“We would snuggle up in PJs and bake cookies and review each other’s essays,” said Kluge, who also minors in Russian and political science.

But the friend-reader, rather than peer-reader, idea was instigated long before the winter of 2012-2013. Sevit and Kluge, along with close friends Claudia Gutierrez, a pre-junior biomedical engineering BS/MS, and Nick Stropko, a pre-junior communications major with a concentration in corporate and public relations and minors in marketing and business administration, all became friends freshman year while living in Millennium Hall, Drexel’s Honors dorm, and have been urging each other forward ever since.

While it’s extraordinary for four friends to remain as close as they were three years ago, it’s even more remarkable that they motivated each other to study abroad, apply for international scholarships and fellowships, and maintain their good grades.

“We’ve obsessively compared GPAs since we became friends. It’s a little unhealthy,” Kluge said.

“I get teased for having a 3.91 GPA,” Stropko said, adding that it would have been higher if he hadn’t taken two engineering calculus classes freshman year instead of basic introductory math classes.

Stropko and Kluge usually review or look over each other’s essays for classes, as will Sevit on occasion. Kluge, who was an English major freshman year, helped Gutierrez with her English classes when they first met.

From left to right: Alex Sevit, Kailey Kluge and Nick Stropko.

“We all reviewed or looked at someone else’s essays,” Stropko said.

The comparisons and essay parties have paid off, as three of the four friends have received prestigious scholarships and awards.

As reported on DrexelNow, Kluge will study and work abroad in Russia for the 2013-14 school year with funding from the Boren Awards for International Study, spending two terms studying at St. Petersburg University though the CIEE St. Petersburg study abroad program and then working in Moscow for a co-op. As a Boren Scholar, she will also spend a year in government service post-award in agreement with the terms of the award.

Sevit and Gutierrez won the Whitaker International Award, which allows biomedical engineering students to design a project that will enhance their careers within the field while living and working abroad. Sevit will study at the Denmark Technical University in Lyngby, Denmark, in the fall of 2013. Gutierrez is currently completing her second co-op as a Whitaker Undergraduate Scholar in the Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“This is not an exchange program or a study abroad program,” Gutierrez said. “It was an opportunity that I created myself by networking with a professor in the College of Biomedical Engineering. He had completed his post-doc in this lab and I asked him if it would be possible to work there as a co-op. He recommended me to the principle investigator, Dr. Melody Swartz.”

Though both students share the same major, are in the same program, and won the same prestigious scholarship, Sevit was motivated to change from mechanical engineering to biomedical engineering’s BS/MS program and then later apply for the Whitaker because of Gutierrez.

“When he was applying I would sit with him and edit his essay. Because I had known him for so long I knew exactly what he was trying to say and it made the editing process in terms of content very easy,” Gutierrez said.

“Claudia’s a pusher,” Sevit joked, but he is very appreciative of the help and advice he received.

And as for Gutierrez, whose Costa Rican immigrant-turned-U.S.-citizen parents taught her to believe that everyone is capable of achieving great things regardless of background, that’s just what friends are for.

“As I went through the application process for Whitaker, and being so close to Alex, he stuck out to me as someone that would be an excellent candidate. I knew he had never been outside of the country and it just made sense for me to encourage him to apply,” Gutierrez said.

Claudia Gutierrez in Montreaux, Switzerland, which is near where she is currently working as a Whitaker Undergraduate Scholar.

Stropko and Kailey also have close working relationships, as Stropko pointed out an error in the first paragraph of Kailey’s Boren scholarship application that she didn’t notice until she had sent it to Drexel to be approved, and she raced to the Fellowship Office.

Though Stropko, who won the National Merit Scholarship in high school, didn’t apply for any international scholarships, he still plans on studying at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey while Kluge is in Russia and Sevit is in Denmark.

Back at Drexel, the students are able to balance their studies with extracurricular work—and promise they have a life outside of schoolwork and their core group of friends.

