Here’s how Penn groups are celebrating Gender Equity Week this year
This story was originally published on March 25, 2026 in The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Writer: Moukthikadevi Kanakala
The week is comprised of nine events, many of which will be co-hosted by student groups and Penn organizations. Ahead of the programming, The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke to members of the PAGE team about their goals.
“Our goal is to get as many people energized as possible,” College junior and PAGE Chair Ashley Kim told the DP. “Gender Equity Week is really open to everybody and all lived experiences.”
Programming began on Monday with a zine-making dinner hosted in collaboration with the LGBT Center, followed by a Safe Sex Trivia Night co-hosted by PennFems and Penn Women’s Center. College first-year and PAGE Programming Chair Fernanda Portales said “it was really nice to see” people “willing to collaborate, start talking, and share about their lives” during the dinner.
Tuesday’s events included a Sustainable Period Workshop hosted with Penn Reproductive Justice — aimed at providing education on and distributing menstrual products — and a free Plan B distribution in partnership with the Women’s Center.
“Gender Equity Week is a great way of familiarizing yourself with the resources and the overall events that we try to have for the Penn community,” Portales said. “These events can bring you so much learning, whether or not you identify with the student body that we usually represent.”
Kim added that collaboration was a central focus in planning this year’s programming. PAGE partnered with multiple campus groups, including the Cultural Resource Centers and Penn’s minority coalition groups — commonly known as the 7B — to highlight various aspects of gender equity.
Penn Arts & Sciences Pathways: Luke Godsey, C’26
This story was originally published on March 16, 2026 in Penn Arts & Sciences.
Godsey, who grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, has gained new ways of connecting with their roots as a linguistics major at Penn.
“I do come from a place that is more cows than people, and Philadelphia is chock full of people,” says Luke Godsey, C’26, a linguistics major from Science Hill, Kentucky. After arriving at Penn as a Spanish and Biology double major, Godsey was drawn to linguistics; the work, especially research they did on Appalachian dialects to combat harmful stigmatizations, helped them feel more seen. In a particularly notable moment, Marlyse Baptista, President’s Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, reached out to them to join her research team. It was so influential that Godsey is now working toward a doctoral program in linguistics.
Outside of their studies, Godsey enjoys crocheting, quilting, and working at Penn’s Women’s Center, where they collaborated with a coworker, Tryphena (Vena) Zarief, C’25, to establish an art program called “What’s your Story?” that awards grants for students on campus. As their future unfolds, Godsey hopes to continue connecting with people and learning their stories: “I’ve just really learned the beauty of people.”
How to Stay Ahead of AI as an Early-Career Engineer
This story was originally published on December 25, 2025 in IEEE Spectrum.
Writer: Gwendolyn Rak
“AI is not going to take your job. The person who uses AI is going to take your job.”
This is an idea that has become a refrain for, among others, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has publicly made the prediction several times since October 2023. Meanwhile, other AI developers and stalwarts say the technology will eliminate countless entry-level jobs. These predictions have come at the same time as reports of layoffs at companies including IBM and Amazon, causing anxiety for tech workers—especially those starting their careers, whose responsibilities are often more easily automated.
Early reports have borne out some of these anxieties in employment data. For example, entry-level hiring at the 15 biggest tech firms fell 25 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to a report from SignalFire last May. Still, it’s unclear what the long-term effects will be, or whether hiring cuts are actually a result of AI. For instance, while Meta laid off 600 employees from its AI division in October (and continued hiring other AI researchers), OpenAI began hiring junior software engineers.
In 2026, all new graduates may face a tougher job market in the United States. Employers’ rating of the job market for college graduates is now at its most pessimistic since 2020, according to data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Job Outlook 2026 survey. However, 49 percent of respondents still consider the job market “good” or “very good.”
So, what does the rise of generative AI mean for early-career engineers?
“This is a tectonic shift,” says Hugo Malan, president of the science, engineering, technology and telecom reporting unit within the staffing agency Kelly Services. AI agents aren’t poised to replace workers one-to-one, though. Instead, there will be a realignment of which jobs are needed, and what those roles look like.
A quarter-century of supporting Asian Pacific Islander students
This story was originally published on November 26, 2025 in Penn Today.
Writer: Dan Shortridge
Twenty-five years ago, the Pan-Asian American Community House(PAACH) opened its doors as a space to support Penn’s Asian Pacific Islander student communities and anyone interested in their diverse cultures and experiences.
