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.”
To illustrate the structure’s rich social history in her nomination, Chiang included an advertisement for E.B. Hubley’s art supply business. While preparing the nomination for submittal, Lambert noticed a significant name within Chiang’s detailed chain of title: Rubens H. Peale. After further digging, Lambert discovered that the Hubley family were related by marriage to the renowned artist Charles Willson Peale. Including this connection in the final document gave further meaning to the social history of the site, and demonstrates the collaborative nature of the work Chiang and UCHS did.
The quality of the nomination helped it sail through the Committee on Historic Designation, which reviews applications before they appear before the full Historical Commission, and which, Lambert notes, was composed of Wunsch’s former friends and colleagues.
As Lambert said in her remarks at March 15’s Historical Commission meeting, “It’s a wonderful reminder of the long shadow our friend Aaron Wunsch still casts in our beloved city.”
Teal Day of Action for SAAM
Penn President J. Larry Jameson joined the Penn Violence Prevention (PVP) team, University Life colleagues, and students on Locust Walk for the Teal Day of Action, a signature event of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Dressed in teal, the color symbolizing support for survivors, President Jameson engaged with students and staff, reaffirming the University’s commitment to fostering a campus culture rooted in consent, respect, and survivor support. The event served as a visible call to action, encouraging the Penn community to stand in solidarity against sexual violence and to learn more about the resources available through PVP.
As part of the day’s activities, students and staff distributed teal ribbons, educational materials, and pledge cards, sparking conversations about the importance of bystander intervention and survivor advocacy. President Jameson commended the efforts of PVP and University Life in creating a safer, more supportive environment for all students. His presence underscored the University’s dedication to addressing sexual violence through prevention, education, and advocacy, reinforcing the collective responsibility of the Penn community in fostering a campus free from harm.
In Photos: Meet four faculty members advancing Black studies at Penn
The Daily Pennsylvanian meets with four faculty members teaching Black studies in unique and innovative ways.
76 years ago, associate professor William Fontaine became Penn’s first Black faculty member. A philosophy scholar and an important authority on Black culture, he was one of the few Black faculty members at Penn and the only Black philosopher in the Ivy League. He traveled around the globe to discuss Pan-African issues, but his largest impact may be on the students he taught in his two decades at Penn — winning the University’s only award for teaching in 1958 after being named “Lecturer of the Year.”
In the following decades, much has changed. In 2022, 10.2% of Penn’s standing faculty identified as underrepresented minorities, and 38% of students identified as non-white. The University has also increased the hired faculty and unique courses offered in departments like Africana Studies and History, building a network for students and professors to study Black life and culture.
In the past month, as the University scrubs references to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Penn’s faculty and staff have remained committed to teaching their complex and diverse lessons. Here are the stories of four Penn faculty members who are teaching Black history, culture, and identity in innovative ways.
Breanna Moore, History Ph.D. Candidate and Fontaine Fellow
To honor Fontaine’s legacy, a fellowship was established in 1970 to support underrepresented graduate students in their studies at Penn. Ph.D. candidate Breanna Moore is one of those fellows.
In her time as an undergraduate and graduate student at Penn, Moore has used multimedia displays to disseminate history, such as developing an exhibit on the Penn & Slavery Project’s augmented reality tour. She currently teaches HIST 2162: “Beyond 40 Acres and a Mule: The History & Practice of Reparations in the African Diaspora” — an ABCS course focused on reparatory and racial justice. This course, she says, interrogates critical questions, asking, “How did enslaved people and their descendants conceptualize reparations? What strategies do they employ to achieve reparations? How do present-day movements for reparations seek to address historic harms?”
In the classroom, Moore challenges her students to see the intersection of history and activism.
“This is an action-oriented course that explores the root of reparations, which is repair,” Moore said.
In her dissertation, researching Britain’s indemnities during the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, she found that the period “doesn’t get a lot of attention.” In her course, she said she aims to bring forward the conversation about who has been compensated for the legacies of slavery and who hasn’t.
“I was inspired to create this course because of my passion for history and learning about the struggles of people of African descent who were impacted by transatlantic trafficking in African people and the institution of slavery,” she said. “I wish that I had the opportunity to take a course on reparations when I was an undergraduate.”
As a consultant for the New Jersey Reparations Council and former co-chair of the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force — among many other leadership roles and fellowships — she has played a key role in reparations organizing. She has also advised Georgia state lawmakers and the United Nations on reparations policy.