Stropko has been a DJ at Drexel’s WKDU radio station, where he currently acts as the PR director and hosts a jazz show once a week. Sevit has been a violinist in Drexel’s Chamber Ensemble since freshman year and a peer mentor for the Foundation for Undergraduate Sexual Equality (FUSE) since sophomore year. Kluge is an editorial writer for the Center for Cultural Outreach, where she has written feature articles for philly.com, the Philadelphia Daily News, and numerous Drexel blogs.

Gutierrez became the president of Drexel’s Salsa Club her freshman year, and is the president of the Drexel chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, where she frequently forwards members different opportunities, including scholarship information, that she hears about. She also has worked as an engineering design and biomedical engineering peer mentor, and recently accepted an invitation to join Drexel’s new Student Global Advisory Board on the international research/co-op committee.

That these students can balance grades, scholarships, and each other seems gold star-worthy as well.

“Best of the Best”

Establishing a standard of excellence, removed from popular and commercial appeal, is no easy task. It begins at The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where the award itself was established in 1941.

Students and faculty from the college, in teams of three, review more than 1,000 entries, rate by voting and summarize each before sending them off, in phases, to the members of the selection committee.

One of the unique qualities of the Peabody awards is that there is no set number of honorees or categories. It is the job of the selectors to –put simply – pick the best of the best. This year’s list of 39 winners is the most that the committee has given out since the award’s inception.

As new mediums have evolved, they have become eligible for entry and eventually earned the coveted honor. While the first Peabody Award ceremony was broadcast live nationwide on CBS Radio, it was not until 1948, seven years later, that the first Peabody Award would go to a television program:  “Howdy Doody” and “Actor’s Studio” both earned recognition. Now the Peabody Awards welcome entries created exclusively for websites and non-broadcast distribution, as well as television and radio programs.

To put the breadth of the awards in perspective, in 2011 Peabodys were given to the game show “ Jeopardy!,” a documentary on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, “The Colbert Report,” the television series “Game of Thrones” and a biopic about the former prime minister of Pakistan. This year’s 39 honorees include a documentary about Tibetan yak herders, an Indianapolis TV station’s exposé of IRS fraud, HBO’s comedy-drama “Girls,” and SCOTUSblog.com, a website devoted to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Reviewing the Nominees

For Sabinson, the process begins in mid-January when the first of many FedEx boxes arrives on his doorstep.

“Usually the documentaries show up first in mid-January,” Sabinson said. “It’s a box full of DVDs with about 60-80 hours of television on them and the reviews from the Grady School faculty students and others from University of Georgia on each one.”

Each box represents approximately one-third of all the nominees of a certain genre…and about 45 hours of viewing for Sabinson.

Fortunately the veteran entertainment industry executive, who has produced two Peabody award-winners during his time in the business, has a keen eye for picking out viable candidates for the top honor.  Sabinson sifts through the nominees for about five hours straight, from 7 p.m. to midnight three nights a week over the course of three weeks, watching about 10-15 minutes of each submission.

Many of the entries that work in conventional forms tend to blend together so I’m always looking for the oddball program,” Sabinson said. “So when I watch them, I hate to admit it, but it is such a heavy workload of viewing that I have to fight the instinct to be impatient and not want to like shows.”

The Great Debate

Between January and March, the 16-member board convenes three times to discuss what they and the faculty-student committees have screened and deemed worthy of further consideration. The first meeting is in Los Angeles, where they focus primarily on documentary entries.  Two-to-three weeks later they meet in Washington, D.C., where they concentrate mainly on news submissions.  Then, in late March, the board members gather at the Peabody offices at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.  They spend five days discussing and dissecting the remaining entries – entertainment, radio, web – and deliberating the final winners’ list.

The real challenge, according to Sabinson, is that each winner must be unanimously chosen by the committee. In that marathon week of meetings that make jury duty look like a vacation, the committee puts in 12-to-15-hour days plus 4-5 hours of extra late-night viewing.

Once the group has gone through all the nominees, they vote on which ones they’d like to see more of, these selections must have at least 13 votes to move into the next round.  After viewing the selections, a second round of voting takes place, where there can be no more than two dissenters in the room.  At this point, with the surviving nominees dwindling, a final vote is held. The winners must receive unanimous support by the committee.

