THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSIT Y OF PENNSYLVANIA THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSIT Y OF PENNSYLVANIA
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
One step at a time
For Commencement, female speakers are few and far BY BRENDA WHANG Deputy News Editor Only eight percent of recorded Penn commencement speakers were women. Jodie Foster, who spoke in 2006, was the only woman to speak at Commencement since 2000. Two
In Philadelphia classrooms, national standards clash with local realities BY LIANNA SERKO Senior Writer
first ladies, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush, were the only female speakers in the ‘90s. Online records of commencement speakers begin in 1938. “It’s so shocking to me that a
SEE COMMENCEMENT PAGE 3
Female Commencement Speakers at Penn since 1938
This past fall, Say re High School students in a program called “Leaders of Change” examined how Philadelphia and state schools function and came to a stark conclusion: Their school system is failing them. The theme that emerged, College sophomore and program volunteer Filippo Bulgarelli said, was that the students — all more involved and high-achieving than the average Sayre student — knew that something was wrong with their school, but didn’t know how it was being addressed. Bulgarelli said the students saw the problems first-hand: lack of academic opportunities and overworked teachers — not to mention the poor conditions that permeate the city’s schools. These issues plague public schools in cities and rural areas throughout much of the nation, and Philadelphia is no exception. Nationally, a movement has
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2006 JODIE FOSTER Actress, Producer and Director 1993 HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON First Lady of the United States 1990 BARBARA BUSH First Lady of the United States 1988 PATRICIA SCHROEDER Congresswoman
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1947 FEBRUARY - JAMES CREESE President, Drexel Institute of Technology MARCH - CHESTER I. BARNARD President, New Jersey Bell Telephone Company JUNE - MARGARET MEAD Associate Curator, American Museum of Natural History AUGUST - EARL G. HARRISON Vice President in Charge of Law School
1945 MARCH - ABRAHAM A. NEUMAN 1983 President, Dropsie College ELLEN GOODMAN JUNE - THOMAS J.S. WAXTER Syndicated columnist Public Welfare Administrator 1978 JUNE - SAMUEL T. ORTON PATRICIA HARRIS Physician and Investigator Secretary, Department of Housing JUNE - ARTHUR T. VANDERBILT and Urban Development Dean of the Law School, New York University 1969 OCTOBER - VIRGINIA C. GILDERSLEEVE LADY BARBARA WARD JACKSON Dean of Barnard College Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
SEE SCHOOLS PAGE 6
Body image in focus
Students address body issues in Penn Poised’s ‘Come As You Are’ photography campaign BY BOOKYUNG JO Staff Writer
Now streaming: my little in vitro pony BY TINA CHOU Contributing Writer Starting today, students will have access to the miracle of life — horse edition. An eleven-year-old thoroughbred named My Special Girl is expecting to deliver her foal midMarch at the New Bolton Center Campus in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Starting today, students can watch the live birth on Penn Vet’s website, but the father can’t — the sperm cell came from the frozen semen of a deceased stallion. My Special Girl is a surrogate mare, pregnant with an egg from another horse. She was impregnated last April through intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI. “We want to give the public a behind-the-scenes look at the work we do at New Bolton Center, to allow people to see our veterinarians,
technicians and staff doing their jobs,” Penn Vet Associate Dean for New Bolton Center Corinne Sweeney said. “New Bolton Center is a teaching hospital, and this is an educational opportunity.” ICSI is a common infertility treatment for humans, but the procedure is not as common in the equine population. The process entails injecting a single sperm cell into an egg, which is incubated for eight days and then transplanted into the mare. “There are a handful ... of other places in the country who have produced live foals using this procedure,” Penn Vet Associate Professor and Foal Cam coordinator Regina Turner said. She added that My Special Girl’s pregnancy is “special and rare.” Equine ICSI was spearheaded by Colorado State and Texas A&M universities. The success of My Special Girl’s pregnancy will place
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Penn Vet among the few that offer this advanced service. “We want to join this select group and stay on the forefront of assisted reproduction by offering this service to our clients,” Turner said. While Penn Vet is keeping the gender of the foal a secret, the school will be hosting a naming contest through Facebook and its website. The foal will be raised by My Special Girl for the first six months before being adopted by Penn Vet Assistant Professor of Large Animal Medicine Rose Nolen-Walston . A gormer Olympian of Canada’s Eventing team is slated to train the foal. “We are very much looking forward to the birth of this foal, and to meeting the new member of our barn family,” Nolen-Walston said. “Given the lineage, this foal could grow up to be a terrific sport ■ horse.”
