Members of the Panhellenic Council elected sorority members to seven positions for next year. The council elected Kate Robb '08 as president, Sarah Shaw '08 as vice president of recruitment, Mary Healy '08 as vice president of organization, Cathy Wu '09 as treasurer, Cena Miller '08 as secretary and Jean Ellen Cowgill '08 and Rebecca Beasley-Cockroft '08 as programming chairs. (Wu and Cowgill are members of The Dartmouth staff.) Marisa Origel '07, the council's current vice president, was pleased with elections. Nicole Peles, the council's current president, said she thinks "Panhell is moving in a really positive direction."
Dartmouth and five other institutes plan to partner with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, Tenn., on a $125 million bio-enegry center. Over the next five years, the center will focus on converting switchgrass and poplar trees into ethanol. Although corn was originally thought to be a promising energy source, research has suggested that North America cannot realistically support enough corn for ethanol fermentation. The Oak Ridge laboratory anticipates operating a five-million-gallon-per-year switchgrass-to-ethanol demonstration project in two years, according to the Associated Press. The project aims to increase the efficiency of the chemical process treating the plant-matter while lowering the cost.
Brown Unversity officials announced on Monday that the Warren Alpert Foundation donated $100 million to Brown's medical school, making it the largest gift ever made to a medical school. The foundation, solely owned by Warren Alpert, will pay the sum over the next 10 years. Scholarship programs, biomedical research and recruiting will benefit from the gift. Brown also plans to expand the medical school with a 30-percent increase in the student body. The gift will contribute to the construction of new buildings, classrooms and offices to accommodate the increase in students. Following the gift, Brown renamed the institution the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