Jasmine Henry, Assistant Professor in Music
One of Gregory College House’s faculty fellows, Jasmine Henry said the students she meets shape her courses. She’s currently teaching MUSC 3440: “Black Music and Sports,” a curriculum she built after noticing a scholarly gap in the field of Black music studies.
“I wanted to be inclusive but also expansive in thinking about [music and sports],” Henry said. “It does connect with the past, but a lot of it lives in contemporary moments, too.”
According to Henry, when she was designing the course, she aligned her syllabi with events happening during the spring semester. such as the Grammys, the NCAA football playoffs, and the Super Bowl.
“These are national moments and platforms that say a lot about where we are at any given cultural moment,” Henry said. “We had a ton of fun after the Super Bowl unpacking Kendrick Lamar’s performance, and it was amazing to see just how many of the themes we already discussed — nationalism, patriotism, race, gender, spectacle — were represented in that performance.”
Henry said one of the best parts of the course is the conversations it sparks among her students, friends, and family. She said the intersection of Black music and sports exists in many “big moments” that people are already aware about — such as Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Ella Fitzgerald, or Billie Holiday — which allows her course to connect to the “social and cultural histories in the country.”
“One of the big things is how Black music and Black sports have been some of the most high profile arenas where people have broken through the color line in this country,” she said. “Those are some of the first places of integration in the United States. I think they’re so relatable, and they resonate so much together because of that very history.”
Looking broader, Henry said she believes the network of students, faculty, and cultural clubs on campus keeps Black studies unique and vibrant at Penn, with a wide range of courses and topics.
“There exists a really strong community that a lot of these programs and courses are grounded in, and it’s almost a community that can stand on its own right,” Henry said. “It has its own priorities and principles, but also still has visibility and impact in the broader university … Black studies and courses on Black issues might not be at the center of Penn, but there is support for it, and there’s community for it.”
Talking with Conclave’s Mike Jackman, C’85
The film, which Jackman produced, has been nominated for Best Picture and seven other Oscars. (It already took home Best Picture at the BAFTAs.) Fellow Penn Arts & Sciences alums Fred Berger, C’03, and Marc Platt, C’79, also received Best Picture bids for “A Complete Unknown” and “Wicked,” respectively.
When Mike Jackman, C’85, walks the red carpet with his wife, Lisa, W’88, at the Academy Awards on March 2, it will be his third time attending the event. “I’ve had the nosebleed seats twice,” he says. “Apparently, this time we’ll be pretty close to the stage in case we happen to win.”
Jackman is being modest, but he’s referring to the eight nominations for Conclave—a film he produced with Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell about the closed-door process to select a new pope. The list of honors includes a chance at Best Picture; though previous projects Jackman’s worked on have received the prized golden statuette, this is his first nomination. “It is truly a wonderful moment, both personally and professionally,” he says. “It’s kind of surreal, too.
At this year’s Oscars, Penn Arts & Sciences will be well represented: Alongside Jackman, Fred Berger, C’03, is nominated for A Complete Unknown, and Marc Platt, C’79, is nominated for Wicked.
The work lives of this trio have overlapped in other ways, too, Jackman notes. “Fred and Marc produced La La Land together, and Fred was an intern for me on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Jackman says. “He did the title sequence, and he was Jim Carrey’s hand double. You know, it’s interesting, we didn’t even have a film program when I was an undergraduate, but a lot of us ended up in film.”
This past Sunday, Conclave won Best Picture at the British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs. Ahead of the industry’s biggest night in the U.S., Omnia spoke with Jackman about his career path and his time at Penn, plus what advice he would give to today’s college students.
Can you describe the moment you learned you were nominated for Best Picture?
It’s such a singular thing to have happen, to expect anything was silly, but I was obviously hoping. Best Picture is also the last of the categories to get announced. We were keeping notes on which Conclave categories got nominated, and they finally get to that last one. You see your name up there and see it announced and it’s super exciting. I was just home with my wife. It’s funny, I have all these filters on my email, so I literally didn’t get the email from the Academy congratulating me until four days later.
What role does a producer play on a film like this?
The producer can be a lot of things. My role, and what I like to do most, is act as a liaison between the creative plan and roadmap for the movie from the director and other producers and everyone who reads the script, and the budget and resources available. How can we do this amazing project at the highest levels with the time and money we have? That’s a problem-solving job first and foremost, and we’re creating invisible compromises; they’re visible to us, but we like to think invisible to the audience.