“The most controversial category tends to be entertainment,” Sabinson said. “It’s so subjective and the committee is a mix of people from academia and industry so we all have different ideas about what is award-worthy. This is especially true in comedy where my idea of funny may be very different than your idea of funny.”

In addition to HBO’s “Girls,” the entertainment winners this year include FX’s “Louis,” based on the comedic styling of Louis C.K. and BBC’s ageless science-fiction series “Dr. Who.”

And the Winners are…

Sabinson, who is finishing the fourth year of a six-year appointment on the Peabody Committee, considers it a challenge and an important part of his contribution to the field.

Being a Peabody award member can be very depressing because you’re watching reports on the worst events of the year,” Sabinson said. “Stories on poverty, death and disaster – this year we had everything from Hurricane Sandy to Sandy Hook- and it weighs on you. But it does allow me to get a good overview of the business in a very concentrated period of time. I’m very proud of this whole list, I think it does represent excellence in the field. It’s a great privilege to serve with the other Peabody board members who are an impressive and esteemed group.”

MAD Dragon students work with members of the band The Company We Keep in Drexel’s recording studio.

This Friday’s MAD Dragon Records 10^th Anniversary concert at the Trocadero celebrates the student-run label’s success during a time period when both the industry and medium of music went through a rapid evolution. In the midst of this tidal shift, MAD Dragon Records produced 32 titles from 17 artists that grossed more than 75,000 sales in digital downloads, CDs, 12- and seven-inch vinyl records.

Concurrently, Drexel’s music industry program turned out more than 280 graduates in the last 10 years, with more than half of them having worked at MAD Dragon Records and most of whom are currently employed in the music industry.

Here’s a look at how some of MAD Dragon Records’ most memorable moments played out –and sounded- over the last 10 years:

Pre-eminent songwriter, producer and creator of MTV’s “Unplugged,” Jules Shear, became the first artist to sign with MAD Dragon in the spring of 2003. Shear’s album “Dreams Don’t Count” and his association with MAD Dragon Records were featured in the New York Times on April 30, 2006. 

In the spring of 2005, MAD Dragon secured a distribution deal with Ryko Distribution (now Alternative Distribution Alliance), the largest independent distributor in the United States. The first MAD Dragon album distributed by Ryko was a compilation by Matt Duke, Trisha O’Keefe and Julia Othmer entitled “XYX.” Julia Othmer “Mission Control” from XYX (2008)

MAD Dragon and Matt Duke sign upstream agreement to partner with Rykodisc Records, one of the top national distribution companies, for future releases. The deal, which was MAD Dragon’s first upstream contract with a partner –in this case, a large indie label- affirmed the student label’s ability to find and nurture talent and solidified it as a breeding ground for independent artists.  Matt Duke “Oysters” from Winter Child (2006) 

Sean Hoots, Rob Berliner and Andrew Gray’s band Hoots & Hellmouth brought their unique brand of roots music to MAD Dragon, releasing their first two albums “Hoots & Hellmouth” (2007) and “The Holy Open Secret” (2009) with the label. The group’s self-titled album would go on to win an Independent Music Award for Best College Record Label Album. The group continues to be a successful touring act and mainstay on the Americana music scene. Hoots & Hellmouth “Home in a Boxcar” from Hoots & Hellmouth (2007)

In October of 2007, MAD Dragon Records signed The Redwalls for their third album “The Redwalls” after they were dropped by the Capitol Records when they merged with Virgin Records. The album went on to commercial success. The Redwalls performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman in 2008. The Redwalls “Game of Love” from The Redwalls (2007).

