Hello, I’m Liz Magill.
Today I begin my duties as Penn’s ninth president. Like every new student and employee, I started out with a trip to the bookstore to get my Penn ID. And on the way, I got to meet three Penn students. I asked them: “What do you like best about Penn?” and “What could we do better?”
As to what they liked best, the consensus was totally clear: They loved the life-changing opportunities that Penn offered them. And what could we do better: They pointed out that the range of opportunities at Penn is so vast, to take advantage of all of them, they would need more than 24 hours in a day, and more than seven days in a week. I did love their energy, but I came away with the feeling that to make Penn even better, one of the first things I would have to do is bend the space-time continuum. And even for Penn that’s a tall order.
The students are on to something though. The scope of opportunity at Penn is mind boggling and it’s matched by the zeal of Penn people to do it all, and in the process, to make the world a better place. This is one of Penn’s defining traits—call it a virtuous impatience. We are impatient to create new possibilities; to teach, discover, and share solutions; and to help lift communities while saving and improving lives.
This is the university that would, if it could, bend space and time to accomplish even more good in the world. This is a characteristic of Penn I deeply admire. I’ve been impatient for this day, planning and dreaming of all the great things we’re going to do. Together.
Living here in the world-class city of Philadelphia, working with you to make Penn even more extraordinary, this will be the honor of a lifetime. I hope to meet you soon. I can’t wait.
—M. Elizabeth Magill, Penn President
This is a transcript of the video message, which can be viewed at https://president.upenn.edu/meet-president/announcements/first-day-greetings.
The University of Pennsylvania has announced a $7.5 million commitment to increase scholarships for graduate students who are committed to social innovation and social justice, including those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This level of support from an anonymous donor is one of the largest gifts ever made to the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2). In combination with an additional $5 million in matching funds from the University, a total of $12.5 million will fund 12 full-tuition scholarships annually. The commitment will support the SP2 Social Justice Scholars Program and endow a new scholarship program focused on social innovation.
“We are particularly grateful for this extraordinary gift to support students who are engaging in programs for social justice and social innovation,” said Interim President Wendell Pritchett. “These new scholarship resources will substantially expand access to some of Penn’s most impactful graduate programs and allow students to graduate without the burden of debt. The scholarship recipients will positively influence our communities long after their time at Penn, as they pursue meaningful careers in service of others.”
At SP2, research and practice focus on social justice and social change. Faculty and students seek to improve the lives of others by addressing challenges in economic security, homelessness, immigration, health equity, gender-based violence, child welfare, and more.
“For more than 110 years, SP2 has worked to improve the lives of underserved and marginalized communities,” explained Sara S. Bachman, dean of SP2. “These incredible resources will enable SP2 to grow its world-class education for students advancing their careers in social innovation, impact, and justice. I am thrilled that the school will have additional financial support to educate students and provide meaningful career preparation for many years to come.”
“Often, we meet students who want to attend Penn, who are committed to their field, and who want to advance their careers through graduate education,” said Adiza M. Ezell, director of admissions and recruitment at SP2. “For some students, however, the cost of tuition relative to their salaries working for NGOs, government agencies, and nonprofits can deter them from enrolling. The new gift to SP2 will transform the way we support and sustain students, particularly those from disadvantaged and historically underrepresented backgrounds.”
Introduced as the first program of its kind in January of 2021, the Social Justice Scholars Program cultivates a distinct and impactful learning environment for cohorts of students of color while removing the financial burden of graduate studies. It offers full-tuition scholarships and specialized, rigorous academic programming for incoming students—with a preference for those graduating from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs).
This year’s inaugural class of Social Justice Scholars (Almanac June 15, 2021) proved to be an essential addition to SP2’s continuing efforts to affirm diversity and to address problematic structures of oppression. Social Justice Scholar Gianni Morsell exemplifies this work.
Before coming to Penn, Ms. Morsell launched a food pantry and developed educational programming for students, faculty, and staff who were demonstrating food insecurity at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She now serves as the East Pennsylvania Deputy Director at Rise, a nonprofit working to make higher education free and help all young people participate in democracy.
“The program provided a unique opportunity to attend seminars with leaders in their respective fields who address social justice issues,” said Ms. Morsell. “I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in conversations about racial and social issues and being surrounded by a cohort of brilliant individuals who have very different backgrounds. I am thrilled that this additional funding will be used to further enrich the future Social Justice Scholar experience.”
Additional fundraising for the program will aim to support student expenses that fall outside of tuition, including academic fees and housing.
The University of Pennsylvania has announced a $7.5 million commitment from Lori Kanter Tritsch, MArch’85, and William P. Lauder, W’83, to support Design to Thrive, a youth development initiative centered on design education and career exploration. Lori Kanter Tritsch is a Penn alumna who holds a master of architecture and is a current member of the Board of Advisors at the Weitzman School of Design, and her partner and fellow Penn alumnus is William P. Lauder, who holds a bachelor of science in economics from the Wharton School and is a Penn Trustee.
Design to Thrive began as a two-year pilot in New York and Philadelphia in response to the limited educational and recreational opportunities during the pandemic. With this gift from Mr. Lauder and Ms. Kanter Tritsch, Design to Thrive will be a permanent enrichment program produced by PennPraxis, the center for applied research, outreach, and practice at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at Penn. Their commitment includes $500,000 in challenge funds from the Weitzman School that was created to encourage support for the program.
“We are incredibly grateful to Lori Kanter Tritsch and William Lauder for their generous support of Design to Thrive,” said Interim President Wendell Pritchett. “Their commitment will extend Penn’s ability to respond to challenges in our built and natural environments—and the communities that inhabit them. Design to Thrive delivers career-oriented arts education to local youth. It brings skills and concepts from art and design to young people who may not have had much exposure to those fields.”
The Design to Thrive pilot programs were made possible in 2020 and 2021 through initial support from Mr. Lauder and Ms. Kanter Tritsch, and gifts to the PennPraxis Design Fellows program, and through partnerships with the Fresh Air Fund in New York City and Philly Thrive, a leading community voice for environmental justice in Philadelphia.
In the latest New York pilot, youth aged 13 to 18 met four days a week for an intensive design studio in an outdoor classroom on Governors Island. There, PennPraxis Design Fellows imparted a wide variety of design skills and approaches, including welding with blowtorches, creating ceramic molds for porcelain bells, and building a precise topographic model. Mr. Lauder, chairman of the board of the Fresh Air Fund, and Ms. Kanter Tritsch, a longtime Fresh Air supporter, introduced the fund to PennPraxis and facilitated the program pilot. Since 1877, the Fresh Air Fund, a not-for-profit youth development organization, has provided life-changing summer experiences in the outdoors to more than 1.8 million children from New York City’s underserved communities.
