Monthly Archives: April 2012

April 6, 2012 · 4:00 pm

The Penn Fund Draft Honor Roll – Now Online!

By: Colin H.

I am proud to report that The Penn Fund Draft Honor Roll, a listing of all donors to The Penn Fund as of March 22, 2012, is now posted online! As Alumni Weekend quickly approaches, it is our honor to celebrate those who have made a commitment to their class and to the University of Pennsylvania in support of undergraduate education at Penn.

In the coming weeks, this honor roll will be updated regularly with new donor names. Therefore, I encourage all proud Penn undergraduate alumni to make their gift to The Penn Fund today!

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April 5, 2012 · 1:16 pm

Two Penn Alumni Take Fitness to a New Level

Author: Stephanie Yee, C’08

A new fitness iPhone app developed by two Penn alums was released last week. Fitocracy started out as just a “what if” for Penn alumni Brian Wang (C’08) and Richard Talens (W’09). Soon it became a website, and now it has taken the Apple world by storm. Fitocracy helps you track your workouts, improve your fitness, and compete against your friends. Penn students and alumni tend to be fit, healthy, and competitive, so the Fitocracy website and app are a perfect fit for the Penn community. I started using Fitocracy a few months ago. I don’t have an iPhone, so I use their user-friendly mobile site to add my workouts. I am inspired by my classmates’ creativity and innovative product every time I enter a new workout. So far, I am only on Level 10 (the top of the leaderboard is at Level 41…) I am hoping to level up quickly in the next few months while I am training for an 8K, 10-miler, and half marathon. Sign up for Fitocracy here (for free!) to begin enjoying this awesome new product.

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April 4, 2012 · 1:09 pm

I Did It

Author: Lisa Ellen Niver, CAS’89

My senior year at Penn, I took one of my best classes ever. It was full figure sculpture. I loved working with clay, and I remember the classes like they were yesterday and not 23 years ago. I remember the instructor saying, “Move around the room, See it from a new angle.” His perspective helped me find the places to work on my sculpture and myself. As a college student, I found his advice brilliant and I still do. I am constantly working on myself and remembering his word. It was his influence, and the influence of many other Penn faculty members that set me on the path I am today. Their encouragement allowed me to take chances in my life that I might not have had the confidence to face otherwise.

For example, I have to say it feels great to walk into the supermarket, pick up a magazine, and find your own photo. I never thought it would happen to me, but this month, I am in the magazine, First for Women. I had a photo shoot with a stylist, hair, and make up team and a duo of incredible photographers. My story is about my near sixty-pound weight loss and my journey into love, self-acceptance, and finding a life partner.

When I was 39, I lost my travel job, moved home, and thought my adventures and opportunities were over. Instead, I found love, a travel partner and a soul mate (my husband), and weight loss while spending a year in South East Asia. Of these things, love has been the best adventure of all.

Believe that your dreams can come true. It happened for me and it can happen to you and Penn helped to make it happen for me!

During the photo shoot.

The final product!

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Filed under Alumni Perspective, Lisa Ellen Niver

April 3, 2012 · 2:05 pm

Ferns and foliage and fish – oh my!

Author: Lisa Vaccarelli, C’02, GEd’10

As a double Penn alumna who has worked at the University for nearly seven years, it’s easy to take Penn’s campus for granted.  Every day, I walk briskly up Locust Walk unfazed by the greenery that surrounds me.  When I find the time to leave my desk for lunch, I make a beeline to Houston Hall or a nearby food truck, rarely detouring from my all too familiar and direct route.  But every once in a long while, a fresh set of eyes and an unseasonably spring-like day combine to pull me out of my bubble.

Last week on a particularly sunny and warm day, my dear colleague Liz Pinnie, who has been at Penn just under six months, organized an expedition to the Bio Pond.   I’d only visited the Bio Pond one time prior, during my freshman year at Penn – well over 10 years ago.  At first, I met Liz’s suggestion with some resistance – it was so far away and what if it was muggy and bug-ridden?  But with just a bit of extra prodding – and a personal map – I agreed to join her.

The Bio Pond is truly a little oasis in the middle of campus.   Grad students and staff and young families sit at picnic tables eating their lunches, while turtles sun themselves on rocks nearby.  Yes, the trip required a deviation from normal routine.  But thanks to Liz and those extra rays of sunshine, I was reminded of what a truly extraordinary place Penn’s campus is – and of just how lucky I am to spend my 9-5 here!

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April 2, 2012 · 12:56 pm

Continuing Education for Alumni: Tiesto…?

Author: Leigh Ann P.

On most days when I arrive at Sweeten Alumni House in the early morning hours, it is serenely quiet and peaceful on campus.  I can spend some time appreciating the fact that I work on this beautiful college campus in the middle of a major urban city.  The merry squirrels dart dangerously close around my feet, having grown accustomed to a life of hand-feeding by kind, unsuspecting humans.  Sometimes all I can hear at that hour are my own footsteps on Locust Walk.  That is, when I wear my super-loud boots. 

But most mornings are not Spring Fling ticket-distribution day.

My colleagues and I have seen signs, banners and sidewalk chalk for a few weeks advertising “Tiesto,” and by our powers combined, we deduced that he/she/they/it was/were for Spring Fling.  I like to think that working at a college keeps me young and hip, but this is a dirty lie.  (Do the kids still say “spaz?”)  I have no clue who or what Tiesto is.  It makes me feel even older knowning that a couple of years ago when Snoop Dogg was the Spring Fling headliner, it was the students who didn’t know who he was.  After all, the incoming students of the Class of 2016 were born after “What’s My Name?” was released. 

So thanks to the sleuthing of one N. Elizabeth Pinnie, we have learned that Tiesto is a Dutch trance DJ, and Penn students are willing to camp out on a weeknight for the chance to see him perform live, even sleep on the steps of Sweeten as my fellow Sweeteners are forced to step on their blankets and bags of Doritos just to make it through the front door.

Unfortunately for the students, they’ll have to wait until April 13th for their Tiesto dreams to become reality. You, on the other hand, can enjoy his jams right now!

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Filed under Campus Life, Leigh Ann P., Locust Walk Talk, Squirrels, The Sweeten Life, Traditions, Uncategorized, View from Sweeten