Jeanne Arnold, a 1980 alumna of Penn's School of Social Work, who
was chief of services for two Navy Family Services Centers in Virginia
and is now director of human resources and community relations for the
Crime Prevention Association of Philadelphia, has been named Director of
the African American Resource Center.She will take office November 27 to succeed Isabel Sampson-Mapp, who has been acting director since Dr. Allen Green was named dean of the college at Wesleyan in the spring of 1994.
"I am delighted that Jeanne Arnold has accepted our offer to become the new Director of the African-American Resource Center," President Rodin said. "She will bring a wealth of talent and experience to the job and, as a Penn alumna, she knows the University very well. I am grateful to the search committee--which did great work in this process-- for finding and nominating Jeanne. I think she will accomplish a great deal at the Center. I also want to thank Isabel Sampson-Mapp and the Center staff for their leadership and dedication during this lengthy search process."
Ms. Arnold, who received her B.A. in Psychology and Social Welfare from Penn State in 1977, took a specialization in urban family when she joined Penn for the M.S.W. After serving locally at the Women's Christian Alliance and Pennsylvania Hospital, she was named an Outstanding Young Woman of America and won the Chapel of the Four Chaplains Award in 1982. The following year she became an adoption and foster care specialist for the Children's Home Society of Jacksonville, Florida, and in 1985 she relocated to Virginia as a clinical social worker for the Norfolk Department of Public Health . Three years later she joined Navy Family Services, where she moved from social work supervisor to chief of services for a small center in Virginia Beach, then to the larger Norfolk Center where she oversaw eight departments with a staff of 55. She returned to Philadelphia in 1994.