“During the pandemic, there was a growing concern about today’s youth missing vital educational and growth experiences,” said Ms. Kanter Tritsch. “Bringing together talented Weitzman students and Fresh Air Fund youth was an obvious solution in my mind. I am thrilled that Design to Thrive will have a significant learning impact on the young people who participate, as well as on the Weitzman students who design and teach the programs.”
Design to Thrive will follow the studio model of design education. Students will engage in drawing, painting, model making; digital design; shop classes in welding, casting, and woodworking; and environmental justice workshops and field trips. Participants will receive supply kits, computers on which to complete homework, lunch, and public transit fare. Students from families with limited means will receive stipends to cover income loss for enrolling in lieu of summer work.
“This gift will enable PennPraxis to have an even greater impact in communities that design does not typically serve,” said Ellen Neises, executive director of PennPraxis. “We are all so excited that we can deepen and diversify the learning opportunities we offer through Design to Thrive, adding major design/build projects to improve public schools and the Fresh Air Fund’s camp facilities for young people with modest resources and limited access to arts education. With the help of Weitzman graduate students and alumni, and our local partners, we help young people build skills and confidence in building, making, critical thinking, and communication.”
A portion of the gift will also endow the Lori Kanter Tritsch Executive Director of PennPraxis, and the first person to hold the position will be Ms. Neises.
Weitzman graduate students and recent alumni will serve as teachers and mentors leading intensive Design to Thrive studio classes over the summer. The program has been highly popular among Weitzman students enrolled in different degree programs as an opportunity to collaborate across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
“Design to Thrive epitomizes our school’s deeply holistic approach to the built environment and commitment to the public good,” said Fritz Steiner, Dean and Paley Professor in the Weitzman School. “Through this program, Weitzman students in architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, fine arts, and historic preservation come together to nurture creativity and problem solving in communities that have historically been left behind. What’s more, introducing people from diverse backgrounds to our fields earlier in life is also critical to increasing diversity in our schools and professions.”
Key components of Design to Thrive will include skills certification by Penn; portfolio and resume development; career advising; and introductions to high school, community college, and undergraduate design programs. In the fall of 2021, two graduates of the PennPraxis pilot program enrolled as freshmen in architecture and engineering programs at City College of New York and Drexel University.
The 2022 program began on June 27.
The University of Pennsylvania has been selected to receive $2.4 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is part of the ARPA-E HESTIA program, which works to overcome barriers associated with carbon-storing buildings, including scarce, expensive, and geographically limited building materials. The goal of the HESTIA program is to increase the total amount of carbon stored in buildings to create carbon sinks, which absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than released during the construction process.
The University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Texas A&M University, the City College of New York, KieranTimberlake, and Sika, will design carbon-negative, medium-sized building structures by developing a high-performance structural system for carbon absorption and storage over buildings’ lifespan.
“We’re taking a multi-scalar approach to minimize the impact of using concrete, which is the most ubiquitous construction material globally,” said Masoud Akbarzadeh, director of the Polyhedral Structures Laboratory and an assistant professor of architecture at the Weitzman School of Design. “While on the macro level, we are introducing an innovative, efficient structural system, on the micro level, we are reinventing the recipe for concrete to absorb carbon. The results of this research could be applied to a comprehensive building design strategy for all kinds of buildings.”
The team will use a novel carbon-absorbing concrete mixture as a building material, and design and assemble a high-performance structural system with minimized mass and construction waste, and maximized surface area. The parts will be prefabricated using robotic 3D printing technology.
“Geometry is what makes our team’s designs unique, in both the printed structures and the formulation of the carbon-absorbing concrete,” said Shu Yang, chair of the materials science and engineering department in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “By also using bio-based materials, our structures will not only store carbon, but also offer enhanced load-bearing capabilities.”
“The right geometry produces the efficiency of the structures by reducing the amount of material—concrete, in this case—used, and consequently carbon emissions,” said Mohammad Bolhassani, director of the Advanced Masonry Center at the Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York. “Coupling the right form of structure and material will also help to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere.”
The research bridges active and passive design approaches to thermal performance. The increased surface area of the novel concrete structure is beneficial for achieving comfort temperature ranges indoors through thermal mass heat storage. “We will combine natural ventilation strategies with the exposed concrete slab system to achieve a major reduction in the operational energy of the building over the building’s life cycle,” said Dorit Aviv, director of the Thermal Architecture Lab at the Weitzman School of Design.
“The novel construction system will combine strategies to exploit thermal mass with adaptive envelope, and electrified building systems including heat pumps, to reduce operational carbon emission over the building’s life cycle,” said Zheng O’Neill, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University.
A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-integrated life cycle analysis (LCA) feedback loop will be used to identify the combined strategies to ensure carbon negativity on a cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave basis. “Our transdisciplinary team will engage the development of materials and systems holistically, developing LCA workflows to understand how components of the building contribute collectively to carbon negative design,” said Billie Faircloth, partner and research director at KieranTimberlake.
Interim Provost Beth A. Winkelstein and Interim Vice Provost for University Life Tamara Greenfield King announce the appointment of William Atkins as Associate Vice Provost for University Life (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging), beginning July 25.
“This redefined senior leadership position,” said Interim Provost Winkelstein, “will be a critical step forward in advancing our most important priorities for student life at Penn, especially in working closely with our outstanding cultural centers and other key student organizations. Will Atkins is a highly experienced and widely respected student affairs professional whose experience in creating affirming and inclusive campus environments spans multiple areas of student life at large universities.”
Dr. Atkins comes to Penn from the University of Florida at Gainesville, where he is currently the Assistant Vice President for Student Life and was previously the Associate Dean of Students and senior director of the Office of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs. Before joining the University of Florida in 2014, he served in leadership positions at Miami University of Ohio and at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, among other positions.
He is an active and collaborative leader across national organizations, campus life, and student advising who has presented at dozens of national conferences. He recently received the Advisor of the Year award from the Black Student Union at UF-Gainesville. Most recently, at UF-Gainesville, he has been instrumental in expanding the Institute of Black Culture and Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures and creating a program of implicit bias training. He earned a PhD at UF-Gainesville, with a dissertation on oral histories of Black college women at the University of Florida, in addition to an MA in higher education administration from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a BS from UF-Gainesville.
Awarded to current students, faculty, and staff, the annual Penn GSE Awards recognize outstanding service and commitment to the Penn GSE community. The 2022 honorees are:
Leland McGee, an EdD candidate in higher education, has had a profound impact at Penn GSE through extraordinary dedication to student success and excellence. He has demonstrated a proactive commitment to improving the student experience by providing support, guidance, and a compelling perspective to individual programs and to leaders across the school. He has played an integral role in leading the diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice efforts at Penn GSE and has mentored countless students individually, advocating for and encouraging their ability to achieve success. His invaluable contributions to the Penn GSE community and to the field of education is recognized by the many students, staff, and faculty he has collaborated with.
