April 5, 2017

Page 1

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2017

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PENN BRACKET SEE PAGE 6

Forty-four years later, Quakers still gather in the Quad for Fling JINAH KIM Senior Reporter

W

hen this year’s Spring Fling performers — Zedd and Tinashe — arrive at Penn, they’ll be carrying on a tradition that started 44 years ago, when Penn saw its very first Fling. Spring Fling has its roots in Skimmer Day, previously known as Callow Day — a festival to celebrate Penn’s rowing team. After Skimmer Day was suspended in 1963 due to alcohol policy violations, Spring Fling was first held 10 years later as a spiritual successor to the carnival. Spring of 1973 saw not only the first

Spring Fling, but the first handheld cellular call, the opening of the World Trade Center and the rise of the Watergate scandal. Songs like “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn dominated the Billboard charts, along with “Time” by Pink Floyd, who had just released their award-winning album, “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The year would also see the release of songs like Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” “The Grateful Dead was very big then … it was just blasted all the time around campus,” 1977 College graduate Cynthia Orr said. “Everyone was so into music at that point … back then bands were really, really important, so I think people very

much enjoyed having music there.” Orr ended up having a surprisingly large role in Fling as a College freshman in 1974. Knowing that she drove a Volkswagen van, a friend who had helped book the year’s band, Aztec Two-Step, asked her to pick them up from the airport. That wasn’t Orr’s only contribution — as a classically trained flutist, she was invited to help open for the band. “Another friend was an incredibly talented bass guitar player, and he was asked to play as the opener,” Orr said. “And he asked me to improvise jazz, which ... I had no idea how to do it, but he was desperate and wanted someone.” Orr said the performance was the “most embarrassed [she] had ever been in [her] whole life, because [she] did a horrible

job.” She added with a laugh that the members of Aztec Two-Step told her “something along the lines of, ‘Don’t quit your day job.’” The first official large concert was held in 1976, starring blues artist Taj Mahal. Not everyone was thrilled; in a letter to the editor published in The Daily Pennsylvanian, three Wharton students complained that the performance was “lackluster,” saying that they would “like to see a band of better quality regardless of national experience.” The same editorial reveals that there is another Fling tradition with deep roots: drinking. The authors praised the event

DP FILE PHOTO

SEE FLING HISTORY PAGE 2

Penn seniors pledge to donate 1 percent of their salary

Why tuition increased by 3.9 percent again

One for the World is a charity initative founded by Wharton MBAs

Admin. credited ‘human-incentivized operations’ for hike

HARRY TRUSTMAN Copy Editor

OLIVIA SYLVESTER Staff Reporter

As Penn seniors leave Locust Walk behind and prepare for, hopefully, a lucrative career, two Wharton seniors are encouraging their classmates to set aside a portion of their starting salaries for those in need. Wharton senior Lauren D’Amore and Wharton and Engineering senior Shayna Fertig serve as co-presidents of Penn’s undergraduate branch of One for the World, an organization that asks graduates to pledge 1 percent of their income to charity. Founded three years ago by two 2014 Wharton MBA graduates, Kate Epstein and Josh McCann, One for the World has since spread to other business schools including Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. The organization was founded primarily to target graduate students, but last year, Penn became the first school to establish an undergraduate chapter. “It’s been proven that the earlier you get involved and the sooner you start, the more like you are to [donate to charity] later in life as well,” D’Amore said. Students can pledge to donate on the organization’s website, and sure their support

In line with a multi-year trend, tuition has increased another 3.9 percent this year. Despite student pushback, Philadelphia accountant Jimmy Mo said this increase is “very reasonable.” Mo, a partner at Eisner Amper LLP, said universities increase tuition because costs also increase annually. Bonnie Gibson, vice president for

FILE PHOTO

Penn professors, a budget administrator and a local accountant explained that salary raises, administration growth and benefits led to the increase.

PROFS CONTRIBUTE TO PUBLIC ART PROJECT PAGE 5

SEE SALARY PAGE 2

FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

Substance abuse works as a knife stabbing our efforts towards mental wellness on campus in the back.”

budget and management analysis at Penn, confirmed this. She added that costs of higher education are primarily “human-incentivized operations,” which means schools need to increase faculty salaries and hire new faculty. Matthew Johnson, a lecturer in the Critical Writing Program, said “there’s usually a slight increase [in salary] based on years of service, but it’s been inconsistent over the years.” Four additional faculty members declined to comment to The Daily Pennsylvanian about their annual SEE TUITION PAGE 3

CLUB PING PONG GOES TO NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS BACK PAGE

-Calvary Rogers on the need for more conversations about substance abuse and its relationship to mental health

PAGE 4

ONLINE 7 DAYS A WEEK AT THEDP.COM


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.