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Ying Pan/Staff Photographer
College Freshman Emily Fisher poses at a Penn Poised photoshoot, with the message “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul” written on her body as part of a the Poised: Come As You Are campaign promoting body positivty. A recent study published in the Journal of Women & Aging found that only 12 percent of women are satisfied with their body image. 88 percent of women surveyed were
in the normal weight range. Penn Poised, a student organization on campus, started ‘Come As You Are’, a photography campaign hoping to stimulate conver-
SEE BODY IMAGE PAGE 5
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PAGE 2 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
Crime Log: Feb. 14 - Feb. 20 Thefts: Bike thefts: 2 Thefts from buildings: 5 Other thefts: 2 Arrest from theft: Feb. 20, 2014: A n unaff iliated 54 -year-old male was arrested in connection with a theft in the category “other theft.” Auto theft: F e b . 2 0 , 2 014 : A n a f f iliated 21-year- old male repor ted that he parked h i s sc o ot er out sid e h i s r e sid e nc e at 3 9 4 4 P i ne St. on Feb. 19 and locked his steering wheel. He returned on Feb. 20 and the scooter was missing. DUI: Feb. 20, 2014: At 9:55 p.m., a suspect was observed behind the wheel of a vehicle that was parked on SEPTA trolley tracks in the SEPTA platform area on the 4000 block of Baltimore Avenue. The suspect had slurred speech, red eyes and an unsteady gait. The occurrence resulted in the arrest of an unaffiliated 36-yearold female. Burglary: Feb. 17, 2014: Workers arrived at the University Archives, located at 4015 Walnut St., and found that the maintenance shop door and lock had been damaged in an apparent attempt to gain unauthor ized entr y into the shop area. The incident reportedly occurred
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AFRO-MEXICAN TUNES COME TO CAMPUS
on Feb. 15 at about 5:00 p.m. Feb. 20, 2014: An unaffiliated female reported that two safes were removed from her office at Horizon House, located at 120 South 30th St. The incident reportedly occurred on Feb. 19 at about 4:30 p.m. Fraud: Feb. 18, 2014: A n unaffiliated 41-year-old female repor ted that the locked petty cash box at Pretzel Factor y, located at 340 0 Civ ic Cent er Blvd ., was pried open and cash was removed from the box on Feb. 15 at about 2:00 p.m. Public Drunkenness: Feb. 15, 2014: At about 10:10 a.m., police responded to a call about a disturbance at Nara Restaurant, located at 4002 Spruce St. An unaffiliated 51-year-old male was found to be highly intoxicated and combative. The suspect attempted to throw a chair at an employee of the restaurant and was cited for public drunkenness. Other Offense: Feb. 15, 2014: At about 3:40 p.m., a suspect was observed loitering at Wawa, located at 3604 Chestnut St., after being advised to leave the area. The suspect , a 31-year- old unaffiliated male, was issued a citation.
- Cosette Gastelu Staff Writer
Xinying Xu/Staff Photographer
Last night, the East Los Angeles-based alternative band Las Cafeteras performed in Claudia Cohen Hall as part of their “We’re All Connected Tour.” The group is known for combining Afro-Mexican, hip-hop, folk and Native American sounds and has opened for artists like Lila Downs and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes.
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014 PAGE 3
DPS, FBI arrest an alleged leader of ‘THUGS’ BY JILL CASTELLANO Staff Writer The Division of Public Safety assisted the FBI in one of the 10 arrests of leaders of the Ironworkers Local 401 union, who called themselves “the Helpful Union Guys” or “THUGS” and have allegedly used violence to try to protect union jobs. “Our police received a tip centered on an individual down on the eastern border of the Penn Patrol Zone,” Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said. “We notified the FBI that the individual was located” and, after the
arrest, “helped transport him to the charging unit for further processing,” she added. The FBI made the arrest around the area of 34th and Spruce streets and is in charge of future litigation for this individual, as well as the other individuals arrested last Tuesday in relation to the ironworkers union. The FBI alleges that the union members have cost contractors hundreds of thousands of dollars over at least three years through threats to protect union jobs by using crowbars, setting fires, starting riots and undertaking other actions, according to
philly.com. Prosecutors allege that in December 2012, three union members cut steel beams and set fire to a crane at a worksite, which set the project back weeks and cost more than $500,000. The indictment, according to philly.com, also alleges that members could earn spots on the union board if they were involved in worksite attacks, and leaders boasted that the union contained “strongarm enforcers.” Rush said that assisting in an arrest like this is not that rare. “There are times when other law enforcement agencies identify someone on a
Female Commencement Speakers at Peer Schools since 1960 6
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Fewer female speakers at Harvard COMMENCEMENT from page 1 place like Penn that is supposed to be so accepting of diversity could have such a glaring problem with gender diversity in commencement speakers,” College junior and president of the Women’s Political League Madeleine Stevens said. “Such a dramatic dispar ity says something very disappointing about the [selection] committee ‘s values.” Stevens finds the selection process to be opaque. “I don’t know what ‘s going through the minds of the people who are picking the commencement speakers,” she said. “I don’t know if they’ve reached out to women and they’ve declined.” Leslie K r uhly, the Vice P resident and Universit y Secretary who directs Commencement, said in an email t h at t he c om menc ement speaker selection process begins with nominations from the whole Penn community, including students. Student input mainly comes from two groups - the University Council Committee on Honorary Degrees and the Speaker Advisory Group, although stu-
John Legend Penn
dents may make independent nominations directly to the Office of the University Secretary. The Speaker Advisory Group includes students who represent different campus organizations. The nominations are then considered and one speaker is selected by the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees and Awards, of which Penn president A my Gutmann is a member. According to information provided by Kruhly, the Committee tries to select a speaker who “represents the great diversity of our community.” “In addition to being a d ist i ng u ished i nd iv idua l, the speaker must be an accomplished public speaker and hold relevance for the diverse attendees at Commencement,” she wrote. Col lege ju n ior a nd UA member Joyce Kim represents the United Minorities Council on the Speaker Advisor y Group. “I think the gender disparity is pretty obvious [and is] something the Speaker Advisory Group should take into consideration,” she said. The number of women commencement speakers is even lower at Harvard, which has only had eight women speakers since 1831. Some peer schools do not keep public records of commencement speakers on their websites. Others - like Brown, which selects graduating seniors to
Melinda and Bill Gates Stanford speak - choose someone from their university community. Stevens says it is important for Penn women to see successful women speaking at their graduation because “you can’t be what you can’t see,” she said, quoting the docu ment a r y ‘ M iss R ep resentation’. “We have not achieved gender equity. We don’t have gender equity in our everyday lives.” She also pointed out the need to have “all kinds of diversity,” not just gender diversity. College junior and President of the Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women Elizabeth Britton, who was not speaking on behalf of the umbrella group and their constituents, said that more diversity in commencement speakers is needed to reflect the diversity found on campus. “If all the voices giving that last hurrah are male voices, it doesn’t really make sense,” she said.
warrant. It happens numerous times over a year,” she said. Still, the effort of DPS did not go unnoticed or ungratified. “I received a phone call from the special agent in charge of the Philadelphia FBI office thanking us,” Rush said.