Jin Yang, an MSEd candidate in the TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program, has demonstrated an innovative and creative vision in the field of education through visual arts projects showcasing the power of inclusion, individualism, culture, and choice. With a goal to advance classroom computerized learning, she has shared her scholarly involvement and exploration with peers and colleagues in the field and has promoted digital learning through visual arts in educational settings. Her efforts to share this vision with her peers and promote the advancement of education through visual arts are recognized and deeply valued by her peers.
Ed Brockenbrough, an associate professor in the division of teaching, learning, and leadership, has demonstrated an innovative excellence in teaching that has created a lasting impact on his students at Penn GSE. His inquiry-based learning approaches encourage engaging classroom discussions that challenge his students intellectually and promote critical educational growth. His outstanding commitment to his students is illustrated through his intentional and meaningful leadership choices in the classroom, and his students greatly appreciate and recognize the impact his teaching has had on their thinking, scholarship, and world views.
Amalia Daché, an associate professor in the division of higher education, is recognized for her substantial academic and scholarship contributions at Penn GSE. She has made an impactful commitment to enhance the learning and exploration of her students in the classroom. Her varied educational activities encourage students to think critically and to engage in challenging conversations. Her leadership and scholarship have inspired her students and helped them develop skills to be successful and innovative leaders in the field.
Suzanne Fegley, a senior lecturer in the division of human development and quantitative methods, is recognized for her unwavering commitment to being an excellent educator and inspiration to her students. Throughout the academic year, she has created a rich and engaging classroom environment in which she has intentionally and energetically connected with her students. She has demonstrated a genuine interest and desire to teach and a willingness to adapt throughout the year. Her dedication and commitment to education are cherished by her students.
Nelson Flores, an associate professor in the division of educational linguistics, has had an immeasurable impact on the Penn GSE community. His educational and scholarship contributions are recognized and deeply cherished by the students, staff, and faculty he has collaborated with. His extensive involvement and commitment to the Latinx Affinity group at Penn GSE has illustrated his instrumental support of students and his dedication to building community for Latinx students, staff, and faculty at Penn GSE.
Charles Washington, a classroom technology manager with the Office of Information Technology at Penn GSE, has had a profound impact on the many students, staff, and faculty he has supported. While the IT team has been in high demand, he has demonstrated a dedication to delivering resources and technology support to all. His approach to providing technology support is empowering, educational, and accessible, and he leaves others feeling comfortable and confident. His commitment to helping others overcome technophobia is embodied in his demeanor, approachability, and ongoing support—all greatly appreciated by the Penn GSE community.
Diana Johnson, the executive assistant to the Dean’s Office, has been a valued colleague and friend at Penn GSE. She has been deeply appreciated by fellow staff members for her genuine kindness and compassion, frequently checking in with others and ensuring that others are well supported. Her colleagues have made note of her persistent support and care during these last few years, made especially difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her presence has been a source of comfort and care for all those she works with.
Lauren Scicluna, a program coordinator in the division of literacy, culture, and international education, is recognized for her continuous support to the international educational development program at Penn GSE. Throughout the academic year, she has connected students to resources and opportunities to enrich the student experience. Her commitment to responding to student needs is greatly valued in the program and her knowledge and skills have helped students navigate their educational experience with ease and excitement at Penn GSE.
Alexis Ditaway, an MSEd candidate in higher education, has had a significant impact on her fellow students and has demonstrated consistent strong and effective leadership at Penn GSE. As a graduate assistant in the higher education program, she has gone above and beyond in building community through valuable educational and social support programming. In the classroom, she is recognized for her invaluable perspectives that invite her peers to think critically and reflect on their worldviews. She shows a fierce dedication to equity that inspires her peers and colleagues. Her commitment to including and uplifting the voices of her peers and encouraging others to be their full, authentic selves is cherished by the Penn GSE community.
Chenelle Boatswain, an EdD candidate in educational leadership, is recognized for her significant contributions in supporting and advocating for her fellow students. Her notable leadership and thoughtful design of programming to improve and enrich the EdD student experience has created a lasting impact on her peers. She has made exceptional contributions to the diversity and inclusion efforts at Penn GSE through community building and individual mentorship. She has built meaningful, authentic relationships with countless students and has demonstrated a deep commitment to encouraging others to effectively navigate obstacles and access the support and resources necessary to succeed and thrive. Her extensive impact and enthusiasm are cherished by the many students with whom she has worked.
Christopher Rogers, a PhD candidate in the literacy, culture, and international education division, has been a valued Penn GSE student and dedicated member of the community at large. He reflects the core values and culture of Penn GSE through his community involvement. His significant contributions to underserved communities have demonstrated his extraordinary dedication and commitment to innovation, impact, and justice.
Sarah Gudenkauf, an EdD candidate in educational leadership, has greatly advocated for and enriched the EdD student experience. Her support efforts for her peers have created systemically sustainable change towards reliable and equitable solutions to better support EdD students. She has led these efforts with humility and selflessness and has fostered a sense of community and connectedness throughout the doctoral student community at Penn GSE. The staff, faculty, and peers with whom she has collaborated all recognize her exceptional service to her fellow students and the lasting impact these outcomes will have on future cohorts of students.
Saryu Sanghani changed from a dual degree (Dental/GSE) status to a full-time GSE degree last fall. She became a grad assistant in the Office of Student Services (OSS) this spring, and her positive impact on the GSE community was immediate. Ms. Sanghani began working with the LGBT Center to fill a student support void at Penn GSE. She provided leadership collaborating with students, faculty, and staff to reconstitute a student organization supporting the LGBTQ+ community, the Penn GSE Pride Alliance. Her work represents a level of support for this community missing in years past. The synergy of this student/staff/faculty collaboration is unprecedented in the last 20 years at GSE and will instantiate community of support and scholarship.
Saida Harpi provided leadership for the relaunch of We Support Diversity of Mind (WSDM), celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. This student organization supports GSE students of color and allies in providing an inclusive community and support their scholarship. After working on her own strategy for navigating through the GSE ecosystem, Ms. Harpi began this endeavor late in the fall semester. In addition to managing the rigors of her academic program, she organized members of GSE affinity groups to recruit students for WSDM. She inspired a core group to serve on the board, and under her leadership as president, they established guiding documents, a vision, goals, and a process for sustaining the organization. Ms. Harpi worked closely with staff, faculty, and alumni to plan year-end events in less than a semester’s time. Her commitment to making the voices of students of color are shared and heard has been unwavering. It is her hope that with the revival of WSDM, students of color will have agency to co-create support resources and contribute to student success in their academic journey through Penn GSE.
Andre Zarate is a student in the mid-career doctoral program in educational leadership, one of Penn GSE’s executive-format programs. Mr. Zarate has been a champion of diversity and inclusion and the “conscience” of the program. He has the unique gift of both challenging his colleagues to do better while also strengthening their ability to do so. Many of the members of his cohort can attest to learning and growing from his passionate example.
