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Karen Goldberg: First Vagelos Professor in Energy Research

caption:Karen GoldbergSAS Dean Steven J. Fluharty is pleased to announce that Karen Goldberg has joined Penn this fall as the Vagelos Professor in Energy Research. She also serves as the inaugural Director of the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology.

Dr. Goldberg was formerly the Nicole A. Boand Endowed Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on developing mechanistic understanding of organometallic reactions relevant to the production of chemicals and fuels. At Washington, she served as director of the first NSF Phase II Center for Chemical Innovation, the Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis (CENTC).

Dr. Goldberg is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships and prizes, including the International Precious Metal Institute’s Carol Tyler Award and the American Chemical Society’s Award for Organometallic Chemistry. She is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Goldberg has served on the Advisory Boards of several American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry journals, as a member of the Chemistry Selection Committee for Sloan Research Fellowships, and on the International Advisory Committee of the Solvay Institutes.

The Vagelos Professorship in Energy Research was established by P. Roy Vagelos, C’50, HON’99, and Diana T. Vagelos. Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, a chemistry major who graduated from Penn in 1950 before going on to receive a medical degree from Columbia University, is the retired chairman and chief executive officer of Merck & Co. He currently serves as chairman of the board at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Vagelos served as chair of the University’s Board of Trustees from 1995 to 1999, and he is a former member of the Penn Arts and Sciences’ Board of Overseers and the former chair of the Committee for Undergraduate Financial Aid. Diana T. Vagelos is a former overseer of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology is made possible by Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos (Almanac May 24, 2016). This most recent philanthropic investment in energy research at Penn follows the couple’s gift to endow two professorships focused on energy research in Penn Arts and Sciences, and their 2012 creation of the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER), an undergraduate degree program of Penn Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Vageloses’ longtime support of Penn Arts and Sciences also includes gifts to establish many science-related programs, undergraduate scholarships and endowed professorships.

Kristen W. Lynch: Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics

caption:Kristen LynchKristen W. Lynch has been appointed as chair of the department of biochemistry and biophysics. She has served eight years as a tenured professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine, and holds a secondary appointment in the department of genetics. 

“Dr. Lynch has a broad vision of the future of biochemistry and biophysics at Penn,” said Jonathan A. Epstein, executive vice dean and chief scientific officer of Penn Medicine. “Her experience, talent and collaborative spirit will foster strong ties among investigators within the department, as well as across Penn Medicine and the University.”

While Dr. Lynch is considered an RNA biologist by specialty, her research expertise lies RNA’s intersection with immunology. Her laboratory focuses on understanding alternative gene splicing—which results in a single gene coding for multiple proteins—when it occurs in response to toxins and foreign substances such as bacteria, viruses and cells of transplanted organs. Dr. Lynch and her team have identified more than 500 genes that undergo this process following T cell stimulation and their studies provide new insights into the ability of the immune system to adapt to environmental factors.

Dr. Lynch graduated from Harvard University with a BA in 1990 and a doctorate in 1996, after which she pursued postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco. She was an associate professor and the chair of the biological graduate program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center when she was recruited to join the Penn faculty as an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics in 2009.

Dr. Lynch has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in Molecular Cell, Genes and Development, Nature Microbiology, Genome Research, and other leading journals in her field and serves as an editor for Molecular and Cellular Biology. She has received several awards and honors in recognition of her scientific achievements, including a National Science Foundation Career Award. Dr. Lynch has served as a director of the RNA Society, an international scientific organization, and co-chaired multiple international meetings in the field of RNA processing. She is also the founding director of the campus-wide RNA Group, a central forum for investigators in and around Penn interested in RNA-related topics.

Megan Robb: Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

caption:Megan RobbMegan Robb, assistant professor of religious studies, has been named Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. Dr. Robb is an accomplished scholar of South Asian Islam, with a particular focus on the history of interpretative communities and literary publics. Her first monograph, Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life, 1900-1950, is under contract with Oxford University Press. She has also recently co-edited a volume of essays, Muslims Against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan with Cambridge University Press and a special issue for the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, “Urban Emotions in South Asia.” Her next book will focus on youth in public life in South Asia in the late colonial and early independence period.

Julie and Martin Franklin are ardent supporters of Penn who established this chair in 2008 to recognize and retain eminent scholars and professors who demonstrate outstanding performance in their field. Martin Franklin, C’86, is the founder and executive chairman of the Jarden Corporation and has served on the boards of Promotora de Informaciones S.A., Kenneth Cole Productions and GLG Inc. Julie Franklin, C’87, currently serves on Penn’s Social Policy and Practice Overseers Board and the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women.

Call for Honorary Degree Nominations: November 15

Dear Colleagues, 

We invite you to nominate candidates to receive honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania at the 2018 Commencement ceremony and beyond. Candidates should exemplify the highest ideals of the University, which seek to educate those who will change the world through innovative scholarship, scientific discovery, artistic creativity, and/or societal leadership. 

We encourage you to involve your faculty colleagues, within and across departments and schools, in the nomination process. Nominations should detail how nominees meet the criteria for selection and outline the nominees’ achievements and contributions. Please include as much biographical and other supporting information as possible, but do not contact the nominees, who should not know that they are being considered. We particularly encourage nominations from departments and schools whose fields have not been recognized by the awarding of honorary degrees in recent years. Please note that it is University policy not to consider Penn standing faculty, trustees or school and center overseers for Penn honorary degrees. Nominations for the University Commencement speaker are also considered through this honorary degrees selection process. 

Nominations are welcome any time, but for consideration by this year’s University Council Honorary Degrees Committee, it would be helpful to have them in hand by November 15. Review is ongoing and candidates may ultimately be selected several years after their initial nominations. The University Council Committee’s recommendations are forwarded to the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees and Awards for final selection. A list of previous University of Pennsylvania honorary degree recipients can be found here.

Please send signed letters of nomination on your official stationery to: University Council Committee on Honorary Degrees, c/o Office of the University Secretary, 1 College Hall, Room 211/6303. Additional information on the honorary degrees process and an online nomination form can be found here. If you have any questions, please contact Lynne Sniffen or call (215) 898-7005.

Penn emeritus faculty are eligible to receive honorary degrees through a special nomination process. University deans propose candidates for consideration by the Council of Deans. The Council’s nominations are then reviewed by the President and Provost, and final selection is made by the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees.

Honorary degrees are important statements of Penn’s values and aspirations, and we strongly encourage your participation in this process. 

 ––Amy Gutmann, President

––Daniel Raff, Chair, University Council Committee on Honorary Degrees

Deaths

Harold Cramer, Penn Supporter

Harold Cramer, L’51, a lawyer who left a large impact on Penn through his volunteerism and financial support, died on September 1 at age 90.

Mr. Cramer was a graduate of Central High School, Temple University and University of Pennsylvania Law School. He served in the U.S. Army, beginning as a commissioned officer in Korea, became a chief prosecutor for the 8th Army in Korea and was awarded a Bronze Star.

Mr. Cramer then worked as a lawyer specializing in corporate and commercial law. He served as volunteer chairman of the board for Graduate Hospital (later to become the Graduate Health System) beginning in the late 1960s. He was also president of the Graduate Hospital Foundation (Almanac February 3, 1976). In 1989, he took on the paid position of CEO of the health system, which eventually became part of Penn Medicine. He left this role in 1996. Most recently, he had been director of Penn National Gaming, Inc., in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Cramer and his wife, Geraldine, established a multimillion-dollar bequest to support renovations to Silverman Hall, including the newly named Cramer Lecture Hall and adjoining Cramer Seminar Room (Almanac March 19, 2013). Mr. Cramer also co-founded the prestigious Roberts Lecture. He was past president of the Law School’s Alumni Society.

“Harold is a Philadelphia icon. His footprint on his alma mater and on the legal profession in Philadelphia has been enormous,” said Michael A. Fitts, then the dean of the Penn Law School.

Mr. Cramer is survived by his wife, Geraldine, and a daughter, Patricia.

Paul Gazzerro, Jr., Finance

Paul Gazzerro Jr., the former vice president for finance and chief financial officer for the University of Pennsylvania, died on October 16 at age 84.

Mr. Gazzerro earned a bachelor’s degree from Bryant University and an MBA from Syracuse University. He served in the Finance Corp of the U.S. Army and held financial positions at State University Hospital of the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse; Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois;Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and Hahnemann University in Philadelphia before joining Penn.

He was hired as vice president for finance in 1982 and also became vice president for financial planning and analysis in 1984. He left in 1985 to become senior vice president for administration and finance at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. While at Penn, he briefly held a role as acting treasurer for the Board of Trustees.

He retired in 2007 as vice president for finance emeritus of Albright College after 13 years there.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sally J. (Johnson); children, Mary Bernate, Paul III and Peter; grandchildren, Nicolas, Elizabeth, Danielle, Mark and Anna; and siblings, Margarete DeRaimo and Angelo.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Doctors Without Borders, 333 7th Ave., New York, New York 10001.

