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English Language Programs
University of Pennsylvania
110 Fisher-Bennett Hall
3340 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6274 USA
Email: elp@sas.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-8681
Fax: 215-898-2684
Scheduling smartly
Many of you are probably reading this from home today. Those who are lucky enough to have classes canceled on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — or are able to miss a few classes without being penalized — can have extra time to travel and relax with family and friends from home.
Emerson Brooking | Taking the midnight train to Georgia
My holiday commute takes 12 hours each way among some of the strangest people I’ve ever met. No, I don’t take an international flight — I ride Amtrak.
American passenger rail isn’t what it used to be. With the universality of the automobile and ever cheaper airfare, the train has become a niche transportation for a niche group. At Penn, the vast majority of students jet out for the holidays. Real train travel (i.e. not just to New York) is exceedingly rare. Nevertheless, riding passenger rail is a unique experience more students should take a chance to investigate.
Ashley Takacs | The squirrel-theft accords
The fact that the squirrel statues are missing is hardly surprising, but the amount of attention that the thefts have sparked is. The case of the missing squirrels has made its way onto the front page of the DP, it has launched Facebook group search parties and it has even inspired a painfully cheesy report on Fox news.
In an effort to resolve this unseemly situation before the madness goes any further (and the UN has to step in), I’ve written an open letter to both parties. Call it my attempt at mediation in the Thanksgiving spirit.
Dear Penn Art Club:
Finding a great apartment at the last minute
If you’re number 119 on the waitlist for fall housing and the Housing Assignments office says it “doesn’t prefer to use the word ‘guarantee,’” then perhaps it’s time for you to start looking off campus.
Oh, did I mention it’s now the first week in August? And it’s a shame that all of your friends already have their own housing figured out with no room for you. Good luck!
Be mindful when living with a non-Penn student
Lucky in the roommate lottery of freshman year, I thought I was home free. I passed the pre-meeting Facebook stalk, survived the "it is so nice to finally meet you" and ended the year with good friends. But as I moved into my off-campus apartment this fall, I once again had to learn how to share a space with a stranger.
I live with two roommates whom I chose, but we were randomly placed with a fourth — and she doesn't go to Penn.
The four of us found a comfortable living situation, but only after realizing a few key things.
Grad students have a variety of choices
While Penn undergraduates crowd around housing on or near campus, graduate students primarily live off campus and tend to reside across the city.
According to Corbett Brown, second year nursing doctoral student and chairman of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, 700 graduate students live on-campus in Sansom Place East and West — only about 6 percent of the approximately 10,000 graduate students at Penn.
Second-year post-baccalaureate graduate student Sandy Barbut chose to live in Sansom East because it is the only graduate housing offered on campus.
How to find parking
Permits for the five student parking lots around campus can be obtained through Campus Express. Prices range from $425 for a school-year evening parking pass to $1,768 for an annual 24-hour pass.
Students in fraternities and sororities can sometimes arrange parking through their individual houses.
On campus for just a weekend? Try looking for parking along Pine Street in the low 40s. You will need good parallel parking skills, but the spots are usually free.
Consult an expert for leasing advice
Every year, Penn upperclassmen take part in the off-campus housing game. They call brokers at various real estate companies, obtain a list of available houses or apartments and begin their own personal scavenger hunt for that perfect living space.
However, students often fall into the trap of being too naive and signing off on what looks like an ideal situation. Soon they find out that they glossed over the extra $150 monthly charge for a simple appliance or that they were responsible for that archaic heating pipe that burst in the middle of winter.
Seifter | Drexel boosts Bruised ego
You could peruse every inch of the Big 5 history books, and you would find no indication that Drexel has a men’s basketball team, let alone that its Daskalakis Athletic Center is only a block from the historic Palestra.
No one would accuse Drexel coach Bruiser Flint of being softspoken, but he knows that for all his bold words, nothing he says can change the way his team has been historically ignored as a part of Philadelphia college basketball lore.
To get his program the respect it craves, Flint has taken to making his statements on the court to force people to pay attention.