Expanding its outreach within the community, Penn Dental Medicine announces a new partnership with Woods Services to provide dental treatment for its clients and residents; Woods is a Pennsylvania- and New Jersey-based nonprofit that serves children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and acquired brain injuries. Woods’ existing dental care center within its Langhorne, Penn.-based campus will undergo extensive renovations over the next six to eight weeks, reopening later this summer as Penn Dental Medicine at Woods Mikey Faulkner Dental Care Center.
Renovations to the clinic will add two operatories (expanding from three to five), provide state-of-the-art equipment, enhance the waiting area and reception check-in, and migrate current patient files into a new electronic health record system utilized by Penn Dental Medicine.
“We are thrilled to be expanding our service and care within the community through this Woods partnership,” said Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean Mark Wolff. “It not only allows us to help provide comprehensive care to the Woods clients, but also offers an invaluable setting for our students to gain experience caring for individuals with a wide range of disabilities.” Postgraduate students within Penn Dental Medicine’s Advanced Education in General Dentistry program will provide clinical care at the center under close faculty supervision.
“Woods is pleased to work with Dean Wolff to enhance dental services for our clients and residents,” said Tine Hansen-Turton, president and CEO, Woods Services. “Penn’s personalized care and interdisciplinary team approach are perfectly aligned with Woods, as is its emphasis on preparing the next generation of dentists to care for patients with special needs. Penn’s dentists will be able to perform procedures at our on-campus dental clinic that in the past would have required a visit to a specialist for treatment. This expansion of services will be less disruptive for our clients, further enhancing their quality of life.”
With Dean Wolff’s appointment in 2018, he established dental care for persons with disabilities as a priority for the School, and in 2021, Penn Dental Medicine opened the state-of-the-art Care Center for Persons with Disabilities at the School. Under his leadership, Penn is developing a national reputation for excellence in treating the dental needs of people with disabilities and in training dental students to care for these individuals.
Woods is organized around the principles of population health management and addresses the social determinants of health through a comprehensive continuum and system of care that connects prevention, wellness, education, behavioral health, and social services with coordinated and integrated healthcare delivery.
“The Medical Center at Woods serves as a national model for providing comprehensive, coordinated personalized care for people with complex diagnoses and medical conditions, like Mikey Faulkner, current Woods client and the clinic’s namesake,” said Ms. Hansen-Turton. “The opening of Penn Dental Medicine at Woods Mikey Faulkner Dental Clinic continues Woods’ commitment to providing an integrated healthcare experience for our clients – an approach that optimizes outcomes for individuals.”
This new care center will add to Penn Dental Medicine’s ongoing community care programs, which also include dental centers at Mercy LIFE, serving seniors in West Philadelphia; Puentes de Salud, serving the Latino community in South Philadelphia; and the PennSmiles mobile dental bus, serving children within the Philadelphia School District and area community health centers.
R. Michael Buckley, a physician and former executive director at Pennsylvania Hospital, a clinical professor in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of infectious diseases, and a former associate dean in PSOM, passed away from complications of cancer on April 9. He was 75.
Dr. Buckley was born in Tampa, FL. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale University in 1968, and while there he was a member of Yale’s All-American championship swimming team. In 1972, he earned an MD, also from Yale. He completed a medical residency in Chapel Hill, NC, and in 1975, he came to Penn as a postdoctoral trainee in infectious diseases in the department of medicine. He then proceeded to rise through the ranks in that department for the next several decades. In 1978, he became an assistant clinical professor, and in 1992, he was promoted to full clinical professor. While a clinical professor and physician, Dr. Buckley led Pennsylvania Hospital’s charge to address the AIDS epidemic, caring for thousands of patients with a unique compassion. Dr. Buckley eventually became division chief of infectious diseases and, in 1997, an associate dean of the School of Medicine.
At the hospital, Dr. Buckley continued to have an illustrious career. There, he became the chair of medicine, then the chief medical officer, and, from 2010 to 2014, executive director of Pennsylvania Hospital. In this role, he supervised care delivery to patients and spearheaded the financial interests of the hospital. In 2005, he won the Alfred Stengel Award Health System Champion Award from the School of Medicine. In 2014, he retired from Penn, and two years later, a portrait of Dr. Buckley was dedicated in the Zubrow Auditorium at Pennsylvania Hospital.
Outside of his professional responsibilities, Dr. Buckley served on several boards, including those of the Infectious Disease Society of America, Waverly Heights Senior Living, the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, and Kelly Greens of Fort Myers, FL.
He is survived by his wife, Sally; his children, Emily (Jonathan), Carrie (David), and Brian (Meghan); his brother, Tim (Fran); his sister, Ellen (David); and seven grandchildren. A funeral mass was held on April 19. Gifts in Dr. Buckley’s honor can be made to Abramson Cancer Center, the Pennsylvania Hospital Friends Fund, or the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative.
David Lancaster Crawford, a former adjunct professor of statistics in the Wharton School and a former faculty member in the department of economics in the School of Arts and Sciences, passed away on May 27. He was 71.
Born in Danville, Kentucky, Dr. Crawford received his BA with honors in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MS and PhD, also in economics, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1976, he joined Penn’s faculty as an assistant professor of economics in the School of Arts and Sciences, a position he held until 1981. Three years later, he returned to Penn as an adjunct professor of management in the Wharton School. For the next thirty years, he taught economics, human resource management, and statistics to students in the executive MPA, Wharton MBA, executive MBA, executive MSE, and undergraduate programs at Wharton, as well as in the Fels Institute of Government and the Annenberg School for Communication. Dr. Crawford received seven teaching awards at Penn during the 1980s and 1990s, and joined Penn’s 25-Year Club in 2009. He retired from Penn in 2013, but remained at Penn as a senior fellow in the Center for Human Resources in the management department at Wharton.
Outside of Penn, Dr. Crawford also taught at Rutgers University and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. He was the founding president of Econsult Corporation, a role in which he served as a consultant and expert witness on economic and statistical issues for private firms and government agencies. He testified in more than seventy cases in Federal District Courts and the state courts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Dr. Crawford consulted extensively on human resource management issues and racked up an extensive record of political service with the Democratic party in the Philadelphia area and suburbs. In 2012, he was elected a Burlington County (NJ) Democratic Committeeman and also served as a senior advisor to the Philadelphia Mayor’s Advisory Commission on Construction Industry Diversity. He was an advisor to Michael Nutter’s 2007 Philadelphia mayoral campaign; several local elections in Medford, NJ; the Philadelphia City Council; the Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission; and the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
Dr. Crawford is survived by his wife, Kathleen Duffy; and son, Charles Crawford. A memorial service will be held at a later time. To honor his memory, donations may be made to Food Bank of South Jersey or the American Humanist Association. To share a memory of David, please write to Kathy or Charlie at kathyduffy2022@gmail.com.
Robert F. “Gieg” Giegengack, an emeritus professor of earth and environmental studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, died on June 4 after a brief illness. He was 83.
