University Of Pennsylvania

Andrew BednarzikSchool: Calvert Hall College High SchoolHometown: ColumbiaAge: 17Andrew, a senior in the McMullen Scholars Program at Calvert Hall, has a 4.0 grade point average. The scholarship is awarded to students who score high on an entrance exam and meet other requirements, such as taking Latin and humanities classes and doing a thesis in their senior year. Andrew's thesis is on economics and the change in the work force from an industrial to a service-oriented society.Andrew's mentor is his father, Robert, an economist with the U.S. Department of Labor.

PHILADELPHIA - Nearly 30 years after its last major construction project added dormitories, the student bookstore and a new research center, the University of Pennsylvania is in the midst of two major building and renovation projects that will again reshape its campus.One of them, called Sansom Common, will include in its first phase a 250-room hotel, shops and a new bookstore at an estimated cost of $73 million. The site is at the heart of the campus on a block bounded by Walnut, Sansom, 36th and 37th streets that for years has been a 2-acre parking lot.The second phase will include the creation of a new north-south street linking the hotel entrance to Chestnut Street, a major artery leading to downtown Philadelphia.

I'll tell you when I decided - apologies to Ricky Ricardo - that I had some 'splainin' to do. It was a few days ago when I got an e-mail informing me that I am an "anti-gay bigot." Which would be a shock to the system at any time, but seems especially ironic coming as it does a few weeks before I am supposed to receive an award from PFLAG - Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The source of this ire? A column I wrote about Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, and pregnant, and the daughter of the vice president.

At the University of Pennsylvania, scientists are feeding people muffins made with flaxseed oil to see if the natural remedy fights cholesterol. The University of Maryland is running tests to see if acupuncture can soothe osteoarthritis pain. At the University of Pittsburgh, neurologists are testing ginkgo biloba's ability to ward off Alzheimer's disease. And at the University of San Francisco, researchers are trying to find out if yoga can relieve backache. A few years ago, these experiments would have drawn sneers from mainstream medical researchers.

&TCThomas Marshall, retired professor of English, diesA memorial service for Thomas F. Marshall, retired professor of English at Kent State University in Ohio and a former professor at Western Maryland College, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Mark's-on-the-Hill Episcopal Church, 1620 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville.Dr. Marshall, who was 83, died Oct. 20 of cancer at his home on Emory Road in Upperco.He moved to Upperco in 1972 after he was named professor emeritus at Kent State, where he chaired the English department from 1955 until 1962 and then was senior professor of American literature.

Beautine DeCosta-Lee, a retired educator and civil rights activist who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Kirby Pines retirement community in Memphis, Tenn. The former longtime Northwest Baltimore resident was 95. Beautine Hubert, the granddaughter of slaves, was born in Hancock County, Ga., and was raised near Savannah. "Her parents, John Wesley and Lillie Jones Hubert, were educators," said her daughter, Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis, an author who lives in Memphis.

Philadelphia. -- It's not just unseemly, says the University of Pennsylvania's vice dean, Ira Harkavy, for universities located in inner cities to ignore the chaos at their doorsteps, ''to be islands of affluence in seas of poverty, oases in deserts of despair.''The dereliction goes farther, he says: It is a betrayal of the optimistic 18th- and 19th-century missions of American universities -- not simply to advance learning, but to create a new and better society.Dr. Harkavy has University of Pennsylvania professors and instructors, graduate students and undergraduates involved in outreach to some of West Philadelphia's most ravaged neighborhoods and troubled schools.

When her cat Lily's kidneys began to fail, Maura Hall never imagined she'd be spending $10,000 to save her. But that was before Hall's veterinarian tipped her off to a sophisticated surgery once available only to humans: an organ transplant. Hall, who lives in Laurel, raced up Interstate 95 to the University of Pennsylvania last month and had her cat admitted to one of the few feline transplant centers in the country. "People say, `How could you spend so much on an animal?' " says Hall, who makes about $36,000 a year at an Elkridge motorcycle parts supplier.

Raymond Clarence Phillips, a colorful and witty English professor who kept several generations of Western Maryland College students riveted with his classroom dramatizations of literary characters, died Monday of a stroke at Chesapeake Regional Medical Center in Chesapeake, Va. He was 75. Dr. Phillips, who maintained homes in Uniontown and Williamsport, Pa., had been vacationing in Corolla, N.C., when stricken. He was born and raised in Williamsport and graduated from Williamsport High School in 1949.

For Old Mill's Brent Layman, victory was just an inside single-leg takedown away.Just one more victory, that's all. Just one guy, Franklin's Brian Siatkowski, stood between him and last year's Class 4A/3A 130-pound state wrestling title.He had reached the finals with a 30-0 record after a second-period pin, a technical fall and an easy decision victory.However, Layman dropped the championship bout, 4-1. Today, he admits the pressure was perhaps too great."I guess it was fear of failure, and it was definitely disappointing," said Layman, now a senior.