There’s friction there across everything but it’s respectful and creative. That friction causes the need to defend what you’re going to shoot—and that creates a lot of thoughtfulness. I think there’s a disciplined nature to the art of filmmaking and there’s benefit to challenging those creative assumptions. What am I doing? Why is it there?
You were a psych major at Penn. How did you go from that to film?
I was interested in psychology, but I didn’t think I wanted to be a psychologist or psychiatrist. The only part of my “plan” was that med school was not part of it. I thought acting could be fun, and after graduation I was able to get a job as a production assistant on a movie. I figured, let me get into any job that gives me access, and I’ll find my way forward.
So, I spent the next three years as a production assistant. My second job was the care and feeding of Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson. They were great, a lot of fun. Then the third film I did was called Mississippi Burning, and I bugged the director every day to put me in the movie. Finally, he put me in, I got a speaking part, and I got into the Screen Actors Guild. But I had seen the life of an actor—it’s a really hard life, especially how much rejection it is, not because you’re good or bad but because of what you look like and what time it is and who you’re standing next to and 100 other reasons, including your talent.
The advice I was given is if you can live without acting, then for God’s sake, live without acting. I said, let me look at this producer thing, and then I spent the next 20-something years doing it. I was led by curiosity, learning something new, being challenged, a little bit of not being afraid to try anything. At least a third of the jobs I had I didn’t know how to do them when I got them. I just figured it out.
What are some of your most memorable experiences at Penn?
I loved Penn. In my freshman year, I played football, I rowed crew. I also got randomly assigned two roommates, and we were all very different but the chemistry between us was just great. We ended up living together all four years. We rushed frats and then just decided to hang out ourselves. Senior year I joined the a cappella group Pennsylvania Six-5000 (today called Penn Six).
I just had a great time at Penn. I enjoyed the people I met. I enjoyed the rhythm of it. I enjoyed getting to know Philly, the Penn pride of it all. My father went to Penn, class of ’53, my uncle went to Penn, class of ’56. My wife, I didn’t know her while we were there, but she was Wharton ’88. My daughter was College ’21, my son is Wharton ’25. We’re quite the Penn family. Two of my closest friends to this day are from my time at Penn.
What advice would you give to college undergrads today?
First, and it’s a little bit of cliché, but I do believe that if you love what you do you never work a day in your life. If you wake up and you’re excited about doing what you’re doing, keep doing it. If you’re dreading the day, give a thought to what you’re doing. There are lots of way to plan your life and your career. I led with curiosity.
Try to be fearless. Be curious and don’t be afraid to try something you don’t know how to do. And what’s that saying? You have two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you talk. It’s something I’m still working on, too. Never stop trying.
Continued growth at the LGBT Center
Almost one year into their new role as director, Eric Anglero looks to support students and community with robust programming and a place where ‘you can just be.’
One night a month, LGBT Center director Eric Anglero sits down with Center staff, faculty, and students for the Shapiro-Bezdek Family Dinners, a beloved tradition that was recently endowed by Penn alumnus Stuart Shapiro and their husband Rick Bezdek. The dinners create an environment of support for the LGBT community on campus and offer a moment, Anglero says, where “you can just be.”
Anglero has been in their new role for nearly a year and has plans for the Center’s continued growth, creating inclusion for people with marginalized genders and sexualities, both inside the LGBT Center itself and at Penn as a whole. “We are really trying to broaden what success looks like here beyond the walls of the Carriage House,” says Anglero, referring to their historic building just off Locust Walk.
In November, the Center hosted the Trans Day of Remembrance and Trans Week of Visibility in collaboration with the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, along with partners at Penn, including Penn Carey Law, the Office of the University Registrar, and the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS). The Registrar hosted a clinic to explain how to change your birth name, and GSWS presented on the Trans Oral History Project, a community engagement initiative that preserves and makes publicly accessible the stories of trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.
The weeklong programming is meant to both support trans community members at Penn as well as to hold “a place of mourning, of grief, of understanding the violence that has happened to trans communities across the globe,” Anglero says.
In the spring, the Center will welcome Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, in partnership with Penn Carey Law as this year’s second scholar-in-residence. Events planned include Q Penn, the Center’s annual Pride Week beginning April 7, as well as Lavender Graduation, a celebration for the accomplishments of the graduating LGBTQ+ cultural community.