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THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
PAGE 4 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
Opinion VOL. CXXX, NO. 27
The Independent Student Newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania
130th Year of Publication TAYLOR CULLIVER, Executive Editor AMANDA SUAREZ, Managing Editor JENNIFER YU, Opinion Editor LOIS LEE, Director of Online Projects FIONA GLISSON, Campus News Editor HARRY COOPERMAN, City News Editor JODY FREINKEL, Assignments Editor WILLIAM MARBLE, Enterprise Editor GENESIS NUNEZ, Copy Editor MATT MANTICA, Copy Editor YOLANDA CHEN, News Photo Editor MICHELE OZER, Sports Photo Editor CONNIE KANG, Photo Manager
STEVEN TYDINGS, Senior Sports Editor RILEY STEELE, Sports Editor IAN WENIK, Sports Editor HAILEY EDELSTEIN, Creative Director ANALYN DELOS SANTOS, News Design Editor VIVIAN LEE, News Design Editor JENNY LU, Sports Design Editor JENNIFER KIM, Video Producer STEPHANIE PARK, Video Producer
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THIS ISSUE SHAWN KELLEY, Associate Copy Editor JULIA FINE, Associate Copy Editor MONICA OSHER, Associate Copy Editor LEAH FANG, Associate Copy Editor LAURA ANTHONY, Deputy News Editor CLAIRE COHEN, Deputy News Editor
SOPHIA LEE, Associate Graphics Editor ALI HARWOOD, Associate Photo Editor ALEXIS ZIEBELMAN, Associate Sports Editor COLIN HENDERSON, Associate Sports Editor ZOE GOLDBERG, Associate Opinion Editor
SIYUAN CAO is a College senior from Bronx, N.Y. Her email address is caos@sas.upenn.edu.
Failing the Bechdel test SARA, STRUGGLING | The presence of women on the big screen has not progressed much in more than 60 years
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h is weekend I went to see the new sup erher o blockbuster, “Robocop”. The film was everything I expected: a predictable two-hour extravaganza of violence and technology, with a slight hint of Gary Oldman (That is to say, a knock-off “The Dark Knight Rises.”). About 20 minutes into the film, I jokingly muttered to myself, “Oh, look, a female character.” In the 1980s, a comic inspired the Bechdel test. It may have started out as a joke, but this test is at least a standard for analyzing gender inequality in films. I’m not sure if my neighbors in the movie theater appreciated my sarcastic feminist witticisms interjected amongst the robotic carnage. But that didn’t stop me from muttering to myself
through the movie. According to the Bechdel test, a film may be considered to “pass” if it satisfies three requirements. Number 1: The film must have two named women. Robocop passes this requirement by having the wife and then the female bad guy, the right-hand woman of the main bad guy. I was distracted by their hair and am really bad with names. Congratulations. This movie cost literally millions to make, so I’m glad they could afford four female characters. Number 2: The two women must speak to each other. Nope. None of the women even sha re screen t i me. There’s the wife, the evil sidekick, the police chief and the Gary Oldman side-kick. They belong to the men in the narrative, and therefore have no reason to ever converse with anyone but their
men. Sadly, Robocop fails at this step. Had it passed, I’m sure it wouldn’t pass the third Number 3: This conversation must cover something other than men. Think of the last romcom you saw: Did the female characters ever have a conversation about the weather? About politics? Did any of the two female characters discuss work or puppies or the ideal baking temperature for chocolatechip muffins? Usually, no. These women sit around discussing the male lead. Now, as someone who just watched “Valentine’s Day,” I can’t really claim superiority. This test may seem overlysimplified, but Amy Bleakley, a research scientist at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, notes that it has its uses. “I think it’s a start,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a per-
fect test [but] at least it helps get this into the conversation and start the conversation” about the representation of women in films.
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Think of the last romcom you saw: Did the female characters ever have a conversation about the weather? About politics?” Sweden has even started including the Bechdel test in ratings of its films. Bleakley also worked on a study that analyzed 855 films from the past six decades. The findings? Female on-screen presence has not
significantly changed since 1950. Does this mean we’re still living in the 1950s when it comes to the silver screen? The study showed that for every female character, there are generally two male characters. As Bleakley noted, women’s role in society has changed immensely in half of a century — but for some reason, the film industry just hasn’t caught up to reflect these new realities, she said. It gets worse: One of the major changes the study picked up i n d i f ferences among presentation of women on screen is that they have become more sexualized. When these women are on screen, they are twice as likely to be in scenes that are sexual in nature. Recently, Marvel’s Kevin Feige hinted that “The Avengers 2” could lay the groundwork for a solo Black Widow
SARA SCHONFELD movie starring Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov. This comes right after Warner Bros hinted that we could expect a Wonder Woman movie sometime soon. Is it too much to ask that movies try a little bit harder to reflect reality? There are so many different types of diversity that Hollywood fails at. SARA SCHONFELD is a College senior from Philadelphia studying English. Email her at s.schonfeldthedp@gmail.com or follow her @SaraSchon.
Robots don’t kill people THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE | Building robots that can decide not to kill is a step forward, not a step back
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a st week I at tended a seminar entitled “How to NOT build a Terminator” by Ronald Arkin, director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The talk explored how roboticists should approach the ethics of robots with lethal autonomy, especially in light of increased military interest in robotics. Advocacy groups around the world are calling for preemptive actions ranging from a moratorium on robots capable of deadly force to a total ban on robotics research. Especially over the past year, drones have been a constant source of both excitement and fear. From Amazon Prime Air to “signature strikes” in Pakistan, drones have captured the public’s attention. But as a roboticist, it frustrates me that public conversations surrounding “killer
robots” have little to do with actual robotics. So, I’d like to address some common concerns and misconceptions about robots to help the discussion be more productive.