Most recently, MAD Dragon continued its student-music-industry trailblazing by partnering with Motion City Soundtrack to curate a series of seven-inch vinyl records entitled “Making Moves.” The band and MAD Dragon’s student A&R committee selected five developing artists to be part of the series:  A Great Big Pile of Leaves, Brick + Mortar, Goldrush, The Skies Revolt and The Company We Keep. Students recorded the songs at Drexel’s studio, produced a feature documentary film on the making of the series and a turned it all into a box set as part of the release for the series. And in a project that is still on the horizon, MAD Dragon partnered with Island Def Jam/Photo Finish to release the tracks from Brick + Mortar’s contribution to Making Moves as part of a full-length album which is due out in 2013.  Brick + Mortar “Bangs” from Making Moves Vol. 2 (2012)

In 2012 MAD Dragon was nominated for five Independent Music Awards. Since its founding, the label has earned 35 nominations and produced winners in several categories.

In anticipation of the upcoming Music Hack Day Philadelphia , Drexel’s ExCITe Center has released a re-mastered version of the Hubos’ “Come Together” video. The new take is chock-full of inside information in the classic VH1 “Pop-up Video” format.

The Hubos’ first video received viral acclaim when it was released on April 2, 2012. Fox News and the Blue Man Group picked up on the robotic riff on the classic Beatles tune, and since then more than 175,000 people have viewed it worldwide.

“The inspiration for the original video came from the photo shoot for Drexel Magazine recreating the classic ‘Abbey Road’ album cover with the Hubos,” said Dr. Youngmoo Kim, director of the ExCITe Center. “As a music technology lab, we felt compelled to do something musical as a follow-up, and the entire video project was completed in less than weeks. We hope the pop-up video provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the project and demonstrates some of the ways music and technology can literally and figuratively ‘come together’ at Music Hack Day.”

Some fun facts that didn’t make it into the pop-up video:

• Twelve students worked for three weeks to program the Hubos, build the instruments and complete the shoot.
• Seventy-six and a half feet of PVC pipe was used to construct the Hubos’ “hubophone” instruments
• The Hubos’ hubophone sticks were made from paint stirrers given away for free at Lowe’s Home Improvement Store…the team went through so many stirrers during rehearsal and filming that the local Lowes cut them off.
• Kim selected “Come Together” because it was from the Abbey Road album, an allusion to the Hubos’ Alumni Magazine appearance, and its notes and pace lends itself well to a 12-note orchestration.

Music Hack Day is an international musical technology coding marathon that has been held in 12 cities internationally since 2009. On May 18-19 the ExCITe Center will host the first Philadelphia-based Music Hack Day. For more information about the event, visit www.musickhackday.org.

“This is a picture of some of us Witnesses to Hunger showing the world our sisterly love.”
-Photo and Voice by Imani S., Philadelphia

A message from Dr. Mariana Chilton:

This Sunday I am proud to celebrate Mother’s Day by talking about the hunger and poverty faced by too many mothers on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show (10am, MSNBC).  I will be joined by another mother and member of Witnesses to Hunger, Tianna G.

Tianna is a loving mother of three young kids.  She works hard to support her family but it is not always enough.

“My children are my life,” Tianna said.  ”A lot of times I let my well-being go for them.  But what good mother doesn’t?”

Right now too many American women, especially mothers, are required to let their own well-being go because they struggle to put food on their table.  In 2011, over 40% of female headed households with children were food insecure.  Far too many mothers and children are living on the edge.

Spend some time this Mother’s Day learning more about the difficult challenges so many mothers face in the US today. Then talk to us on Twitter @HungerFreeCtr where we will be using the hashtags #EndHungerNow, #SNAPworks, and #talkpoverty. You can also sign up to take action as part of A Place at the Table’s Social Action Campaign.

This Mother’s Day let’s commit to ensuring that no mother has to go without food to feed her children or has to send her kids to bed early because she just does not have enough money for dinner.  Let’s honor our mothers, end hunger now!

Dr. Mariana Chilton is an associate professor and director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities in the Drexel University School of Public Health

Dr. Mariana Chilton is an associate professor and director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities in Drexel University’s School of Public Health.

Chilton investigates the health impacts of hunger and food insecurity among young children aged zero to three. Her work spans across a variety of issues that affect low-income families to address nutritional wellbeing, public assistance participation, housing instability and employment. She has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committees to inform policy decisions regarding child nutrition.

