March|April 2016
Volume 114, No. 4
FEATURES
The Small, Good Stories
The Penn Cultural Heritage Center was launched to provide a forum for an “intellectual discussion” of the meaning of heritage and the role of communities in preservation efforts. Then came the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS. By Jamie Fisher.
Plus: Teaching art to Syrian and Iraqi refugee children in Jordan. By Melissa Croghan
March Madness Missed
What’s more frustrating than playing Ivy League men’s basketball in the same era as Bill Bradley? Winning the University’s first official Ivy championship the year after he graduated, and then being kept out of postseason play because of a fight between the League and the NCAA. Fifty years later, Penn’s 1965-66 squad still wonders what might have been. By Dave Zeitlin
That Roosevelt
Penn Law professor, legal scholar, and novelist Kermit Roosevelt III is doing his best to live up to the family name—including, in his latest book, by tackling cousin Franklin’s executive order authorizing the confinement of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. By Julia M. Klein
Street Fighter
“Gridlock Sam” Schwartz GCE’70 is an icon in New York’s century-long war with traffic. Can his final campaign reshape the city’s transportation future? By Trey Popp
Readin’, Writin’, Revolution
With the Minerva Project, Ben Nelson W’97 is out to “build the world’s greatest university from scratch.” Should Penn—and other top-tier schools—be worried? By Alyson Krueger
DEPARTMENTS
First Person: Essays
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGRAD Parts of speech
ALUMNI VOICES Gerald’s story, and mine
ELSEWHERE “That old promise of bliss”
EXPERT OPINION Uber and VIM
Gazetteer: News & Sports
Hill House to get $80 million renovation
Penn’s Islamic chaplain Kameelah Rashad C’00 GEd ’01
Hamilton ’s Lin-Manuel Miranda to be Commencement speaker
Historic preservation studio challenges neighborhood assumptions
Y-Prize winners get $10,000 in beer money
Q&A on sociologist David Grazian’s American Zoo
Biden’s cancer “moonshot” lifts off at Penn
Sam Mattis’ Olympic hopes; women’s lacrosse is “on a mission”
Arts
PHOTOGRAPHY Barren campus. Without Regard to Sex, Race, or Color
FILM “Father of Philippine Independent Cinema” Kidlak Tahimik WG’67
BOOKS “Middlesex meets Mean Girls” in YA novel None of the Above
POETRY Paul Christensen Gr’73’s “A West Texas Marriage”
Alumni: Profiles
Matthew Rader WG’11 cultivates the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Brian Levin C’89 knows a scary amount about all kinds of extremism
John Doman C’66 is still exercising his acting muscle
Beverly Robertson ran the National Civil Rights Museum
: Events
: Notes