Charles R. Wright, Communications

caption:Charles Wright

Charles R. Wright, professor emeritus of communication and sociology and longtime faculty member of the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania, died on October 17. He was 90.

Dr. Wright was born in Pennsauken, New Jersey. He served in the U.S. Navy as an electronic technician from 1944-1946.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1949, a master’s degree in sociology in 1950 and a doctorate in sociology in 1954, all from Columbia University. He then worked as an instructor at Columbia for two years. In 1956, Dr. Wright became a professor of sociology at UCLA. During his time there, he wrote Mass Communication: A Sociological Perspective (1959), which presented a case for a functionalist approach to communication. He took leave from UCLA in 1967 to serve as program director in sociology and social psychology at the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Wright joined Penn in 1969 as professor of communication and sociology in the Annenberg School with a joint appointment in the department of sociology at SAS in 1969. He was associate dean for graduate studies at the Annenberg School from 1990-1991 and 1993-1996. Throughout his career, he chaired the committee on graduate studies for Annenberg School, the graduate group in communications for the University and the graduate group in sociology for the College of Arts and Sciences. He served as a member of the editorial board for Public Opinion Quarterly, Information and Behavior, International Encyclopedia of Communication, Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, and The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly: Health and Society; and was an associate editor for Sociometry (now Social Psychology Quarterly), American Sociological Review, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Sociological Inquiry and Pacific Sociological Review. He joined the 25-Year Club in 1994 (Almanac October 11, 1994).

He was co-author of two large secondary analyses of national survey data exploring the impact of schooling, Education’s Lasting Influence on Values and The Enduring Effects of Education, as well as Applications of Methods of Evaluation: Four Studies of the Encampment for Citizenship, a study of the use of summer camps to enhance young people’s abilities and willingness to participate in democratic citizenship. He also served as associate editor of The American Sociological Review and was on the editorial board of The Public Opinion Quarterly (Almanac October 1969).

Dr. Wright retired and became professor emeritus of communication in 1996. That same year, he was reemployed beyond retirement at the Annenberg School, to teach one course per year. He continued in this role until age 89 and was honored for nearly 50 years of contributions to Annenberg at a reception in September 2016. 

He was pre-deceased by his wife of 51 years, Anne Marie (Krefft) in 2001.

 

To Report A Death

Almanac appreciates being informed of the deaths of current and former faculty and staff members, students and other members of the University community. Call (215) 898-5274 or email almanac@upenn.edu

However, notices of alumni deaths should be directed to the Alumni Records Office at Room 517, Franklin Building, (215) 898-8136 or by email at record@ben.dev.upenn.edu

Governance

Faculty Senate Committees 2017-2018

Faculty Senate Executive Committee (SEC): 2017-2018 Officers

Chair: Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE

Chair-Elect: Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing

Past Chair: Laura Perna, GSE

Secretary: Cynthia Connolly, Nursing

Secretary-Elect: Ayelet Ruscio, SAS/Psychology

Past Secretary: Marcella Devoto, PSOM/

Pediatrics and Epidemiology

At-Large Representatives

Karen Detlefsen, SAS/Philosophy

C. Neill Epperson, PSOM/Psychiatry

Emily Falk, Annenberg

Karen Glanz, PSOM/Biostatistics &

Epidemiology

Robert Hurst, PSOM/Radiology

Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, Dental

Hans-Peter Kohler, SAS/Sociology

Jennifer Lukes, SEAS/MEAM

Barbara Medoff-Cooper, Nursing

Brendan O’Leary, SAS/Political Science

Anil Rustgi, PSOM/Medicine

Petra Todd, SAS/Economics

Assistant Professor Representatives

John Fiadjoe, PSOM/Medicine

Antonio Garcia, Social Policy and Practice

Sharon Irving, Nursing

Penn Association of Senior & Emeritus Faculty

(PASEF Representative)

Martin Pring, PSOM/Physiology

 

Constituency Representatives

Guobin Yang, Annenberg

Robert St. George, SAS/History

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, SAS/

History of Art

Ron Donagi, SAS/Mathematics

Brian Gregory, SAS/Biology    

Elizabeth Rhoades, SAS/Chemistry

Kathryn Hellerstein, SAS/Germanic

Language & Literature

Steven Matthews, SAS/Economics

Suvir Kaul, SAS/English

Jianjing Kuang, SAS/Linguistics

Steve Tinney, SAS/NELC

Mirjam Cvetic, SAS/Physics & Astronomy

Julia Lynch, SAS/Political Science

Elizabeth Brannon, SAS/Psychology

Chenoa Flippen, SAS/Sociology

Kathleen Boesze-Battaglia, Dental

Janine Remillard, GSE

Gershon Buchsbaum, SEAS/Bioengineering

Rakesh Vohra, SEAS/CIS

Franca Trubiano, Design

Eric Feldman, Law

Douglas Wiebe, PSOM/Biostatistics & 

Epidemiology

David Smith, PSOM/Anesthesiology & Critical Care

James Palmer, PSOM/Otorhinolaryngology

Pedro Gonzalez-Alegre, PSOM/Neurology

Frank Leone, PSOM/Medicine

Marilyn Schapira, PSOM/Medicine

Julie Brothers, PSOM/Pediatrics

Lewis Kaplan, PSOM/Surgery

Eileen Lake, Nursing

Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Social Policy &

Practice

Anna Kashina, Vet

Paula Henthorn, Vet

Eric Clemons, Wharton/Accounting, Health

Care Management, OID, Statistics

Karen Lewis, Wharton/ Finance, Legal

Studies & Business Ethics, Business 

Economics & Public Policy

Jehoshua Eliashberg, Wharton/

Management, Marketing, Real Estate

 

The Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility (SCAFR)

Charles Bosk, SAS/Sociology

Cynthia Connolly, Nursing

David Eckmann, PSOM/Anesthesiology & Critical Care        

Vivian Gadsden, GSE, Chair    

Nancy Hirschmann, SAS/Political Science

Julia Lynch, SAS/Political Science

Jon Merz, PSOM/Medical Ethics

Holly Pittman, SAS/History of Art

Diana Robertson, Wharton/Legal Studies and Business Ethics

Ex officio:

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty Senate Chair-Elect

 

The Senate Committee on Economic Status of the Faculty (SCESF)

Kenneth Burdett, SAS/Economics    

Robert Ghrist, SAS/Mathematics

Blanca Himes, PSOM/Biostatistics, 

Epidemiology & Informatics

Sarah Kagan, Nursing    

Iourii Manovskii, SAS/Economics

Robert Stine, Wharton, Chair

Ex Officio:

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE, Faculty

Senate Chair

Laura Perna, GSE, Faculty Senate Past

Chair

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

 

The Senate Committee on Faculty Development, Diversity, and Equity (SCFDDE)

Kristen Feemster, PSOM/Pediatrics

Carmen Guerra, PSOM/Medicine, Chair

Mauro Guillén, Wharton

Michael Jones-Correa, SAS/Political 

Science

Irina Marinov, SAS/Earth & 

Environmental Science

Kate Nathanson, PSOM/Medicine

Susan Yoon, GSE

Ex officio:

John Keene, Design, PASEF non-voting

member

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE, Faculty

Senate Chair

 

The Senate Committee on Faculty and the Administration (SCOA)

Joel Bennett, PSOM/Medicine

Ken Drobatz, Vet

Al Filreis, SAS/English

Katherine Margo, PSOM/Family Medicine

Pamela Sankar, PSOM/Biomedical Ethics,

Chair

Talid Sinno, SEAS/CBE & MEAM

Peter Struck, SAS/Classical Studies

Ex Officio:

Marshall Meyer, Wharton, PASEF 

non-voting member

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE, Faculty

Senate Chair

 

The Senate Committee on Faculty and the Academic Mission (SCOF)

William Beltran, Vet

Eric Feldman, Law

Lea Ann Matura, Nursing

Susan Sauvé Meyer, SAS/Philosophy

Mindy Schuster, PSOM/Infectious Diseases

Bruce Shenker, Dental

Tom Sollecito, Dental, Chair

Lyle Ungar, SEAS/CIS

Ex Officio:

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

Gino Segre, SAS/Physics, PASEF 

non-voting member

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE, Faculty

Senate Chair

 

Senate Committee on Students and Educational Policy (SCSEP)

Sunday Akintoye, Dental

José Bauermeister, Nursing

Laura Desimone, GSE

Sharon Irving, Nursing

Carol Muller, SAS/Music

Karen Redrobe, SAS/History of Art

Ralph Rosen, SAS/Classical Studies

Jorge Santiago-Aviles, SEAS/ESE

Dominic Sisti, PSOM/Medical Ethics

& Health Policy, Chair

Ex Officio:

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

Anita Summers, Wharton, 

PASEF non-voting member

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS/ESE, Faculty

Senate Chair

 

The Senate Committee on Publication Policy for Almanac

Sunday Akintoye, Dental

Christine Bradway, Nursing

Daniel Cohen, SAS/Sociology

Al Filreis, SAS/English 

Beth Linker, SAS/History & Sociology of

Science

Cary Mazer, SAS/English 

Martin Pring, PSOM/Physiology, Chair

Ex officio: 

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing, Faculty

Senate Chair-Elect

 

Faculty Grievance Commission

James Palmer (PSOM/Otorhinolaryngology),

Chair

Mitch Marcus (SEAS/CIS), Past Chair

Martha Farah (SAS/Psychology), 

Chair-Elect

COUNCIL: State of the University

At the University Council meeting on October 25, the annual State of the University presentations were made and are presented here, based on edited transcriptions of the remarks.