As part of University Life, connections and partnerships exist across the cultural centers, Anglero says. “There is so much infrastructure here we can strive to work with,” they say, noting that those intercultural connections can be impactful for students. Anglero also plans to continue partnering with queer and trans organizations in Philadelphia, including William Way, the Mazzoni Center, and even the Stonewall Sports League, which they participate in.
A semester of community on campus
The fall semester brought together Penn community members from a diverse spread of schools, centers, and groups in celebration, in remembrance, and in teamwork to make campus and the world a better place.
Penn’s fall semester officially began in August, as many students returned to campus. While staff, faculty, and postdocs are largely in West Philadelphia year-round, the fall marks a reset and starting point for many. The late summer and mild fall weather brings the natural beauty of campus to life.
The importance of wellness is a wholistic endeavor throughout Penn, with multiple centers focused on wellness and well-being. The Penn Food and Wellness Collaborative is a multidisciplinary program that engages the Penn community around wellness, food access, sustainability, and education. The Penn Farm is the University’s only on-campus farm and grows thousands of pounds of organic produce to support food access initiatives; its harvest in late August kicks off the fall semester.
In late September, faculty, staff and postdocs gathered on Shoemaker Green and at Franklin Field for Penn’s 30th Annual Penn Friends and Family Day. Participants celebrated the Penn community and their families with games, sports, science, and cultural activities.
In Principle and Practice, Penn’s strategic framework, highlights climate change as one of the great challenges of our modern age, with the capacity to bring solutions through an interdisciplinary roster of experts in the climate and energy field. In October, Penn’s Climate Week brought together the entire University community to engage in learning and action around climate. The fifth annual event focused on climate solutions, which included a Climate Solutions Showcase, 1.5* and 60-minute lectures from experts across the University, youth speakers and career panels for students, and a “BioBlitz” at Kaskey Park, where attendees enjoyed a hands-on exploration of the biodiversity of Penn’s BioPond.
Wellness and well-being series looks at reproductive and family health
The six-part series from Penn Today focuses on University resources for students, faculty, and staff.
Wellness and well-being are woven into the life of Penn’s campus for students, faculty, postdocs, and staff. In the sixth part of a new series highlighting University resources supporting the campus community, Penn Today focuses on family, from sexual and reproductive health to resources for parents of young children.
“Penn is a very big place, and a lot of times people don’t know where to go for support,” says Elisa Foster, director of the Penn Women’s Center, a place that can be a first stop. “We often help people navigate resources on campus and make sure they know their rights and University policies.” The Women’s Center is one of the University’s confidential resource offices.
Offices and centers such as the Penn Women’s Center, Wellness at Penn, the Family Resource Center, the Division of Human Resources, the LGBT Center, Penn Violence Prevention, and University Life work together to support students, faculty, staff, and postdocs.
Karen Kille, manager of quality of work-life programs for HR, says it’s important “for people to take time to engage with the resources and support. To navigate uncertainty or stressful situations, it’s best to have those things in your toolbox in advance.” She encourages people to educate themselves on other topics covered in Penn Today’s series, such as financial wellness and mental health resources.
Reproductive health
- Gynecologic care: Penn is unique in having a dedicated gynecologic section for students rather than including it in primary care services, says Katharine Smith, a nurse practitioner whose entire practice at Wellness at Penn’s Student Health and Counseling is dedicated to gynecology. It provides contraception counseling and prescriptions, including emergency contraception.
- So much of what they do, she says, is “about body education, sexual health education, and all these factors that we know are complexly tied to agency, confidence, and identity.” She also notes that the medical care providers established a gender-affirming care program and that gynecologic care at Penn is not geared only toward cisgender women.
- Smith says one misconception she hears a lot from patients is that they think they need to go outside of Student Health and Counseling to get gynecology care, but the reality is they only need to refer out for certain situations, such as surgery. Jackie Recktenwald, director of well-being initiatives for Wellness at Penn, says providers are trained to make off-site referrals for abortion services, which are legal in Pennsylvania.
- Sexually transmitted infection testing: Regular STI screening is recommended for all sexually active individuals, even without symptoms. The cost for STI screening continues to be nominal and is dependent upon insurance. It can be billed through insurance or paid out of pocket.
- Wellness express vending machine: Coming soon to the third floor of the ARCH (3601 Locust Walk) is a vending machine where PennCard holders will be able to get free over-the-counter wellness products, including Plan B, condoms, menstrual products, COVID tests, hand sanitizer, cold medicine, and more.
