Writer: Tina Rodia
Photographer: Eric Sucar
Long offered another history lesson. “PAACH is celebrating 25 years in 2025, after Penn students called for an Asian Pacific Islander cultural resource center in 2000.”
The PAACH team—Long and associate directors Vicky Faye Aquino and Daniel Hoddinott, and program coordinator Cindy Au-Kramer—asked the crowd to form a circle, count to three, and then unveiled a large canvas with a central mandala. Looking closer, 1,000 paper cranes comprise the mandala, all intricately folded with decorative origami paper.
The mural, “1,000 Paper Cranes Mandala,” is the handiwork of Aquino. “On my first day at PAACH, I noticed tiny paper cranes hung from a pillar and they provided a warm and colorful welcome to the space,” she said. In planning and designing this year’s mural, Aquino chose to create 1,000 origami cranes by hand, alone, over the course of three months.
“In Japanese culture, cranes symbolize longevity and fortune. It is believed if you fold 1,000 cranes and make a wish, your wish will come true,” explained Aquino. “The cranes symbolize hope, healing, and strength in challenging times.”
Aquino chose to mount the cranes in the shape of a mandala, which means “sacred circle” in Sanskrit. “It became a meditation for me; it takes patience, dedication, and focus. I gave birth eight months ago, and I got to share the experience with my newborn daughter. She was strapped to me while I folded cranes.”
“Despite the kind offers I accepted no help,” she added. “I was committed to doing it myself so I can have my wish granted. I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring the community together through art. Like a paper crane, we are shaped by each fold, delicate yet resilient, grounded in patience and possibility. So, give yourself a challenge, commit to it, and pour your heart into it a thousand times.”
Aquino then asked everyone to close their eyes, make a wish, and whisper it to the paper crane. After they opened their eyes, Aquino revealed her wish: “My wish is that all your wishes come true.”
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.
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.
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.
Vice Provost for University Life Karu Kozuma was named the recipient of the 2025 APIKC Doris Michiko Ching Shattering the Glass Ceiling Award. Presented by NASPA’s Asian Pacific Islanders Knowledge Community (APIKC), the award recognizes individuals who have made a significant impact on the Asian/Pacific Islander/Desi American community and the student affairs profession through leadership, service, and scholarship.
The award, named in honor of Dr. Doris Michiko Ching, the first Asian American NASPA president, was presented during this year’s NASPA Annual Conference in New Orleans on Tuesday, March 18. Karu was recognized for his decades of commitment to student engagement, mentorship, and leadership in higher education.
With over 25 years of experience in student affairs, serving in various roles at Middlebury College, Columbia University, Amherst College, and here at Penn, Karu has been actively involved in NASPA since 2005 and previously served as the National Co-Chair for the Asian Pacific Islander Knowledge Community from 2009–2011.
NASPA’s APIKC “seeks to educate and inform NASPA members about the current issues, trends, and research facing Asian Pacific Islanders in higher education” and supports professionals and students by fostering mentorship, sharing research, and encouraging dialogue on key topics in higher education. Through this award, the organization celebrates Karu’s contributions to the field and his dedication to supporting students and colleagues.
Learn more about APIKC and this year’s other award winners here.
Congratulations to our Vice Provost on this well-deserved honor!
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
As a high school student at Northfield Mount Hermon, a boarding preparatory academy in Massachusetts, Bryan Suh says he received a well-rounded education grounded in a sense of community and purpose. Every student at the school not only studied and participated in sports but also put in a weekly four hours of work across campus, Suh says. Some of his fondest memories included working on the farm and learning how to collect sap for maple syrup.
All students at the school were also encouraged to ask themselves four essential questions, he says: Who am I? What is my place? What does it mean to be human? How then shall I live?
The eldest of three brothers, Suh was born in New Jersey. His parents moved back to Seoul following his father’s completion of a master’s degree in economics at New York University. Suh recalls visceral memories from this time of his grandparents’ recollections about their struggles under Japanese rule and during the Korean War.
“It was always ingrained in me,” he says, “that this life of luxury that I enjoyed as a kid was very transient. Life is going to be a struggle. But you want to find things that you’re interested in or attracted to, find other people who interest you, who you want to get closer with and do difficult things together.”
Suh, who is Korean American, volunteered with the Marine Corps and will be commissioned May 17. He says part of the decision was pragmatic. He received a scholarship through the NROTC program. As the eldest child “I had this, ‘have-to-be-mature-and-responsible’ thing going on,” Suh says. “I wanted to give back to my parents.”
But the other part is due to Suh’s ethos of “doing difficult things together.” He enjoyed his time at Northfield Mount Hermon, especially the camaraderie and grueling endurance he found on the rowing and alpine skiing teams and says he sought an extension of those experiences through military service. “For me, it was wanting to be a part of a community that was really tight-knit and kind of like something bigger than myself.”
This is part of our common humanity, Suh says. “To be human means to be a social creature,” a concept that was hammered home in the courses Suh took at Penn as a philosophy, politics, and economics major and classics minor, studying international security, American foreign policy, and Rhetoric and the Community, an SNF Paideia course where classmates had to debate a prepared speech every week.
“Being a leader is fundamentally about caring for your people and treating them like human beings,” Suh says, which is something he’s taken away both from his naval science courses and his ethics curriculum at Penn. “The mark of whether or not your time at Penn has been successful is if you can apply these principles,” he says.
“I don’t care how well you can talk to me about ethics, AI, or business analytics, if you can’t describe to me what it actually means to work as a unit with your peers or the people who you’re going to be leading,” he says. “Look out for your people.
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.
Tamara Greenfield King, J.D., Senior Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs with the Division of University Life, was an honoree in the inaugural cohort of the Goldstone Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA) Foundation’s Legacy of Excellence awards. This prestigious recognition celebrates individuals who have made significant and enduring contributions to the field of student conduct administration and higher education.
King was one of seven distinguished recipients honored for their impactful scholarship and research, and/or leadership within ASCA and other organizations. Her career includes two decades of service at Washington University in St. Louis, where she held key roles such as Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Support and Wellness. At Penn, King oversees several University Life units, including the Office of Student Affairs, Career Services, Naval ROTC, Platt Student Performing Arts House, and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. She is also a lecturer in the Graduate School of Education.
A trailblazer in her field, King served nine years on the ASCA Board of Directors and was the organization’s first African American President (2009–2010). She has authored numerous works on topics such as student conduct administration, social justice, Title IX, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in collegiate leadership. Before transitioning to higher education, King practiced law, established her own law firm, and became the first African American Assistant District Attorney in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
The Legacy of Excellence awardees were celebrated during the ASCA Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon, from February 5–8, 2025. King’s recognition underscores her profound impact on the profession and her commitment to advancing the field of student conduct and student affairs.
To learn more about the Raymond H. Goldstone ASCA Foundation and see the complete list of honorees, visit Legacy of Excellence – ASCA Goldstone Foundation.
This story was originally published on April 28th 2025 in Penn Today. Writer: Tina RodiaPhotographer: Eric Sucar Members of Penn’s Pan-Asian American Community House (PAACH)
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
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
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
Vice Provost for University Life Karu Kozuma was named the recipient of the 2025 APIKC Doris Michiko Ching Shattering the Glass Ceiling Award. Presented by
The Daily Pennsylvanian meets with four faculty members teaching Black studies in unique and innovative ways. 76 years ago, associate professor William Fontaine became
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.