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We must stop assigning moral agency to UAVs or any similarly non-sentient tools. Drones cannot be morally culpable for their actions.” First of all, I’m tired of reading headlines like “When will drones stop killing innocent people in Yemen?” or “U.S. drone struck a wedding convoy, killing 14” or “Drones Kill Civilians using NSA data.” While true in the most technical sense, head-
lines like these confuse the weapon with the soldier. Consider how strange it would be to see a headline like “When will guns stop killing civilians in Pakistan?” We must stop assigning moral agency to UAVs or any similarly non-sentient tools. Drones cannot be morally culpable for their actions. Using language attributing the actions of the operator to the machine needlessly distracts from the legitimate moral and legal concerns surrounding drone strikes. So what about machines that can actually “decide” to kill a human? Some groups like the Campaign to stop Killer Robots have been pushing for international bans on “systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human.” I think their hearts are in the right place, but their efforts are being misdirected.
Let’s examine their largest “problems with killer robots”: 1. How do we maintain control over fully autonomous weapons? Arguably, robots are much easier to control than human soldiers. Autonomous robots act according to very rigid standards, unlike humans who have the capability to disobey orders. 2. Robots lack human judgment required to distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Two words: land mines. Mines are very simple killer robots; they detect their environments, make a decision and actuate with lethal force. My point is not that either is ethical, but the idea of deploying weapons which cannot discriminate between friend and foe is nothing new to military ethics. To direct this critique solely at robots ironically misses the real target. If land mines are too simple an example, consider cruise
missiles. Cruise missiles are the quintessential killer robot of the modern arsenal. The commander on the field gives them a kill mission, and they autonomously navigate to, track and destroy their target. Clearly, we already deploy killer robots which don’t discriminate at all. It seems to me a step in the right direction to introduce robots which can decide not to kill. 3. Replacing human troops with machines makes going to war easier, and hence more likely. I sympathize with this very real concern, but again it’s nothing new. The invention of the musket was greeted in much the same way, as were most new warfare technologies. Focusing all our efforts on banning the tool won’t remove the underlying moral considerations or make warfare more just. Besides, it’s impossible to separate core technolo-
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COLLIN BOOTS gies from their potential for military use. We can’t have GPS without the ability to do targeted remote strikes. We can’t have the internet (a military technology) without the capability for domestic surveillance. The capabilities Dr. Kumar is developing for search and rescue quadrotors at Penn are the same skills required by seek-anddestroy robots. New technologies can always be misused. COLLIN BOOTS is a master’s student from Redwood Falls, Minn., studying robotics. Email him at cboots@seas.upenn.edu or follow him @LotofTinyRobots.
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014 PAGE 5
Five-day conference teaches digital marketing skills Nielsen executive will be the keynote speaker at the event
the skills you need to become a great digital marketer, you basically have to take one class in Engineering, one class in Wharton and one class in the College,” Selldorff said. “I felt that doing a digital marketing conference was extremely relevant and also necessary for students to get exposure to new and developing fields.” She added that the students can take away a variety of skills from participating in MEME week. Those learned
BY JESSICA PENNINGTON Contributing Writer Google, eBay and Anthropologie are taking part in a week-long conversation in digital marketing. Muse, Penn’s student-run marketing organization, is hosting Muse E-Marketing and Engagement week, or MEME , r unning Monday, Feb. 24 to Friday, Feb. 28. The conference is meant to provide educational opportunities for students interested in digital marketing. “It’s not your typical conference,” M EM E founder and College junior Samantha Selldorff said. The first four days of the conference feature hour and-a-half-long workshops dedicated to a specific aspect of digital marketing including social, design, analytics and strategy. Executive Vice President of Data Fusion and Social TV Analytics at The Nielsen Company Mike Hess will be the keynote speaker on the final day.
Photos to be posted to the group’s Tumblr BODY IMAGE from page 1 sations on campus about the pervasiveness of body image problems. They took photos of students of all genders who had written about their physical insecurities on their bodies and posted them to a Tumblr account. “Body image concerns are a pretty common occurrence but it’s something that’s generally tabooed to talk about,” said Laura MacKinnon, a senior in Engineering and a co-founder of Penn Poised.“I want people to get that it’s a universal thing that we deal with.”
on social day could be applicable to promoting student groups, and the analytics workshop may inspire students to enroll in a statistics course, she said. “The thing I’m most excited for is to see at the end who was excited about it, who really got value out of it,” Selldorff said. “We want to create a community at Penn, through MEME, of people excited about engaging in new spaces that didn’t exist before.”
DOCTORAL STUDENT CALL FOR PROPOSALS FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY Nimay Kulkarni/Staff Photographer
Yesterday, eBay Creative Director Kate Lindeen spoke during the second day of Muse E-Marketing and Engagement Week, which centered around design. Each day of the week-long event addresses a different aspect of digital marketing. The event runs alongside an internet-meme competition where students can submit creative Penn themed memes. The contest closes Feb. 27 and the winner, chosen by the number of Facebook likes, will have lunch with Hess. The conference uses novel methods to engage students in a non-competitive envi-
ronment similar to an actual workplace. Students will solve problems in teams and discuss digital marketing issues with associate to executive-level professionals. “Having gone to conferences at Penn, even ones hosted by Muse, I felt that they all had a very similar value composition,” Selldorff, who is also the Muse co-vice
president of promotions and web said. “You hear someone speak, take notes and desperately get in line to get their card at the end.” MEME Week is filling a perceived gap in digital marketing education at Penn. “In the Wharton curriculum in marketing, there are so few classes that engage with digital. If you want all
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“I walk by Pottruck and hear someone say ‘gotta burn off that piece of cake,’” she added. The Come As You Are campaign is modeled after photographer Steve Rosenfield’s “What I Be” project. Rosenfield’s subjects wrote on their bodies about the insecurities - ranging from abandonment to career to substance abuse they seek to overcome. “Subjects are putting their insecurities out in the open and exposing a side of themselves that nobody has seen before,” Rosenfield wrote of his project “By stating ‘I am not my _____,’ they are claiming that they do in fact struggle with these issues, but it does not define who they are as a person. ” The coordinators already uploaded some photos of themselves on the blog as a starting point for the campaign, with phrases like “Suck it in,” and
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“Piece of ass,” written on their body parts. The founders also hope to celebrate the unique beauty of each person over conformity to societal standards of beauty. “[Body image] is just arbitrary,” Brianna Krejci, a College freshman and co-founder of Penn Poised, said . “Even so, everybody is expected to be working toward that image.” She pointed out that while Americans tan their skin, Thais often whiten theirs. The campaign received mor e att ent ion t ha n t he fou nder s ex p ect ed , w it h around 20 people volunteering for the photo shoot. As a recently founded group, Penn Poised intends to continue shedding light on body image problems on campus. “We’re all part of the problem and the solution,” MacKinnon said.