Since then, it has provided both a physical space and a support network for students from Asia and of Asian descent, offering comfort, advice, counseling, food, and just a place to relax.
PAACH is also a place for cultural events and community celebrations, including student mixers, local trips, and workshops covering food, festivals and art. The center also supports events such as Asian Pacific American Heritage Week and groups highlighting music, dance, theatre, and spirituality.
“I think all of the students would agree with me when I say that PAACH is almost like a second home,” says fourth-year Megan Chan, chair of the Asian Pacific Student Coalition. “It’s more than just a cultural center.”
Alumnus Franklin Shen, an early PAACH founder who graduated in 2003, says he welcomed the community atmosphere and support. “I could find food, community, advice, mentorship,” Shen says. “My parents never went to college, so there was information about financial aid, how to navigate university life, how to study. PAACH really helped fill the gaps.”
La Casa Latina hosts Phila. high schoolers for Día de los Muertos college readiness event
This story was originally published on November 3, 2025 in The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Writer: Liya Ma
On Oct. 30, La Casa Latina hosted a Día de los Muertos event for local high school students to celebrate the holiday and be introduced to college readiness resources.
Held at the ARCH, the event was attended by around 60 high school students from George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science and Howard Furness High School, as well as around 50 Penn community members. The event featured cultural celebrations as well as college insights from current Penn students and Emmanuel Martinez, the associate director of Scholarly & Professional Development at Penn First Plus.
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a tradition celebrated in many Latin American cultures to “commemorate the lives of the dearly departed and to welcome the return of their spirits,” according to an article by the National Museum of the American Latino.
The Penn event, titled “Remembering Our Past, Building Our Futures,” began with an introductory presentation by Krista Cortes, the director of La Casa Latina. El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, a Mexican American-focused student organization, and Istmo y Vos, a Central American-focused student organization, sent volunteers to the event to talk with high school students.
Herinah Asaah, C’26: Empowered to Uplift, Driven to Change
This story was originally published on September 2, 2025 in The Penn Fund.
Writer: Maria Provenzano
Growing up, Herinah Asaah, C’26, and her family relocated frequently due to her mother’s career in the military, living in places as widespread as California, New York, and Hawaii.
While Herinah has always enjoyed the adventure of visiting new locales and meeting new people, Penn has offered her a stable home base to explore, learn, and engage with the community. “Starting at the University and knowing I would be here, in the same spot, for four years was really exciting for me. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know every part of campus, and my internships and jobs have allowed me to connect with different neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, as well.”
Through working with West Philadelphia children in a nonprofit summer camp and mentoring local public-school students with the Netter Center, Herinah developed a passion for educational equity. “In these organizations, I’ve been able to examine the gaps in education systems and how a lack of resources and funding directly impacts the children in these communities.” This work has inspired Herinah to focus on education as a human right, to ensure equal access for children across the globe.
While serving as the first-year coordinator for the Penn Association for Gender Equity (PAGE), Herinah was tasked with planning a pre-orientation program for incoming students and a fall semester fellowship. Through a Reunion gift from the Class of 1982 and additional direct gifts from the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women, PAGE received the funding required to successfully execute all aspects of the program and fellowship. The impact of this generosity made a lasting impression on Herinah, and allowed her to witness firsthand the power of alumni philanthropy: “I was very inspired by the support we received from donors. When I’m an alum, I plan to give back to ensure students like me can get the most out of their education and experience at Penn.”
Helping Hands
This story was originally published on August 22, 2025 in The Pennsylvania Gazette.
Writer: Caren Lissner
When Jonathan Muruako C’17 Gr’20 Gr’21 GM’22 SPP’24 applied to Penn from his small-town Mississippi high school, he didn’t know much about the University or the college application process and didn’t have anyone around with the experience to help.
He’d never even visited the East Coast or been on a plane.
“I was in a pretty low-performing high school,” he says. “We didn’t have any AP courses. I just applied to all of the Ivy League schools. Everyone at my school, including my guidance counselor, thought [Penn] was Penn State. No one had anything to say.”
Muruako’s parents were Nigerian immigrants, and his father died when he was young. But his mom encouraged him to work hard. He became first in his class, started a recycling program at his high school, and worked bagging groceries.