The President’s portion was given by three PIK professors: Beth Simmons, Andrea Mitchell University Professor, SAS/Law; Herbert Hovenkamp, James G. Dinan University Professor, Wharton/Law; and Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss Professor, Law/SAS. 

Beth Simmons, Andrea Mitchell University Professor

I’m very happy to have this opportunity.  I would like to introduce you to a project I’m working on that’s very relevant to this community, our country, at our university and globally. I focus on borders between states, and the project that I’m working on is being developed out of Perry World House—an interdisciplinary center for  researchers from different backgrounds to study world affairs.

The project problematizes globalization. The narrative that we have heard over time is that the world is hyper-connected; that it is very easy to connect around the world. But I really want to understand the impulse to “close” as well as to “open,” to “connect” as well as to “separate,” and that’s what this project is trying to do. 

Political liberalization has been one of the most important developments since the end of the Cold War. The iconic image of the Berlin Wall falling, becoming little more than a set of bricks on the sidewalk, is an example. But 16 walls existed along state borders in 1989; today, one third of the world’s countries are now building border walls or border fences. 

That got me thinking about the impulse “to wall.” [showing images of various border walls] The U.S.-Mexican border near Felicity, California is a very stark example. But the United States is far from the only place where walls are going up. Morocco and Algeria: another example; Hungary and Serbia in 2015, at the height of the immigration crisis into Europe; Bangladeshi security forces patrol along the India-Bangladesh border fence. Here we can see that the lighting for security reasons is so bright it can be viewed from the space station. [referring to slide:] See that bright orange line going across? The roads are lit to a certain extent but that bright orange line can be seen from space. Walling is a trend: of 51 fortified borders, half were constructed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That’s amazing! We are exploring this phenomenon, by focusing on all border crossings of the world and trying understand how states display and array their authority along national borders. 

The project phase I’m going to talk about today focuses on border architecture. We’re looking at the border structures that states are creating in order to control what’s going on in their jurisdictions. We use a ARC-GIS software, geospatial data, and Google Maps to try to characterize state presence at international borders. We are  mapping the world’s border crossings by overlaying data on road networks with international boundaries, which gives us a series of red balls at the intersections [referring to slide]. Big thanks to the Digital Humanities folks in Van Pelt Library who’ve been extraordinarily helpful with making and manipulating this data. They’re just terrific. 

This, then, maps the location of all the border crossings in the world –where major highways intersect international political boundaries. They’re very different around the world. Some are hugely built up and can filter entry and exit; you see all kinds of capacity to do so on the U.S.-Mexican border near Laredo, for example [referring to a Google Earth image]. But below, it looks like there is practically no capacity to stop you when you cross that border [referring to an image of the Burkina Faso and the Togo border]. I work with a team of students and researchers–from undergraduates to post-docs—a “multigenerational” as well as a multidisciplinary team, to code physical realities on the ground. How much and what kinds of security and inspection architecture? Conceptually what we’re trying to understand is how states display their capacity and authority to filter at the border. We code official buildings, inspection sites, barriers, and can create a scale rating the intensity of these features, from almost nothing compared to a highly concentrated state presence. Using the roads that we’ve found so far—and this is work in progress—you can see something like this around the world [referring to a world map with color coding of all international border crossings from low to high state presence].

Green means go—very little evidence that you will be stopped. Red means that you are likely to be stopped, if the state wants to filter you. Now, let’s zoom in on the United States and see even more closely what sorts of things are going on here. We don’t have every single border crossing in place right now but these are the ones that we’ve done so far. You see a large amount of variance across the United States itself. For example, right outside of El Paso: all kinds of capacity to stop and to filter [referring to image of traffic queues at El Paso]. But this is what you see at the Big Bend National Park. Me, crossing in a rowboat, [referring to image of rowing across Rio Grande]. I was only the second person the entire day. These images reflect the nature of state and social anxieties being expressed differentially toward ‘The Other’ at our international boundaries. 

We plan not only to complete coding border crossings globally, but also to look for change at border crossings over time. In the United States, you see two complementary trends: to connect with and to separate from Mexico. Watch this architecture grow over time: 1995, 2002, 2010, 2015 [referring to a set of slides showing change over these years]. You can see these impulses both at work on our own southern border (see below). 

Eventually, I want to work with others on algorithms to detect differences on each side of international borders that imply separation, distinction, and visual discontinuities that imply that institutions and practices are very different across two jurisdictions. Visible distinctions in the landscape may imply that there is something powerful going on at the border. [referring to a slide showing abnormal cells among healthy one]: These are abnormal cells that are sprinkled in with normal cells, medical researchers have developed algorithms to detect these differences without a human set of eyes going over each and every slide. Can we use such  technologies to understand differentiation at international borders? [referring to a series of slides with stark difference in land and settlement across international borders] Can we detect these differences, between California and Mexico? Or these, between Haiti and the Dominican Republic? Or maybe this difference, between Brazil and Bolivia? In these cases, the border is separating, creating distinction. We ultimately would like to know how and why we see such sharp distinctions. 

What might we learn from this research? As we continue to collect data on the world’s borders and border crossings, we hope to figure out whether our world truly is globalizing, or whether in fact we are separating ourselves. And if the latter, what are the sources of the anxiety that explain these patterns?

 

Herbert Hovenkamp: James G. Dinan University Professor

Thanks, I’m a newcomer here. This is my first year. My joint appointment is between Wharton and the Law School and I also do research in two quite distinct areas. One of them is anti-trust law and the other one is American legal history. 

And I’m going to tell you just for a few minutes about one of my ongoing legal history projects. I’m teaching anti-trust and legal history at the Law School this fall and constitutional history to Wharton undergraduates in the spring. The project I’m working on right now is tentatively titled “Racism and Public Law during the Progressive Era.” It’s actually a response in one way to a series of books, essays blaming the Progressives for a particularly aggressive sort of racism. It’s led to movements to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name, for example, from various buildings and programs at Princeton. It’s been addressed against suffragettes like Carrie Chapman Catt. What I’m trying to do is put a little bit of perspective on this. 

First of all, institutional scientific racism was taught in American universities as long as we had American universities. It goes formally back at least to the 18th century. It was a very prominent part of the curriculum of major institutions in the United States including Harvard, which became one of the founding institutions in the US for Eugenics in the late 19th and early 20th century. So whatever the Progressives did, they didn’t invent racism or even scientific racism. The paper I’m currently working on is really arguing, it was the Progressives who were responsible for abandoning scientific racism in American institutions of higher education. They certainly didn’t get rid of racism, but the particular types of racism that were being taught in institutions of higher learning very largely came to an end during the Progressive Era, including Eugenics, which very largely died as a scientific movement in the early 1920s. 

One of the things I found is that it’s very important to distinguish the set of views that Progressives inherited from those that they developed internally. Most of the first generation of Progressives were born in the 1850s and 1860s, that included people like Wilson who was raised in the South—in the segregated South. It included people like Edward Alsworth Ross, a racist sociologist and Richard T. Eely, a racist economist. These are all people who wrote very early in the 20th century. If you look at the later Progressives, however, you see that the methodologies they developed were very much different from the scientific methodologies that they inherited. In particular, the two social science methodologies we identify most with Progressivism were cultural relativism, which came principally through Franz Boas, a Progressive Anthropologist at Columbia who did most of his writing very early in the 20th century and behaviorism which came through the work of John B. Watson who did most of his work in the late 19th century into the 1920s. 

Then the third discipline was a marginalistic economics which made a much different, narrower and a more technical set of assumptions then the heavily historical assumptions and cultural assumptions that the classical political economist made. What each of these methodologies did, first of all cultural relativism was radically environmentalist and Boas spent most of his career railing at Eugenics and that any idea that race is other than an artificial construct. 

Watson developed a view, as he put it, that babies are like Fords rolling off of an assembly line, all identical, and it is only their environment that determines who they will be after that. Marginalistic economics for its part developed the idea that people have a set of preferences that can be ranked or ordered but not externally evaluated. As a result, evaluating preferences on the basis of culture, race, intelligence, religion or anything like that is simply not part of economic science. 

So the result is that coming out of the Progressive Era, American intellectuals have a much more egalitarian and environmental set of views about human nature than they did going in. 

