THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2015
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Can SEPTA survive the papal visit?
MILESTONES FOR PENN GSE AND MED SCHOOL
After surviving a website crash and numerous delays, tickets will be sold by lottery system VAMSEE MUPPARAPU Staff Reporter
Public transit users will need to get extra lucky in order to get around Philadelphia during the pope’s visit. SEPTA announced on Wednesday that it will use a lottery system to sell 350,000 Regional Rail Passes for the weekend of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia. The lottery, which will be hosted by Amazon, will be held through the SEPTA website on Monday, Aug. 3, from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams said in the July 28 press conference that everyone has an equal chance of receiving a pass and that applications are not impacted by the time of submission. TicketLeap, a Philadelphia-based online ticket sales and marketing company, will review all entries once the lottery is closed to remove fraudulent and suspicious entries. Interested riders can only submit one entry, but, if selected, can purchase up to 10 tickets for $10 each. Applicants will be able to enter their top three preferred rail stations, however they are limited to only the 18 Regional Rail Stations that will offer train service the weekend of the pope’s visit. All other Regional Rail Stations will be closed. Emails will be sent out on Aug. 6 to the SEPTA lottery winners notifying them that they have three days to purchase the tickets online. SEPTA’s preparation for Pope Francis’s visit on the weekend of Sept. 26-27 began once the pope confirmed in November of 2014 that he would attend the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. On June 16, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, along with officials of SEPTA, Amtrak, PATCO and other agencies announced that Regional Rail trains, subways and trolleys would run truncated routes that weekend, stopping at only 31 of the usual 282 stations. Their plans went quickly awry.
Penn GSE celebrates 100 years, Penn Medicine celebrates 250 years YASMEEN KABOUD Staff Reporter
Two of Penn’s 12 schools — the Graduate School of Education and the Perelman School of Medicine — recently celebrated important milestones. GSE celebrated its centennial this past year, marking 100 years since its official founding in 1914. Originally, the school had just nine undergraduate courses taught by three professors. The official centennial
kickoff celebration occurred in September 2014 with a lecture and conversation with Dr. Louis W. Sullivan. And throughout the past year, Penn GSE has hosted several symposiums, alumni events and seminars discussing topics ranging from race and poverty to human trafficking. In March the Penn GSE Education Alumni Association named the 2015 EAA award recipients. According to the Penn GSE website, the awards are intended to “honor the accomplishments of GSE alumni and other education professionals” and that they “recognize outstanding contributions to Penn
GSE and the field of education.” The recipients were honored on campus at the Centennial Celebration in May. President Amy Gutmann and GSE Dean Pam Grossman led the recognition of the GSE’s 100 years of accomplishments during Penn’s Alumni Weekend in May. “Ever since I was named dean of the School, alumni have been contacting me to tell me how much they loved GSE and their programs. I look forward to meeting many more amazing alumni at the celebration and learning how they are making a difference as we anticipate GSE’s next 100 years,” said Dean
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Students of all ages flood campus for summer programs Activities range from biomedical research to teaching kids about tech
— Jay Havaldar PAGE 4
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Penn students who stay on campus for the summer taking classes or researching for professors are amongst a diverse set of visitors: 7-year-old kids to rising high school seniors who are getting a taste of what it’s like to walk on Locust. Biomedical Research Academy Each year, 104 budding biomedical researchers take part in the three-week non-graded, non-credit Biomedical Research Academy. The Academy is managed in part by the pre-college program company, Summer Discovery. While 94 of the students pay for the program, 10 are scholarship students selected from the Philadelphia School District by the Penn coordinators. In the morning, the students sit in lectures, learning about disease mechanisms and hearing Penn faculty talk about their research. In the afternoon, students participate in hands-on experiments to learn about cells. For example, they determine their blood type through isolating DNA in their cheek cells. “We don’t do new, cutting-edge research in the lab … but it’s new to them. They think it’s pretty cool to be able to determine their blood
Penn professors participate in ultramarathon Team of five professors won first place, ran a combined distance of 143.82 miles
BRYN FERGUSON Staff Reporter
And so we arrive at ridiculous and irreconcilable paradoxes — how can John Lennon be both a champion of peace and a wife-beater?”
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SEE SEPTA PAGE 7
NEW BUILDINGS POPPING UP
Grossman. Prior to Alumni Weekend, Penn GSE hosted another Centennial Celebration event in which notable actress, playwright and social commentator Anna Deavere Smith performed a piece from a work-in-progress play about the school-to-prison pipeline. Smith is best known for her role as Nancy McNally on The West Wing and Mrs. Akalitus on Nurse Jackie. “The themes that resonate in her work — equity, diversity, community — have animated the work of GSE faculty and students
LAVI BEN DOR Staff Reporter
the dual-degree Jerome Fisher Management and Technology program, designed for high school students. The 50 to 55 students who are admitted into TSI every year have a chance to stay in the Quad and take classes in the Engineering buildings and in Huntsman Hall. Many are rising high school seniors, but a select few rising juniors are also admitted. The culmination of the program is the creation of a go-to-market product. Participants use their engineering skills to create working prototypes and their business skills to market the products. Parents are invited to a product fair, where the products can win awards like “Most Innovative.” “Each year the products have become more and more advanced,”
While some Penn professors may choose to take advantage of the summer to relax, several recently braved heat and humidity to complete in an ultramarathon, running a combined distance longer than five marathons over the course of a single day. A team consisting of Wharton professors Amy Sepinwall, David Zaring and Nicolas Cornell of the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department, Philosophy professor Daniel Singer and Graduate School of Education professor Betsy Rymes won first place and a $2000 prize in the 24-hour endurance relay of the 2015 Back on My Feet in24 Philadelphia Race Challenge, held from July 18-19 on the Schuylkill River Trail in Fairmount Park. The race raises money for Back on My Feet, a group that supports rehabilitation for the homeless through running. The professors ran a combined distance of 143.82 miles by completing 17 8.46-mile laps in just under 24 hours. According to Singer, the team came together relatively spontaneously:
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LUKE CHEN | DP FILE PHOTO
type from cheek cell DNA,” said Linda Robinson, the program coordinator and a Penn biology lab coordinator. Students also participate in a Journal Club, in which they are taught by a Penn post-doc student or graduate student to read journal articles. Robinson said she often sees Penn freshman coming into Biology 101 and Biology 102 who were participants in the Biomedical Research Academy. “It seems like most students do the program since they want to come to Penn,” she said. Management and Technology Summer Institute Another pre-college program that attracts many Penn hopefuls is the three-week Management and Technology Summer Institute, the for-credit summer incarnation of
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