Dr. Giegengack earned a BA in geology from Yale in 1960. He then earned an MS, also in geology, from the University of Colorado at Boulder and returned to Yale for his PhD in 1968. After graduating from Yale, he came to Penn as an assistant professor of geology. In 1972, he established the first environmental sciences major at Penn, forming a department in the School of Arts and Sciences that now encompasses the field of geology. The next year, Dr. Giegengack became an associate professor of geology, and later in the decade, he was appointed chair of the department. He eventually became a full professor. During his time at Penn, Dr. Giegengack engaged actively in Penn’s governance, chairing the University Council’s Academic Review Committee from 1987 to 1988 and the Faculty Senate’s Nominating Committee from 1995 to 1996. In 1978, he was appointed head of Penn’s Benjamin Franklin Scholars program, a position he held for over two decades; he also served on the board of the Penn Press. He was a co-founder and the inaugural director of the Institute for Environmental Studies and served on several temporary consultative committees across Penn.
Dr. Giegengack was renowned for his teaching. In 1979, he won Penn’s prestigious Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award. Fifteen years later, he won the Ira Abrams Distinguished Teaching Award (Almanac May 3, 1994). One citation for the Abrams Award described Dr. Giegengack as “the single most influential teacher I have encountered.” Another commentator said, “He gave us a sense and a beginning understanding of the interrelationship and wholeness of all the disciplines—humanities, natural and social sciences, and philosophy.” Dr. Giegengack also won the CGS (College of General Studies) Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Penn Friars Senior Society Faculty Award, and a Dean’s Award for Innovation in Teaching. Dr. Giegengack mentored over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, and young faculty. He taught an annual summer fieldwork course at the Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association in Montana.
Outside of his teaching duties in SAS, Dr. Giegengack was a member of the Graduate School of Fine Arts’ landscape architecture and regional planning faculty from 1970 to 1992; held a SEAS appointment from 1978 to 1985; and headed Penn’s short-lived College of Thematic Studies from 1974 to 1975. He was a pioneer of interdisciplinary studies, also teaching in the Wharton School and the School of Medicine. In 2003, Dr. Giegengack was named the Davidson Kennedy Professor (Almanac December 9, 2003), which recognized his curricular innovation as the director of the Master of Environmental Studies program. He retired from Penn and took emeritus status in 2008.
Dr. Giegengack conducted field investigations on every continent except Australia, including projects exploring the history of climate change in the Sahara and the role of scarce water resources in maintaining political tension in the Middle East. He recovered fossils of pre-human primates in India, led an expedition to find endangered cheetahs in Egypt, and discovered a dinosaur fossil in the Sahara that made headlines around the world. Beginning in 1994, he developed a series of academically-based community-service courses, which aimed to reduce exposure to environmental lead among young children in West Philadelphia, to reduce tobacco use among pre-adolescent children, and to reduce exposure to environmental asthma triggers in Philadelphia homes. Dr. Giegengack’s research was published widely in publications like Science, Nature, Geology, and the International Journal of Climatology.
Dr. Giegengack enjoyed woodworking, making birdhouses and beehives, and was busy every year at honey harvest time.
He is survived by his wife, Francesca; his children, Jon (Claire), Matt (Jen), and Kate (Patrick); and six grandchildren. Memorial gifts may be made to the Greg and Susan Walker Endowment, which enables students in programs of Earth & environmental science at Penn to pursue independent research projects: https://giving.aws.cloud.upenn.edu/fund?program=SAS&fund=401940.
Frederick Anthony Simeone, a former neurosurgeon at the Pennsylvania Hospital, a former faculty member in Penn’s department of neuroscience, and the namesake of Philadelphia’s Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, passed away peacefully on June 11. He was 86.
Dr. Simeone grew up in the Kensington and Allegheny neighborhoods of Philadelphia and attended Thomas Edison High School. After receiving a scholarship, he attended Temple University as an undergraduate. He also earned a medical degree there, then completed residencies at the Mayo Clinic and at Penn. He performed research and neurosurgery as a faculty member at Harvard University Medical School after graduating, then came to Penn. He initially served as an assistant professor of neurosurgery in Penn’s School of Medicine, then was promoted in 1973 to associate professor. He eventually became a full professor. His rise to eminence was paralleled at Pennsylvania Hospital, where he eventually became the chair of neurosurgery, and at Jefferson Medical College, where he became chief of neurosurgery. At Jefferson, Dr. Simeone convinced the Wills Eye Institute to provide facilities for specialized innovative neurosurgical procedures. He researched cerebral vasospasm and published his findings widely. With Richard Rothman, he co-authored The Spine, a seminal textbook on spinal surgery. He joined Penn’s 25-Year Club in 1994 and retired from Penn and the Pennsylvania Hospital in 2008.
In his leisure time, Dr. Simeone was an avid collector of antique racing cars. Beginning with a collection of four that he inherited from his father, he investigated and procured vehicles he considered works of art, expanding to a collection of over 75 vehicles that had been designed for competitions. He established the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Southwest Philadelphia in 2008, donating his collection of racing sports cars and automobile literature for posterity and public display. Bolstered by Dr. Simeone’s philosophy of “restore, not rebuild,” the museum has won awards all over the world, and Dr. Simeone’s book The Stewardship of Historically Important Automobiles was named publication of the year by the International Historic Motoring Awards (2013). He considered the museum his gift to Philadelphia, a sentiment that many commentators and racecar enthusiasts have echoed.
Dr. Simeone served as a Major in the U.S. Army and was knighted (Cavaliere) by the president of the republic of Italy.
He is survived by his daughter, Christina; son-in-law, Jonathan Burton; and granddaughter, Alessandra Burton. A memorial was held on June 16.
James Byron Snow, Jr., an emeritus professor of otorhinolaryngology in the Perelman School of Medicine, passed away on May 28. He was 90.
Dr. Snow was born in Oklahoma City in 1932, the son of a prominent pediatrician. The family moved to San Antonio, TX during World War II, but returned to Oklahoma City, where Dr. Snow graduated from Central High School as valedictorian. He then earned a BS from the University of Oklahoma in 1953 and earned an MD cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1956. Afterwards, he served his surgical internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD and completed a residency in otolaryngology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, MA. From 1960 to 1961, he served as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps at the 121st Evacuation Hospital in Korea, where he was the only otolaryngologist in the Eighth U.S. Army.
After completing his military service, Dr. Snow joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City in 1962. The next year, he was promoted to chief of staff of the hospitals of the University of Oklahoma, and in 1964, he became a full professor and the head of the department of otorhinolaryngology. While at Oklahoma, he won the Regents’ Award for Superior Teaching in 1970, and a certificate from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. In 1972, Dr. Snow came to Penn to become a professor and the chair of Penn’s School of Medicine’s otolaryngology department, which was renamed otorhinolaryngology and human communication for the occasion (Almanac July 11, 1972). Two years later, he assumed a secondary appointment as an adjunct professor of oral medicine in Penn Dental Medicine.
