NEWS BRIEFS
Prez praises project
When President Bill Clinton singled out Greater Philadelphia High School Partnership the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, it wasn't the first time: he also praised the program in his weekly radio address to the nation last September. The program, directed by Public Policy and History Professor Theodore Hershberg, started in 1995 and links urban and suburban school students to work together on community service projects.
Checkmate
Penn's Chess squad walked away from this year's Pan-Am Intercollegiate Championship in Dallas, Texas, with a strong second-place showing behind University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Boards David Arnett, Jesse Liu, Chernee Ooi, and Anna Khan managed a last-round draw against Stanford - which brought an unusual burst of applause from spectators - to clinch their position in the 21-team tournament. Loading the four-foot-tall trophy onto the plane was reportedly as difficult as winning the prize itself.
He's connected
David Farber, Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems, was the only academic to be noted among Network World's 25 most powerful people in networking. The annual Power Issue described him as a "Renaissance Man, indeed." After a litany of his accomplishments the article acknowledged the existence of Farberisms - turns of phrase that put even Yogi Berra to shame (find some at Farber's Web site).
Grantsmanship
External grant funding has grown a compounded 8.6 percent per year since 1993, exceeding the goals of the five-year plan, "Agenda for Excellence." Last year alone Penn received $414 million in grants from a variety of public and private sources, a 14 percent increase over 1997.