 

Dorothy Roberts: George A. Weiss Professor

It’s interesting, the two projects I want to tell you about follow very nicely from Professor Hovenkamp’s description of the history of Eugenics and Progressivism in the United States because one of mine has to do with the resurgence of biological concepts of race in the 21st century. I’m very interested in the way in which biological and social scientists are working together to develop theories about what causes social inequality —in other words, why do we have inequality among groups in the United States and around the world? Is it because of something inherent in those groups that makes them unequal or is it because of the social or political context that creates inequality? And increasingly, biological and social sciences are merging. In fact, there’s a burgeoning area of science called socio-genomics that involves social scientists, especially sociologists and genomic scientists. 

Since I’ve been at Penn, I have been focusing on developing, in collaboration with professors and students around the University, innovative ways of thinking about how to define race, how to use race as a variable in research, and how to discredit the long-standing concept that race is a natural category that divides human beings. A year after I got to Penn, I established the Program on Race, Science and Society. We have a working group that includes faculty from the biological sciences, the medical school, the nursing school, sociology, history and sociology of science, the law school and other schools and departments. One of our projects was a piece that Sarah Tishkoff, who is a geneticist here and also a PIK professor, and I co-authored with a couple others called “Taking Race out of Human Genetics.” It was published in Science, which is a very popular, well-read science journal. And it got worldwide attention, including the attention of the NIH (National Institutes of Health). We both participated in a workshop there to try to address the problem that researchers continue to use race in their studies as if it were a natural biological category. I also started a course here called Race, Science & Justice, for undergrads, which I’ll be teaching in the spring. We explore the various ways that race has been defined by scientists and how their definition has been shaped by society but also how it affects social views of race. 

Also, in the spring the Program on Race, Science, and Society will have its first international symposium looking at how scientists around the world use race and how the concept of race gets circulated across the globe. What are the differences in how scientists define and use race in different countries like Brazil, the United States, South Africa, France, New Zealand and India? We have scientists coming from all of these countries to discuss these questions, as well as the ways in which common perceptions of race are reinforced by scientists around the world. So how do scientists contest and reinforce the dangerous or perhaps promising ways of thinking about race. 

I want to mention one other project quickly, because I’ve enjoyed including Penn undergrads in helping me with the research, and that’s my book project on interracial marriage in Chicago from 1937-1967. This is a very personal project for me because it’s based on 500 interviews of black-white couples over five decades in Chicago that my father, who was an anthropologist, conducted. And it includes his personal story: he married his research assistant, my mother, who is black, and my father is white. So they became like their own research subjects. I have a file as well (laughter). So it’s a fascinating story about the lives of the black-white couples they interviewed, starting in 1937 when my father was a 22-year-old graduate student at the University of Chicago all the way into the 1980s. But I’m going to end at 1967 when the Loving vs. Virginia decision came down from the U.S. Supreme Court. I have had the wonderful pleasure of working with groups of Penn undergraduate research mentees under the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentorship Program that CURF offers every year. With the help of students, we took 25 boxes of completely unorganized papers and turned them into a usable archive, digitizing all the interviews and working on articles that use these interviews. So, it’s been a great project as we discover more and more in the files and figure out where it’s going to go.

The Provost’s portion of the State of the University then focused on innovative research initiatives and was led by Dawn Bonnell, Vice Provost for Research. She was joined by two students Divyansh Agarwal, an MD/PhD student in PSOM and Fernando Rojo, CAS ‘18.

 

Dawn Bonnell, Vice Provost for Research

Good afternoon. It’s nice to be back and talking with you again. As Wendell alluded to, and as I have said in the past in this meeting, Penn’s Innovation Ecosystem is vast and diverse, and it touches every part of our campus. Today I’m going to highlight how the Penn community uses this infrastructure to move ideas out of the academy and into the world. I’ll start with an overview and just a couple of examples, and then I’ll turn to the real-world examples who are here to talk about their experiences. So, Penn’s ecosystem contains a wide variety of components, and in past presentations I’ve shown you that graphically and in some detail, but I just wanted to remind you of a few key highlights. There are over 15 student clubs focused on entrepreneurship, some of them topically focused, like the Wharton FinTech Club, some have working space, like Weiss Tech House. We have 10 competitions and prizes on campus, think Shark Tank, with financial support and mentoring for the winning ideas. The most prestigious of these is of course the President’s Engagement Prize and Innovation Prize, which is announced every year. And we have over 10 business incubators. These are programs and places that support the development of business plans, market analysis, and prototype development; all the things that you need to take an idea to the next stage to become a company. So these things exist across campus in many different centers, and I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that we have the most internationally renowned curriculum in this area, not only in Wharton, but in several of our other schools as well. 

This is some of the infrastructure that we have, and because of the investment that Penn has made in the last seven or eight years, we are being recognized as an innovation leader. The first one of note was in 2013, we were ranked number two, that was a year where we had particularly good financial returns from commercialization, but we’ve been up in the top 10 and climbing up the ranks in the external recognition of this over the last few years. Just recently, we went from being ranked number eight in the Reuter’s ranking to being ranked number four within one year. The outcomes that this infrastructure is facilitating are beginning to be recognized. I’m going to tell you about three areas of strength that I’m highlighting. 

One area is cell and gene therapy. You may have seen and heard the announcement of the FDA support of the first treatment putting leukemia into remission and becoming a product, that is an idea from about 20 years ago in the basic science lab that now is helping patients in real-time. We just heard about two weeks ago that the FDA is on a fast track to promote a gene therapy that is reversing certain types of blindness, so that means it’s on track to becoming a treatment that will be applied to patients. However, the great thing about this area is, it isn’t just some of the investigators who are responsible for these advances that I’ve intimated. We have a large cohort of faculty and research teams that are working in this area of strength, and it spreads all the way from basic science to translational research in the clinic to manufacturing of the components themselves. It is such an area of strength that some people are beginning to refer to it as “Cellicon Valley” (see image at right).

The second area is that we really are the East Coast Robotics Hub (see image on next page). We are bringing together academic research, start-up companies, and established corporations at the Pennovation Center. We have DJI, the largest manufacturer of consumer drones and we have Qualcomm, one of the largest producers of computer chips that go inside devices, including drones, as partners at Pennovation Works, along with PERCH, GRASP and PRECISE; engineering labs that work in aerial robotics, land-based robotics, and systems and networking. So there is a real cohort there with strength that converges right here. 

And this year we opened a new area of focus; the new Center for Health, Devices, and Technology. We call it Penn Health-Tech. Penn Health-Tech is a center that brings together engineers and clinicians to focus on problems that are arising in practice right now. In fact, the first few meet-and-greets have resulted in projects that are helping engineers work to promote health care in the community. So that’s an area that you’ll be hearing from as we move forward. 

How does our community—students, post-docs and faculty—engage in the ecosystem? I want to show you a few examples, and again they occur all across campus. At the Weiss Tech House, a student led program that has maker space, 822 students attended events last year and 75 students use the space on a daily basis, so students are highly engaged. DevelopUPMed is one of those Shark Tank-esque competitions; 11 faculty and 32 students were in the first cohort of that program. Penn Graduate School of Education has an educational design studio that has 29 companies in their cohort working on commercialization of educational tools to go out into the community. Wharton  Entrepreneurship has awarded $500,000 to students annually, has 51 startups in their venture initiation program, and of course offers a whole variety of entrepreneurial courses. So these are various pathways that our community can take in  this ecosystem to produce outcomes. 

I want to give you two specific examples of ways someone can engage with this ecosystem. BioBots is a company founded by two Penn graduates, Ricky Solorzano and Danny Cabrera; it makes 3-D printers that create tissue and bone used in research related to the development of transplantable organs. It was Danny Cabrera, Ricky Solorzano and Sohaib Hashmi’s senior-year design project. You can see, they have accessed the Weiss Tech House, they won the Pennovation Prize, received funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partnerships in the region. Their company eventually sold units in January. You can see how they have progressed as they gained more investment in their ideas; they now have nine employees, and have shipped products to 17  countries. All of  this starts with the Penn infrastructure that students have access to. 

The second is a different way of utilizing our infrastructure. This is Exyn Technologies, a company that was founded by a Penn faculty member. The support comes from a conventional investment company that has helped to pace through various stages, from starting with a small $250,000 investment, helping to support them through pilots in 2016. They now have $3.8 million, but what’s exciting about this company is that the eight employees that are working there right now include former Penn post-grad, undergraduate or graduate students, and they’re residing right here in the Philadelphia region. We’ve met this goal of supporting the infrastructure, supporting the ideas coming out of Penn, and not only that, having really exciting jobs for our students that are in the area. This is an overview, and now to get to the best part, which is always the real-world examples.