While at Penn, Dr. Snow’s academic work and contributions to his field were extensive. He published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles describing his work on the pathophysiology of the inner ear, the olfactory system, and the treatment of head and neck cancer with combined surgery and radiation therapy. He wrote Introduction to Otorhinolaryngology and Controversy in Otolaryngology and co-authored several other books, and edited several editions of influential textbook Ballenger’s Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery. He served on boards of several prominent scientific societies, including as director of the American Board of Otolaryngology and as president of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association and the American Laryngological Association. In 1990, he became the first director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. In this position, he served as a liaison between the NIH and NASA. In 1997, he presided over the prestigious conference of the Collegium Otorhinolaryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. He retired from Penn in 1991 and took emeritus status.
Dr. Snow was widely recognized for his service. In 1991, he was inducted into the Society of Scholars of Johns Hopkins University, and two years later, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Deafness Research Foundation. The collegium Dr. Snow had presided over in 1997 created the James B. Snow, Jr., MD Tinnitus Research Award in his honor, and in 2003, he won the Award of Merit of the American Otological Society. In his free time, Dr. Snow was active at the St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Oxford, PA.
He is survived by his sons, James (Susan Sprenger) and John (Meryl Bilotta Snow); his daughter, Sallie (Daniel Sharer); five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and his “dearest companion” Anna Jane Mercer. A burial service was held on June 21. In lieu of flowers, a contribution to Jenner’s Pond Retirement Community Benevolent Fund, 2000 Greenbriar Lane, West Grove PA 19390, may be made.
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 Suite 300, 2929 Walnut St., (215) 898-8136 or email record@ben.dev.upenn.edu.
To read the Academic Rules for PhD Programs, a revised policy that goes into effect in July 2022, click here.
The PhD Student Leave of Absence Policy has been amended, in partnership with the Graduate Council of the Faculties and the Council of Graduate Deans, to include the addition of one semester of health insurance coverage for funded PhD students who take medical or family leave, effective July 2022. The updated policy has now been adopted and published in the Pennbook.
—Beth A. Winkelstein, Interim Provost —Karen Detlefsen, Vice Provost for Education
PhD students will be granted a leave of absence for military duty, medical reasons, or family leave; any of these may require documentation. Military, medical and family leave “stop the clock” on time to completion. Personal leave for other reasons may be granted with the approval of the graduate group chair in consultation with the Graduate Dean of the student’s school, but does not, absent exceptional circumstances, “stop the clock” on time to completion.
Notification of permission or denial of leaves of absence will be communicated in writing by the student’s graduate group chair. The terms of the leave will be specified at the time the leave is granted, including the extent to which the student will have access to resources, facilities, or campus—either physically or remotely—during the leave period. Requirements for return may be imposed by the graduate group chair in consultation with the Graduate Dean of the student’s school; such requirements will be provided in writing to the student when the leave is approved.
Leaves of absence from PhD studies are typically granted for one or two semesters. Leaves requested for a longer period are approved only in exceptional circumstances (for example, mandatory military service). Students may request an extension of leave, to be approved by the graduate group chair in consultation with the Graduate Dean. Extension requests should be made by the student at least 30 days before the expiration of the original leave of absence.
Continuous registration as a graduate student is required unless a formal leave of absence is granted. A student is considered to have withdrawn from candidacy for the degree if the student: (1) fails to return from leave as scheduled, (2) fails to secure an extension of a prior leave, or (3) does not have an approved leave of absence and fails to register each semester. In these cases, approval to return by the Graduate Dean and recertification are required as outlined in the Academic Rules for PhD Programs.
While on leave, a student’s funding from the University is deferred until the student returns from leave. Students receiving funding from external sources, such as government grants, are subject to the conditions established by the funding source. Students whose University funding includes coverage of the Penn Student Health Insurance Plan will continue to receive coverage for their individual health insurance while on medical or family leave for one full semester; students may petition for an additional semester. No language or other degree examinations may be taken while a student is on a leave of absence. Students may not earn credit for courses taken at another institution during a leave of absence. Leave should not be granted for the purpose of evading tuition charges.
Students returning from leave are not guaranteed to return to the same research group, project, or lab. If necessary, the graduate group will make every effort to find a suitable new research group, project, or lab for the student.
In order to ensure successful completion of the PhD, a student’s leave(s) should generally not exceed two years over the course of the doctoral program. If, however, it is determined in an individual case that extension of the leave period(s) beyond two years is appropriate, students may need to repeat coursework or other requirements, as determined by the graduate group chair. Original funding limits remain in place for students who must repeat requirements. In addition, the graduate group chair, in consultation with the Graduate Dean, will annually review each case in which a further extension has been granted, or repeated leaves have been taken, to assess if the length and/or number of leaves have made it impossible for a student to make sufficient continuous academic progress to complete the degree. In such a case, the student will be advised that no further extensions will be granted and that they will be withdrawn from the program.
Important note: Students taking Family Leave who anticipate adding a dependent (e.g., newborn) to their Penn Student Insurance Policy must remain in active student status at the start of the fall semester. See more information at https://catalog.upenn.edu/pennbook/family-friendly-policies-phd-students/.
The procedures for requesting and returning from leave are outlined here.
Robert C. Hornik, the Wilbur Schramm Professor Emeritus of Communication and Health Policy at the Annenberg School for Communication, was honored with the Steven H. Chaffee Career Achievement Award by the International Communication Association. It was awarded at the association’s 72nd annual conference, recently held in Paris.
Dr. Hornik is an expert in evaluating health-focused mass media campaigns around the world. He has been a principal investigator for more than $40 million in NIH and USAID grant funding.
The award was given out by Craig Scott, ICA awards chair and professor in the department of communication studies at University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication. The following were his remarks:
“Bob Hornik’s work is one of our field’s outstanding exemplars of engaged communication scholarship with impact on society and human lives worldwide,” said Dr. Scott. “In his books, his participation in five monographs from the National Academy of Sciences, over 150 other publications, dozens of technical reports, multiple appearances to provide testimony to Congressional committees, over $40 million in NIH and USAID funding, and his evaluation work assessing AIDS, child survival, tobacco control, substance misuse prevention, and many other communication interventions, Dr. Hornik has done perhaps more than any one individual to shape our understanding of how to use, mediated communication to shape behavior in prosocial ways.
“Dr. Hornik’s work has helped define how to conduct formative research to design such efforts, as well as how to properly evaluate them. His book on Development Communication is foundational with respect to communication for social progress in less-industrialized countries; his edited volume on Public Health Campaigns is perhaps the single most valuable resource on that topic.
“Dr. Hornik’s research continues to push the limits of the discipline, combining an extraordinarily ambitious task—a census of media content regarding tobacco over a five-year period—with a rolling longitudinal survey concerning tobacco-related outcomes to provide a unique picture of the influence of communication in a world of fragmented, round-the-clock media content. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Bob Hornik for this amazing body of work that we honor with the Steven H. Chaffee Career Achievement Award. Congratulations, Dr. Hornik.”
