Doesn’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside just seeing the cover? (Amazon.com)

I love my girlhood copy of Anne of Green Gables — the spine is broken, the cover torn, the chapters dog-eared, and the pages stained an ochre-brown from who knows what. It’s seen better days, as have most of the books in my home library. I’m not a pack rat, but when it comes to books, I still have all of my Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bears favorites, not to mention copies of Highlights and Ranger Rick magazines dating back to October 1990. As you can imagine, the books have taken over my home, but when my mom suggested getting rid of some books to make room for more recent acquisitions, I stubbornly refused.

But, while I may not have to part with my copies of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and The Giving Tree just yet, university and public libraries can’t ignore the problems presented by the sheer quantity of books. Some libraries have found the solution in new software that helps them select unpopular books to discard. Books that haven’t been checked out for 2 years, go the way of the typewriter. But this technology has people concerned that the local library will be transformed into the local Barnes & Noble, eliminating the shelves of hidden treasures in favor of a collection of the last 50 years of New York Times best sellers.

University libraries have found a better answer in virtual space — a place whose dimensions are boundless and where texts will be safe from all the elements — earth, wind, fire, coffee spills, even over-zealous highlighting. Digital libraries like Project Gutenberg and JSTOR have given us free access to thousands of electronic texts. And this is just the beginning — there are countless digitization projects in progress all over the Web, including Google’s 30-million-volume effort. And here’s another growing trend: cell phone novels, read in short installments via text messages. And for once, Penn’s not that far behind. Our own library, which adds approximately 110,000 volumes to its collection each year, went digital several years ago by launching the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image, a digital library featuring scanned images of rare books and manuscripts.

Now, as a poor college student — and an English major, no less — I could easily sing the praises of free e-Books. But let me close by saying something on behalf of good, old-fashioned reading. As NPR linguist Geoff Nunberg puts it, there’s just something about curling up with a good book — something about reverting back to the fetal position, oblivious to the outside world, maybe with a glass of warmed milk. So while you might forego adding The History of the Peloponnesian War to your library, leave some room on your shelves for a few personal favorites.

Who needs writing, reading, and ‘rithmetic when you’ve got SpellCheck?

In grade school, I always took home the Best Handwriting award and I was pretty darn proud of it, too. But once they took handwriting off the report cards, working to perfect those loopy “l”s and soldier straight “t”s lost its appeal — when the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) celebrated National Handwriting Day last Tuesday, I didn’t exactly bring out the noisemakers. In anticipation of the big day, fellow skeptic John Tierney, in hisNew York Times column, posed the question, “Why bother with handwriting?” Although plenty of readers responded, lauding the sentimental value of a handwritten love letter or detailing the cognitive benefits of good handwriting, even I have to admit, it’s a lost cause. As much as it pains me to say, the honored art of penmanship is a thing of the past.

And handwriting isn’t the only “traditional” skill that threatens to become obsolete under the shadow of technology. Take spelling, for example. After all, as long as you’re remotely close, SpellCheck will automatically correct your spelling for you. Or if you accidentally type “daily pennsylvanina,” Google will ask, ever so unassumingly, “Did you mean: “daily pennsylvanian?” Should kids bother studying for spelling tests every week when technology says close enough is good enough?

The way I see it, as long as exams continue to feature written components, they really have no choice. Even those of us thankfully done with all the bubbling, at least up to the SAT, aren’t immune to SpellCheck syndrome. I’ve been alarmed to find myself hesitating more and more frequently during in-class essay exams: Is it 4 “s”s in “possess” or 3? Is irresistible spelled with an “i” or an “a”? What the’since when is “supersede” spelled with an “s”?! I’m afraid some skills aren’t quite as dispensable as cursive writing just yet.

Or maybe our dependence on technology doesn’t concern you so much when it’s only a matter of “i before e except after c.” But what about when it comes to writing and thinking skills? With Microsoft Word features like the Thesaurus and shortcuts like Wikipedia, I’ve come to the point where I can’t even write without my laptop. I can’t be expected to sit there picking my brain in search of the perfect word when Word is all too willing to do the work for me, or to read up on a subject when Wikipedia can give me all the main highlights at a glance. And haven’t you ever wished, while giving a presentation in class, that you could hit Shift+F7 and pop open a thesaurus window in your brain?

Pen and paper’s surely in the past–let’s just be wary that as computer brains get faster, ours don’t become more and more sluggish.

Director Deborah Kampmeier’s controversial film Hounddog has the spotlight at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, currently underway in Park City, Utah. Hounddog, which premiered Monday night, for the most part sounds like a compelling, feel-good drama — except for a scene in which the young protagonist, played by Dakota Fanning, is raped. It’s an image that has left some viewers disgusted and outraged. With phrases like “child exploitation” and “child pornography” floating all over the blogosphere in response to the scene, Fanning — Hollywood veteran at the tender age of 12 — insists in that oh-so-precocious way of hers, “It’s called acting.”