Major projects of Chilton’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities include:

• Witnesses to Hunger: A photodocumentary, ethnography, and self-advocacy project that equips low-income parents (primarily mothers) with cameras to document what hunger and related issues mean to them.  All too often, policies and programs are created without the participation of the people who are most affected. The true experts on maternal and child health and poverty are the mothers of young children. These moms focus their lenses on their children, on their neighborhoods, on their daily grinds at work and on welfare. Chilton established “Witnesses” in Philadelphia in 2008 with 40 women and has since expanded it with participants across Pennsylvania, in Boston, Baltimore, and more regions. A group of ten Witnesses in Camden, New Jersey, will have the debut display of their photographs soon.

• Children’s HealthWatch: A network of pediatricians and public-health researchers at five sites around the U.S. collect data about the health and nutrition status of young children when they are seen in emergency rooms.  Since 1998, the study has provided the most current and largest dataset in the nation about the food security and development of very young children living in poverty. Chilton coordinates the Philadelphia site of this program.
• The GROW Clinic: Chilton founded the Philadelphia site of this clinic (modeled on one in Boston) providing integrative medical care for young children experiencing “failure to thrive” – a manifestation of chronic malnutrition.

Chilton is an experienced spokesperson for the issues she studies and for the real people whose struggles she has come to know intimately, via the Witnesses program. She has spoken before legislators and in national and international media on issues including:

• Impacts of hunger and poverty on children’s health and development
• Food stamps (SNAP), welfare, and other public assistance programs and their impact on children’s health
• Issues of employment, single mothers, and public assistance

Read Chilton’s blog post for the Melissa Harris-Perry Show on poverty and hunger – written especially for her appearance (with Tianna Gaines-Turner, a member of Witnesses to Hunger) on a special edition of the show devoted to finding solutions to poverty in America. Watch live, May 12, from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern on MSNBC.

For media inquiries about Chilton, Witnesses to Hunger or the Center for Hunger-Free Communities, please contact Rachel Ewing at raewing@drexel.edu or 215-895-2614 (office) or 215-298-4600 (cell).

Dr. Paul Harrington is a professor and director of the Center for Labor Markets and Policy at Drexel University. Photo credit: Tommy Leonardi.

As the school year ends, teens will be flocking to apply for summer jobs at local stores and restaurants. Most of them will be turned away.

Overlooked in many discussions about the Great Recession is the plummeting number of employed teens. In Philadelphia, just 20 percent of all teenagers were employed last year.

A recent study we conducted at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy and Boston’s Commonwealth Corp. uncovered some of the underlying factors behind this alarming trend, as well as some practical solutions for addressing this challenge.

The benefits of teen employment extend far beyond pocket money for teenagers. It is an important predictor of future employment and earnings, and is a key component of the experience upon which young people make life-defining decisions on the pathway to adulthood.

Moreover, previous work experience is one of the primary filters used by employers to decide whom to hire. Like schooling, work experience can help develop key abilities that employers value. Reductions in employment, coupled with a rise in idleness among teens, spell trouble for the productive potential of the nation’s labor supply.

In our recent study on hiring decisions for entry-level positions, we found that employers in Boston and Philadelphia have become more reluctant to hire teens. One reason is that older workers and young college graduates are available for these jobs. But the reluctance largely stems from negative behavioral traits of teenage workers.

Employers noted that teens

• are more likely to call out from work without notice.
• are less likely to have self-control, and the ability to keep their emotions in check and maintain their composure with customers.
• resist efforts by employers to correct them, partly because they don’t fully understand the connection between their performance and the economic viability of the firm that employs them.
• are more likely to quit a job without sufficient notice, raising employer costs associated with high turnover and rearranging work schedules.

Many of the institutions and organizations that serve teens are largely disconnected from the labor market, and therefore unable to effectively coach teens and prepare them to succeed on the job. For instance, many employers claim that the first time most teens face any consequences for poor attendance is in the workplace. Showing up at work is fundamental to success, yet schools and workforce programs too often fail to develop this most basic of traits. Both parents and schools must reinforce dependability and self-discipline, and students need to understand that there are consequences for not showing up or for losing control.

