Penn Update - August 2020 | University of Pennsylvania

In time of need, emergency funding for a community in crisis

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University provided $5 million of emergency financial support to employees, the PHL COVID-19 Fund, third-party full-time and part-time contract workers, independently-owned retail tenants, University City small businesses, and the Enterprise Center of West Philadelphia. “It has been a tremendous help and I’m so grateful for the grant,” says Franchon Pryor, owner of Hair Vyce Studio on Baltimore Avenue.

Fall planning with the director of Student Registration and Financial Services

Matthew Sessa, executive director of Student Registration and Financial Services, spoke in a Q&A with Penn Today about what students receiving financial aid can expect during this unprecedented time. “One thing we want to emphasize is that Penn’s commitment to meeting 100% of demonstrated need for undergraduate students with grant-based aid remains unchanged,” he says.

A new public safety review and outreach initiative launches

The Public Safety Review and Outreach Initiative was created as a comprehensive review of Penn’s success in creating a physically and emotionally safe environment on campus and in the surrounding community, also evaluating how it prioritizes and promotes anti-racism, racial equality, and justice. Advisers will present policy recommendations to President Amy Gutmann, Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli, and Provost Wendell Pritchett.

A financial boost from Penn to help one of West Philly’s most important corridors

The University supported The Enterprise Center with $100,000 in emergency funds to help restore businesses along 52nd Street that were damaged during demonstrations in May. The Enterprise Center, designed to provide resources to aspiring minority entrepreneurs in Philadelphia, was founded in the late 1980s with strong ties to Wharton.

Children’s literature as ‘seed work’

The Graduate School of Education’s Ebony Elizabeth Thomas discussed the importance of diverse books for children—and recommended picture books, middle grade books, young adult books, and graphic novels.

43 years at Penn, and thriving

In a Q&A, Valarie Ena Swain-Cade McCoullum reflected on her long career at Penn and her new role as the inaugural vice provost for student engagement. Provost Wendell Pritchett described her as “one of Penn’s most extraordinary leaders” today.

Understanding infrastructure

In the second episode of Penn Today’s “Understand This …” podcast series, the Wharton School’s Robert Inman and the Weitzman School’s John Landis define infrastructure and what it might look like to build for the future.

New website aids workers unemployed due to COVID-19

Current and former Wharton School students created a free job-hunting website for Americans who have been laid off because of the novel coronavirus. ILostMyJobtoCoronavirus.com displays more than 100,000 job listings and has 30 independent active recruiters.

What would it take to make the Delaware ‘swimmable’?

Through a William Penn Foundation grant, the Water Center at Penn is investigating questions of water quality, access, and equity. The environmental organization American Rivers named the Delaware River the 2020 River of the Year.

Navigating cytokine storms

Nilam Mangalmurti of the Perelman School of Medicine and Christopher Hunter of the School of Veterinary Medicine are working together to better understand the immune system’s response to COVID-19. Cytokine storms are thought to cause a resurgence of symptoms among COVID-19 patients, a state that sends the immune response into overdrive and causes organ damage or even death.

The industry pros campaigning to end systemic racism in dermatology

In Elle, PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts spoke about how race can be misused in medical diagnostics and treatments, used as a convenient proxy when there are more evidence-based individual factors to look toward. “The reason I’m so passionate about ending race medicine isn’t just because it’s bad medicine,” she says, “I’m also on this mission because the way doctors practice medicine continues to promote a false and toxic view of humanity.”

Plato was right. Earth is made, on average, of cubes

Geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences, in a new paper shared with team members from Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the University of Debrecen, uncovered that the average shape of rocks on earth is a cube. The finding is in line with the theories of Greek philosopher Plato, who speculated that the universe is made of five types of matter: earth, air, fire, water, and cosmos, and that each is described with a particular geometry—in earth’s case, the shape of a cube.

Offsetting carbon emissions, one ton at a time

Penn professors discussed the effect the pandemic is having on climate policy and, moreover, how carbon offsets work. In explanation: “The tub is filling, and we are trying to keep it from overflowing,” says Mark Alan Hughes, a professor of practice at the Weitzman School.

Web-based platforms provide supporting resources for Penn Medicine staff

PennMedicineTogether was developed in March to provide resources of support to Penn Medicine frontline workers, ranging from online-based programs to engage children at home to PennCOBALT, a new web-based platform that matches health care workers with mental health resources. As of early July, PennMedicineTogether had 91,000 page views and 32,000 users.

Coronavirus is making us all socially awkward

Describing the social anxiety around COVID-19, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan of the Law School and the School of Arts & Sciences was quoted in Vox about “insinuation anxiety,” or the anxiety people experience of insinuating another person is untrustworthy.