At a ceremony in New York City, the Pennsylvania Society honored Penn President Amy Gutmann with the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement. The award comes with a $50,000 philanthropic gift that will be matched by Penn in support of West Philadelphia’s Henry C. Lea Elementary School.
The gift from the 1992 graduates, who aim to maximize access to education, health care, and opportunity for low-income children in New York City, will support the Penn First Plus program.
Arnold and Deanne Kaplan gifted $12 million to Penn Libraries, accompanied by the donation of collections of Americana and Early American Judaica. The gift will also establish research fellowships and an endowment for continuing acquisitions.
A Penn senior, master’s student, and alumnus were selected as recipients of the Schwarzman Scholarship, funding a one-year master’s degree in global affairs in Beijing. Students chosen exhibited excellent leadership qualities that bridge cultural and political differences.
A Penn senior and 2018 alumna are two of 46 students to receive funds from the United Kingdom’s Marshall Scholarship, awarding up to three years of study for a graduate degree at an institution in the UK.
The 82-year-old institute celebrates new faculty leadership from Fels Distinguished Fellow Elizabeth Vale and three new professors of practice. All support a recent mission to engage with thoughtful leadership around public policy, continuing in January when Fels hosts Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney’s policy vision conference.
The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, Perry World House, and Penn IUR were just some of the organizations at Penn that sent representatives to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid. There, they had a voice as observer-status participants, holding conversations around pertinent climate-related issues.
NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and Penn alumna Andrea Mitchell spoke at Kelly Writers House about her 40-plus-year career in journalism. She began as NBC News’ energy correspondent in 1979.
Presidential Professor César de la Fuente, a synthetic biologist, is working to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance and innovate how they’re applied—in one case, using Bluetooth Band-Aids.
PIK Professor Herbert Hovenkamp, who has joint appointments in The Wharton School and Penn Law, was quoted in The New York Times about Congressional antitrust investigations of large tech companies. “There’s a long game being played here—interrogate, educate, and prepare for antitrust reform,” he said.
At Penn, doing good doesn’t just stop at the end of work hours. Penn Today profiled four people making a difference in their free time, whether by making waffles for Tourette advocacy or developing an inclusive fitness program.
The new book, “Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature,” is the culmination of 10 years of Cloutier’s research and theories developed on why African American literary archives tend to be undervalued.
Juxtaposed with the ancient artifacts of the Penn Museum’s new Africa Galleries is contemporary art commissioned by Professor Tukufu Zuberi of the School of Arts and Sciences. The works, including a two-piece Sachs Program-funded dress by fashion designer Breanna Moore, aim to add context to the galleries’ nearly 300 objects and showcase, he says, “Africa’s tremendous contribution to humanity.”
Diverse: Issues in Higher Education reported on the new Moelis Fellows Program, which provides financial support to two students in the field of urban planning. “This has really enabled us to go after some of the best students and get them to come to Penn,” said Lisa Servon, professor and chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.