Reinforcing behaviors like attendance and punctuality early can improve school and work outcomes for teenagers. High schools and workforce trainers must engage in developing character traits that are the building blocks to academic and career success.

Paul E. Harrington is a professor and director of the Center for Labor Markets and Policy at Drexel University. Nancy L. Snyder is president of Commonwealth Corp. in Boston.

This opinion piece previously ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 10. To read it, click here.

On the accuracy of the fashions…

From what I’ve seen so far of the movie, it’s not very accurate. The men appear to be more accurate than the women, which is very typical in period films. The costumes worn by women tend to be greatly influenced by current standards of beauty. A good example of this in the past would be the costumes worn by Elizabeth Taylor in the film “Cleopatra.”

The men’s costumes appear to be fairly authentic-looking and I know there was quite a bit of collaboration with the Brooks Brothers Archives. I also know they called in  Deirdre Clemente, a historian who specializes in the clothing worn in Fitzgerald’s books, to advise them. Tobey Maguire, in particular, looks great in his boater hat and bow tie. There are some creative liberties, of course, but the general look is correct.

The costumes worn by Carey Mulligan, from what I have seen, do not appear to be grounded in a similar approach to research. Miuccia Prada reinterpreted the 1920s look to appeal to the modern viewer and there are some notable differences. Generally, the women’s costumes are all too closely fitted to the body and consequently their breasts are in the wrong place. The evening dresses are also – and this way come as a shock to many – not bare enough to be fashionable in the 1920s- the necklines should be low and square and the back fairly plunging if they are going for a mid-1920s look. The leggings underneath the dress are a completely modern touch as the decade of the 1920s was obsessed with bare – or the appearance of bare – legs. Sheer stockings were the only fashionable leg covering. Slingback heels were also not worn in the 1920s.

Baz Luhrmann, however, clearly wasn’t striving for authenticity with that modern soundtrack! Even with this in mind, there seems to have been a bit of a disconnect between the costumes – did they want to be accurate or not? It may have been better for them to loosen up the menswear a bit and tone down the women to find some kind of synchronicity.

On comparisons to Boardwalk Empire and Downton Abbey…

Both Boardwalk Empire and  Downton Abbey are more concerned with historical accuracy. There have been some missteps along the way –such as the placement of waists and hemlines – but both are generally true to the period.

On elements of 1920s fashion in the styles of today…

Our love of loose and comfortable clothes, for one! The 1920s saw a widespread adoption of sportswear – pleated skirts and cardigans, jersey and knits for casual daywear. This was a revolution and is very much a part of our modern love of comfort and ease. Dresses in the 1920s were invariably variations on the rectangular tunic shape and not too different from the modern t-shirt.

On why 1920s trends are so enduring…

The silhouette was youthful and athletic, which has lingering appeal to modern eyes. The silhouettes were generally simple and they did not require elaborate underpinnings or reshaping through corsetry. This is appealing to modern consumers who can easily imagine trying them on.  It was also a very lavish period for eveningwear, and the beaded dresses, evening coats, and headpieces are a visual feast. It was a glittering glamorous look. Socially,  it was a very exciting and revolutionary decade and this is appealing to the modern consumer as well.

On her favorite 1920s items in Drexel’s Historic Costume Collection…

I have many – in fact, I will be teaching a Special Topics in Art History class this summer just on the fashions of the 1920s. A few highlights are:

A pair of black and red evening shoes with a “lightning bolt” bolt motif from the late 1920s. The shoes of the 1920s are spectacular. Skirts were the shortest they had been for a millennium, so sheer stockings and flashy shoes were the latest fashion. The lightning bolt motif was fashionable in this period since it was associated with modern technology such as the telegraph and radio.

A 2-piece day dress from the French couture house of Callot Soeurs from their fall 1927 collection. Callot Soeurs were known for their simple modern silhouettes as well as their lavish embellishment. This cashmere tunic-style dress has a Persian influence.