A decade later, with several University degrees under his belt, he’s an entrepreneur in Philadelphia leading a startup called Fitalyst, which provides online tools to empower students confronting the kinds of challenges he faced to “better allocate their time, effort, and campus resources.” And he’s part of a growing Penn network designed to build community and support among first-in-their-family college students and alumni who lack the resources that some Ivy Leaguers take for granted. When a student faces a family emergency, isn’t sure how to pursue graduate school, or can’t afford housing for an internship, this network is providing mentorships and resources to meet needs that have always been there but were largely hidden in the past.
Muruako falls into a category described as first-generation, low-income (FGLI, pronounced “fig-lee”) at the University, a demographic that in 2024–25 included approximately 22 percent of undergraduates on campus, according to Marc Lo, executive director of Penn First Plus, a program founded in 2019 to assist FGLI students with a hand up toward independence and security.
In the years since, the program has continued to evolve with a growing network of faculty, mentors, and alumni who want to make sure anyone trying to follow in their footsteps isn’t alone. Penn First Plus, or P1P, defines itself broadly as “the hub of University efforts to enhance the academic experiences of students who are the first in their families to pursue a four-year baccalaureate degree or come from modest financial circumstances.” But because other students may lack resources for a variety of reasons, the program offers help to any student who similarly struggles with a gap in resources.
Muruako—a biological basis of behavior (now neurology) major who finished his undergraduate degree before P1P was in place, but wishes he’d been able to call on that kind of help—says he’s seen Penn First Plus become crucial in identifying unmet needs. He cochairs the Penn First Plus Alumni Association as a way to use the knowledge amassed during what he estimates are 22 semesters spent at the University to benefit current and future students. The alumni group seeks to “advocate for more visibility and representation of the P1P experience on University alumni leadership boards and governance” and to “build and maintain a supportive network for social and economic advancement through knowledge-sharing and mentorship.”
My parents were immigrants, and I’m the first in my family to graduate college — but I won’t be the last
A daughter of Peruvian emigres and a first-generation student who graduated Penn last week offers a simple message to other Latin members of the Class of 2025: Never give up.
Dancing saved me.
In salsa, I found joy, healing, and freedom. In the loneliest days when I first came to the University of Pennsylvania — the oldest daughter of two immigrant parents and the first to attend college — it was in dance where I rediscovered myself, where I felt free, where I knew — I was meant to be here.
Like so many other students of Latin American descent, my graduation is the culmination of a long journey. My parents left everything behind in Perú — their home, sus familias, their language, their roots — all for the hope of something better. Not just for themselves, but for the generations to come.
And that sacrifice … I will never forget. In my darkest moments, when I felt like giving up, when I was too tired to keep going, I thought of them.
Of their strength. Of their courage. Of their love.
And it reminded me: that strength also lives in me.
I am a first-generation, low-income college student. La primera de mi familia en graduarse de la universidad. But I know I won’t be the last. Because behind me a whole generation of dreamers, fighters, and leaders is coming.
I come from Paterson, N.J. — a city with many difficulties, but also with a lot of life, a lot of culture, and a lot of dignity. The kind of place people overlook. But it built me.
To think that someone like me could make it from there to here — to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy league institution — still feels surreal.
The Class of 2025 made it here against all odds.
We graduated from high school during a pandemic — a time filled with fear, uncertainty, and pain. The world was dark. But we kept going. And now, we’re graduating into another kind of darkness.
A world that questions our worth. With policies that make us feel like we don’t belong.
A country where immigrant communities are under attack.
But let me tell you something:
We are still here. We are graduating. And that is resilience.
This diploma is more than a piece of paper.
It’s tangible evidence of every sleepless night.
Of every hidden tear.
Of every sacrifice made for our families.
Of every time we felt we couldn’t, but did it anyway.
At Penn, I’ve had the privilege to wear many hats and take part in many student organizations post-pandemic.
But let me be real with you.
There were moments I wanted to quit. Moments where I questioned my worth, my character, my light.
But even then … I kept going. Because I know who I am. I poured love, grace, and dedication into everything I touched. Because my parents didn’t raise me to be small. Because they didn’t raise me to quit. They raised me to believe in myself. In my character. In my dignity. In my resilient Latin nature. And despite the hatred, I kept going.
And to those who tried to turn off my light … here I am. Shining brighter than ever.
Because the struggle, el amor, and the faith that brought me here — they don’t fade. They just grow.
But I could not have done this without all of the people who stayed and loved me when I couldn’t love myself. To those who listened when I couldn’t speak. To those who reminded me I was never truly alone.
