Philadelphia Magazine Top Dentist
Appearing in Philadelphia magazine’s 2025 Health and Wellness Guide on its annual list of Top Dentists in the Philadelphia region, under the category of General Practitioner, Dr. Louis Tarnoff, Beta Pi ’66 has again made the list. Brother Tarnoff is an Assistant Professor at the Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry. Philadelphia magazine states that selections are made for this list on the basis of “thousands of detailed evaluations of dentists and professionals by their peers.”
Congratulations to brother Tarnoff for this very notable achievement.
Penn Celebrates the Opening of the Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology
P. Roy Vagelos, Beta Pi ’48, personally donated $90,000,000 towards the construction of the building that now bears his name. Construction has been completed, and an opening ceremony was recently held and reported as an Insight in Penn’s Locust Walk emagazine. In a photo showing P. Roy Vagelos and his wife, Diana, surrounded by important members of the Penn administration, the following commentary appeared:
“Penn leaders celebrated the unveiling of the Vagelos Laboratory for Energy and Technology, a state-of-the-art facility made possible by P. Roy Vagelos, C’50, PAR’90, Hon’99, and Diana T. Vagelos, PAR’90. This new space is designed to advance interdisciplinary energy research, foster collaboration, and enable scientists to develop sustainable solutions to pressing global challenges. [Omnia]”
Thank you to the Vagelos family for continuing Penn’s excellence as a renowned American University.
Pi Kappa Alpha Participates in the Giving Tuesday Challenge
The annual Interfraternal Giving Tuesday Challenge, a fundraising event started by a group of elite fraternities has taken place on December 3, 2024. To spur donations, the 12 national fraternities that participated this year designed the event as a friendly competition to determine which fraternity could raise the most money. All donations by a fraternity’s members went into that fraternity’s coffers.
As in previous years, PiKA finished among the first three fraternities with a total of $269,099. behind Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Chi. PiKA’s goal was $200,000. The total of the contributions for the 12 participating fraternities was approximately $1,920,000.
Thank you to the Beta Pi brothers who contributed: Stephen Leventhal ’67 and Ira Frazer ’73. Your donations help keep Pi Kappa Alpha great and getting better.
Joe Klein Co-chairs a Discussion on American Journalism
As part of the Penn class of 1968’s “Class of 1968 Friendship Hours”, Joseph Klein, Beta Pi ’65, will co-chair an internet session on April 18, 2025, to discuss “What Constitutes Journalism in America Today?”. In describing Joe Klein’s experience and qualifications to act as a co-chairman, they offered this short biography:
“Joe Klein is an American political commentator and author. He is best known for his work as a columnist for Time magazine and his novel Primary Colors, an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. He is the author of seven books, most recently, Charlie Mike, Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. In April 2006 he published Politics Lost, a book on what he calls the “pollster–consultant industrial complex.” He has also written articles and book reviews for The New Republic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Life, and Rolling Stone.”
In addition, it should also be noted that he also was a confidant of President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s term as President, had his own byline column in Newsweek magazine, and has made frequent appearances on the Sunday morning political panel television shows.
Penn Seeks New Men’s Basketball Coach
Steve Donahue will not return next year as Penn’s men’s basketball coach. According to Penn Athletic Director, Alanna Wren, “…the competitive success on the court has not been up to our standards”.
The last two years, Penn has finished in seventh place in the Ivy League. One problem has been that Donahue has been unable to retain his best players. Prior to the 2023-24 season, Penn’s Ivy League Player of the Year, who was also the nation’s second leading average scorer per game, Jordan Dingle, transferred to St. John’s University. Prior to the 2024-25 season, Penn’s leading scorer the previous year as a freshman, Tyler Perkins, transferred to Villanova University.
No replacement for Coach Donahue has been named.