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Implementation of standards fragmented SCHOOLS from page 1 tal necessities, it seems laughable to critics that discussion of the Common Core even be broached. Helen Gym, an education activist and co-founder of Parents United for Public Education, considers the implementation of the Common Core a goal for the future, not the present. Gym, a College and Graduate School of Education alumna who was named The Philadelphia Inquirer’s “Citizen of the Year� in 2007 for her work in improving public education in the city, said that while the Common Core has a number of admirable elements, the dearth of resources and preparation is impossible to ignore. Less than 50 percent of Philadelphia public school teachers, for example, have more than five years of teaching experience. “There’s a massive disconnect between what people at the national level want to tout and the reality on the ground,� Gym said. “The most disappointing thing about the Common Core nationwide is that it has never walked itself down to a basic public school in D.C., Detroit, New York or Philadelphia.� ‘Implementation hard to imagine’ The Common Core standards “offer a more integrative approach to student learning, with an emphasis on higher-level comprehension skills and textual argument in reading and writing,� said Diane Waff, a professor at Penn’s GSE. The Philadelphia School Dis-
trict has integrated the standards in literacy and math into the curricula of kindergarten through high school, as required by the state, and exams in these particular subject areas will measure the relative success of the program. In grade 11, exams based on Common Core
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standards in algebra, literature and biology will replace the current annual standardized testing system. For the 2011-2012 academic year — the most recent for which data is available — nearly 30 percent of students in Philadelphia public schools were be-
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standards,� Waff said. With such vagary in procedural implementation, individual schools within the school district operate not on a single set of standards, but rather a more idiosyncratic interpretation of the initiative. Because of the divide between national guidelines and local experience, activist groups like Gym’s don’t even consider the Common Core a matter of primary focus. “We’re so far below any level of standards of basic funding in Philadelphia schools that we can’t even talk about the Common Core,� Gym said. “I’m not being cynical about the Common Core and I’m not saying that it can’t be implemented,� she added. “It’s just that the current status of Philadelphia public schools makes the implementation hard to imagine any time soon.�
mentored the last two school years, there is a mix of teachers from the recently closed Wilson Elementary School and teachers from Lea. “Adding a new curriculum on top of that is not going to help,� Bynoe-Sullivan said. Bulgarelli, who is the internal affairs coordinator for CSSP and a mentor at Sayre, located at 58th and Walnut streets, echoed this sentiment. “There are students at Sayre whose schedules weren’t set until November, so they were moving around classrooms,� Bulgarelli said. “If teachers don’t know exactly what they’re teaching and who they’re teaching ... it’s really difficult to implement a new program.� Administrators at both Sayre and Lea did not respond to interview requests for this article. Engineering junior Emily Olson, who volunteers with WPTP, said she perceives the problem to be a lack of commitment to go through the growing pains of change, along with more basic issues of day-to-day functionality. When Olson volunteered at Shaw Middle School, for example, it seemed as though the teacher’s main focus was keeping the students in their seats, giving them menial tasks just to get through the day, she said. Shaw was one of the 23 schools to close in 2013. Referring to a teacher whose class she mentored last year,
School at 5100 Greenway Ave., will act as a liaison between Comegys mentors and teachers. In her classroom experience, she noted that students are learning how to take the statewide tests required at the end of the year, not necessarily learning the material, and that the students she mentors rarely, if ever, have homework. College junior Samantha Antrum, who mentors at both Sayre and Comegys and is transitioning to the position of CSSP assistant director, agreed that since last spring semester, schools have increased their focus on the state exams that the Common Core imposes. “The emphasis has continued throughout the year, but I’m not sure they’ve said, ‘There’s this Common Core curriculum and that’s why you’re preparing for and taking [the exam],’� Antrum said. Gym, the parent activist, is aligned in the belief that public schools are using the exams as the main impetus to learn specific subjects, but noted that even in that capacity the district is floundering. “When you have one set of standards but different ways to implement them, reliance on standardized testing to assess progress is problematic,� Gym said. “Are you wedded to the learning of the child or just cramming it in for the sake of standards?�
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Change is hard to come by This notion resonates with Penn student volunteers who have experience in Philadelphia classrooms. Through campus organizations like Community School Student Partnerships and the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, volunteers have gained insight into academic progress between previous years and the present — a time period over which the Common Core has technically been implemented.
