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Still Publishing Significant Scholarship
The best seller at the University of Pennsylvania Press is "Witchcraft in Europe," by Alan Kors and Ed Peters, which has sold 15,000 copies in 25 years. "It's a perennial," says Eric Halpern, director of the Press, "It's heavily used in courses." But the mission of university presses in general, and Penn's press in particular, is broader than printing academic bestsellers. It's to "advance the scholastic and educational aims of the University," Halpern says. That's not to say that salability doesn't count. No profits, no press.
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Field Trip From the Moon
Geologist and former U.S. Sen. Harrison Schmitt (left), a member of the Apollo 17 lunar mission, displays a poster commemorating all the American astronauts who traveled to the Moon at a meeting of the Philadelphia Science and Space Club in David Rittenhouse Laboratory. Schmitt spent the afternoon of Feb. 7 at Penn, speaking to an audience of Penn students at the University Museum prior to meeting with the 9- to 13-year-old members of the Science and Space Club, which meets monthly at Penn.
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On the Shelf
As Penn faculty publish books, an occasional column appears on these pages to inform the University community of new releases. The Meaning of Photography "The age of mechanical reproduction begins with photography. Its discovery not only stands as one of the most important and signature events of the Industrial Revolution, it represents the first analog medium, predating recorded sound by nearly 40 years and the motion picture by over half a century."
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Future Physicians Practice Disabilities
Twenty Penn medical students assumed the roles of people with disabilities and their caregivers or their support people, among them (left to right) Joseph Pace, Sue Sun Yom, Mike Ganetsky, Jason Stoller, Adam Simmons, Su-Jean Seo, Kevin White, Jolanda White, Malaka Jackson and Louis Littman for a two-day seminar to increase awareness among future physicians of the challenges experienced by people with disabilities.
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Kidnapped by Books
"A book is like a burr. It's got to challenge you and make you think and keep making you think. Books have been my best friend. I was an only child and I was kidnapped by books." The speaker, book artist Susan Barron, was not alone. She was surrounded by people kidnapped by books. Twenty-five of them. And she was surrounded by books--on witchcraft and the Inquisition.
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To the Wire for Quiz Kids
The buzzer sounded. Regulation play had ended. The whole crowd sat on the edge of their seats waiting to see who would be declared the winner of the first ever National Academic Quiz Tournament (NAQT). Run similarly to the NCAA basketball tournament, the competition started at Penn Friday, with 64 college teams answering batteries of questions on topics ranging from classical studies to modern rock music a la the old "College Bowl" television show. And now it was down to this.
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Innovation Corner: Professional Development and Quality of Work Life: New Programs for Penn Employees
The University has begun a major effort over the past year to broaden the range of programs it offers to address employee development, job satisfaction and the quality of work life at Penn. In the Agenda for Excellence, Penn stated its commitment to "provide administrative employees with greater opportunities to improve their skills, grow professionally, and enhance their careers within the University." Following a lengthy examination of existing employee-related programs,
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Well Said
The following quotes from Penn professors and others appeared in publications across the country and around the world. There is the "constantly used argument that reading something is better than reading nothing. It is an impregnable position. But my question is: By presenting literature in this form, are we ensuring that children will never read the original?" --Lawrence Sipe, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, commenting on the return of Classic Comics after a 25-year hiatus (Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday, Jan. 7).
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Legislation Releases Linguistic Treasure Trove to Penn Researchers
Long blocked by law from using Voice of America and Radio Marti recordings, linguistic researchers at Penn are hoping the Cold War weapons of words will soon become a rich data base for shaping the future of computing and advancing language instruction. "There's no source of linguistic information quite like it," said Michael Lenker, managing director of Penn's Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC). "It's a treasure of material that couldn't be used until now."
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Nuggets on Eating--How Much, When, and Why
We heard some morsels worth repeating at a psychology department colloquium about food and eating last week on campus. John de Castro of Georgia State University presented his research on the physiological, psychological and sociological influences on food and fluid intake in humans. We didn't hear much about fluid, except for a brief mention of alcohol, but we did hear a couple of tidbits about food intake that surprised us and heard many kernels that confirmed our suspicions.