THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSIT Y OF PENNSYLVANIA
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MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014
Not a joke: ‘Tampons’ actually painted BY FIONA GLISSON Campus News Editor
Yolanda Chen/News Photo Editor
Alex Liao/Staff Photographer
Penn celebrated Holi — a Hindu religious festival celebrated in the spring — with a school-wide event on College Green on Saturday. Hundreds of students threw colored dry powders at each other to celebrate the day, leaving a colorful cloud of powder over the green. A free annual event, Penn Holi is cosponsored by Penn Traditions, the Social Planning and Events Committee, the Class Boards and the Hindu Student Council/Young Jains of America.
Last week, The Daily Pennsylvanian joked that the Dueling Tampons on High Rise F ield wou ld b e r ep a i nt e d white. It seems someone had something else in mind for the iconic 50-foot welded steel statue. The “Covenant” statue at 38th and Locust, commonly known as the Dueling Tampons, was graffitied with what seemed t o be black spray p a i nt somet i me S at u r d ay night or early Sunday morning. Someone used red spray paint to cover a portion of the
graffiti this afternoon. The Division of Public Safety is currently investigating the incident, and declined to comment further. Facilities a nd R e a l E st at e S er v ices could not be reached for comment. “Covenant” is the work of Alexander Lieberman , who was the art director of Vogue a nd C ondé Na st e d it or i a l director, and also a serious painter and sculptor in his spare time. In the 1960s, he became increasingly interested in large public sculptures, like “Covenant.” Lieberman
SEE TAMPONS PAGE 6
Words of wisdom from last female leader of the UA College alum Rachel Fersh was UA chair in as a senior in 2006 BY KRISTEN GRABARZ Staff Writer Joyce Kim has large shoes to fill — shuttle-sized shoes. Joyce Kim’s election as Undergraduate Assembly president marks the first time a woman will head Penn’s student government since 2006. Her predecessor, 2006 College graduate Rachel Fersh, started the airport shuttle service, one of the UA’s most identifiable initiatives “I can’t take credit for it — it wasn’t my idea. But it’s great that there’s something the UA
is given credit for. That’s a great type of project that directly affected students and directly connected the administration with students on campus — plus it’s branded well,” Fersh said. Fersh, a philosophy, politics and economics major, was the chairwoman of the UA as a senior in 2006. In 2010, the UA replaced the position of chair with a president, who is elected by the entire student body instead of just the UA. She credits her experience on the UA and the associated skills her position required for much of her professional success, describing student government as a valuable chance to grow as a leader. “The beautiful part of being
Students and the City: Penn students win millennial competition
involved in student government in college is that you can try all sorts of new things with very limited consequences. In real life, you can lose a job or lose a lot of money. At Penn, you can do some short-term damage if you really tried, but there are fewer consequences,” Fersh said. In addition to the airport shuttles, Fersh’s accomplishments as UA chair included a freshman housing reform project and an initiative for members of the UA steering committee to present student-perceived priorities for the improvement of student life to top members of the administration. The newly elected UA leadership has expressed hopes of engaging student groups across
campus in the endeavors of student government. Even eight years ago, students were apathetic about student government. Fersh recalls this being the most difficult part of leading the UA. “It’s hard to run an organization that’s supposed to represent a broad swath of people who don’t care that you’re helping them,” Fersh said. “There’s only so much you can do ... Some students won’t care about student government unless it becomes relevant in a specific way.” In an effort to spark student interest in the UA, Fersh launched a UA “branding logo” and started a campaign in which the UA funded events
held by individual student groups and advertised them as “UA spotlight events.” Despite the efforts, student investment in the UA did not increase drastically. During Fersh’s experience in student government, she was diagnosed with several autoimmune disorders. As a sophomore, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which causes inflammation in the lining of the digestive tract, and was in the hospital during that year’s election cycle. Few people knew of Fersh’s illness in college, including during her tenure as chair. She says the experience of balancing health with leadership lent itself to valuable life lessons.
PennDesign students created an innovative car-sharing plan for The Navy Yard BY SOPHIA WITTE Contributing Writer
BY CLAIRE COHEN Deputy News Editor that provides an educational and community environment for residents — was selected on Friday by city officials as the winning idea in a competition seeking to find ways to attract millennials to, and keep them in, Philadelphia. The team, which also includes a Drexel stu-
SEE MILLENNIAL PAGE 7
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SEE CHAIR PAGE 7
Would you drive a foldable car?
The winning team proposed the creation of a student housing co-op, like the Penn Haven Co-op Three Penn students believe that student housing co-ops will keep millennials in Philadelphia, and they’re about to get a few minutes of Mayor Michael Nutter’s time to convince him that they’re right. The Penn students’ proposed housing co-op — a type of housing
Fersh’s fondest memories of her tenure in Penn’s student government fall in the non-business sphere, however. “Most of my favorite memories are actually social ones,” she said. “I made some of my best friends through student government.” After graduating from Penn, Fersh took her interest in politics to the next level. Immediately after graduation, Fersh embarked on a month-long Jewish immersion program in California, where she met her husband, after which she served as a government affairs fellow at the Partnership for Public Service. Appropriately, Fersh’s responsi-
Courtesy of Ida Qu and Zhen Qin
This illustration shows how compact cars that fold when parked, like those developed at MIT, would maximize the use of parking space at highly trafficked commuter sites.
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Penn graduate students are driving innovation — for city drivers. PennDesign students Zhen Qin and Ida Qu won “best urban form” in the Ed Bacon Competition, a challenge that prompted students to evaluate the prospective impact of driverless cars on Philadelphia. They developed an extensive car-sharing plan to improve the transportation and quality of their target site, The Navy Yard. The 2014 Ed Bacon Urban Design Competition inspired university students to use Philadelphia as a laboratory for addressing a real-world issue faced by cities across the globe. Under the team name Auto Civitas, Qin and Qu devised a SEE COMPETITION PAGE 2
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