Wharton School

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday denounced Friday's issue of the Penn student newspaper for unbalanced and "inappropriate" reporting that it said gave a "negative impression" to 3,500 alumni who visited the Penn campus last weekend. "The Wharton School strongly believes in freedom of speech and of the press, but it also believes in news reporting that reflects all facets - the positive as well as the negative - of the university," said the school's officials in a statement released yesterday.

Thomas P. Gerrity, an international business consultant who has served on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been selected as the new dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Gerrity, 48, the president of CSC Consulting of Boston, a division of Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., an information-technology specialist, is to assume the post July 1. He succeeds Russell Palmer, who announced last June that he would step down after seven years in the dean's post.

Herbert R. Northrup, 89, of Haverford, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a labor specialist who developed groundbreaking theories on race in the workplace, died of a stroke Monday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. In the 1960s, while chairing the department of industry at Wharton, Dr. Northrup edited The Negro and Employment Opportunity. The book concluded that economics, not civil rights, was the chief factor underlying racial tension in the United States.

The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, like other fancy business colleges, is staffed by professors with comfortable salaries, global contacts and lucrative consulting arrangements, punctuated by the occasional wealthy alumnus visiting to brag how he (or she) got rich. At Wharton, there's also the occasional whiff of superstar glamour - from NBA star Earvin "Magic" Johnson , tennis great Andre Agassi , rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges , and, later this week, the actress Eva Longoria . The invitations to visit Wharton's West Philly campus have come from Wharton alumni K. Robert "Bobby" Turner ('84)

Bill O'Brien, Republican candidate in Philadelphia's Fourth Councilmanic District, makes us believe that there is life after Frank Rizzo's death for the city's GOP. This Manayunk lawyer and former staffer to the late Sen. John Heinz comes at you with a briefcase full of ideas for attacking city woes, an impressive record of community involvement and an obvious appetite for public service. In short, voters of this district could do much, much worse. Their dilemma, and ours in making an endorsement, is that Mr. O'Brien faces an even more impressive opponent in the Democratic nominee, investment broker Michael Nutter.

Although the new Steinberg Conference Center won't seat its first class of executives until January, on Russell E. Palmer's books it is an investment already reaping big returns. That explains why Palmer, dean of the Wharton School, sounded like an ebullient new father last week when discussing the $24 million addition, which was dedicated Friday on the Penn campus. "We're going to have 5,000 executives through here next year," Palmer said. "So, as far as corporate contractual space is concerned, we're sold out even before we open.

They didn't have fax machines, cell phones or personal computers when they founded the conference 25 years ago. They didn't have much money either - only about $5,000 to put on a half-day event in a classroom at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. But Merritt Brown, Benautrice Roland Jr. and two other Wharton students did have a dream - of leaving a legacy for future African American business students at Penn. "We wanted to give black students at Wharton, as well as prospective students, a sense that business success is an attainable goal," Brown said.

Investigators yesterday released a composite drawing of the man they believe murdered Wharton School student Shannon Schieber last spring. The sketch was rendered with the help of a woman who was raped in Center City in August 1997. DNA tests that were completed last month linked the woman's attacker to a second rape that August and to Schieber's murder in May. Lt. Kenneth Coluzzi called the sketch "a very substantial step in the investigation. " The suspect is either "an extremely light-skinned black male or a very dark-complected or tan white male," about 25 years old with a thin build, who stands 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, said Coluzzi.

The deans of two of the University of Pennsylvania's most prestigious schools - law and business - announced independently yesterday that they will step down when the academic year ends in the summer of 1999. Colin S. Diver, 54, who has been dean at Penn's law school for a decade, said he had achieved the goals he set out for the school, and planned to return to teaching there full time. Thomas P. Gerrity, 57, dean of the Wharton School for eight years, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and explore more thoroughly some of his theories in the field of management.

It is intended to be at once tall and short, futuristic and old-fashioned, striking and modest, imposing and welcoming. In a true test of design magic, the architects who unveiled sketches yesterday for a $128 million education building at 38th and Walnut Streets in University City have tried to accommodate every conflicting desire the Wharton School's faculty, students and administrators have uttered over the last few years. Faced in brick and Indian red sandstone, capped with copper roofs, the new building will stand a modest three stories high where it fronts Locust Walk on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

PASTOR WILLIE Singletary was headed to Grays Ferry yesterday, mulling the eulogy for his aunt who perished in the Market Street building collapse, when he heard on the radio that the veteran city employee who had inspected the property killed himself. "It's another tragedy, another loss," said Singletary, as he stood outside the City of Refuge church at 27th and Wharton streets, shaking his head. But yesterday, Singletary's focus was on his aunt, Juanita Harmon, a grandmother of nine, a woman of grace and grit, who lived every minute of her 75 years.