A day dress from the French couture house of Boué Soeurs, purchased at their New York branch circa 1925. It is a soft and romantic summer day dress of white cotton and lace trimmed with roses of ribbon embroidery. It would have been perfect for a garden party on a grand Long Island estate.

“The apology is a nice first step, but we need to see what lessons JC Penney is going to keep from CEO Ron Johnson’s tenure and what it will jettison,” said Dr. Daniel Korschun, an assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. “Johnson did a lot of smart things that the company badly needed, like rethinking their product lines and improving the in-store experience.”

Johnson’s ambitious “fair and square” model that included eliminating coupons and sales in favor of regular, low prices resulted in sales plummeting 25 percent last year. But JC Penney was facing difficulties before Johnson was brought on, according to Korschun. “It’s important to look at this through the lens of a turnaround attempt,” he said.

In order to attempt a turnaround, Johnson needed to make substantial changes in the way JC Penney promoted itself. Simplifying the structure of sales was a good starting point. “Sales can lead to fatigue among customers,” said Korschun. “As a buyer, you always have to wonder whether you could have gotten a better deal on a different day. Simplifying the sales and the coupons is one way to improve the experience and reduce some of that regret.”

So, why did a lack of coupons and sales lead customers to shop elsewhere? Korschun discussed the JC Penney case in one of his MBA classes. Most students agreed that the constant sales were confusing and a turnoff. But when they analyzed the tactic in relation to JC Penney’s number one goal – which was to drive traffic to the store – opinions started to shift. “The class came to the realization that while this approach could make shopping more pleasurable, it didn’t motivate them to run to JC Penney before Macy’s,” said Korschun. “While customers might like the idea of it, the urgency to shop at Penney’s just wasn’t there.”

As part of the reinvention under Johnson, new brands were introduced –Izod, Liz Claiborne and Levi’s, to name a few—while others were discontinued in an attempt to attract younger shoppers, but the initiative ended up alienating long-time, loyal shoppers. In addition to its apology, JC Penney has now brought back an old-time favorite, St. John’s Bay. The store layout accents the most appealing brands and some sales events are linked to particular brands. Korschun believes this sort of approach is going to be a big part of the Penney’s formula for a comeback. “One of the discoveries that Walmart has made over the past five or six years is that consumers don’t just love cheap stuff, they love to get good deals on brands they love,” he said.

With Johnson now gone and his predecessor back at the helm, it won’t be easy for JC Penney to win back shoppers. “We’re talking about a steep uphill climb,” said Korschun. “It’s a very competitive market to begin with. And now JC Penney has to re-acquire many of the customers it lost over the past couple of years. That’s an expensive proposition. But the store’s latest steps are encouraging. It looks like JC Penney is finding the right balance.”

The JC Penney commercial acknowledging mistakes and inviting customers back:

Dr. Youngmoo Kim (left) introduced NASA astronaut Leland Melvin to the ExCITe Center’s magnetic resonator piano.

A two-day NASA-sponsored hackathon event hosted by Drexel’s ExCITe Center as part of Philly Tech Week turned out a number of interesting ideas, inventions and applications intended to connect people with space.  Some of the appropriately out-of-this-world ideas were a skirt that mirrors the orbit of the International Space Station using LEDs, a mobile/web app that helps users find the exact location of the ISS in the sky and a web app that tracks the movement of the Mars “Curiosity” rover.

ExCITe Director Dr. Youngmoo Kim, who’s been a busy man during Philly Tech Week and the Philadelphia Science Festival, stopped by the event for a few hours to join the more than 100 hackers and coders in tackling 13 different challenges assigned to the Philadelphia group. Kim, whose background is in both music and engineering took on a challenge that entailed finding a way for people to listen to the stars.

Dr. Youngmoo Kim hacked a computer program that turned star luminosity data into music on the magnetic resonator piano (left).

By hacking a program intended to turn the Music Entertainment Technology Lab’s magnetic resonator piano into a supporting accompanist cued by viola music, Kim converted NASA’s star luminosity data into a musical “score.”