Marc Minichello has been named Mid-Atlantic Region Men’s Field Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association.
Mr. Minichello’s toss of 81.17m (266 feet, 3 inches) at the NCAA Championships set a new school and Ivy League record, and broke his own record of 80.38m (263 feet 8 inches), which he set in late May at the NCAA East Preliminaries.
Hailing from Exeter, Pennsylvania, Mr. Minichello also earned First-Team All-Ivy recognition. At the Ivy League Outdoor Heptagonal Championships in early May, he placed first in the javelin throw and set a new Ivy Heps record with a toss of 76.78m (251 feet, 11 inches).
At the Penn Relays in late April, he won the javelin college championship with a toss of 77.42m (254 feet), a new personal record.
An Olympic-level talent, Mr. Minichello competed at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, (held in 2021 because of the pandemic) and finished fourth.
A Wharton School alumnus, he is one of only nine Quakers in school history to win an individual track and field championship.
Marci Hamilton, professor of practice in political science, and Anne Papageorge, Senior Vice President for Facilities and Real Estate Services, have been named Metro Philadelphia Power Women.
The Power Women list honors lawyers, entrepreneurs, politicians, businesswomen, chefs, educators, advocates, and other women leaders who are looking to advance female leadership in their fields. These influential leaders are working towards a more equitable future for women in Pennsylvania and across the world, and their achievements, hard work, and innovation serve as a source of inspiration for the next generation of female leaders.
Ms. Hamilton is the founder and CEO of CHILD USA, a national think tank for child protection. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children and God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty. She was a clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Ms. Papageorge is responsible for planning, design and construction; facilities operations, maintenance, and utilities; and real estate operations and development at Penn. She oversees a department of approximately 1,000 staff, $200 million in operating expenses, and a capital budget averaging approximately $350 million per year. She directs the Penn Connects campus development plan and the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee responsible for developing and implementing the Climate and Sustainability Action Plan for the University.
Hannah Zlotnick, a graduate student in the department of bioengineering and a member of the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, has been named a Schmidt Science Fellow.
She is one of 29 early-career scientists from around the world in this year’s cohort, with each receiving support for one to two years, $100,000 in salary support per year, individualized mentoring, and a series of professional development sessions as they pivot to the next stages of their research agendas.
The fellowship is a program of Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt that aims to tackle society’s toughest challenges by supporting interdisciplinary researchers at the start of their careers.
Working at the intersection of materials science, biology, and applied clinical research, Ms. Zlotnick’s postdoctoral work will involve developing advanced bioprinting techniques for regenerative medicine. Such advances are necessary to recreate the multi-cellular composition of orthopedic tissues, such as those found in the knee joint. Lab-grown tissue models can then be used to broaden our understanding of how degenerative diseases progress after injury, limit the need for animal models, and serve as a platform for therapeutic discovery.
During her graduate studies, Ms. Zlotnick, and her PhD advisor and McKay Lab director Robert Mauck, the Mary Black Ralston Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and professor of bioengineering, demonstrated how individual cells can be non-invasively manipulated via magnetic fields. After stem cells are suspended in a hydrogel solution, a magnetic fluid is added, allowing the researchers to use an external magnetic field to finely adjust the three-dimensional arrangement of those cells. Once the optimal gradient is achieved, the hydrogel is crosslinked with ultraviolet light, locking the arrangement in place, and the magnetic fluid is washed away. The resulting engineered tissues can be cultured in the laboratory.
As part of her research with external fields in clinical settings, Ms. Zlotnick also explored how gravity could be used to non-invasively position drug delivery microcapsules within patients during surgery.
Following a yearlong evaluation and inclusive process, the name of Roger Brooke Taney, former chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, will be removed from a decorative medallion adorning the exterior of historic Silverman Hall at Penn’s Carey Law School.
The decision comes after a formal process led by the Taney Medallion Task Force, formed by Dean Theodore Ruger in May 2021. Dean Ruger charged the committee to study the history of how Mr. Taney’s name came to be memorialized on the building and to recommend whether to retain it. The Law School, he said, is committed to anti-racism as part of its dedication to justice and equality under law. Dean Ruger accepted the task force’s recommendation to remove Mr. Taney’s name from the decorative medallion. In February, then-Penn President Amy Gutmann approved Dean Ruger’s recommendation, guided by the framework put forward by the Campus Iconography Group (CIG).
The inclusion of Taney’s name on the building has long baffled and bothered many students and faculty of the Law School, as Taney wrote the majority opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which upheld slavery and denied that people of African heritage could become citizens of the United States. The case was a significant factor in the Civil War that began only four years later. The Dred Scott decision was overruled by the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the U.S., providing for equal protection of the law for all citizens.
The task force, chaired by Sarah Barringer Gordon, the Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and a professor of history, was composed of Law School staff, students, alumni, and faculty. Committee members researched Mr. Taney’s background, organized community meetings about the medallion, and encouraged public input.
“We approached our charge with a very open mind, investigating the history of the building and the message that such medallions send to our community, and trying to learn more about how this particular decision was made,” Dr. Gordon said. “We consulted with current and former students, colleagues, and community members and pored over scholarship on the Dred Scott case and its author.” Among the questions the committee attempted to answer were what connections Mr. Taney may have had to the University and what the prominent display of his name symbolizes.
Silverman Hall was the first Law School building on the campus in West Philadelphia and was dedicated in February 1900. The exterior is lined on all four sides with decorative limestone shields and medallions bearing the last names of legal luminaries. The task force learned that the names were selected by a committee composed of faculty and trustees, with final approval from Judge John Clark Hare, an emeritus member of the faculty, according to a final report by the medallion task force. However, they found there was no discussion in those materials about how Mr. Taney was chosen to have a medallion on the building. Nor was there evidence there or elsewhere in the historical materials associated with the building that Mr. Taney had any connection to the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Taney came from a prominent family in Maryland that held generations of people in slavery on their tobacco plantation, according to the report. He studied law at Dickinson College and became the attorney general of Maryland before serving in the administration of President Andrew Jackson, eventually holding the cabinet position of U.S. attorney general. President Jackson later nominated him for the Supreme Court, where he was the fifth chief justice. Early in his life, Mr. Taney apparently opposed enslavement and freed those he held as slaves in 1818. By the early 1830s, however, he became an increasingly doctrinaire supporter of slavery and believed that his opinion in Dred Scott would end debates over slavery. Rather than ending debates, the ruling provoked immediate and sustained criticism. Dred Scott was a key factor in Abraham Lincoln’s campaign for president in 1860, and an important factor in the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
In November 2021, the task force submitted to Dean Ruger its unanimous recommendation that the Law School chisel Mr. Taney’s name off the medallion. A replica will be created and displayed in the Biddle Law Library, along with explanatory material associated with the building and the Dred Scott case. The task force recommended that a minimum of ten years should pass until a decision is made on what name, if any, should replace Mr. Taney’s on the exterior.
