CAMPUS BUZZ
BY SANDY SMITH
This space available: A huge final clearance sale is currently under way because shoe retailer 9 & Co. is high-steppin' out of the 3401 Walnut complex. Its final day of business is March 5. There may still be some merchandise left as you read this. Word has it that the store's parent company will return to Sansom Common with a new-and-improved concept later this year...And the Cool Peppers chain of Mexican fast-food eateries is pulling out of Philadelphia completely, including its store in the Hamilton Village Shops on 40th Street. Penn officials hope to land a similar retail or restaurant tenant for the space soon.
D.C. doings: Our man in Washington, Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations Ed Abrahams, stepped down last month in order to pursue other interests. His boss, Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Carol Scheman, will oversee Penn's Washington office directly. Abrahams will continue to teach in the Penn Washington Semester Program, though.
Winter books roundup: Penn faculty were busy these past few months working on new titles in several fields. Assistant Professor of Bioethics Glenn McGee edited and contributed an essay to "The Human Cloning Debate" (Berkeley Hills Books, 1998), billed by its publisher as "the most up-to-date treatment of a compelling controversy." Fifteen percent of the book's sales will be donated to the Center for Bioethics. "Interest Groups in American Campaigns: The New Face of Electioneering," by Washington Semester Program Associate Director Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox (Congressional Quarterly, 1999), examines the increasingly important role the groups have come to play in our electoral process and the debate over their influence. And Professor of Landscape Architecture Anne Whiston Spirn's new book, "The Language of Landscape" (Yale University Press, 1999), argues that the landscape has a language of its own, examines the thoughts of other notable figures who have studied the land and shows how designers have manipulated that language for both noble and base purposes.
Penn in ink: What are the "seven wonders" of the modern world? After naming his own choices, Bill Gates listed others submitted by noted thinkers in his syndicated column Jan. 27. Among them: modern medicine, the choice of Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing and Classical Studies Professor Jim O'Donnell...An article by Lauder Professor of International Relations Arthur Waldron in the Jan. 25 National Review argued that recent crackdowns on dissent in China and other related moves signaled the Communist regime's weakness, not its strength. The essay also ran in The Wall Street Journal Jan. 26...And Michael Jordan - the Penn guard, not the retired Chicago Bull - was the subject of a humorous story in the Jan. 22 Journal. A Nike spokeswoman is quoted in the story as saying, "We always said there wouldn't be another Michael Jordan. We may be wrong."
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