Gutmann to lead Obama panel on bioethics
In a move that will extend Penn’s influence to the White House, President Barack Obama named University President Amy Gutmann chairwoman of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
The announcement came Tuesday afternoon after Obama signed an Executive Order creating the commission, which will advise on matters relating to bioethics, in addition to science and technology.
A statement from the White House described Gutmann as “a distinguished political scientist, philosopher, and scholar of ethics and public policy.”
Kotloff | There ain’t no stopping them now
Championships often come with a certain feeling of finality, a realization that a team has been built up over time and its goal is complete once the players hoist up the trophy.
But for this group of Quakers, the future is just as bright as the present.
Yes, the strength of this team lay in its tremendous collection of seniors, but you get the sense that Al Bagnoli’s plan isn’t just to bring the Ivy League title back to Philadelphia.
It’s to keep it here.
Tiger’s coach Hughes scratched from team
More details arose yesterday from The Daily Princetonian regarding the firing of Roger Hughes as the head football coach at Princeton.
Hughes was “relieved of duties” Sunday after 10 seasons at the helm of the Tigers. He finished with a 47-52 record — the sixth-worst of Princeton’s 21 all-time coaches — including three consecutive 4-6 seasons. He compiled three winning seasons and a share of the Ivy title in 2006.
Malcolm Washington making a name for himself
Zack Rosen had just come out of the shower. The Quakers were playing at Yale in February, and he walked into the main area of the visiting locker room.
That’s when he first saw Denzel Washington.
“I was in shock,” Rosen recalled. “I started rattling off Remember the Titans lines. Me and Rob [Belcore], we’re roommates, we’ve watched that movie 14 times — at least.”
But now that his son, freshman Malcolm Washington, earned a spot on the varsity squad, Denzel will be a fixture around the basketball program.
Battle missing bite
The bill hasn’t changed much from Saturday’s game: a winless Penn faces a winless Colonial Athletic Association squad at the Palestra.
After dropping a double-overtime heartbreaker to Delaware Saturday, the Quakers (0-3) will set out for redemption tonight against Drexel (0-3).
Though the Red and Blue used to count on an easy win in the battle of 33rd street — they lead the all-time series 15-6 — Drexel has won the last two meetings, once at home and once on the road.
Students ‘outraged’ about rape
Set against the backdrop of a large banner displaying the signatures of students pledging not to condone violence, members of the University community spoke out against sexual assault for the second time this semester last night in the Penn Women’s Center.
New tool may make plagiarism easier to detect
Student plagiarism will soon become significantly easier to detect — at least for those professors who decide to use the library’s new plagiarism software.
SafeAssign is a plagiarism detection tool that works within the Blackboard courseware system.
Professors are in the process of testing the system through a pilot program. The tool will be put to use next semester.
Lindsey Stull | Think about it
I don’t know how to write about rape.
Rape destroys lives, changes people and can end in pregnancy and STD transmission. If it were something abstract to me — like a tsunami, or something that happened a long time ago — I could probably distance myself enough to write about it easily, but victims of sexual assault are my friends and classmates, and it’s happening all the time, so I don’t know what to say.
Sam Bieler | Making the most of opportunities
For most, Halloween Friday is a bacchanalia of wild parties and scandalous outfits; I saw Shakespeare. Love’s Labor’s Lost to be specific. Put on at the Annenberg Center by the famous Globe Theater Company, the play revolves around a series of romantic misunderstandings and revelations that cumulate in a moving message about the meaning of love. I, however, was mired in my own revelation — namely, that I was one of the only Penn students there.
Editorial | A campus response
It is an understatement to say that the Penn student body has been through a lot this semester. And this past week, with one student’s death and a sexual assault, has been particularly trying.
These events are largely personal, and the process of dealing with them should remain so. For those directly affected by either incident, we urge you to continue to reach out to personal and Penn support networks, and to talk to people whom you trust over the coming days and weeks. These are not things one should cope with alone.
Police identify suspect in rape case
Police have identified and interviewed a man who allegedly raped a Penn freshman woman at an off-campus fraternity party early Sunday morning, according Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush.
The victim was not otherwise physically injured, Rush said. She declined to state whether the victim was taken to the hospital following the incident.