“The program I started with was intended to use the sound of a viola to excite the resonators of the piano,” Kim said. “My basic hack was to take luminosity data from the Kepler probe and substitute that in place of the viola to essentially have the sound of the stars play the piano.”

Luminosity data is a record of the brightness of a star. This doesn’t change all that much until a planet moves in front of the star on its orbit around it. This regular motion gives provides periodic data which astronomers use in the search for planets and also to determine the distance and age of stars.

Since this periodic data is similar in form to the sound waves of simple musical tones, linking it to the MRP seemed, to Kim, to be the next logical step. The program looks for prominent frequencies within the music, or in this case within the luminosity of the stars, and matches it to a corresponding note on the piano.

“I thought ‘well, we have this great instrument here, why not try it?’” Kim said.

Kim’s hack also serves as a preview to another hackathon that will be hosted by the ExCITe Center on May 18-19 that is themed“Music Hack Day.” For more information visit www.drexel.edu/excite.

Flooded farms along Lake Enriquillo

Spring break in the Caribbean conjures up images of days on the beach and nights in the clubs. But for Dr. Mimi Sheller, director of the Mobilities Center in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, it meant something very different: trying to understand the effects of a climate-related or geological phenomenon that is imperiling two lakes on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Lake Azuei, which is in Haiti, sits at an elevation of 30 meters. Its level has risen 10 meters since 2003, and its area has more than doubled in size from 155 square kilometers in 2004 to 354 square kilometers today. Three kilometers away in the Dominican Republic, Lake Enriquillo, which is at 10 meters below sea level, is also rising with no signs of stopping and has already submerged farmland, houses and roads. Rising waters are now threatening entire towns.

People were displaced from their homes because of the rising waters

“Knowing what is causing the lakes to rise will help officials in the Dominican Republic and Haiti develop effective mitigation strategies,” said Sheller. “These strategies might include relocating people by clearing new land or slowing the rise of the water by constructing levees or channels to divert water away from the two lakes.

The Dominican government has made plans to relocate many of the 10,000 people living in the area. In addition, one of the main highways linking the two countries has suffered closures and had to be reconstructed temporarily because of threats of imminent submersion.

Sheller traveled along with a team of students and faculty members from City College of New York who were spending the week installing environmental monitoring equipment on Lake Azuei, Lake Enriquillo and three other locations in the mountain range south of the two lakes.

The project, entitled RAPID: Understanding Sudden Hydro-Climatic Changes and Exploring Sustainable Solutions in the Enriquo Water Basin (Southwest Hispaniola), seeks to understand the causes for, impact of and potential mitigation strategies in response to the rising water levels.

New road to replace the one that was flooded near Lake Enriquillo

Sheller’s role on the team was to investigate the response from members of the community to potential mitigation strategies like relocation. Along with a professor and student from the Technology Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC) and a student from CCNY, she conducted 35 interviews on the social and economic impacts of the flooding with the local inhabitants, including farmers, fishermen, teachers, priests, housewives and even political leaders, in the affected areas.

“Many of the people had lost farmland and animals, rice fields and other types of land that were the main source of income for their entire family, so they had to find other means of making a living, which can be extremely difficult,” said Sheller. “People were very happy to talk to us and were interested in finding out more about why the lakes might be rising and what their options were now that this land was lost.”

Over the coming months, Sheller will transcribe and translate the interviews from Spanish and Creole, with the help of humanities fellow Niacka Carty, a student in Drexel’s International Area Studies program. Sheller will then analyze the results and attempt to draw some conclusions from the narratives about how this environmental phenomenon has affected people and what that means for the future of the Caribbean as people are forced to migrate from island to island.

A road flooded by Lake Enriquillo

The team plans to return to the area in late summer or early fall to present their findings to various government officials, ministries of the environment, local political representatives and civil society groups in the area.

According to Sheller, “We’re hoping to turn our scientific findings into information that everyday people can understand and discuss in order to develop their own conclusions of what’s happening and what they might be able to do about it going forward.”