(Alexandra Bell/The Crimson) President Gutmann visits Harvard earlier this semester.

Penn President Amy Gutmann has made Harvard’s official list of 30 “contenders” for its presidential opening, according to a late-breaking story in The Harvard Crimson. The list also includes Columbia President Lee Bollinger and Princeton President Shirley Tilghman.

The Crimson has only learned 11 of the 30 names on the list, after “two sources close to the Harvard Corporation” leaked the information. The list was formed by Harvard’s presidential search committee and presented on Sunday to the school’s Board of Overseers, an influential group of alumni.

So, what does this all mean?

For one, it means Harvard didn’t rule Gutmann out after her Halloween photo fiasco. It also means that Harvard doesn’t care whether its candidates have expressed interest in the position, as Gutmann publicly has not (despite being named a finalist for the position when it was last vacant in 2001).

But most important, for Penn, Gutmann’s inclusion on the list means she must now look to Rutgers and pull a Greg Schiano.

Schiano, of course, is the Scarlet Knights’ football coach and the man who last year led them to their first bowl game in 27 years. The man who transformed a team that lost a game 80-7 in 2001 into a 16th-ranked contender in 2006. The man who was just named coach of the year.

Of course, coaches of the year tend to elicit interest from powerful schools on the prowl. And so it was with Schiano last week, when the University of Miami (Fl.) came a-knocking, hoping to hire Schiano as its replacement for the fired Larry Coker.

At the time, Schiano had two main choices and one secondary choice: First, he had to choose whether he wanted to stay at Rutgers, where he is under contract until 2012; second, he had to decide how to handle his decision–i.e. whether to go public about his decision to stay or leave.

As it turns out, Schiano has decided to stay at Rutgers. But That’s not why his actions should serve as the perfect example for Gutmann. No, what sets Schiano apart is the way he quickly quashed rumors of his move to Miami by publicly asking the school to remove his name from its list of candidates before the end of the season.

With a bowl game still on the schedule, Rutgers players can now focus on football instead of their coach’s possible departure. Which makes all difference in the world, because no athlete appreciates playing for someone who’s off to “bigger and better places.”

Or to quote Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jim Salisbury, no one wants to play in the “Stepping-Stone Bowl.”

If Gutmann doesn’t yet know whether she wants to remain at Penn, she must decide now. That should be the first move. And if she decides to stay here, she must immediately and publicly petition Harvard to remove her name from its candidate roster.

Her credibility as a fundraiser for Penn’s long-term projects (like eastward expansion and financial aid growth) will suffer if she remains silent, even though she hasn’t actively expressed interest in leaving.

For alumni won’t trust she who views Penn as the Stepping-Stone School.

(Chicago Maroon)

“Who wants to go to UPenn anyway?”

That was the question posed by a recent editorial in the University of Chicago Maroon. Protesting the school’s plans to begin accepting the Common Application, the editorial expressed students’ fears that it would turn Chicago into another “generic, elite private university”–like Penn, for example.

The editorial’s implications caused concern among Penn students who came across it. Were our Midwestern friends right? Is Penn a “generic, elite private university?”

Let me first answer the Maroon’s question. Who does want to go to Penn anyway? Well, me for one. I wanted to as a senior in high school (enough to apply Early Decision) and I still want to be here. With almost 50 percent of recent classes choosing Penn as their first choice by also applying early, we deserve the Newsweek label of “Hottest for Happy-To-Be-There.”

A student body that wants to be at Penn is one of the principal factors separating us from our peers. Choosing not to follow Harvard’s lead and do away with Early Decision earlier this year was critical in keeping us from falling into the generic trap.

While I disagree with the Maroon’s insinuations about Penn, I do believe that all colleges have recently seen increased pressure to conform to national standards. We must be aware of these forces and fight them when necessary, just as we did with the Early Decision issue.

Financial aid, co-ed housing, endowment size and other criteria have all become benchmarks for success that universities often take on without considering whether they are really right for their particular schools. This was the problem when Penn attempted to mimic aid programs at Harvard and Yale that left zero parental contribution for families making under $40,000 and $45,000 a year, respectively. Because our endowment can hardly compare to those schools though ($4.4 billion compared to $25.9 billion at Harvard), Penn’s plan actually did not change much in our financial aid system. We should have realized that our solution to the aid question had to be tailored to our unique circumstances rather than blindly trying to keep pace with our peers.