Cellicon Valley graphicEast Coast Robotics Hub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divyansh Agarwal, MD/PhD student, PSOM

My name is Divyansh. I am a third-year MD/PhD student, so I’m in the combined degree program at the med school, and I am here to tell you about my company, Sanguis. Let’s take an example of a cancer patient who is actively receiving chemotherapy for her breast cancer. Now, in order to receive her next dose of chemotherapy, she has to take time off work, commute to the local clinic, and before she gets her next dose of chemotherapy, the doctor orders a complete blood cell count test to make sure that her blood counts are in the normal range. Let’s say on this one given day, her counts are not in the normal range. They’re a little low. So she’s sent home and hopes that by her next visit, her counts will go up. But unfortunately, a couple of days after she’s sent home, she develops a fever, abdominal pain, shortness of breath, and is rushed to the ER. 

More than likely, this patient has developed something called neutropenic fever, where neutropenia is a depletion in the infection-fighting cells of the body, also called neutrophils. And in fact, as you can tell, this problem is not hers alone. In the U.S., each year, there are more than 650,000 patients who receive chemotherapy on an outpatient basis, and more than half of them suffer through this problem of neutropenia, which leads to thousands of dose delays and reductions, and more than 15,000 deaths. To tackle this problem, there are three of us—two in the combined degree program, and another colleague of ours, also a third-year medical student right now—and we’ve been working on a device which we call Sanguis. 

It is our vision that every patient receiving cancer chemotherapy goes home in the future with a portable, inexpensive, handheld device. To use Sanguis, they can use a commercially available lancet, similar to a glucometer, and they can keep a track of their blood counts at home. The current standard of care is that these cancer patients receiving chemotherapy are sent home with a pamphlet which includes a whole host of symptoms, and they are told, should you experience any of these symptoms, please contact your physician or your nearest ER, but by then it is already too late. 

What we are hoping is that a device like ours will allow early identification of these patients who are at an extremely high risk. And we are extremely grateful to the Penn ecosystem. All three of us have been extremely lucky to win numerous competitions on campus, and we are currently being supported by not just the different organizations at Penn, but also the local Philadelphia entrepreneurship ecosystem. I just wanted to take this opportunity to express my gratitude, because all three of us are medical students and although we’ve encountered the problem of neutropenia in both our personal and professional lives, it’s really the Penn ecosystem that has allowed us to tackle this in a meaningful way.

 

Fernando Rojo, CAS ‘18

Big thanks to Dr. Bonnell for inviting me. My name is Fernando Rojo and I’m a senior at Penn studying math and economics. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, big football fan, just a few blocks away from the “Big House” for those who know. Go blue, that’s right. And as a six-year-old in Ann Arbor, I was pretty into selling lemonade on game days just like every other kid in my neighborhood. Every football Saturday, we’d go outside really excited and everyone would make their own stand, and our parents would make us all sell it at 50 cents to not compete with each other, and it was great. But after a few game days, I got a little bored that we were all selling the same product at the same price. I was competitive. So I thought maybe I could do things a little differently and I realized that I could probably make a little bit more money charging cars that were driving by to park on my parents’ lawn than just selling lemonade. So granted, I didn’t ask my parents’ permission and they might not have been that happy, but in the matter of one week I went from making about $8 a game to over $200, as a six-year-old. It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn’t have that much patience to wait. 

So fast forward to my freshman year at Penn. I’m visiting my family in Argentina during winter break, and I’m walking through the streets of Buenos Aires, when I come across a man named Rafael. Rafael is selling these incredible hand-crafted shoes he made on the streets of Buenos Aires at an artisan fair. And I’m telling you, these were the coolest shoes I’ve ever seen. And I guess the tourists who were buying them from him thought the same thing, I mean, there were dozens of them there. I just had to ask this guy about these shoes. I mean, they were bright, they had these Latin American textiles on them, they were unlike anything I’d seen before. Soon enough I ended up having a four-hour conversation with this man named Rafael who told me his life story, one of a skilled artisan who was struggling to get by and didn’t know how to find customers for these incredible products he had. Without thinking about it too much I was completely sold. I was like, I have to partner with this man I just met on the street that I know nothing about, to sell these incredible products in the U.S.

A week later, I was on a plane back to Penn with about 50 of Rafael’s shoes stuffed in a suitcase. And that’s where my seemingly unusual path to begin this company called PATOS began. Today, PATOS is the way that I can express what matters most to me. It’s giving back to my community and providing jobs for local artisans in Latin America. I get to travel the world and build relationships and friendships with suppliers that I never would have met otherwise, and above all I found an incredible passion for design that frankly I never knew I had. I’m pretty proud to say that since that one chance conversation I had with Rafael, in the three years since, PATOS has turned into a global brand that’s sold shoes in over 15 countries and provided full-time employment for over 15 local artisans across Latin America’s poorest communities. I was sort of born wanting to create. I broke every computer I had—not physically, but I just downloaded so many viruses. And not that much as changed. 

But the part of the story you don’t always hear is the help you get along the way. You know, as a freshman at Penn, running PATOS wasn’t the easiest thing. But thanks to the mentorship and support and funding I received from Penn’s innovation ecosystem, I was able to turn PATOS into what it is today. It’s the professors like David Bell and Patrick Fitzgerald that showed me how to build a robust business plan, or the accelerators like Weiss Labs and PennApps Accelerator that showed me how to pitch my business like a pro and introduced me to top investors. The student body, where I met DJ, one of my best friends and an incredible business partner. And all my friends are here, who are all PATOS customers too. Penn is my greatest customer base. The Wharton Innovation Fund, that gave me the grants I needed to launch our first product line and allowed us to sell over $60,000 worth of shoes in our first month. Frankly, a few years ago I was just a freshman from Michigan with this idea to sell this guy’s shoes that I picked up on the side of the street. The fact that I get to be at this event right now in front of the president and all these amazing people is really an honor. Thanks so much for hearing me out and I’m happy to be here.

Membership of University Council, 2017-2018

For more information regarding University Council, including Status Reports and Resolutions, see the Council website.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee shall consist of the president of the University, the provost, the chair, the chair-elect and the past chair of the Faculty Senate, the chair of the Undergraduate Assembly, the chair of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, the chair of the Penn Professional Staff Assembly and the chair of the Weekly-Paid Professional Staff Assembly. Drawn from the Council membership there shall be in addition four faculty members, one graduate/professional student and one undergraduate student elected by the respective governing bodies, as well as one additional member of the Penn Professional Staff Assembly and one additional member of the Weekly-Paid Penn Professional Staff Assembly, each elected by their representative assemblies. The chair of the Faculty Senate shall be the chair of the Steering Committee. In the absence of the chair, or at the request of the chair, the chair-elect shall serve as chair of the Steering Committee. The Council moderator will be an official observer at meetings of the Steering Committee. The secretary of the Council shall serve as secretary of the Steering Committee. Members of the Steering Committee may attend the meetings of Council committees.

—Council Bylaws

 

Members of Steering Committee

Kathleen Boesze-Battaglia

Cindy Connolly

Ron Donagi

Antonio Garcia

Amy Gutmann 

Heather Kelley

Rhonda Kirlew

Miles Owen

Laura Perna, Past-Chair

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Chair-Elect

Wendell Pritchett

Jay Shah

Santosh Venkatesh, Chair

Marcus Wright

Michelle Xu

Stephanie Yee

1 TBD

Members of Council Faculty: Forty-five members of the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate shall ensure that each faculty is represented and that at least three assistant professors serve on the Council. The members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee who are members of the Council shall otherwise be chosen in accordance with the rules of the Faculty Senate.

One full-time lecturer and one full-time member of the research faculty to be selected to serve two-year terms by vote facilitated by the Office of the Secretary in consultation with the Steering Committee of the full-time lecturers and research faculty, respectively, from a slate consisting of the five lecturers and the five members of the research faculty receiving the largest number of nominations by lecturers and members of the research faculty. If the Steering Committee receives fewer than five nominations for either group, additional nominations shall be solicited from the constituency representatives of the Senate Executive Committee.

Administrative and Staff: Eleven administrative officers, including the president, the provost and nine members of the administration to be appointed annually by the president, at least five of whom shall be deans of faculties.

Two elected representatives of the Penn Professional Staff Assembly. One elected representative of the Librarians Assembly. Two elected representatives of the Weekly-Paid Professional Staff Assembly.

Students: Fifteen graduate and professional students elected as members of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly shall ensure that, to the extent possible, each school is represented. The members of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly who are members of the Council shall otherwise be chosen in accordance with the rules of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly.

Fifteen undergraduate students elected as members of the Undergraduate Assembly. The Undergraduate Assembly shall ensure that, to the extent possible, each undergraduate school is represented. The members of the Undergraduate Assembly who are members of the Council shall otherwise be chosen in accordance with the rules of the Undergraduate Assembly.

One elected representative of the United Minorities Council.

