Hundreds of students marched down Locust Walk wearing red T-shirts and mock skimmer hats, which, along with canes, are part of a years-long celebratory tradition for undergraduates at Penn as they ascend to fourth-year status. “You passed! By the power vested in me, I hereby pronounce you seniors,” said a joyous Penn President Liz Magill, presiding over the event for the first time.
Penn President Liz Magill announced the recipients of the President’s Engagement and Innovation Prizes, awarded annually to students committed to post-graduation projects that make a lasting, positive difference in the world. “This year’s President’s Engagement and Innovation Prize recipients are fueled by a desire to make a difference—in their community, across the country, and around the world,” Magill said. “Communities for Childbirth, Act First, and Sonura embody an inspiring blend of passion and purpose. They are addressing consequential challenges with compelling solutions, and their dedication and smarts are exemplary.”
In New York City, Penn President Liz Magill spent time with scholarship students who benefit from the Named Scholarship Program that has supported 11,700 undergraduates since its inception. “When we wanted to do more for our students, you said you could do more, too,” Magill said to a crowd that included donors to the program. “What a virtuous commitment you share.”
Katharine O. Strunk was named the dean of the Graduate School of Education, effective July 1. Strunk is currently the Clifford Erickson Distinguished Chair in Education at Michigan State University and joins GSE at a time when the school is the top-ranked school in the nation for graduate education. “Katharine Strunk’s career has been built around the concept of ‘research with consequence,’” said Penn President Liz Magill in making the announcement. “She has a long and distinguished track record and an exciting vision for the role of educators and education schools in research universities and society.”
Sophia Z. Lee was named dean of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, effective July 1. Lee is currently a professor of law with a secondary appointment in history and has been Penn Carey Law faculty since 2009. “Sophia Lee is a proven leader and a consensus building,” said Magill. “A superb scholar and teacher of constitutional and administrative law, she is deeply dedicated to Penn Carey Law and to the people—faculty, staff, students, and alumni—who are central to its work.”
The School of Social Policy & Practice created The Randi and Brian Schwartz Social Innovation Scholarship, which will provide full-tuition support for students seeking to generate impact in such areas as economic security, immigration, and global conflict. “SP2 is known for educating students who go on to become changemakers. They graduate poised to make the world a better place through their fields of social work, social policy, and nonprofit leadership,” said Sara S. Bachman, dean of SP2. “We are grateful to Randi and Brian for their years of service to SP2, and for their generosity helping more students grow meaningful careers.”
The Suzanne McGraw Foundation made a $5 million commitment to the Graduate School of Education, supporting student scholarships, a cross-University graduate concentration, and cross-disciplinary programming. The gift, said Pam Grossman, dean of Penn GSE and George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education, “helps us create bold solutions that build on our legacy of providing well-prepared early childhood experts focused on creating transformational opportunities for children with a lasting impact.”
In its 11th year, TEDxPenn brought 10 renowned, thought-provoking speakers to the Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center. Speakers included award-winning film director Anthony Russo, Democratic Whip of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Jordan Harris, and multimedia artist Lyn Godley, among others. “The beauty of a TED talk is that they can be on any subject whatsoever, but they all aim for the same place: They want their listeners to come away saying, ‘I didn’t know that, I’ve never thought about it that way before,’” said President Liz Magill during the conference’s opening remarks.
At the Graduate Student Center, graduate students and Ph.D. candidates were recognized for excellence in teaching. Winners are nominated by undergraduate students. “I’m so proud of our students: Our undergraduates, for taking the time to recognize what it is our graduate students contribute to the student body, and the graduate students who are contributing to the life of the University,” said Vice Provost for Education Karen Detlefsen. “Students are the lifeblood of the University and without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Penn Live Arts announced its 2023-24 season, with upcoming performances that “toll the bell” for gun violence awareness and highlight arts and culture from Ukraine. “We wanted to examine how artists and the cultural sector are responding to the war and the issues it has raised, and explore what type of work is being created as a result,” says PLA Executive & Artistic Director Chris Gruits. “During the upcoming year we’ll connect with the local Ukrainian community, encourage them to get involved with what PLA will be doing, and engage all our audiences in a wider view of the art and culture of the country.” (Image: Courtesy of Balaklava Blues)
Faculty from the School of Arts & Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Graduate School of Education, and the Perelman School of Medicine were among 270 new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. They are recognized for excellence, innovation, leadership, and a broad array of accomplishments.
Five years since the Ecological Landscape Stewardship Plan report laying out recommendations for landscape management practices, staff from the Division of Facilities and Real Estate Services (FRES) talk about taking an ecological framework toward how the campus landscape is designed and maintained. One example is the ramp-up of planting native plants in garden beds. “What we are really trying to do is make it more of a natural environment,” says Chloe Cerwinka, Penn’s landscape planner in FRES.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication led a group of 11 students to Washington, D.C., as part of the Qualitative Ways of Knowing course. The class documented and will archive the creation process for the Fallen Journalists Memorial, honoring the lives of journalists of The Capital Gazette newspaper who were shot and killed in the newsroom in 2018. In D.C., they toured and examined a variety of memorials for a more nuanced understanding of them.
A set of papers submitted to The Astrophysical Journal by researchers from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration revealed a groundbreaking new image that shows the most detailed map of matter distributed across a quarter of the entire sky, reaching deep into the cosmos. “We’ve made a new mass map using distortions of light left over from the Big Bang,” explained Matthew Madhavacheril of the College of Arts of Sciences, lead author of one of the papers. It shows, he says, the “lumpiness” of the universe and the rate at which it began growing. (Image: Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation)
As part of a Projects for Progress-supported program, a team of undergraduates and physicians are offering convenient health care to those who need it most: people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations. “The P4P [award] has been really instrumental in allowing us to reach more people in the community,” says Joseph Teel of the Perelman School of Medicine and a member of the inaugural cohort of P4P winners. “The idea around this project is to say, if we are going to do this work in our community, we need to support the work, and have this be part of someone’s job and part of our care delivery model. Without the P4P funding, that would not have been possible.”