Though Penn was once at the progressive forefront, we now seem far too content just treading water, staying in line with the pack rather than separating ourselves from them.

For now, Penn does remain unique–that’s why so many students, including me, considered it our first choice. Yet the Maroon editorial board has a point that goes far beyond the Common Application. A tendency to conform to precedents at peer schools rather than create our own has been apparent in many of the major decisions that the university has recently made. If we don’t turn back to our innovative roots, we really will become the generic elite university that some already consider us.

Four tiers of mahogany. My jaw muscles lost the ability to hold my mouth closed as I walked into the cello-shaped Verizon Hall on to watch the Philadelphia Symphony orchestra on Saturday night. I chose to apply to Penn in partly because I loved the cultural resources that Philadelphia offers, so it’s pretty pathetic that it’s taken me a year and a half to venture over to the Kimmel Center.

Another confession: I know very little about classical music. But the symphony was still magnificent. For two hours I had an excuse to let my mind wonder–even for me, a boorish cynic who was fired from piano lessons in elementary school because I couldn’t sit still long enough to practice, the music still seemed beautiful.

Saturday night, Christoph Eschenbach, the internationally acclaimed music director of the Philadelphia Symphony (who kind of looks like Psychology Professor Shatte from far away) acted as both conductor and soloist. During the two hour concert, the orchestra played two pieces–Mozart’s 23 and 24 Piano Concertos–and the wind section played Mozart’s Serenade in C minor.

So what was the cost for this classy evening of entertainment by a world renowned conductor? Ten dollars.

You see, the Kimmel Center has a student rush program. The program is admittedly a little bit cumbersome, but if you arrive at the Kimmel Center 30 minutes before the show with a Penncard (depending on prior ticket sales) you can buy a student ticket. The seats are actually really good– the ushers seat you in the best seats that weren’t sold. Saturday, for example, I sat on the orchestra level. Pretty sweet, huh?

In short, Saturday night was simply delightful. Maybe it was the comfort of being surrounded by sparkly grandparents out on the town. Possibly it was just the music. Or perhaps it was that last Saturday was the first really cold night this winter, I couldn’t fathom spending the evening roaming around campus, and the mahogany felt so warm. Yeah, it must have been the mahogany.

The Navy team charges the field almost as fast as they flocked to every venue on campus with a woman inside (Matt Rourke/AP)

Girls go wild for Fleet week in New York. Girls at Penn go crazy for Army/Navy weekend in Philadelphia.

This past weekend marked the 107th Army/Navy game in Philadelphia. In other words, midshipmen and cadets infiltrated our campus both the night before and after the legendary showdown.

While Penn men seemed relatively indifferent to the arrival of our nation’s finest, Penn women, or at least a prominent subset of them, highly anticipated the visit.

What is about these military men? “I love a man in uniform,” pronounced one of my track teammates on the way home from our meet at Bucknell on Saturday.

While at first, I thought she was referring to the mailman or the UPS man and his studly brown attire, she made sure to set me straight–it was the Army and Navy men that really got her going.

Even Rumsfeld was part of the action (Matt Rourke/AP)

That Saturday night after our return home from the meet, it was apparent that these “men in uniform” were truly everywhere. On the walk back from the bus, I saw more midshipmen and cadets than Penn students out. These boys stowed their curfews and disciplinary rules to let loose on Ben Franklin’s homeland. They crashed Smokes, sang karaoke at Blarney or simply perused the campus looking for random parties to crash.

Another Army/Navy weekend has come and gone, and these boys certainly made their mark on Philadelphia and Penn’s campus, acting like the craziest of college frat boys. While the primary purpose of their trek to our city was the historic football game, it was definitely apparent that these boys made the most of their weekend of freedom–basking in the limelight of their temporary celebrity status.

A commercial Web site is beginning to make the rounds on the Internet.

It appears to be a site for a stylish Taiwanese portable music player. However, the backdrop for the site is a computer-enhanced photo of World Trade Center rubble.