—Council Bylaws

 

Elected by the Faculty At-Large

Santosh Venkatesh, Chair    

Jennifer Pinto-Martin,  Chair-Elect    

Laura Perna, Past Chair

Cynthia Connolly, Secretary

Ayelet Ruscio, Secretary-Elect    

 

PASEF Representative

Martin Pring

 

Elected by Faculty Constituency

Guobin Yang     

Rakesh Vohra 

Robert St. George     

Franca Trubiano 

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw     

Eric Feldman 

Ron Donagi     

Douglas Wiebe 

Brian Gregory 

David Smith 

Elizabeth Rhoades     

James Palmer 

Kathryn Hellerstein     

Pedro Gonzalez-Alegre 

Steven Matthews     

Frank Leone 

Suvir Kaul         

Marilyn Schapira 

Jianjing Kuang         

Julie Brothers 

Steve Tinney     

Lewis Kaplan 

Mirjam Cvetic         

Eileen Lake 

Julia Lynch         

Ezekiel Dixon-Román

Elizabeth Brannon     

Anna Kashina 

Chenoa Flippen         

Paula Henthorn 

Kathleen Boesze-Battaglia     

Eric Clemons 

Janine Remillard         

Karen Lewis 

Gershon Buchsbaum     

Jehoshua Eliashberg

 

Assistant Professor Representatives

John Fiadjoe 

Antonio Garcia     

Sharon Irving

 

Lecturers and Research Faculty Members

LeAnn Dourte    

Matt O’Donnell

Members of the 

Administration

Shaina Adams-El Guabli

Amy Gutmann 

William Gipson 

Pam Grossman

John Jackson

Vijay Kumar

Wendell Pritchett

Ted Ruger

Maureen Rush 

Fritz Steiner

Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum 

 

Graduate/Professional Students

Yun Cha

Miles Owen

Uma Ramaswamy

Alex Warshauer

Paul Welfer

10 TBD

 

Undergraduate Students

Dhruv Agarwal, UA/AIS 

Sean Collins, Lambda Alliance 

Caleb Diaz, Latin@ Coalition 

Aliya Farmanali, PRISM 

Michael Krone, UA Speaker

Zahraa Mohammed, MSA 

Anea Moore, Penn First 

Nile Nwogu, UA/College Republicans 

Sabino Padilla, APSC 

Bevan Pearson, SSAP

Calvary Rogers, UMOJA 

Jay Shah, UA Vice President 

Michelle Xu, UA President 

George Yang, UA

Jamie Ye, PAGE 

 

United Minorities Council

Ajjit Narayanan

 

Penn Professional Staff Assembly

Heather Kelley, Chair

Stephanie Yee, Chair-Elect

 

Weekly-Paid Professional Staff Assembly

Marcus Wright, Chair

Rhonda Kirlew, Co-Chair

 

Librarians Assembly    

Mia Wells

 

Parliamentarian

Lauren Steinfeld*

 

ROTC Representative

Colonel Kenneth DeTreux

 

Vice President And Secretary

Leslie Laird Kruhly*

 

Moderator

Therese Richmond *

 

University Council Standing Committees 2017-2018

Academic & Related Affairs

Chair: Joe Libonati, Nursing

Liaison: Leo Charney

Staff: Jennifer Canose

Faculty:

Julie Fairman, Nursing

Nicola Mason, Vet

Daniel Raff, Wharton

Guobin Yang, ASC

Graduate Students: 2 TBD

Undergraduate Students:

Yasmina Al Ghadban

David Gordon

PPSA:

Yuhong He

Patty Lynn

WPPSA: 

Marcia Dotson

Marcus Wright

 

Campus & Community Life 

 

Co-Chairs:

Emily Hannum, SAS

Monica Calkins, PSOM

Liaison: Karu Kozuma

Staff: Destiny Martin

Faculty: 

Delphine Dahan, SAS

Nancy Hodgson, Nursing

Annette Lareau, SAS

James Lok, Vet

Catherine McDonald, Nursing

Americus Reed, Wharton

Graduate Students: 2 TBD

Undergraduate Students:

Jihyeon Kim

Samara Wyant

PPSA:

Ashley Bush

Tessa Mansell

WPPSA:

Maria Puciata

Maureen Goldsmith

    

Diversity & Equity

Chair: Ezekiel Dixon-Román, SP2

Liaison: Sam Starks

Staff: Kuan Evans

Faculty: 

Margo Brooks Carthon, Nursing

H. Gerald Campano, GSE

Kim Gallagher, SAS

John Keene, Design

Ebony Thomas, GSE

Graduate Students: 

2 TBD

Undergraduate Students:

Curie Shim

Johany Dubon

PPSA:

Richard Chinery

Shaina Adams-El Guabli

WPPSA: 

Laura Naden

Tiffany Perkins

    

Facilities

Chair: Masao Sako, SAS

Liaison: David Hollenberg 

Staff: Taylor Berkowitz

Faculty: 

Erick Guerra, Design

Brent Helliker, SAS

Kathryn Michel, Vet

Claire Mitchell, SAS

Paul Schmidt, SAS

Dom Vitiello, Design

Graduate Students: 2 TBD

Undergraduate Students:

Adam Mansell

Kyle O’Neil

PPSA:

Patrick Dolan

Tom Wilson

WPPSA: 

Marcus Wright

Maria Puciata

Personnel Benefits

Chair: Russell Localio, PSOM

Liaisons:

Jack Heuer

Susan Sproat

Staff: Melissa Brown

Faculty: 

David Balamuth, SAS

Tanja Kral, Nursing

Iourii Manovskii (fall term), SAS 

Olivia Mitchell, Wharton

Andrew Postlewaite, SAS

Bob Stine (spring term), Wharton

PPSA:

Desiree Fleck

Cindy Kwan Dukes

Adam Roth-Saks

Denise Mancuso Lay

WPPSA: 

Darlene Jackson

Rhonda Kirlew

Rosa Vargas

Ex-Officio: Anita Allen    

 

Committee on Committees

Chair: Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Nursing

Staff:

Joe Gasiewski

Patrick Walsh

Faculty:

Kathleen Boesze-Battaglia, Dental

Cindy Connolly, Nursing

Ron Donagi, SAS

Antonio Garcia, SP2

Laura Perna, GSE 

Santosh Venkatesh, SEAS

Graduate Student: 1 TBD

Undergraduate Student:1 TBD

PPSA: Stephanie Yee

WPPSA: Loretta Hauber

 

Asterisk [*] indicates observer status.

2017-2018 Meetings: Focus Issues and Discussion Topics for University Council

The following are the dates for meetings of the University Council, which are open to observers who register their intention to attend by calling the Office of the University Secretary in advance at (215) 898-7005. All meetings are held on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. in Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall. The agenda will be announced in Almanac prior to each meeting. Council meeting coverage is also published in Almanac in the issue following the meeting. Note: Focus Issues appear on the schedule in Italics.

 

December 6, 2017

Athletics and Extracurricular Activities

Open Forum

 

January 31, 2018

Diversity and Inclusion 

 

February 21, 2018

Penn Connects 3.0

Open Forum

 

March 28, 2018

A discussion of the ways our faculty are using multidisciplinary approaches to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges

Reports on Budgets and Plans for the Next Academic Year

 

April 18, 2018

Presentation of Final Committee Reports

Discussion of Potential Focus Issues for the 2018-2019 Academic Year

Discussion of Potential Committee Charges for the 2018-2019 Academic Year

Policies

Principles of Responsible Conduct – A Reminder to the Penn Community

The Principles of Responsible Conduct promote the highest standards of integrity and ethics at Penn. To remind the Penn community of the basic expectations that should guide our work at Penn, the Principles of Responsible Conduct are published annually and are found below. Everyone at Penn is expected to be familiar with and adhere to the Principles of Responsible Conduct, which can be found on the Office of Audit, Compliance and Privacy website.

Beneath each Principle is a web link containing useful references to specific supporting policies, statements and guidelines.

 

***

 

The mission of the University of Pennsylvania and its Health System is to offer a world class education to our students, train future leaders, expand and advance research and knowledge, serve our community and society both at home and abroad, and provide the most expert and outstanding health care for our patients. In pursuing this mission, and to ensure the continued excellence of the University and its reputation, all members of the University community need to understand and uphold both legal requirements and the highest ethical standards.

In the following Principles of Responsible Conduct, we articulate the basic expectations that should guide each of us in our work at Penn. These Principles are embedded within many policies and practices identified throughout University and Health System handbooks, manuals, websites and other materials. We have endeavored to distill these policies, rules, and guidelines for easy review and access. The Principles are not intended to be a comprehensive catalogue of all applicable rules and policies of the University and the Health System. Rather, these Principles set forth the underlying expectations that we have for the conduct of University and Health System activities with the highest standards of integrity and ethics. Useful references to relevant policies and resources are included.

We urge you to read these Principles closely and familiarize yourself with both the expectations and the resources provided.

–Amy Gutmann, President

–Wendell Pritchett, Provost

–Craig Carnaroli, Executive Vice President

–J. Larry Jameson, Executive Vice President of the University for the Health System and Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine

Penn has many policies that govern the behavior of all Penn faculty, administration and staff.