“The medallions on historic Silverman Hall were selected more than 120 years ago to inspire those who study in our buildings,” Dean Ruger said. “With that goal in mind, and with the University’s encouragement, the committee I appointed did a deep dive into Roger Taney’s history and engaged the full Law School community in discussion. The committee recommended a plan that encourages action and education.”
The Law School isn’t the first entity in Philadelphia to take on Mr. Taney’s legacy and remove his name. The Taney Dragons took the Little League World Series by storm in 2014, with their underdog status and star 13-year-old girl pitcher Mo’ne Davis. The team decided to change their name to the Philadelphia Dragons in 2020 to eliminate the reference to the controversial jurist. And there is an ongoing effort to rename the city’s Taney Street after African American activist and scholar Caroline LeCount. Other commemorations to Mr. Taney have been removed in Annapolis and Baltimore and from the national House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
The decision to remove Mr. Taney’s name is just one of the ways that schools and departments around campus are taking a fresh look at iconography, said Joann Mitchell, senior vice president for institutional affairs and chief diversity officer. The Campus Iconography Group, which convened in 2020, was charged with considering issues of representation through art and symbols, particularly those considered to conflict with Penn’s values. That group, co-chaired by Ms. Mitchell and Frederick Steiner, dean of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, developed frameworks that lay out criteria for removing such artworks from campus grounds, as well as a set of guidelines for new acquisitions. The Taney task force used the CIG framework.
“The Law School has been amongst the leaders in trying to look carefully at the imagery and the messages that it’s sending to their students, applicants, and staff,” Ms. Mitchell said, pointing to the Law School’s recent efforts to highlight more diverse portraiture in their buildings.
The decision to remove Mr. Taney’s name “was not just a knee jerk reaction,” said Ms. Mitchell. “It was a long, thoughtful process that was inclusive. They submitted a detailed report outlining how it comported with the criteria established by the Campus Iconography Group.”
Dean Steiner said the CIG framework was intended to help schools and departments assess a whole person, and especially the whole person’s contribution to Penn. The Taney Medallion Task Force focused on setting up a process that would allow for a variety of responses and feedback.
“Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of students, faculty, staff, and alumni said it really is past time for us to not have this be the message we send the world,” Dr. Gordon said.
They only heard from two individuals, both students, who opposed removing the name, Dr. Gordon said. One said the effort was too drastic; the second noted that Mr. Taney was the first Roman Catholic Supreme Court justice and thought the removal might send an anti-Catholic message. Dr. Gordon looked into that concern and found that there were very prominent Catholic critics of the Dred Scott decision at the time.
Dr. Gordon said one of the aspects of the research that was most important to the way the committee thought about Mr. Taney’s medallion was the work of the Monument Lab, the public art and history studio that grew out of research at the Weitzman School, which did a survey of monuments in the United States. They found that about 3,000 Civil War monuments were put up between 1890 and 1920 and they were overwhelmingly dedicated to pro-slavery politicians, judges, and Confederate officers.
“The idea is not to erase all mention of Taney but to send a message from the outside of our building that doesn’t endorse human bondage and racism,” Dr. Gordon said. “We don’t want to deny Taney was on our exterior and that many people in the Jim Crow era valorized a ‘Lost Cause’ version of the Civil War. But we certainly don’t want to endorse that false interpretation.”
“We don’t want to erase the past, and we will work with our wonderful Biddle Law librarians to create a more carefully contextualized understanding of who Taney was and why his decision was so important to American history,” she said. “But we also are committed to projecting a more accurate and inclusive vision on the exterior walls of our first Law School building, which commemorate great legal thinkers.”
Adapted from a Penn Today article by Kristen de Groot, June 22, 2022.
Morris Arboretum In-person events. Info: https://www.morrisarboretum.org/.
7/11 Storytime with Melissa; 10:30 a.m.; ages 3-6.
7/11 Global Lives of Medicines: Materials, Markets, and Healing Practices Across Asia; a collective project on the cross-cultural exchange of medicines and the ways in which global trade networks and local healing practices intertwined across Asia and with other parts of the world; 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Perry World House and Zoom webinar; register for Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/global-lives-zoom; register to attend in-person: https://tinyurl.com/global-lives-in-person (Perry World House). Also July 12, 1:30-3 p.m.
7/11 Territories and Who Killed Colin Roach; two films by British installation artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, focusing on the experience of the Black British; 6 p.m.; Harold Prince Theatre, Annenberg Center; register: https://pennlivearts.org/event/territories (Penn Live Arts, Institute for Contemporary Art).
Morris Arboretum In-person events. Info: https://www.morrisarboretum.org/.
7/9 More Hidden Gems Tour; 11 a.m.
7/11 Fat Accumulation Induces Heterogeneous Regions of Softness in Fatty Liver; David Li, Perelman School of Medicine; noon; room 225, Towne Building (Physical Sciences Oncology Center).
Quantum Engineering Summer Seminar Series Hybrid events in room 101, Levine Hall, and Zoom webinars. Join: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/97615863667.
7/8 Private-Public Partnerships; Jon Felbinger, Quantum Economic Development Consortium; noon.
-- This is an update to the Summer AT PENN calendar. To submit an event for a future weekly update or AT PENN calendar, email the salient details to almanac@upenn.edu.
University of Pennsylvania Police Department Crime Report
Below are the Crimes Against Persons, Crimes Against Society and Crimes Against Property from the campus report for June 20-26, 2022. 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 for the dates of June 20-26, 2022. The University Police actively patrol from Market St to Baltimore and from the Schuylkill River to 43rd St 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.
Camera and extractor taken from vehicle
Offender in possession of narcotics/Arrest
Money stolen from unsecured office
Unsecured package stolen from lobby
Parked and unattended automobile stolen
Gift card and food voucher taken from office
Doors to residence breached open
Convenience store robbed at gunpoint, money and iPhone taken
Money taken from secured locker
Unknown offenders fired handguns into automobile, breaking glass and cutting complainant
Two offenders forcibly took complainant’s bag
Unknown offender damaged a camera, rug, and glass cases
Offender set a trashcan on fire/PFD responded
Bike secured with cable lock taken
Complainant sent payment for false apartment rental
Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 9 incidents (5 aggravated assaults and 4 robberies) with 1 arrest were reported for June 20-26, 2022, by the 18th District, covering the Schuylkill River to 49th St & Market St to Woodland Avenue.
S 40th & Market Sts
Focus on well-being with Penn’s 11th year of Be in the Know! The 2022–2023 campaign launched on July 1, and again, includes exciting ways to support your health and overall well-being.
Watch for upcoming communications on the 2022–2023 Be in the Know campaign, which launched July 1.
For complete campaign details, visit www.hr.upenn.edu/beintheknow. To access the Virgin Pulse platform, visit https://join.virginpulse.com/penn.
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