Wise guy A revered figure in his native land, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering Yu Hsiu Ku is also one of those rare people trusted on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. How women got the vote — elsewhere Student spotlight: Liberal arts entrepreneur goes dot-com crazy Staff Q&A: Getting the answers scholars need is no trivial pursuit for David Azzolina Research: Hearing about AIDS through the grapevine American power not permanent Five first steps for human research review Hope blooms for Taiwan Survey kicks off honor code revival No rain yet A challenge to old sex rules on campus For What It's Worth: Do these numbers add up? Get ready for summer camp Handle with care Event Listings Editor's Pick Let the fun times begin What's on WXPN Readers' Best News Briefs Bookquick Quoted Recently Awards & Honors Appointments Campus Buzz

May 4, 2000 NEWS BRIEFS Revered in China A Chinese television crew is spotlighting Penn in a documentary series entitled “A Visit to Top American Universities,” which is slated to air late this year. Penn is one of 10 schools being profiled; others include Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT and Berkeley. The Chinese journalists, who visited campus in April, interviewed President Judith Rodin about her experience as the first woman Ivy League president. In a lengthy segment on the Wharton School and its ties to Beijing University, Jeffrey A. Sheehan, associate dean for international relations at Wharton, answered several interview questions in fluent Mandarin. Faculty glass ceiling? The University Steering Committee has agreed to undertake studies to determine whether women and minority faculty at Penn are accorded equity in status, pay and professional opportunities. Acting on a proposal by Phoebe S. Leboy, professor of biochemistry in the School of Dental Medicine, the committee agreed at a meeting last month to initiate a gender equity study, to be followed by a racial equity study, modeled on a similar study of female faculty status at MIT last year. Updike at Elsinore Pulitzer Prize winning novelist John Updike read from his newest take on dysfunctional families to a standing-room-only crowd at the School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Forum last month in Logan Hall. In “Gertrude and Claudius” Updike shifted his focus from suburbia to medieval Elsinore Castle and to Hamlet’s dysfunctional family, who are not quite as they appeared in Shakespeare’s play. Skakespeare’s Gertrude may have been weak, but not Updike’s. “She pursues her own instincts that women can be warriors,” he said. The audience responded. “I was impressed that the put so much scholarly work into his research,” Stephanie Magner (SAS ’02) said.