Penn Today spoke with John Zeller, senior vice president for Development and Alumni Relations, about the big impact of The Power of Penn campaign. The campaign raised more than $5.4 billion, allowing for the development of the Penn First Plus program, new scholarships and aid initiatives, new endowed positions, new capital projects, and much more. “Philanthropy made it possible to launch new initiatives and the results have been spectacular,” Zeller says.
On College Green on Oct. 13, Penn President Amy Gutmann officially declared the Class of 2022 seniors, the result of a postponement in spring 2022 because of COVID-19. Hey Day, as the occasion is called, is a long-standing tradition for students. “This is our day. This is our time. Despite all obstacles, we are reestablishing this storied tradition,” remarked Class of 2022 President Sam Strickberger.
The Perelman School of Medicine’s Marylyn D. Ritchie and PIK Professor Sarah A. Tishkoff are among 100 new members elected to the Academy of Medicine. The elections to the Academy are considered a high honor in medicine; originally established in 1970, the Academy addresses issues in health, science, medicine, and related policy.
These National Institutes of Health grants support seven high-risk, high-reward research projects. Penn’s eight researchers were among 106 national awardees. Research funded ranges from a study to understand the affect of the brain on eating behavior, to a project aiming to construct the first synthetic mammalian artificial chromosomes, which could be applied to the creation of animal models for drug development and as sources of personalized organs for transplantation.
Frederick “Fritz” Steiner, dean of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, has had his term extended two years, to June 30, 2025. “Thanks to [Dean Steiner’s] strong, far-sighted leadership and collaborative approach, the Weitzman School of Design is perfectly aligned with our Penn Compact vision and is more inclusive, innovative, and impactful than at any point in its history,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann.
Haley Morin and Debbie Rabinovich, both 2019 Penn graduates, have been chosen for the inaugural class of 20 Samvid Scholars. Samvid Scholars are chosen by the board of Samvid Ventures, a foundation “dedicated to improving the lives of underserved individuals.” It provides winners with merit-based graduate scholarships.
Two Penn seniors, Max Strickberger and Alan Jinich, both seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences, traveled 7,300 miles across 23 states on a quest to interview young adults about the impact of the pandemic on their lives. They created an oral history archive with stories, images, and video. Along the way, they received advice from Penn faculty, including Professor of American History Kathy Peiss. “To me it was a kind of classic American story of going on the road and learning about your country. And they really were engaged, not only with the people they met, but also with seeing parts of the country they’d never seen before,” says Peiss.
Penn faculty and students participated in La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennial), an international architectural exhibition with a guiding theme of “How will we live together?” Penn contributors submitted work that was both physical and digital, including a three-part exhibition by Richard Weller, professor and chair of landscape architecture, that addresses the question “How will we live together?” through the lens of the relationship of humans and animals.
The School of Veterinary Medicine is launching the Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases to bring together expertise in infectious diseases, immunology, agriculture, and molecular diagnostics. The effort is meant to address diseases that affect humans that come from animals. “With the Institute we can bring the best of both worlds, both animal-focused research and human-focused research, together and cross-pollinate and collaborate,” says Lisa Murphy, associate professor of toxicology and an associate director of the Institute. “Because we already know that there is a lot of overlap between the diseases that affect humans and those that affect animals.”
In The Atlantic, Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design was quoted about a new study in Philadelphia that will explore the effects of giving families cash instead of vouchers for rental assistance. “There’s been some explorations, but a true, proper evaluation is something that we’ve never really done,” he said. “Cash transfers are often more contentious.”
Whether eliciting thoughts about poetry from thousands of participants around the globe online, or from a dozen students sitting in a circle in the Kelly Writers House, Al Filreis of the School of Arts & Sciences creates community while encouraging discussion, an inclusive approach that forms the foundation of his many endeavors since coming to teach English at Penn in 1985.
Professor of Mathematics Robert Ghrist and Ph.D. graduate Jakob Hansen developed a framework, using a class of network structures known as discourse sheaves, or algebraic data structures, to track how opinions change over time in a wide range of scenarios. “There are a lot of people putting out models that have one or two novel features; one allows for multiple opinions, another allows people to selectively lie to their neighbors, and another has the introduction of a propagandist,” says Ghrist. “What we were looking to do was come up with a framework that can incorporate all of these different aspects, yet still be able to prove rigorous theorems about how the model behaves.”
The Penn’s Way Campaign, which runs through Nov. 19, is built on the pillars of health care disparity, food insecurity, and social justice, and aims to raise $1.6 million. It encompasses three organizations: Penn Medicine, the Philadelphia Alliance for Change, and United Way. This year’s goal builds on last year’s accomplishment of raising $1.5 million.
An inaugural Projects for Progress award helped realize a Graduate School of Education and Netter Center for Community Partnerships initiative that enrolled more than 200 students in a special six-week collaboration meant to ready them for a return to the classroom. “Our goal was to provide something in person for kids that would help grease their wheels to get ready to go back to school but would not be remedial, would not give the message of, ‘You have lost all this learning, you have to catch back up,’” said Caroline Watts, one of the partnership’s leads. “Instead, we give them the message of, ‘Hey, let’s come back, let’s be together, and let’s enjoy it.’”
Penn basketball is back for the first time since March 2020, starting in November. The men’s basketball team will play against Florida State on Nov. 10, while the women’s basketball team will face Hartford on Nov. 14. In the Ivy League’s recently released 2021-22 Women’s and Men’s Basketball Preseason Media Polls, the Quaker women placed second and the Quaker men placed fourth.
In Bloomberg, Steve Viscelli of the School of Arts & Sciences, who studies labor markets and supply chains, was quoted about the reliance of the supply chain on independent-contractor port truckers who make low wages and face long hours. “The port truck driver, for decades now, has basically been the slack adjuster in the whole system,” Viscelli says.
