Around the Ivies

A medical student has gone missing at Yale, Penn has reduced its lectures to 60 seconds, and a retired Yale employee almost shot up the HR office.  Add to that the fact that Harvard and Yale have posted 30 percent endowment losses, and we're left to conclude that the Ivy League might be going mad.  More after the jump.

Yale

Medical student Annie Le went missing on Tuesday—less than a week before her scheduled wedding to her college sweetheart. Authorities still have had no luck in finding out her whereabouts.

Meanwhile, a 61-year-old retired Yale employee armed with a gun and ammunition, believed to be targeting Yale's HR building, was spotted and arrested on the same block. “We presume that he was headed toward a University building because it’s all University buildings around there,” University Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer told the Yale Daily News.

Anyway, Yale's endowment has fallen $1 billion more than expected, and their provost has shaved off his signature mustache, so we're left to conclude that New Haven might be a bit off kilter.

Penn

The University of Pennsylvania is sponsoring four short outdoor talks each semester, consisting of lectures that are 60 seconds each, to give professors an opportunity to showcase their research. With only a minute to talk, maybe these professors will have to start speaking as fast as high school CX debaters (start at 0:36).

In the meantime, Penn students have been flocking to religious organizations. Maybe they're looking for someone to explain what they should do now that there aren't any more jobs?

Columbia

While Harvard seems to be moving to halt construction in Allston, Columbia officially kicked off construction for their new 17-acre campus in Manhattanville yesterday. Of course, their endowment fell only 16 percent this past year, so they may have a bit more wiggle-room—both in terms of spending and building space.