to the director of the American Organ Institute, the organ is one of only three in the entire world and comparably-sized organs may be worth $6 million.

The orphaned organ fell into the hands of the almighty University of Pennsylvania Health System, which is so disorganized that they are still trying to bill me for a free study that I volunteered to participate in two years ago.

Rather than give the organ to another department at the University to
sell (the Music Department seems pretty logical to me) the hospital decided to try to sell the organ themselves.

According to Lori Doyle, the University’s spokesperson, “The
University did make a concerted effort to sell the organ. There were apparently no buyers, and no interest in restoring or installing it locally. At one point, the organ was listed with The Organ Clearing House, the premier broker for used organs. Apparently, a buyer could not be
found. We are delighted that the organ is now with a university with an active academic organ program–which Penn does not have.”

Well, Ebay might have been a good place to start to find some buyers.
And Freeman’s Auctioneers downtown is one of the most respected
auction houses in the world.

The University should have made more of an effort to actually get some money for this multimillion dollar organ. Six million dollars could provide free tuition for almost forty undergrads. Or better yet, maybe we could fix up Locust Walk? The possibilities are endless.

Where is the oversight for such sales of University assets?

Around the Ivies is a roundup of news from Ivy League and other top tier schools.

• [ The Daily Princetonian ]
  Princeton stalked by creepy wanna-be secret society

  See more about this from The Spin

• [ Foreign Policy ]
  A foreign Ivy League?

  Some people at Foreign Policy believe other universities are playing catch up to the Ancient Eight. Guess where the “University of Petroleum and Minerals” is located?

  (Note: Just realized that IvyLeak also covered this–total coincidence!)

• [ Columbia Spectator ]
  Columbia vandals make staff members have to fix hideous dorm
• [ The Cronicle (Duke) ]
  Duke minority hiring is questioned