The Pennsylvania Gazette: Alumni Profiles

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Shilpa Rao,C'98
Overturning Taboos to Address
an Epidemic

Most schools in India don't teach about sex, let alone AIDS, because they're considered taboo subjects. But that hasn't stopped the development of more than seven million cases of HIV in the country. Troubled by the statistics, Shilpa Rao, C'98, spent the past summer volunteering as an AIDS educator in Bombay for VISIONS Worldwide, a non-profit group run by college students from the United States. The organization sends delegations of volunteers to conduct AIDS-awareness workshops at schools, colleges, and community centers throughout the country while also training Indian citizens to work as peer counselors. Continued...

Bill Meiklejohn,W'42
The Patron Saint of Ping-Pong

The retired Bill Meiklejohn, W'42, used to turn on the TV and see seniors golf and tennis tournaments. One day, he says, "I thought to myself, 'Why not seniors table tennis?'" Continued...

David O'Neil,C'77
Reviving the Original Human Gathering Place

David O'Neil is digging into a take-out container full of chicken and grains, and, over the din of a Monday lunchtime crowd, talking passionately about his favorite topic -- public markets. From stall to stall in Philadelphia's 106-year-old Reading Terminal Market, vendors are doing a brisk business with local professionals, families, and T-shirt-clad tourists. Continued...

Steven Jeffes,G'87
Where Does Beauty Lie -- In the Eyes of the Employer?

The secret to professional advancement may lie not in your resume, but the reflection you cast in the mirror. So argues Steven Jeffes, G'87, the author of a new book on appearance discrimination. In fact, Jeffes, who has debated the topic on radio programs, makes an argument for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be amended to include appearance discrimination. He admits it's "a stretch," but hopes to at least raise awareness that such inequities exist and offer advice to those whose looks have been used against them. Continued...

Frederick C. Murphy,W'43
Saving Private Murphy

Like many students who enrolled at the University in the fall of 1939, Frederick C. Murphy, W'43, had a rendezvous with a destiny that would take him many miles from College Hall and Franklin Field. Though only at Penn for a short time, he would become the University's only alumnus to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, for acts of almost unbelievable valor that would cost him his life. Continued...