COMMENCEMENT 2001
McCain Speaks Plainly in the Rain It turned out that the parents of the Class of 2001, who had worked so hard for so long to help their children graduate from the University, still had one more sacrifice to make—to get drenched while watching them do it. This they did, to all appearances happily. Continued...

ARRIVALS
A “Passionate” Alumnus Takes Over
Alumni Relations “I saw this as an opportunity to return to my roots here at Penn,” Robert Alig C’84 WG’87 was saying last month, a few days after starting his new job as assistant vice president for alumni relations. Continued...

Illustration: John Ritter

VIRTUAL REALITY
Adventures in Tele-Immersion
The sculpture is waiting to speak. She sits there expectantly, shimmering and slightly pixilated at the edges, wearing headphones and a blue plaid shirt. Though she is actually in another room some 10 yards away, she appears quite … deep on the large plastic screen. When she turns her head, or when viewed from another angle, the space between her head and the bookshelves behind her has a decidedly three-dimensional quality. Until one’s polarized 3-D glasses are removed, anyway. Continued...

ARCHAEOLOGY
Sailing Into the Semester’s End During a two-hour sail on the Delaware River on May 3 that marked the end of the semester, students in Dr. Fredrik Hiebert’s class in underwater archaeology were pressed into service to help raise the sails of the Kalmar Nyckel, a replica of an early-17th-century sailing vessel. Continued...

HEARD ON CAMPUS
Wolfe on Silicon Valley’s “Pelicans” and “Beachcombers” “You could always tell the billionaires when they walked into Il Fornaio,” said Tom Wolfe, referring to a power-breakfast spot he frequented in Silicon Valley during the dot-com bubble of 1999. Continued...

STUDENT LIFE
Candide, Pangloss, and Cunegonde Join
Class of 2005 As the incoming freshmen arrive on campus this fall, they will undoubtedly hope that the University will prove to be the best of all possible worlds in which to spend the next four years. Continued...

HEALTH SYSTEM
Martin Becomes Health System’s
Permanent CEO Two fiscal years ago, the University of Pennsylvania Health System posted a $198 million operating loss. Last year, it lost $30 million. This year, it will end up in the black. And this past May, the man deemed instrumental in righting its fiscal ship—Dr. Robert D. Martin —was appointed permanent chief executive officer. Continued...

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