The ethical expectations contained in these policies are highlighted in the text of the ten principles that follow, and supporting policies, statements and guidelines are available for each at the corresponding web link.

 

Principles of Responsible Conduct

  1. Ethical and Responsible Conduct. Penn’s faculty, administration and staff should conduct themselves ethically, with the highest integrity, in compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and University policies, in all aspects of their work. They should be fair and principled in University and Health System business transactions and other related professional activities, acting in good faith when dealing with both internal constituents and external entities. Their conduct should always reflect their positions of trust and loyalty with respect to the University, the Health System, and members of these communities. Principle 1
  2. Respect for Others in the Workplace. Penn recognizes that people are the most important resource for achieving eminence in accomplishing our mission in the areas of teaching, research, community service, and patient care. Penn is an institution that values academic freedom, diversity and respect for one another. Penn is committed to the principle of non-discrimination and does not tolerate conduct that constitutes harassment on any basis, including sexual, racial, ethnic, religious, or gender harassment. Principle 2
  3. Avoidance of Conflict of Interest. As more fully stated in Penn’s conflict of interest policies, Penn’s faculty, administration and staff should avoid conflicts of interest in work at Penn. As a non-profit institution, it is imperative, for both legal and ethical reasons, that University and Health System employees do not improperly benefit from their positions of trust at Penn. Financial conflicts must be appropriately disclosed in accordance with conflict of interest and conflict of commitment policies, so that they can be reviewed, and as appropriate, managed or eliminated.  Faculty, administrators and staff are responsible for identifying potential conflicts and seeking appropriate guidance. Principle 3
  4. Responsible Conduct in Research. As members of a complex research university, Penn faculty, administrators and staff have significant responsibility to ensure that research is conducted with the highest integrity, and in compliance with federal, state, and local laws and regulations, as well as University and Health System policy. Principle 4
  5. Responsible Stewardship and Use of Penn Property, Funds, and Technology. Penn faculty, administration and staff are expected to ensure that Penn property, funds and technology are used appropriately to benefit the institution, consistent with all legal requirements as well as University and Health System policies. Principle 5
  6. Environmental Health and Safety. Penn is committed to the protection of the health and safety of the University community and the creation of a safe working environment. To accomplish this end, Penn provides training in health and safety regulation and policy and Penn faculty, administration, and staff are expected to comply with sound practices and legal requirements. Principle 6
  7. Respect for Privacy and Confidentiality. In their various roles and positions at Penn, faculty, administration and staff become aware of confidential information of many different types. Such information may relate to students, employees, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, research sponsors, licensing partners, patients, and others. Penn faculty, administration and staff are expected to inform themselves about applicable legal, contractual, and policy obligations to maintain the confidentiality of such information, so as to protect it from improper disclosure, and to protect the privacy interests of members of our community. Principle 7
  8. Appropriate Conduct with Respect to Gifts, Travel and Entertainment. Penn faculty, administration and staff are expected to conduct themselves so as to ensure that their positions are not misused for private gain, with respect to acceptance of gifts and the undertaking of university-related travel and entertainment. Principle 8
  9. Appropriate Use of the University Name and Logos. Penn regulates the use of its name, its shield, and related trademarks and logos in order to protect the University’s reputation, and to ensure that their use is related to the University’s educational, research, community service, and patient care missions. Faculty, administration and staff are expected to protect the University name and logos from improper use. Principle 9
  10. Responsible Reporting of Suspected Violations and Institutional Response. Penn faculty, administration and staff are expected to report suspected material violations of University and Health System policies, as well as violations of applicable laws and regulations, including laws requiring the reporting of sexual abuse involving minors, to appropriate offices, as set forth in the various policies. Penn faculty, administration and staff may be subject to discipline in accordance with the policies. Principle 10

 

The Office of Institutional Compliance is available to present a training and awareness program on the Principles of Responsible Conduct to Penn employees. In addition, printed versions of the Principles of Responsible Conduct are available for Penn employees. If you are interested in obtaining the brochure or scheduling a presentation, please contact Linda E. Yoder, Institutional Compliance Officer, by email or at (215) 573-3347.

AT PENN

Events

Human Resources: Upcoming November 2017 Programs

Professional and Personal Development Programs

Open to faculty and staff. Register at knowledgelink.upenn.edu

Navigating Your Career at Penn presented by HR Recruitment; November 7; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. In large, decentralized place like Penn it can be challenging to know how to effectively switch positions within the University. In this session HR Recruitment will provide useful tips for better navigating your career at Penn.

Learning with Lynda: Leading with Emotional Intelligence; November 7; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; PSOM; free. Learn what emotional intelligence is and how it factors in at work and discover concrete techniques for raising your own emotional quotient (EQ). This includes perceiving yourself accurately, exercising emotional self-control, practicing resilience, and developing empathy. Then turn those lessons around to build your awareness of others and learn to inspire helpful communication and manage conflict. In preparation for this session it is strongly recommended that you take the online Lynda module. During the classroom session we apply the concepts from the online module. The session can be found at http://lynda.upenn.edu/

STEP UP: Introduction; November 14; 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; $150 for seven-course program. This course, First Steps to Excellence, is the entry point for the seven-course STEP UP Pre-Supervisory Curriculum and must be completed as the first course in the curriculum. For your scheduling convenience, all seven courses are offered multiple times on a rotating basis throughout the year. Please also enroll in the STEP UP Pre-Supervisory Curriculum which tracks your program completion.

Learning with Lynda: Succeeding in a New Job; November 14; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. Finding a job is hard, but it's only half the challenge. What you do after you've received your offer letter is what determines if you'll succeed at a new job. In preparation for this session it is strongly recommended that you take the online Lynda module. During the classroom session we apply the concepts from the online module. The session can be found at http://lynda.upenn.edu/

TED Talk Tuesday: Margaret Hefferman-Why It’s Time to Forget the Pecking Order at Work; November 28; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. Organizations are often run according to "the superchicken model," where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. And yet, this isn't what drives the most high-achieving teams. Business leader Margaret Heffernan observes that it is social cohesion — built every coffee break, every time one team member asks another for help — that leads over time to great results. It's a radical rethink of what drives us to do our best work, and what it means to be a leader. Because as Heffernan points out: "Companies don't have ideas. Only people do."

 

Quality of Worklife Workshops

Open to faculty and staff. Register at www.hr.upenn.edu/myhr/registration

Integrating Breastfeeding and Work; November 2; 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.; free. This interactive conversation, led by Diane Spatz, CHOP Lactation Program Director, Professor of Perinatal Nursing and the Helen M. Shearer Professor of Nutrition at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, will provide an opportunity for expecting, new, and experienced parents on campus, to get help with breastfeeding challenges, ensure a smooth transition back to work and academics and share helpful tips with one another. This event is co-sponsored by Penn's Family Resource Center and the Division of Human Resources and is open to Penn faculty, staff, students, post docs and their partners. Please feel free to bring your lunch..

Guided Meditation: Take a Breath and Relax; November 7; 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.; free. Practice mindful breathing that focuses your attention on the present moment with kindness, compassion, and awareness. Self-massage and gentle mindful movements that promote relaxation and reduce stress may also be included in the workshop. No experience necessary.

Nurturing Work-Life Integration as a Deliberate Practice: An Experiential Retreat; November 8; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. This 90-minute experiential and engaging work-life retreat will provide an opportunity for you to calm your mind and take stock for clarity and balance. Jennifer Schelter, Retreat and Mindfulness Leader, will guide you through practical strategies to nurture your wellbeing, including three essential practices to de-stress.

Baby Sleep Workshop; November 9; 12 p.m. – 1p.m.; free. Join this workshop with Dr. Melisa Moore, a clinical psychologist and board certified sleep expert at CHOP. You will learn how to shape the foundation of a healthy sleep routine for our little ones. This workshop is tailored for parents and caregivers of infants, toddlers and children younger than 5.

Dealing with Difficult Personalities; November 16; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. Managing relationships isn’t always easy, especially when conflicts arise. With the right strategies, you can effectively manage even the most difficult relationships. This workshop can show you how. You’ll learn to find “win-win” solutions to personal and professional conflicts with assertiveness, collaboration, handling internal reactions, and other skills.

Mindfulness Monday: From Mind Full to Mindful; November 20; 12:30 p.m. –1:30 p.m.; free. Mindfulness practice develops awareness of your present thoughts and feelings to help you manage different situations. In this once-a-month experiential workshop, you'll see how mindfulness can help you become more engaged and effective both at home and in the workplace. No prior meditation experience necessary.

Elder Law Basics Webinar; November 21; 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.; free. Technology has driven a 24/7 business environment that can make it challenging to balance the demands of work and home life. The phrase “work-life integration” is an update to the traditional "work-life balance" that enables professionals to consider the synergies between their work and home lives. In this session we will review strategies you can utilize to create better Work-Life Integration.