Class of 2025 — we did this. We are the first class to fully experience college life post-pandemic. We brought life back to this campus. We filled the gap that was left to make sure our Latino community was still present. We brought back organizations, started new ones, and created community in places that weren’t made for us. We carried the legacies left behind and built our own.
And no matter what the world tries to tell us — we know our worth. So as we step into this next chapter, I want to leave you with this:
Be bold. Be you. Confía en ti. This world needs people like us — who love hard, who work harder, who know struggle, but never give up.
Use this education — this privilege — to make change. To open doors for others. To build the world our parents dreamed of when they crossed borders and oceans.
To our parents: This achievement is as much yours as it is ours. Thank you for sacrificing, for enduring, for never giving up.
Thank you for teaching us to dream.
Thank you for loving us beyond belief.
They tried to make us feel like we didn’t belong. But here we are. Graduating. Fighting. Living.
And dancing, too.
Sandra María Navarro Davalos graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania last week with a bachelor of arts in communication concentrating in advocacy & activism, with minors in fine arts and Latinx & Latin American Studies. A native of Paterson, N.J., she is enrolled in the master’s program at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice. This essay is adapted from her remarks at Penn’s Latinx graduation ceremony.
Brewing Business: A Wharton Undergrad’s Experience Managing Penn’s Student-Run Café
In the back of Williams Hall’s ground floor, behind staircases that lead to deep hallways of classrooms, adjacent to a silent lounge where students write essays in foreign languages for said classes, a sign announces the Drink of the Week. The drink changes and is often relevant to Philadelphia, like the “Fly Eagles Chai!” during Super Bowl week. In the seating areas by the counter, students gossip, meet with professors, and wait for their shifts to begin. The baristas are deft, bouncing between taking orders and serving customers.
At around 4 p.m., Olivia Turman (W’26) springs into action, training new baristas and keeping track of inventory to ensure the café is stocked for the next day. Williams Café, better known as Wilcaf, is part of Penn Student Agencies, a set of student-run organizations that provide services to students from photography to laundry to water delivery. Every role, from the CEO of Penn Student Agencies (PSA) to the baristas, are students who balance their shifts and duties with their courses.
Olivia began as a barista at Wilcaf, making drinks and food items. She then transitioned into supervising the catering program, ensuring that events around campus were supplied with coffee and bagels. As operations manager this year, Olivia is responsible for the café’s backend operations.
“Day to day, I do our inventory and stocking,” Olivia explained. “Every Wednesday, I come in, put away our deliveries, and then count to see what we have and calculate our rates of utilization.”
Olivia is from a small town in West Virginia called Barboursville, a tight-knit community.
“It’s the kind of place where you still help your neighbors,” she said. “When I was looking at colleges, I was looking for places where I felt like I could find a similar sense of community.”
Beyond that, because so much of Barboursville is small businesses, she found specific power in the ways that they can play a significant role in bringing people together in a community. For her, Wilcaf serves to honor her upbringing and helps create and strengthen the communities that she applied to Penn for.
“Yes, we’re just a café on campus,” she admitted. “But for a lot of people, we’re their study spot or we’re the smiling face in the morning when they need their cup of coffee or their bagel.”
The junior is concentrating in management with a specialization in organizational effectiveness, so a significant amount of her work is not only relevant but also an application of her educational focus on leadership and management. One of the courses she’s currently taking, Management 2380: Organizational Behavior, has been directly valuable for leading as a cafe manager.
“Learning a lot about the best way to do a performance review is super helpful,” the West Virginia native said.
While performance reviews may seem like something most Wharton students only worry about after graduating, student workers at PSA do yearly performance evaluations.
“I’ve been able to go back and directly apply it when we’re writing the policies for these performance reviews.”
Beyond that, she uses skills from her finance and accounting Business Fundamentals courses when looking at the budget and accounting books. The case-study style of her coursework, ranging from Management 3010: Teamwork and Interpersonal Influence to Marketing 2110: Consumer Behavior, has allowed her to apply lessons from real-world challenges companies have faced to Wilcaf and PSA’s operations.
We’re learning about different pricing and marketing strategies and where certain companies went wrong, so we’re not making the same mistakes,” she said about her consumer behavior course. “It’s very helpful to see how companies came out of certain problems so that we can gauge accordingly.”
Another way that she’s learned about the applicability of her pre-professional and academic pursuits is through the alumni network—during Penn’s Homecoming weekend last year, PSA alumni came back for a reunion that was, of course, catered by Wilcaf. As she talked to the people who had gone through Penn Student Agencies, she understood how the skills she’s gained directly apply to the professional world.