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Olson said, “If told to implement the Common Core curriculum, she would probably nod her head and say OK, but see it as unrealistic to try something new when she can’t even get the basic stuff.� In schools that truly are implementing elements of the Common Core, it is not always clear that the outcome is academic enrichment. College sophomore Akailah Jennings, who is the incoming CSSP site coordinator for the Comegys
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developed to impose uniform educational standards on public schools. In summer 2010, Pennsylvania adopted the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which seeks to set national academic benchmarks. The Philadelphia School District is implementing the standards for the first time this school year. But with the reality of a funding crisis in the school district, some experts decry the assertion that the Common Core is of any true consequence in the city’s public schools. The district, which closed 23 schools last year and passed a “doomsday budget� in May after many years of steady funding decline, consequently laid off over 3,000 employees. Philadelphia had to borrow $50 million just to open public schools on time in September. This massive funding deficit creates a host of obstacles to fully implementing anything along the ambitious lines of the Common Core standards. Donna Runner, the school district’s acting deputy for curriculum and assessment, thinks the major impediment to implementing the Common Core is a lack of adequate teacher training, an issue which “springs from time and funding� shortfalls, she said. The funding issue is unsurprisingly the ostensible seed from which most other impediments to the Common Core grow. Though Runner would only speak gently on the subject, the district struggles to get basic materials for schools. With a lack of such fundamen-
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014 PAGE 7
Reflecting on the Red and Blue’s top five moments TENNIS | Up-and-down seasons for Quakers saw winning streaks, individual triumphs BY IAN WENIK Sports Editor Though the Penn men’s and women’s tennis teams achieved mostly mediocre results last year, combining to go 3-11 in Ivy play, there were plent y of happy mo ments to go around at both the indiv idual level. Let’s go through the Quaker’s top five moments of 2013: 1. Dominant at doubles Then-sophomore Sol Eskenazi and then-freshman Sonya Latycheva put up a stellar season for the Red and Blue at f irst doubles. The duo compiled a laundry list of accomplishments, including a 15-3 final record, unanimous f irst team A ll-
Ivy honors and a trip to the NCAA tournament. Though Eskenazi and Latycheva lost in the first round of NCAAs to Oklahoma State’s Kanyapat Narattana and Malika Rose, 6-4, 6-3, all signs point to a return trip this season. 2. Bye-bye Big Green Penn men’s tennis knew that defending its per fect 7- 0 home record would be tough with No. 70 Dartmouth coming to the Hamlin Tennis Courts. And it took every last bit of effort to keep that record alive for one more day. Then-freshman Blaine Willenborg’s three-set victor y at fourth singles clinched a 4-3 match win. “It was great for us to pick up our first Ivy League win,” coach David Geatz said after the match. “Dar tmouth is a ranked team, and to beat them is just phenomenal.”
3. Stellar in the Sunshine State P e n n w o m e n ’s t e n n i s ’ spring break trip to Florida wasn’t just for getting a tan — it was for getting a trio of key victories on the road. The Red and Blue easily handled James Madison, Stetson and Florida Gulf Coast over the course of five days, winning all three matches by a combined score of 15-5. “This team is really becoming a team of fighters. They have a team cohesiveness that you want to see as a coach,” coach Sanela Kunovac said after the trip. “I’m just really happy how they support each other and push through it.” 4. Six is sweet Pen n men’s t en n is f i nished up 2013 with a sterling 8-2 home record brought on in no small part by a blistering hot streak during nonconference play. In a stretch
that spanned nearly a month, the Quakers won six straight contests at home, defeating six different teams from six different conferences. T hen - ju n ior Z ac h K at z played a critical role, winning four of his five singles matches during the winning streak. 5. Owls? Don’t give a hoot. Penn women’s tennis was unintimidated by a Mar. 23 home matchup against Big 5 rival Temple, easily sweeping aside the Owls, 7-0. With the win, Penn improved its record to 8-3, good enough for the program’s best start since 2006. Then-sophomore Alex Ion’s easy 6-0, 6-0 win at number five singles was emblematic of the Quakers’ afternoon dominance. “I believe they had a quiet confidence,” Kunovac said after the match. “It wasn’t in your face, but that was just what we needed.”
Aaron Campbell/Staff Photographer
Junior Sol Eskenazi will be looking to improve on a banner 2013 season that saw her make an appearance in the NCAA doubles tournament.
Tennis SCHEDULE s p r i n g
2 0 1 4
women
Men DATE Sun, Mar 09 Tue, Mar 11 Wed, Mar 12 Sat, Mar 15 Sun, Mar 16 Sat, Mar 22 Wed, Mar 26 Sat, Mar 29 Sat, Apr 05 Sun, Apr 06 Sat, Apr 12 Sun, Apr 13 Fri, Apr 18 Sat, Apr 19 Sun, Apr 20
OPPONENT Temple UCSB SDSU Cal Poly UC Irvine Georgetown St. John’s Princeton* Brown* Yale* Dartmouth* Harvard* Columbia* Birhamton Cornell*
LOCATION at Levy Tennis Center at Santa Barbara, Calif. at San Diego, Calif. at San Luis Obispo, Calif. at Irvine, Calif. at Washington, D.C. Philadelphia, Pa. Philadelphia, Pa. Philadelphia, Pa. Philadelphia, Pa. at Hanover, N.H. at Boston Philadelphia, Pa. at Binghamton, N.Y, at Ithaca, N.Y.
DATE Fri, Feb 28 Mon, Mar 10 Tue, Mar 11 Thu, Mar 13 Fri, Mar 13 Sat, Mar 22 Sat, Mar 29 Fri, Apr 04 Sat, Apr 05 Sat, Apr 12 Sun, Apr 13 Fri Apr 18 Sun Apr 20
TIME 9:00 a.m. 1:30 p.m. TBA 10:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m.