If anyone can interpret the text on the site, I would be very curious to hear about what kind of bizarre marketing angle they are using for this product. Please feel free to e-mail me at Obenzinger (a) dailypennsylvanian.com with any information.

Update: Thanks to Wharton and Engineering sophomore Matt Evans, who sent a link with a picture of the English language ad.

I also got in contact with a Mandarin speaker, who translated it as “Even if the world ends, I still believe in music.”

There is some question about whether or not the English language photo is real. However, someone has a high resolution version, which suggests that the company is offering the picture for download as a desktop background. You know, in case you want rubble on Liberty St. to show up when you turn on your computer.

If anyone is ever in the position of making a business or marketing textbook, they should put this ad as an example of what not to do.

Are you cringing at the idea of graduating with thousands of dollars in student loan debt? Not a problem. 19-year-old Ron Steen, a student at California State University at Fullerton, has a better idea.

According to CNN Money, Steen put his future up for auction on eBay in August. For a minimum bid of $100,000 to cover his education costs, Stenn promised the winner 2 percent of all his future earnings.

Okay. Let’s pretend I had $100,000 to throw around however I wanted, and eBay hadn’t removed the auction after five days for violating the site’s charity policy. Hmm…what to invest in? Stocks, bonds…or the uncertain future of a 19-year-old stranger from Anaheim?

Tough choice, I know. There’s no way I’d send this kid my money even though he swears he is “the real deal” (whatever that means) and “a very intelligent guy.”

Steen told the magazine that he expects to earn “way” more than $125,000 a year before he turns 65, which is when his investor would break even on his or her $100,000 investment.

I’m certainly no expert on investing, but when the guys at Fortune Small Business Magazine tell readers that Breen would actually “have to average $1.5 million a year to match an investment that yielded a 6 percent return, compounded annually over the same period,” I know there are some flaws in Breen’s logic. Even a non-finance student like me knows that the $1,375,000 Breen seems to have forgotten to hypothetically earn every year is a lot of money.

But hey, if you have an extra hundred grand lying around burning a hole in your pocket, go ahead and help out Ron Steen. After all, he’s still optimistic that someone will take up his cause.

And who knows, the kid might even succeed. As long as he doesn’t go into any careers that involve finance. Or numbers. Or writing anything, because even this “very intelligent guy” apparently couldn’t ask complete strangers for $100,000 without making five spelling errors.

What’s your name? Where’re you from? What’s your major? And where are you going abroad?

Oktoberfest 2006. Is it really worth going abroad for this? (Oktoberfest.de)

These days, I feel like everyone is asking me where I’m going next year. When I tell them that I’m not planning on going abroad, they seem to pity me and tell me that I’ll be lonely, as “everyone” will be gone and I’ll be the only junior stuck in Philadelphia next fall.

Students seem split into two groups on the purpose of going abroad: the learners and the partiers.

Those who have spent years learning a language so that they can immerse themselves in a new culture often fall in the former category. And then there is everyone else.

College senior Becky Fogel believes that, “If you want something comfortable and safe, you can always go on one of those programs that is basically Penn-in-London. If you want to challenge yourself, go somewhere where English isn’t the first language or where none of your friends are going to be.”

Some students decide to go abroad to escape the academic rigors of Penn for a semester. “I think a lot of people from Penn go abroad just to take a break,” said Wharton sophomore Erin Shipley.

In many cases, the schools that students will study at while abroad will not be as high in quality as Penn. If a student isn’t going abroad for a unique academic program, then it might be smarter to stay here and get her money’s worth. Another benefit to staying on campus junior year is that students who do automatically have a leg up on gaining leadership positions.

Some students who chose not to go abroad are of the mind that their academics should stay domestic. They wish to wait until they truly have the leisure time to travel. College junior Beth Newton sums it up by saying, “If I can travel over a summer, not have to worry about school during the experience and not have to miss a whole semester at Penn, why not do that instead?”

Any student considering going abroad should honestly weigh the worth of a semester at Penn against the things they wish to achieve while abroad. Believing the talk of your friends, “can pressure students into going–because everyone else is,” says Newton.

“Everyone” will not be gone in the fall. Those who believe this type of hype obviously aren’t very good at making friends. There will be over 8,000 people still on campus. Meet some of them.