Next year, she’ll be moving on to a role as the COO of Penn Student Agencies. Having mastered Wilcaf’s operations, she looks forward to understanding the different agencies better and strengthening the community between them.
As for her continued goals as a barista? She’s in the process of learning latte foam art. A leaf is the easiest for her, but she says a heart is the coolest.
Weitzman Student & Alum Designate Penn’s Oldest Property to Philadelphia Historic Register
Ke-An Chiang (MSHP’25), uncovered the 250-year history of the Greenfield Intercultural Center at 3708-12 Chestnut Street, which served several families as a suburban villa before being acquired by the University in 1982.
The building that houses Penn’s Greenfield Intercultural Center has been listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, thanks to a nomination authored by Ke-An Chiang, a Master of Science in Historic Preservation (MSHP) student at Weitzman.
Built circa 1845, the Reed-Hubley Residence, a 3-story villa at 3708-12 Chestnut Street, is believed to be the oldest building owned by the University of Pennsylvania, outside of Hospital properties.
Chiang conducted original historical research for the nomination in the Fall 2023 semester of HSPV 6000 Documentation, Research, and Recording I, taught by Francesca Ammon, associate professor of city and regional planning and historic preservation; Kecia Fong, senior lecturer in historic preservation; and the late Aaron Wunsch, an associate professor of historic preservation.
The instructors then passed Chiang’s final paper on to Amy Lambert, a preservation alum from 2016 who serves as the president of the board for the University City Historical Society (UCHS). UCHS sponsored the nomination for submittal to the Philadelphia Historical Commission, which voted unanimously to designate the property on March 15.
Ke Feng (MArch’98), senior architect in the Office of the University Architect, spoke at the Historical Commission meeting on behalf of the University. “We’re very happy and grateful for this nomination,” he said, “so we support that designation to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.”
Site designation is one of the fundamental tools of historic preservation at the local, state, and national levels. Nominations document the historic significance of their subject property and, if approved, can afford those properties protections going forward.
Developing historical arguments for the significance of sites is the core of the Documentation I course. In her nomination, Chiang argues that the structure merited designation because it stylistically reflects a suburban aesthetic preference during a rapidly industrializing period, and exemplifies the moment Greek Revival architecture began to turn toward the Italianate.
Further, she argues that it is emblematic of the changing social history as the area developed as a “streetcar suburb” in the late 1800s, a new urban form enabled by the burgeoning technology of the rail-born horse-drawn streetcars. Chiang combined original deed research at the City Archives with historic newspapers to craft a narrative about the people who occupied 3708 Chestnut.
“I live on Chestnut Street, so I saw that building a lot,” Chiang remembers. “But I never thought that I could dig into the history so much and find an argument for the building. I did have fun in putting all these together.”
“Documentation I is a foundational course for all historic preservation students,” notes Ammon. “Whether they intend to focus on materials-based conservation, adaptive or new designs in historic settings, preservation planning, or the public history side of the field, our graduates will all need to know how to research the history of a building, site, or neighborhood. This course equips them with the archivally-based research skills to establish that starting point.”
Each year, course instructors select a focus neighborhood in Philadelphia. 2023 students’ properties clustered around Spruce Hill, a West Philadelphia neighborhood with the largest intact collection of Victorian architecture in the country.
In addition to the excess of historic character, the neighborhood selection was strategic in its timing: that October, Spruce Hill Civic Association (SHCA) submitted an historic district nomination for the third time in almost four decades. In July 2024, the Southeast Spruce Hill Historic District, nominated in partnership with UCHS, was designated to the local Register, safeguarding all properties within its boundaries from demolition.
Most of the other HSPV 6000 students’ properties will likely be protected under the auspices of this or a further three proposed historic districts within Spruce Hill. 3708 Chestnut is not within those boundaries and held the potential for designation based upon its individual significance. The property therefore warranted an individual nomination.
Wunsch, a former resident of Spruce Hill, knew about the neighborhood’s upcoming designation effort, which was launched in response to increased demolition and gentrification to the north.
Ammon explains, “Aaron had been keeping a running list of buildings in the area that could possibly merit designation based upon their architectural significance. As our students dug into these properties, however, they oftentimes uncovered meaningful social and cultural stories that went beyond architecture alone, demonstrating the many rich layers of history embodied in the built environment all around us.”
