Coverage of October 7 University Council Meeting |
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October 13, 2015, Volume 62, No. 09 |
Last Wednesday at the first University Council meeting of the fall semester, President Amy Gutmann announced the appointment of Therese (Terry) Richmond as the moderator of Council for the 2015-2016 year; Dr. Richmond is the Andrea B. Laporte Endowed Professor of Nursing and associate dean for research and innovation at the School of Nursing.
Dr. Gutmann then announced the appointment of Lauren Steinfeld as the parliamentarian for her third year. Ms. Steinfeld is Penn Medicine’s chief privacy officer and senior advisor for privacy in Audit, Compliance and Privacy.
Reed Pyeritz, as chair of the University Council Steering Committee, announced the focus issues for this academic year: the history and current status of open expression at Penn (October 28); Penn Connects 2.0 (December 2); Penn’s protocols for bringing and responding to complaints about sexual assault or misconduct and other Title IX issues (January 27) and cross-disciplinary and cross-school programs involving staff, students and faculty (February 17).
There will be two meetings that will include open forums: December 2 and February 17. Issues must be presented in advance.
The Council committees’ general and specific charges for this academic year had been distributed prior to the meeting; there was neither discussion nor any questions raised about them.
Provost Vince Price introduced the discussion of the programs planned for the 2015-2016 Academic Theme Year: The Year of Discovery. The Penn Reading Project (PRP), which was held at the beginning of the semester with discussions about Langston Hughes’ memoir, The Big Sea (Almanac December 9, 2014), was the cornerstone of the year for the first-year students. Vice Provost for Education Beth Winkelstein (Almanac May 26, 2015) said that while in past years the theme had been chosen before the book, this time the book had actually been chosen before the theme. This is one of the ways the Theme Year and PRP have been revised and reinvigorated.
David Fox, director of New Student Orientation and Academic Initiatives, added that the book set the stage for the Theme Year, which will have a variety of programming throughout the year, including an emphasis on student discovery at the Penn Innovation Conference on October 17 at Weiss Tech House; see penninnovation.seas.upenn.edu This student initiative is intended to create an engaging atmosphere for students to learn about and experience entrepreneurship first-hand. There will be a panel discussion next month as part of the Theme Year programming. Grant funding is still available for those who would like to plan an event. Visit yearofdiscovery.org for details.
The Campaign for Community (Almanac April 7, 2015) Steering Committee is also offering small grants and branding opportunities for those who would like to arrange events that “strengthen our community, finding ways to discuss and understand key issues that are too often avoided.” The Steering Committee welcomes input from all members of the Penn community at any time at c4c@exchange.upenn.edu
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