OPPONENT Drexel Fairleigh Dickinson Gonzaga Niagara UC Irvine Temple Princeton* Brown* Yale* Dartmouth* Harvard* Columbia* Cornell*
Freshmen involved early for Quakers
FOOTBALL from page 8
FRESHMEN from page 8
will play in their 10-game slate. It will be the first ever trip to Florida for Penn, and its first trip outside of the northeast since 2004 when they beat San Diego, 61-18. Local rival Villanova remains on the Quakers’ nonconference schedule again this year, coming to Franklin Field for Penn’s home opener on Sept. 27. The Red and Blue begin Ivy play a week later, facing Dartmouth up in Hanover, N.H. The Quakers then conclude their nonconference slate against Fordham, a squad that won 12 games in 2013 while besting two Iv y opponents (Columbia and Yale) by a combined score of 104-38. Penn then plays the rest of its season against Ivy opponents, taking on Columbia at home on Oct. 18 and Yale in New Haven on Oct. 25. This year’s homecoming game will come against Brown, the team that beat Penn, 27-0, last season to begin the Quak-
into that role right away and be trusted that I can help out the team,” Nardella said. “I’m just trying to do my best to contribute.” R ou nd i ng out t he f ive freshmen is Memphis’ own Marshall Sharp, a College student who is cur rently dealing with a hip flexor issue. Before suffering his injur y, Sharp contributed at the No. 5 singles role and also frequently played in the No. 2
DE ALWIS from page 8 One thing is for sure, De Alwis loves playing in college. It has given him a change of pace from the lonely “you against the world” mentality that is required to play in the
TIME 3:00 p.m. TBA TBA TBA 1:30 p.m. 12:00 p.m. TBA 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 12:00 p.m 12:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. *Conference Games Graphic by Jenny Lu
Quakers to face six-game road slate
Sophomore looks to hold onto No. 2 spot
LOCATION Philadelphia, Pa. at Palm Springs, Calif. at Palm Springs, Calif. at Palm Springs, Calif. at Irvine, Calif. Philadelphia, Pa. at Princeton, N.J. at Providence, R.I. at New Haven, Conn. Philadelphia, Pa. Philadelphia, Pa. at New York, N.Y. Philadelphia, Pa.
DP File Photo
Penn football won’t be spending all that much time at Franklin Field this season, as the Quakers are scheduled to play six of their 10 games in 2014 on the road. ers’ four-game losing streak to end the season. Penn follows that up with a trip to Princeton to face the Tigers before returning home for its final game at Franklin Field against Harvard. The season concludes up in Ithaca, N.Y., as the Red and Blue play Cornell on Nov. 22. Penn’s annual Spring Game is on April 5 this year. The Quakers will have to address multiple holes in their roster,
as graduating seniors leave Penn with question marks at quarterback, offensive line and defensive back. With the Spring Game, Penn has the chance to address those gaps, and players like freshman quarterback Alek Torgersen and sophomore cornerback Kenny Thomas will get a chance to continue proving themselves after making a big impact late in the 2013 season.
ITF circuit. “It’s the team aspect,” De A lw is said. “ You feel like you’re playing for your team and not for yourself ... I enjoy playing in college way more.” De Alwis will look to play at the No. 2 spot for the remainder of the season after a bumpy pre-season fall season, a campaign marked by close losses and inconsistency. But the college season is now underway, a circuit where De Alwis’ international experience and prowess is on
display. De Alwis has a certain philosophy about college competition, one that Geatz admires from his No. 2 player. “I want to play as high as possible,” De Alwis said. “I learned a lot from [that campaign] and have been working hard with coach Geatz , but I think it’s always more important to play where [your] coach puts you. “It’s important to go out there, no matter where you’re at and just play your ass off.”
or 3 doubles pairs. Although they come from different areas of the countr y, some of the freshmen knew each other from earlier youth tennis and recruiting events. “I went on my official visit here to Penn with Matt Nardella,” Spratt said. “Marshall Sharp, I’ve known him since I was about t welve years old because he’s from the South as well. We played a lot of Souther n tour naments together.” A ll of the freshmen are excited for the team’s upcoming spring break trip to California. “[We’re] really looking forward to the spring break trip. We’re going to go to California and play about three
teams,” Spratt said. “Everyone should be fired up. We won’t have to worry about class being on break. “I think we’ll be able to stay focused, get a couple wins there and come back with a lot more confidence for the rest of the spring.” Overall, Geatz seems happy with his freshmen players and hopes his team can overcome its injuries in the coming weeks. “I think it was a g reat recr uiting class we had,” Geatz said. “Unfortunately, we have so many guys hurt. Those guys are all really good players. “If we can stay injury-free, we have a really good team. If we don’t, it’ll be a long year.”
12 different Quakers tally goals M. LACROSSE from page 8 started being more consistent on offense ... and we got some stops on defense and all of the sudden 3-3 became 10-3 then 12-3.” While the offense completed its shots and put points up on the board, the defense did its part to prevent another St. Joe’s goal until the fourth period. Led by senior goalkeeper Brian Feeney, the defense stopped almost everything that came at it despite the Hawks long possessions. “The unit’s been playing together for so long,” Danny Feeney said. “It’s actually my brother in net, he’s like an unstoppable force, like a brick wall so kudos to those guys, they were unbelievable.”
Imran Cronk/Senior Staff Photographer
Senior attack Danny Feeney put Penn up on St. Joseph’s early Tuesday, scoring just six seconds into the contest to set the tone in a 14-4 Quakers victory. In addition to the defense, the midfield also proved to be a valuable asset. Junior Joe McCallion racked up two goals, the first in the first and the second in the fourth period. Overall though, 12 members of the Red and Blue got through St. Joe’s goalkeepers Dustin Keen and T.J. Jones, with junior Isaac Bock and MCallion scoring twice each.
“That’s kind of the way we play,” Murphy said. “It’s not like we have an offense that’s based on two or three guys, or one midfielder, we just keep coming at you in waves and if you want to take certain things away from us you are just going to give us something else.” After a loss to No. 1 Duke, the Red and Blue showed their strength against the Hawks.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
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Vim De Alwis against the world
Double the trouble, double the fun
M. LACROSSE | Senior twins help Penn smash St. Joe’s for 11th straight time in home opener BY ALEXIS ZIEBELMAN Associate Sports Editor
vs. St. Joseph’s
of those experiences were the two highlights of my career. It was really cool just to get exposed to the players at that level.” After competing internationally, De Alwis played a showcase tournament at Yale alongside other highly touted players, with Penn coach David Geatz watching on. “In the summer of 2011 ... that’s when c o ac h G e at z c a me a nd watched me,” De Alwis said. “I actually won that tournament there. That’s when I started talking to him. “I really like Coach Geatz , and that’s pretty much the reason I came to Penn.”