Kampmeier, too, in defense of the scene, tells the Associated Press that it’s simply a succession of harmless images simulating a rape: “If you have a hand hitting the ground, Dakota screaming ’stop,’ and you see a zipper unzip, that creates a rape.” Hm. It seems to me that no matter how you put it, it’s pretty unsettling. But I digress.

Now, I know that the spirit of Sundance is all about “creative risk-taking” and “nurturing the diversity of artistic expression,” as they put it, and I do recognize the value of confronting and exposing sensitive subject matter through film. At the same time, I don’t think that filmmaking should be a free-for-all in the name of art; we, as major media consumers, can all attest to the fact that film is an incredibly powerful medium, and as such, it has the potential to impact people for better or for worse. Yes, it’s a complicated issue, and I realize the futility of jumping into the thick of this latest culture war in the hopes of winning you all to my side.

Instead, I’ll challenge all of us to put our own answers aside and to allow ourselves to be posed these tough questions anew. After all, isn’t this the meaning of an undergraduate education? At what other point in our lives will society let us sit around all day (all three hours or so) discussing questions like, “What is art,” and, “What is morality?” College is a unique time, and we can’t afford to go into it thinking we have all the answers.

Philly is a nice little city–we’ve got good food, decent sports teams, and a boatload of historical claims to fame. But let’s face it–Philly’s not about to win the Olympic bid any time soon. As Chris Satullo, editorial page editor for the Inquirer, puts it, “Philly is almost great.” But not quite. Still, Satullo refuses to accept that Philly is doomed to sub-par status forever, and he’s not the only one.

Just this past November, Penn’s own Project on Civic Engagement (PCE), collaborating with the Inquirer’s Editorial Board, launched an exciting initiative called Great Expectations: Citizen Voices on Philadelphia’s Future, in an effort to “help Philadelphia achieve its potential as America’s Next Great City” by engaging in dialogues with ordinary Philly residents about the city’s key issues. The ultimate goal is to present to the newly elected mayor and City Council in January of 2008 a citizen-generated agenda produced through collaborative research, reporting, and public forums.

These public forums, which kicked off on Jan. 7 and will run through Feb. 7, have been scheduled in various locations throughout the region and are open to anyone–literally. Already, hundreds of Philly residents have shown up at these neighborhood forums, with participants ranging from BlackBerry-wielding businessmen coming straight from work to local teenagers concerned about the state of Philly’s public schools.

But when it comes to college–and more specifically, Penn students– attendance has been deplorably low. Now, while we weren’t exactly invited to the last West Philly block party, Penn students are an important part of the Philadelphia community. Harris Sokoloff, faculty director of PCE, insists in a phone interview that students “are citizens of the community, and the leadership that is provided by the mayor and City Council has a potentially great impact on them, not just in terms of housing or crime during their time at Penn, but in terms of general quality of life, including job opportunities and life after Penn.”

So whether you’re a freshman who plans on patronizing all of Philly’s cultural and culinary establishments over the next four years or a graduating senior who might be sticking around for grad school or entering Philly’s taskforce of young working professionals, don’t miss this opportunity to voice your opinions. And even if you’ll never call Philly home, this is a pretty unique opportunity to see democracy in action–not to mention, to challenge Generation X accusations of student apathy.

A couple oranges, some bananas, maybe a donut or two–we’ve all smuggled food out of Commons. Some are more determined than others, coming equipped with empty Tupperware containers and Ziploc baggies. We all do it, and we do it brazenly. Considering the exorbitant costs of a meal plan, not to mention tuition, we feel entitled to it–just like we’re entitled to a humiliation-free trip down Locust Walk, 24/7 personal study carrels, a Huntsman for College students–even more class time. When we’re coughing up more than $40,000 a year, we begrudge the University every single penny spent.

Our discontent is undoubtedly fueled by countless headlines about rising tuition and fees. And it’s true. College is expensive.

But the media are telling us only one side of the story. Several years ago, the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) did a study in which it found that, for virtually all of the more than 150 participating institutions, the cost of an undergraduate education exceeds the tuition and fees students pay.

Now, at a top-ranking research university like Penn, in a central location like University City, the cost-versus-price question becomes slightly more complicated. In a phone interview, Penn’s Associate Vice President of Finance Frank Claus, who oversees Student Financial Services, began by asserting, “Penn doesn’t make any money. We spend everything we make.” He went on to explain that because Penn’s revenue comes a variety of sources, not just tuition, we’re getting a whole lot more bang for our buck. In fact, according to the fiscal year 2005 financial report, net tuition and fees make up a mere 13.7% of Penn’s total revenue.

Plus, determining the cost of a college education isn’t just a simple matter of dividing the cost of direct instruction by the total number of students. We need to take into account everything from facilities and dorms to student programs and research. As Claus points out, “You couldn’t attract this world-class faculty without the research component.” He concludes by saying, “Which one of those items could you remove and say you have the University of Pennsylvania? You couldn’t.”

