Kal Penn turns into a Professor. To Teach at University of Pennsylvania
Kal Penn, best known for his role as the stoner Kumar Patel in the 2004 cult classic “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” is going to the Ivy League. He will be a guest instructor at the University of Pennsylvania during the spring 2008 semester, school officials announced Monday.
Penn, 29, will teach two undergraduate courses which won’t be Bake 101 and Mix 101. His classes are tentatively titled, “Images of Asian Americans in the Media” and “Contemporary American Teen Films”.
“The Asian American Studies Program is delighted that Kalpen Modi, aka Kal Penn, chose our program to host his teaching engagement at Penn,” program director Grace Kao said. “Mr. Modi is one of the leading Asian American actors of his generation and is particularly aware of how his racial and ethnic identification has affected his professional experiences.”
Students can enroll in the courses as Asian American studies or cinema studies programs in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, Kao said.
He recently finished shooting “Harold & Kumar 2″ with Cho. Kal Penn is also very well known in the American Indian community in the hit movie American Desi. Kal Penn’s other television and film credits include “The NameSake” where he plays the lead as Gogol Ganguli. In this movie, you can definitely see traces of Kumar especially in the pot-smoking scene, but Penn, has definitely matured as an actor. The NameSake could very well turn out to be his breakthrough movie, winning ringing endorsements from most corners. Penn also played the lead in the (awful)movie Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie and also a few episodes of 24 this season.
The university said Penn, a native of Montclair, N.J., received a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a specialization in theater, film and television from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is pursuing a graduate certificate in international security at Stanford University.
Watch “The NameSake” movie trailer featuring Kal Penn below
via [MSN News, AP]
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[...] Kal Penn turns into a Professor. To Teach at University of Pennsylvania - AskStudent This is pretty cool. Hat tip to AAM and thx to Mireille! Penn “will teach two undergraduate courses which won’t be Bake 101 and Mix 101. His classes are tentatively titled, “Images of Asian Americans in the Media” and “Contemporary American Teen F (tags: desi asianamerican college actors) [...]