Double double toil and trouble. Trouble is exactly what the Feeney twins and Penn men’s lacrosse brought to St. Joseph’s on Tuesday night. After winning the game’s opening face off, senior attack Danny Feeney charged to the goal and scored - all within a mere six seconds. It was a sign of things to come. “I was able to get it forward and they guys were on my back pretty hard so good for them for being pretty fast, but I had a free left hand shot and I took it, closed my eyes and shot,” Danny Feeney said. “That was big because last week we didn’t face off so well,” coach Mike Murphy said. While the match was close throughout the first quarter, the Quakers ultimately dominated the game, pulling away in a 14-4 victory. “We just kind of stuck to the plan and it was nice to see us do that because except for our clearing game, we really played well on every phase.” Only two minutes after Feeney’s first strike, Hawks (1-2) junior Ryan McGee scored his first goal of the night to knot the score at one. But McGee, who ended up collecting a hat trick, ended up being the lone bright spot for St. Joes on the night. Both teams went back and forth early, exchanging goals in the first period. It seemed as if for the first time in 11 meetings, St. Joe’s had a chance to overpower the Quakers (1-1). However, the tide changed after a critical time out. “Coach brought us in during a time out and told us to calm down, told us to keep our pace, set the pace and we didn’t freak out and it paid off,” Feeney said. “Once we settled down we just kind of stopped them,” Murphy said. “Then we
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Carolyn Lim/Senior Staff Photographer
Penn sophomore Vim De Alwis has had a remarkably global journey with the game of tennis. A native of Sri Lanka, De Alwis has sharpened his skills around the world from Africa to Indonesia, competing in high-level events such as the Junior Australian Open and the Davis Cup. Despite his world travels, he has settled down and found a home with his team at Penn.
M. TENNIS | Penn sophomore Vim De Alwis has settled down at Penn after extensive world travels BY JIMMY LENGYELL Senior Staff Writer Vim De Alwis doesn’t always talk about his life, but when he does, he tells a remarkable story. De Alwis, a sophomore, is a Sri Lankan native with a very calm and personable demeanor. Everything that comes out of his mouth and off of his racquet has an ease and precision in it. De Alwis had an interesting path to Penn, including stops for international play and
chances to learn the game in other countries. De Alwis’ journey in tennis began at the age of four in Malawi, Africa. It was where his family was located at the time, thanks to his father’s career working for Lipton Iced Tea. Racquet sports were not unusual to the De Alwis family. “My dad actually played squash and tried to go professionally,” De Alwis said. “So, at the sports club he used to play squash — you know young kids don’t really play squash — and when he used to play squash, I would take tennis lessons and I’ve been playing tournaments since I was under six.” De Alwis’ family eventually ended up in Indonesia, where he spent his
Penn football schedule released
time playing tennis before coming to the States. Not unfamiliar to those in the tennis world, De Alwis competed in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) circuit, which took him all over the world for competition. De Alwis even competed in the 2012 ITF Junior Australian Open and the Davis Cup for Sri Lanka, which can be seen as the ‘World Cup of Tennis,’ and while Sri Lanka was not in the World Group that year (the group that competes for the world title), it was a major accomplishment to be recognized as one of the best players in the country. “I played the Aussie Open in January and I played Davis Cup in February,” De Alwis said. “Both
Red and Blue welcome diverse freshman class M. TENNIS | Injuryridden Quakers rely on five incoming freshmen to contribute in various roles BY DANIEL RICH Staff Writer
Nonconference schedule includes Quakers’ first trip outside of the east coast since 2004 season BY STEVEN TYDINGS Senior Sports Editor While Florida is the destination for many with spring break on the horizon, Penn football is going to the Sunshine State a little later than most. The Qua kers released their schedule for the 2014 season, and the team’s season opener is a road game at Jacksonville on Sept. 20, one of six road games the Red and Blue
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Penn coach David Geatz has successfully recruited five incoming freshmen from across the country and will rely on them to contribute to his injury-ridden team immediately.
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Penn men’s tennis is approaching the heart of its schedule, which means that now is a perfect opportunity to introduce the freshmen who will be helping the team compete throughout the spring. Coach David Geatz and his staff successf ully recr uited f ive new freshmen from across the country. First, there is Daniel Harris. A student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harris hails from Kingston, Jamaica but went to high school in New Jersey. Stu Little calls Columbus, Ohio his home, and he earned first team All-State honors three times while helping his high school team win three state tennis titles. Little is currently out with arthritis in his knee, but he keeps a positive attitude and encourages his
teammates. “It’s been g reat ,” L ittle sa id. “We’ve got a really strong recruiting class, and we’re all from ... different areas of the country. It’s good coming in and meeting some new people.” Another member of the crew is Thomas Spratt from Charleston, S.C. Spratt has contributed at the No. 3 doubles spot alongside sophomore Austin Kaplan this season. One of the tallest players on the team at 6-foot6, Spratt says that the step up from high school to collegiate tennis is a definite challenge. “Everyone you play is just so much better than they were in high school, so every match you have to come out playing your best tennis or else you kind of just get run over,” Spratt said. College student and New Yorker Matt Nardella — whose twin brother plays for Lehigh — has consistently played alongside senior co-captain Nikola Kocovic at the No. 1 doubles spot this spring. Nardella usually plays the No. 3 or No. 4 spot in the singles lineup as well. “It’s been nice being able to step
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