So we’ve survived another first week of classes…that potentially awkward period when students size up their professors under a mutual law of silence. With seven semesters under my belt, I wish I could say I’ve got the routine down…but I have to admit, those tenured gods can still leave me quakin’ in my boots. After all, these academic giants have spilled more pages of scholarly ink than we could ever care to read. We admire them, yes, but only from a safe distance.

My anxieties aren’t completely unfounded. English professor John Richetti, in an e-mail interview, acknowledges that as a major research institution, Penn hires and compensates its professors “mainly for their work as scholars and researchers.” Busy making their immortal contributions to academia, professors often–whether inadvertently or otherwise–come off as inaccessible and unapproachable.

Still, there’s evidence in the media of growing concern as teaching takes a back seat to research and professors lose touch with their students. Some professors have made efforts to bridge the gap between them and, well, the rest of the world. In her highly anticipated 2005 book My Freshman Year, a professor under the pseudonym Rebekah Nathan seeks to understand her increasingly distant students by enrolling as a student herself. Also in 2005, The Chronicle of Higher Education created a list of links to academic blogs, offering insights into the personal and professional lives of academics. Granted, many of the blogs are anonymous, but they still show that there are real people behind the facade of professionalism.

And it’s also encouraging to know that there are models like Richetti, who is a 2006 recipient of the Ira Abrams Award for Distinguished Teaching. As he puts it, “What we do as scholars are the activities that qualify us to come into the classroom and share our ideas with students.” He goes on to confess, “I am sometimes faulted by students for digressing in my lectures and talking about myself, my opinions about things other than the subject matter at hand, but I think that most students learn from such undisguised humanity.” I think I speak for all of us students when I say, I couldn’t agree more.

With Penn professor Rafael Robb making headlines for the alleged murder of his wife, students have been clamoring to find friends who might have taken a class with the man–as if his pathological tendencies might have surfaced in lecture. (P.S. Apparently, he taught Econ 101 during the 2005 spring semester) At Penn, the latest DP updates are mere fodder for gossip among students during the lulls in conversation over dinner. Meanwhile, the rest of Philly is reading a slightly different headline.

During my commute into the city Tuesday morning, the headline in my seatmate’s copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer caught my attention: “Arrest adds to the tarnish on Penn’s name.” Bemused and mildly interested–and also because we were packed into the three-seater in such a way that I could comfortably read over his shoulder without detection–I read on. According to Inquirer reporter Melissa Dribben, “no matter how the case is resolved, it will forever remain yet another embarrassing stain in the annals of the distinguished Ivy League school.” Dribben then proceeded to trot out Penn’s not-yet-dry skeletons from the past 13 years (think former Wharton professor Scott Ward).

Further down, the article took a turn to suggest that maybe all of this negative publicity could reflect well on the school. Hm. The argument was halfhearted, to say the least, but I think they might be on to something.

Take former planet Pluto as a case study. Ever since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has always taken a back seat to its slightly more infamous neighbors. But when relegated to sub-planet status this past year, the little guy instantly became everyone’s favorite interstellar object, evoking nostalgic memories of fourth-grade mobile projects. (Yes, I, too, have joined the Facebook group.) In fact, the American Dialect Society just voted “plutoed” as the 2006 Word of the Year, with its verb form meaning “to demote or devalue someone or something.” People like underdogs–David, the tortoise, Rocky. And if it takes Penn’s misfortunes to emerge from Ivy League obscurity, then so be it.

But once the spotlight is on Penn, it’s up to us to show them what we’re really all about.

If you found yourself at home watching daytime T.V. over the holidays, you probably heard about Oprah’s latest philanthropic endeavor. Heck, even if you were sipping cocktails on the white sand beaches of some exotic hotspot, Oprah made sure you knew about the lavish $40 million girls’ school she just opened in South Africa as her Christmas gift to the poor. There’s no denying that Oprah is a very generous woman. Still, many have found room to criticize her generosity, insisting that she needs to start with the home front.

Now, I like Oprah, and I applaud her efforts, but I have to admit, these critics do have a point. Oprah responded by telling Newsweek, “If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.” I’ve worked with kids all my life, so I’ve had my share of spoiled, snot-nosed kids who are increasingly disrespectful and selfish. But I think Oprah’s being a bit unfair. I mean, can you really blame these kids? They don’t have a fighting chance against those advertising moguls at Apple! (C’mon, you have to admit, those Nanos are SWEET. Who can resist them? Definitely not a 12-year-old raised on pop culture.)

On a more serious note, I found Oprah’s blanket statement, “If you are a child in the U.S., you can get an education,” unsettling. Everyone knows that the American education system is no stranger to budget deficits, and it’s hardly fair to call it an education when you’re a group of fifth-graders, and you don’t know your times tables, as I found to be the case when I tutored in a West Philly school through Sayre Beacon, an America Reads program. Yes, the situation in South Africa is dire, and when it comes down to it, Oprah is free to do whatever she wants with her money, but it’s another thing to dismiss the state of American schools with a select Groton-educated elite as your representative sample.