- Access to menstrual products: Recktenwald says that for any machines with menstrual products that are still coin-operated building administrators can reach out to Wellness to convert them to free. The Penn Women’s Center also sometimes offers workshops for the Penn community about sustainable period products and distributes reusable pads and cups.
Trying to have children
- Fertility: Susan Sproat, executive director of benefits for Human Resources, notes that Penn health plans for faculty, staff, and postdocs have had coverage for advanced reproductive care—such as in vitro fertilization—for many years, and she explains more recent changes. Several years ago, Penn removed the requirement of an infertility diagnosis, making care inclusive for different family types such as single women, LGBTQ couples trying to achieve pregnancy, and families considering a gestational surrogate.
- In 2023, Penn began working with Carrot Fertility. Once people register, they get a $30,000 lifetime maximum benefit for fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and fertility preservation services such as freezing eggs. Sproat says care managers work with people to see where they are on their family-planning journey and discuss options and alternatives that meet family needs.
- Adoption assistance: Penn recently increased this faculty and staff benefit to $10,000, for reimbursement of court costs, attorney’s fees, and traveling expenses.
Who, What, Why: Laurie McCall, director of the Platt Student Performing Arts House
Laurie McCall leads the staff at the Platt Student Performing Arts House, which supports Penn’s 70-plus groups that stage more than 100 comedy, spoken word, dance, theater, voice, and music events each year.
Who
Laurie McCall is the director of the Platt Student Performing Arts House, as well as staff coordinator of the PennQuest Pre-Orientation Program. She has been at with University Life since 1992, starting as assistant director of New Student Orientation. Since 2007, she has been at the Platt House, which opened the previous year with support from Penn alums Marc and Julie Platt, first as associate director and since 2013 as director. Her undergraduate degree is in education and her graduate degree in communication.
What
McCall leads the staff at the Platt House, which supports Penn’s 70-plus groups that stage more than 100 comedy, spoken word, dance, theater, voice, and music events each year, involving more than 1,400 undergraduates. The Platt House also provides trainings, workshops, masterclasses, and career mentorship, connecting students with alumni in the field. And it facilitates youth arts mentorship, community outreach, and engagement with the regional arts industry.
“We provide a scaffold of support with resources, care, and advice to our students who are in performing arts groups who want to perform,” McCall says. “But we are also advocates to make sure that they have what they need to perform on campus.”
A big part of her job is helping to solve problems. A continual challenge is finding and securing and allocating space for rehearsals and performances in buildings throughout the campus. She is very much looking forward to the 2027 opening of the new student performing arts center at 33rd and Chestnut streets; construction started in September. The Platt House team will manage the programming in the new performance center.
Another role is to support the student Performing Arts Council (PAC), which governs the 45 groups that have priority for show spaces and Student Activities Council funding. McCall and her team of five also are in contact with the 35-some independent groups and help when needed. Two manage the PAC Shop, which helps students with set-building and technical needs.
And part of what McCall does is answer the call when the students are trying to manage a challenge and ask for direction. “They don’t always know how to handle conflicts within their groups, and we are helping them do that,” McCall says. “I focus on trying to make sure that they understand what it means to be inclusive.”
Also, she encourages students to enjoy their time in performing arts, to keep their passion, to try not to get stressed out, and to focus on the friendships and the fun.
McCall was a stage manager when she was in school: “I’m still stage-managing in the way that you’re getting everyone what they need in the time that they need it.” She also manages the PennQuest Pre-Orientation experience, selecting and training Penn student volunteers who lead a group of 130 incoming first-year students on a camping and hiking trip in the summer.
“I’m a person who has been managing student group activities my whole life,” she says.
Why
Student performing arts are woven into the fabric of the University, included in every formal occasion and other events, she says. And the experiences for the students involved form lasting impressions and friendships, McCall says, and she is proud to play a part.
“I would like every student and every student club to have an advisor who they can come to with their issues. I know the pressure that students have academically and timewise, and I don’t want their extracurricular life to be part of that. Extracurriculars should be where they can release their stress,” McCall says. “My goal is to improve their quality of life, especially through the arts, which encompasses so many life lessons and touches so many people. I want to be able to help them in any way I can.”
A calendar of the dozens of student performing arts productions scheduled for this fall is available on the Platt House website.