The students I have been coaching, 16 of them, range in age from 24 to 29. They are first-year MBA students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I'm their "executive leadership" coach, which means we meet one on one at least four times during the academic year and figure out what they have and what they lack as future high achievers. We discuss how to increase the achievement-growth hormone and decrease all in their being or behavior that might stunt that growth. No problem.

Solomon Weinstein, 96, of Ventnor, N.J., president of Charleston Realty in Cherry Hill from 1962 to 1983, died at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, N.J., on Friday, May 3. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Weinstein - known as "Babe" - graduated first in his class of 1935 at Olney High School, daughter Linda Butler said Monday. A 1939 graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Weinstein worked during World War II as an Army Air Corps auditor at a plant that made gliders for the Normandy invasion.

The lunch-hour rush is under way at the convoy of food trucks that line Spruce Street near the University of Pennsylvania campus. From inside the cramped Chez Yasmine, Jihed Chehimi is serving gourmet street fare from around the globe - heaping salmon sandwiches sprinkled with caviar, homemade couscous, and cups of Indian red lentil soup - all with a side of conversation that occasionally turns to the science of AIDS. For more than two decades, the Ph.D. in viral immunology was an HIV/AIDS researcher, first at Penn and then at the labs of the Wistar Institute, where the senior scientist explored innate and adaptive immunity.

How many conservatives does it take to screw in a new lightbulb? More than if it were liberals. A new study out of the University of Pennsylvania finds that people who are more politically conservative are less in favor of investing in energy-efficiency technology. It turns out that they're likely to be put off by the environmental messaging. Which is ubiquitous. Energy efficiency has long been touted as a way to stall climate change. The federal government's Energy Star website promotes energy-efficient products by saying they will "save energy and fight climate change.

Brandon Copeland enjoyed a stellar senior season with Ivy League champion Penn and continued the momentum during offseason workouts. Now the Penn defensive end hopes to hear his name called in the NFL draft this weekend or to be signed as a priority free agent. Copeland, a first-team all-Ivy League player this past season, would be keeping up a family tradition if he does indeed enter the NFL. His grandfather Roy Hilton played 11 seasons in the NFL as a defensive lineman, nine with the Baltimore Colts (who have since moved to Indianapolis)

In the Region Convention Center issues RFP   The Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority on Thursday issued a request for proposals from qualified companies interested in managing and operating certain functions of the center. A mandatory proposers' conference and site tour is scheduled for April 4 at 2:30 p.m. at the center. Deadline for receipt of the proposals is May 3. Access the RFP application at http://www.paconvention.com/vendors . - Suzette Parmley   Coatesville plant upgrade finished   Pennsylvania American Water on Thursday marked the completion of a $24 million upgrade to the company's Rock Run Water Treatment Plant near Coatesville, intended to improve capacity, reliability, and energy efficiency.

HENRY PRINCE Murphy was a man of many talents and accomplishments, with a major focus on serving his fellow human being. He was an auditor and accountant by trade, but you wouldn't have wanted to tell him he had condemned himself to a life without adventure, not when he was boarding a plane for Ethiopia to help the Rev. Leon Sullivan set up development projects for Third World countries. And not when he was teaching business courses at local schools, or painting portraits of family members, or working in various civic enterprises to help minority businesses, abused women or any number of other programs of benefit to the underserved.

Dan M. McGill, 93, a professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who helped shape the study of pensions, died of heart failure Tuesday, Feb. 5, at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, Pa. Born in Greenback, Tenn., on Sept. 27, 1919, Dr. McGill moved as a boy to Maryville, Tenn. He received a bachelor's degree from Maryville College in 1940 and a master's degree from Vanderbilt University in 1941, before serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which was succeeded by the U.S. Army Air Forces, from 1942-46.

Helen Kardon Moss of Center City, a singer who performed on operatic stages, on Broadway, and in area clubs, died of a Parkinson's related illness at Penn Hospice Rittenhouse on Wednesday, Dec. 26, her 81st birthday. As a young woman, Mrs. Moss performed as a soprano with the New York City Opera Company and the San Francisco Opera Company. Her repertoire for most of her career, though, was the Great American Songbook. "I'm fortunate enough to have a background in many musical forms," she said in a 1994 Inquirer article.