November 25, 2014

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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA | TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014

Students disheartened by Ferguson decision INSIDE NOTE TO READERS The Daily Pennsylvanian will resume normal publication on Monday, December 1, 2014

NEWS HIGHER ED ROUNDUP Get news and updates from around the Ivies PAGE 2

SFS ADVISORY BOARD LAUNCHES

Officer Darren Wilson was not indicted by a grand jury on Monday HUIZHONG WU Staff Writer

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OPINION WHY YOUR MAJOR SUCKS The liberal arts have been saturated with their own freedom PAGE 4

SPORTS TOP TEN MOMENTS We count down the top moments from the last week of Penn Athletics BACK PAGE

FACING FAMILIAR FOES

AMANDA SUAREZ/ MANAGING EDITOR

Hundreds of protestors took to the streets of Philadelphia following the announcement of no indictment for officer Darren Wilson in Fersguson, Mo.

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KRISTEN GRABARZ Campus News Editor-Elect

Penn will participate in the Association of American Universities’ sexual assault climate survey when it is released in April 2015, according to President Amy Gutmann. The AAU, of which Gutmann is chair, has contracted with a national research firm called Westat to design and administer the survey, which will measure the frequency and characteristics of campus sexual assault and sexual harassment across institutions, to member universities that choose to participate. The AAU is a nonprofit organization consisting of 60 leading United States and Canadian research universities. All eight Ivy League universities are members. “The Ivy plus presidents talked about how important it is to have a survey instrument that is reliable and comparable across institutions and across time,” Gutmann said. While the AAU will publicly report the holistic results from its participating institutions, Westat will provide each campus with its respective data, and individual universities will decide whether to release the results. Gutmann said that Penn will make the results public in a way that “secures the anonymity of respondents.” Each survey will feature a uniform series of questions, except for five that will specifically reference campus programs to measure familiarity with campus resources and support services. “A good survey ought to be something that we can learn from not only our own students responses, but the responses at other institutions,” Gutmann said. “We ought to be able to compare, otherwise we really don’t know how to interpret a lot of the results if they’re not comparable.”

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SEE FERGUSON PAGE 5

Phila. named finalist for Dem. nat’l convention HARRY COOPERMAN City News Editor

Penn plans to participate in AAU sexual climate survey

Students were greatly disappointed Monday night following the decision in the Ferguson case, which has sparked discussions about race relations and protests across the country. More than four months after the death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown, the grand jury in Missouri chose to not indict officer Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot Brown. The decision was made by the early afternoon, but the prosecutors in Ferguson, Mo. did not announce it publicly until almost half past 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 24. An indictment is not a finding of guilt or innocence for a person, but rather a judgment made on whether criminal charges should be brought against that person.

“For me personally, it is disappointing and disheartening, and it speaks to a system that continually fails to protect all of its citizens,” said College senior Keishawn Johnson, who is the president of Penn’s chapter for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. UMOJA co-chair elect and College sophomore Ray Clark agreed, writing via text, “As a black male who is only one year older than Michael Brown, I am seriously questioning our worth within American society at this point.” While there were no public protests on campus, there were in other parts of the city. Photos showed rows of police bikes by City Hall this afternoon and many police cars by Temple University’s main campus in North Philadelphia. Members of Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation joined protests late on Monday night. After the announcement, hundreds of protesters marched downtown, starting from City Hall. All the while, they were chanting slogans like “No f---ing

Get ready for 2016 — Philadelphia is one step closer to hosting the Democratic presidential national convention two years from now. The Democratic National Committee, also known as the DNC, announced on Monday that Philadelphia will be one of three finalists that could host the party’s 2016 national convention, eliminating Birmingham, Ala., and Phoenix, Ariz., as potential hosts for the convention. Brooklyn, N.Y., and Columbus, Ohio are the two other potential finalists. The DNC will make the final decision about the host city in the next few months. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter praised the

DNC’s decision on Monday in a press release, noting that “for the Democrats, the road to the White House leads right through the city of Philadelphia.” While the DNC has not yet selected a date for the convention, it is considering hosting it during the weeks of July 18, July 25 and Aug. 22. The 2016 Republican National Convention, set to be held in Cleveland, will likely occur by mid-July at the latest, putting it before the Democrats’ convention. If the convention were to be held the week of Aug. 22, it would likely coincide with New Student Orientation, which Penn Democrats Political Director and College SEE DNC PAGE 6

DP FILE PHOTO

Mentors to help high schoolers GRASP robotics Penn Science Across Ages and GRASP lab partner to educate public school students JENNIFER WRIGHT Staff Writer

A RoboMentor is not exactly what it sounds like. Rather than a futuristic robot personal guru, it’s a Penn engineering student who advises local high school students in robotics competitions. Penn Science Across Ages and Penn’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory, commonly known as the GRASP Lab, are teaming up to recruit Penn students to become RoboMentors to high school students around the city this spring. While Penn students have worked with local robotics

COURTESY OF GRASP LABORATORY

Penn’s Science Across Ages and GRASP Lab teamed up to recruit Penn students to become RoboMentors to high school students around the city this spring.

teams in the past, the RoboMentor program is the first structured program with the same intent. For at least two

hours a week, Penn students will work with high school teams to help them create their robot for either the

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FIRST Tech Challenge or the FIRST Robotics Competition — national high school robotics tournaments.

The RoboMentor program is a part of US2020 PHL, a nationwide mentoring initiative developed by the White House, whose goal is to have one million STEM mentors working with youth by 2020. Philadelphia is one of seven cities selected to take part in the national initiative. Co-president of Penn Science Across Ages Jeffrey Ng said PSAA — a student group that hosts local science programs — was looking to expand its involvement in technology-based programs and found this program to be a perfect fit for their mission. The program targets schools that lack resources for their robotics teams to do well. While some teams might have a dedicated faculty coach, the coach might not have the technical background to help the team succeed. That’s SEE PSAA-GRASP PAGE 2

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