 

Healthy Living Workshops

Open to faculty and staff. Register at www.hr.upenn.edu/myhr/registration

Be in the Know Biometric Screenings; November 1 through November 21; free for benefits-eligible faculty and staff. Free on-campus biometric screenings provide you with key indicators of your health status, such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels and blood sugar. Participants receive immediate feedback on their results—plus points toward Be in the Know cash incentives. Visit www.hr.upenn.edu/beintheknow for details about the 2017-2018 Be in the Know wellness campaign.

Spinning; November 2; 11:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.; free. Pedal your way to a fantastic workout indoors! With the use of stationary cycles, each class is led on a “virtual” outdoor road, complete with a variety of exercises. This class will give you an energizing, calorie-burning, fun workout and it is great for all fitness levels because you will always ride at a self-directed pace.

Flu Vaccine Clinic at Morris Arboretum; November 14; 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.; free. All full-time and part-time benefits-eligible Faculty and Staff can attend this FREE flu vaccine clinic at Morris Arboretum. Please register in advance.

Chair Yoga; November 15; 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.; free. Chair yoga can teach you how to relax your mind and improve your wellbeing. Chair yoga provides the same benefits of a regular yoga workout without complex poses.

ZUMBA; November 15; 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.; free. Perfect for everybody and every body! Each Zumba® class is designed to bring people together to sweat it on. We take the "work" out of workout, by mixing low-intensity and high-intensity moves for an interval-style, calorie-burning dance fitness party. Once the Latin and World rhythms take over, you'll see why Zumba® Fitness classes are often called exercise in disguise.

November Wellness Walk; November 17; 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.; free. It has been proven that spending more time outside reduces stress, increases energy levels, and boosts immunity. You can start achieving these goals by meeting the Center for Public Health Initiatives staff at 12 noon in front of College Hall by the Ben Franklin statue. We will start with some quick and easy warmup stretches and then get our feet moving. The walk will be approximately two miles and we will inform you when we have reached the one-mile mark in the event that you need to exit the walk early. We hope you will be able to join us. Bring your water bottle and don’t forget your sneakers!

Flu Vaccine Clinic at Houston Hall; November 20; 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.; free. All full-time and part-time benefits-eligible Faculty and Staff can attend this FREE flu vaccine clinic. Advanced registration is required.

The Worlds Between--An Exploration of Magic, Folklore, and the Occult: Now through December 15

The Library's newest exhibition, The World's Between: An Exploration of Magic, Folklore, and the Occult, showcases a range of items from across the Kislak Center collections, including recent acquisitions such as the Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts as well as herbal and alchemical treasures. The Worlds Between explores connections between the history of science and the occult, traditional folk magic and mystical knowledge traditions.

The supernatural and the ordinary have not always been as separated as they seem in our modern world of smartphones, bullet trains and state-of-the-art hospitals. As long as people have had problems, they have turned to the occult or unorthodox methods to solve them, and they have often left behind fascinating stories and records of their practices. Spiritualists, seanses, and Halloween fortune-telling games were all once part of the everyday world and frequently had more influence over American culture than many people think. The exhibit is in the Snyder-Granader Alcove on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. Gallery hours: Mon.-Tues. Thurs.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Wed 9 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., by prior arrangement (215) 898-7088 or email. Free and open to the public (please show photo ID at entrance).

Crimes

Weekly Crime Reports

The University of Pennsylvania Police Department Community Crime Report

About the Crime Report: Below are all Crimes Against Persons, Property and Crimes Against Society from the campus report for October 16-22, 2017. Reported were 18 incidents with 3 arrests (9 thefts, 2 assaults, 2 burglaries, 2 other assaults, 1 fraud, 1 liquor law, 1 robbery). View prior weeks' reports. —Ed.

This summary is prepared by the Division of Public Safety and includes all criminal incidents reported and made known to the University Police Department between the dates of October 16-22, 2017. The University Police actively patrol from Market Street to Baltimore Avenue and from the Schuylkill River to 43rd Street in conjunction with the Philadelphia Police. In this effort to provide you with a thorough and accurate report on public safety concerns, we hope that your increased awareness will lessen the opportunity for crime. For any concerns or suggestions regarding this report, please call the Division of Public Safety at (215) 898-4482.

10/18/17 7/29/17 4100 Pine St Burglary Offenders entered property/Arrest
10/18/17 12:56 PM 210 S 34th St Theft Unsecured purse taken
10/18/17 1:02 PM 130-132 S 39th St Theft Packages taken from porch/Arrest
10/18/17 6:49 PM 110 S 36th St Theft Merchandise taken without payment
10/19/17 8:11 AM 3916 Sansom St Burglary Handbag taken from house
10/19/17 1:42 PM 3400 Spruce St Fraud Unauthorized charges made to credit card
10/19/17 3:52 PM 3400 Spruce St Theft Unsecured cell phone taken
10/19/17 5:19 PM 4047 Spruce St Theft Packages taken from porch/Arrest
10/20/17 12:58 AM 25 S 43rd St Assault Complainant assaulted by mother
10/20/17 2:08 AM 3813 Chestnut St Robbery Offenders took money and cell phone
10/20/17 12:32 PM 110 S 36th St Theft Clothing stolen
10/20/17 2:10 PM 3400 Civic Center Boulevard Theft Cash stolen
10/20/17 4:13 PM 200 S 38th St Other assault Complainant threatened by unknown male
10/20/17 5:31 PM 3800 Sansom St Assault Complainant punched by unknown males
10/21/17 6:02 PM 3701 Walnut St Liquor law Female cited for underage drinking
10/21/17 9:06 PM 3100 Walnut St Theft Cell phone stolen
10/22/17 10:31 AM 4024 Ludlow St Theft Secured bike taken
10/22/17 11:00 AM 51 N 39th St Other assault Complainant threatened by ex-boyfriend

18th District Report

Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 18 incidents with 3 arrests (5 assaults, 9 robberies, 1 indecent assault, 1 aggravated assault, 1 domestic assault, 1 rape) were reported between October 16-22, 2017 by the 18th District covering the Schuylkill River to 49th Street & Market Street to Woodland Avenue.

10/16/17 4:03 PM 46th and Chestnut St Assault
10/16/17 9:10 PM 4314 Locust St Robbery
10/16/17 9:29 PM 3300 Chestnut St Robbery
10/16/17 11:36 PM 4700 Locust St Assault
10/17/17 12:16 AM 34th and Spruce St Indecent assault
10/17/17 1:16 PM 4400 Market St Assault/Arrest
10/17/17 8:26 PM 45th and Spruce St Assault
10/19/17 9:56 AM 200 S 48th St Rape
10/20/17 12:58 AM 25 S 43rd St Aggravated assault
10/20/17 2:13 AM 3813 Chestnut St Robbery
10/20/17 5:59 PM 3800 Sansom St Assault
10/20/17 10:30 PM 4712 Chester Ave Domestic assault
10/21/17 8:07 PM 300 S 45th St Robbery/Arrest
10/21/17 8:15 PM 3800 Osage Ave Robbery
10/21/17 9:24 PM 4400 Spruce St Robbery/Arrest
10/22/17 10:52 PM 4821 Warrington Ave Robbery
10/22/17 11:17 PM 47th and Chester Ave Robbery
10/22/17 11:18 PM 4648 Larchwood Ave Robbery

Bulletins

Penn's Way 2018 Raffle


Visit the Penn's Way website for more information about the raffle and making a pledge.

Entries must be received by 5 p.m. on the prior Friday for inclusion in a given week's drawing.

 

Week 4 (Awarded October 24)

Penn Business Services – Penn Fashion Scarf (value $90): Emily Cubbage, HUP

Fresh on 47th – "Three for Two" Take-Away Dinners (for two people; 3 dinners) (value $75): Colleen Pinder, HUP Corporate

QVC – Studio Tour for Six (value $45): Leah Hochstetler, HUP

ThermoFisher – Home Depot gift card (value $50): Nakisha Crippen, CCNJ

ThermoFisher – iTunes gift card (value $50): Robert Mott, Pennsylvania Hospital

Bella Bridesmaids – Gift Certificate (value $100): Paige Ruch, Nursing

Historic Philadelphia Inc. – Family four-pack Fun @ Franklin Square (value $48): Mary Michelle Luistro, HUP

BioLegend – Goody Bag with puzzle, water bottle, t-shirt & Starbucks card (value $60): Valerie Battaglia, CPUP

W. B Mason – Keurig K-130 Coffee Maker (value $80): Valerie Herrmann, HUP

 

Week Six (November 7 Drawing)

Office Depot – Office Supply "Goodie Crate” (value $75)

Penn Business Services – Wine Lover Pack (value $100)

BioLegend – Goody Bag with puzzle, water bottle, t-shirt & Starbucks card (value $60)

Penn Business Services – JetJat Drone (value $70)

ThermoFisher – iTunes gift card (value $50)

ThermoFisher – Lowes gift card (value $50)

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