WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
COHEN ON
COLLEGE, COMCAST
Social media plays increasing role in admissions
& CONNECTIONS
Admissions officers will check accounts if concerns are raised
KATIE ZHAO | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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An interview with the Chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees, David L. Cohen
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Comcast Ballard Spahr LLP Professor / Student Mayor / Chief of Staff Father / Son
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HUR M A RT
COREY STERN Deputy News Editor
SEE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE 8
BALTIMORE SPARKS DISCUSSION
D C O HE N VI
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Not only does social media have the potential to distract today’s generation of college applicants — it also has the power to get them in serious trouble during the admissions process, a college admissions consultant said. Increasingly, college admissions officers are checking the social media accounts of college applicants. Surveillance can cover several platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In order to avoid trouble, applicants often keep their accounts private or change their online names while they are applying to colleges. Brian Taylor, director of The Ivy Coach, a New York-based college consulting firm, said that although the majority of social media accounts are not checked due to time constraints, admissions officers will investigate if any concerns are raised about a particular applicant. For example, if a jealous student at an
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CAROLINE SIMON Staff Reporter
IAN ROBER
Penn Graduates Penn Board of Trustees Penn Medicine Board of Trustees 2000 Republican National Convention Friends as Undergraduates at Penn
Whether at Penn, Comcast, City Hall or Ballard Spahr, David Cohen has close ties with these five Penn graduates, though there are some intricacies to the connections. At Comcast, Rodin sits on the Board of Directors and Rendell is a contributor for MSNBC. Makadon represented Comcast in several high-profile cases before his death. While Mayor of Philadelphia, Rendell tapped Roberts and Cohen to co-chair the host committee for the 2000 RNC. Rendell and Rodin were ex officio Trustees of the University and Rodin was an ex officio Trustee of Penn Medicine. GRAPHIC BY COREY STERN | DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR
I remember vividly the moment I decided to become a physician. … it was because of my mother’s near death experience.” — Emmanuel Cordova PAGE 4
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From his office on the 52nd floor of the Comcast Center, David L. Cohen has a panoramic view of Philadelphia, the city in which he is so deeply involved. But he insists on heading to the 56th floor to see his favorite view from the skyscraper. On the way, Cohen stops to greet Ralph Roberts, the 95-year-old founder of Comcast and a 1941 Wharton graduate. The two briefly discuss an upcoming event, exchange smiles and go separate ways. Cohen steps into a boardroom on the west side of the building and continues toward the windows. He points out his favorite spots: a new park on the Schuylkill River, an expanding medical campus and a 120-year-old red brick stadium. It is in this boardroom that Cohen can keep an eye on Penn every day. Cohen, who graduated from Penn Law School in 1981, has served as Chair of the University’s Board of Trustees since 2009. Though he is one of the top executives at a multi-billion dollar media company, he makes time for other commitments, including his “number one philanthropic passion”— Penn. “Over the course of my career I have come to recognize how important Penn Law School was in enabling just about everything I have been able to accomplish in my career,” Cohen explained.
For him, this is a major reason why he contributes so much time to the University. “I’m one of these weird people because I actually loved law school,” Cohen joked. “I even loved the first year of law school, where everyone said it’s so brutal and the work is so hard.” Cohen went to Swarthmore College for his undergraduate education, but embraced the intellectual challenge provided by Penn Law. More importantly, he feels that the connections he made at Penn have become invaluable lifetime bonds. He cited the late Arthur Makadon, a former senior partner at a Philadelphia law firm and Cohen’s appellate advocacy professor, as the “most important person in [his] professional career” other than his wife. (Cohen met his wife, Rhonda Resnick Cohen, at Swarthmore and they got married before attending Penn Law together.) “God only knows what [Makadon] saw in me as a law student, but we became friends,” Cohen said. “He became my best friend and recruited me to Ballard Spahr, was my mentor at Ballard Spahr ... and really was my closest advisor and friend and confidante for my entire professional career in Philadelphia.” Makadon, a 1967 Penn Law graduate and former Penn Trustee, was also responsible for introducing Cohen to then-Philadelphia District Attorney Ed Rendell. The two became close friends and Cohen left Ballard Spahr to become SEE DAVID COHEN PAGE 7
Students express dissatisfaction with pre-major advising system
44 percent said they were very or generally dissatisfied JILL MOELY Staff Reporter
In the fall, College freshmen arriving on campus may turn to their pre-major advisors for guidance — but some students say Penn’s premajor advising program simply is not cutting it. Students in the College of Arts and Sciences are assigned advisors who will, in theory, guide them through their first year of higher academics and help them in the process leading up to major declaration. Pre-freshmen make first contact with these advisors in the summer when they register for courses. “Pre-major advising is a developmental approach to advising,” College of Arts and Sciences Director of Academic Advising Janet Tighe said. “So your goals when you’re talking to the student, fresh out of high school, is to make sure that they feel there’s one person at Penn — grown-up, authority, whatever — who knows them.” Despite these measures, some students are not getting what they need from pre-major advising. In a 2014 Senior Survey administered by Penn’s Office of Institutional Research and Analysis, 44 percent of respondents
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In a 2014 Senior Survey, 44 percent of respondents indicated that they were “very dissatisfied” or “generally dissatisfied” with pre-major advising.
indicated that they were “very dissatisfied” or “generally dissatisfied” with pre-major advising. In contrast, only 31 percent of respondents reported any type of dissatisfaction with the advisors they were matched with after declaring their majors. In order to investigate the roots of this discontent, the College Office teamed up with the Dean’s Advisory Board to create a new survey to gauge what is and isn’t working in pre-major advising. They ran a pilot version of the survey earlier this semester and
plan to administer the full version next semester. “I guess what motivated us to initiate the project in the first place is that we feel that there exists a gap of communication between pre-major advisors and advisees, which may partially lead to some of the dissatisfaction experienced by some students,” DAB committee chair and College junior Shuhao Fan said. “For example, it is hard for advisees to express to advisors where they mostly need help. Or for advisors,
they don’t necessarily know what advisees are really thinking in order to adjust,” he said. “We hope that the survey serves to fill up this gap, by bridging two sides, meanwhile providing valuable information about the current pre-major advising as a whole.” For College freshman Elena Varela, miscommunication with her pre-major advisor had major drawbacks. Varela’s advisor recommended SEE PRE-MAJOR ADVISORS PAGE 3
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