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.
Disability awareness at Penn
About one-fifth of all college students identify as having a disability, a figure that has grown in recent decades. At Penn, students form advocacy clubs, work with the Weingarten Center, and study disability.
The summer before she started college, a black spot appeared in Sophie Kadan’s sight. Three years later, Kadan estimates that she has only about 70% of the vision in her left eye. Colors are blotchy, she says, and it gets worse at night. The transition between high school and college is huge for everyone, Kadan says, but her vision loss made things harder.
It was another year before Kadan, a fourth-year student from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, majoring in math and physics, asked for academic accommodations. She was taking a course in American Sign Language (ASL) which, unlike other languages, is almost exclusively visual. Kadan hadn’t realized how much she relied on her other senses until she was staring at a screen, watching a video of someone signing, in a roomful of other people doing the same for a timed test.
Kadan became one of hundreds of Penn students who approach the Weingarten Center’s Disability Services each year. Weingarten follows guidelines set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and recognizes a range of disabilities including temporary, short-term injuries like a student needing transit or time off because of a broken limb; neurodivergence, including dyslexia, autism, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); chronic medical conditions like diabetes; and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
Students come to Weingarten seeking counseling or learning support or by requesting accommodations. Sometimes, they need all three. “There’s no wrong door of entering the Weingarten experience,” says Jane Holahan, executive director.
Many students come in knowing their accommodation needs and have documentation from their high schools, Holahan says. Many others come in because they’ve recently discovered they need help. “Sometimes, people hit that brick wall when they go to college,” she says.
About 20% of all Penn students identify as having a disability, Holahan says. These numbers are on par with the national average, which according to the Institute of Education Sciences was 21% for undergraduates for the 2019-20 academic year, and that number continues to increase.
In the last 20 years, the number of students registered with disability services has almost tripled, according to Weingarten. At Penn, there were 1,622 students registered with disability services through Weingarten in the 2023 academic year and 1,455 students registered in the 2019 academic year, compared with 570 registered students in the 2003 academic year, she says.
Holahan, who has worked in the field since 1998, says she started seeing an increase in requests for accommodations around 2010, before she came to Penn in 2019. She attributes this nationwide trend to an increase in awareness, not to an increase in disabilities.
Diagnosis numbers for “invisible disabilities” are on the rise. Anxiety and depression are increasing, especially among young people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 9 children has ADHD and the population average of autistic people is 1 in 36.
“For a long time, there were people who were afraid to self-disclose they had a disability,” says Holahan. “A lot of people did not know their rights, but now there’s better education. There’s less of a stigma in coming forward to ask for accommodations.”
Holahan attributes the decrease in stigma to the 2008 amendment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which broadened the scope of “disability” beyond such named conditions as cancer, diabetes, and epilepsy to make it easier for people seeking ADA protection to establish their disabilities.
Increased awareness and education efforts by Weingarten and other disability-service centers and disability advocates she says are “another reason why people are coming forward.”
Disability advocacy
Kadan says that her vision loss was the first indication that she had multiple sclerosis, a degenerative muscular disease. It’s a relatively straightforward diagnosis and one recognized by the ADA. Still, Kadan was anxious about approaching Weingarten. She remembers thinking, “Is it OK for me to ask for this? Is that valid?”
By requesting accommodations, Kadan was able to test in a different room, receive extra time during exams, and use software provided by Weingarten to transcribe some of her textbooks, which she says was especially helpful in math because of the notations. Kadan also received authorization to use a notetaker to assist with her ASL coursework.
“What is a disability and what is normal?” Kadan asks. People have different relationships with disability and identity, she says, but when it comes to education, “normal” should be providing the best learning experience.
Kadan joined the Disabled Coalition at Penn. Also called DisCo, the student-run club for people with disabilities was co-founded by Lex Gilbert, a fourth-year majoring in communications and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, and Dale Brokaw, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Cell and Molecular Biology Program, in the spring of 2022. With about 500 followers, the group connects over GroupMe and social media, as well as through campus events, Kadan says.
Originally, the Disabled Coalition was a social club, Brokaw says, but it quickly shifted into advocacy to meet student needs. The group meets regularly with Penn Transit to discuss accommodations requested by members and has done a physical accessibility audit of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center with University officials and Libraries staff.
The Disabled Coalition’s recommendations included lowering desks, increasing signage, and making the ground floor entrance more accessible to students, Brokaw says.
Brokaw primarily pursues accommodations with their lab manager, often seeking to modify seating or lab chores. “It’s interpersonal relations,” they say. That can be effective, but if there are any issues “the onus is on the student to do the advocacy and problem solving,” they say.
Brokaw is familiar with disability services, having been diagnosed with dyslexia early on in their academic career. But right before starting their graduate program, Brokaw developed long-haul COVID-19, then autoimmune arthritis. This means that in addition to learning differences Brokaw has physical symptoms. They use a walking aid and experience chronic fatigue and pain. The medication they take makes them immunocompromised, and they get sick more frequently.
Brokaw is one of DisCo’s primary advocates, a service they undertake on top of their academic work and managing a chronic illness. They’re also starting to think about life after graduation.
“People have expressed concern about me being too out about having a disability because it might affect my prospects in the future,” Brokaw says. “For any student, I think having a clear understanding of what a job will be like and how their identity fits within the job is really important.”
Brokaw and Gilbert are also interested in developing a disability advocacy network, similar to the LGBT Center’s “Faculty Out List,” a way for faculty to identify themselves so that students can connect with them and hear about experiences in the field.
Brokaw acknowledges that the logistics of developing such a list are complicated. “There’s also generational differences in how willing people are to be out, given the level of discrimination they might have felt at various points,” they say. “For students on campus, it’s a question of, ‘How is my identity interfacing with my classroom?’”
La Casa Latina celebrates 25 years of history during Latinx Heritage Month
La Casa Latina is offering a range of events in celebration of its 25th anniversary and Latinx Heritage Month.
La Casa Latina, the main center for Latinx students at the University, organized a schedule for the month featuring panel discussions, an author talk, student gatherings, and conferences. It also hosted a symposium on Sept. 21 recognizing a quarter-century of “dedicated service, advocacy, and cultural empowerment,” according to La Casa Latina Director Krista Cortes.
“This anniversary is not just a recognition of the center’s founding but a reflection on the collective efforts of its founders and the ongoing work required to serve a dynamic and diverse Penn Latine community,” Cortes said.
The celebration commenced with the Procession of Flags on Sept. 16, where students marched down Locust Walk holding the flags of Latin America. The event was followed by an Open House of La Casa Latina.
On Sept. 21, a symposium centered around La Casa Latina’s 25th anniversary took place at the ARCH Building, featuring two panels and an award luncheon.
The first panel reflected on the center’s evolution and impact since its establishment in 1999. Founding members Luz Marin and Jorge Santiago-Aviles spoke on the panel, as well as Nursing senior Salvador Galvez Jr. The second session featured the perspectives of students and recent graduates on the intersections of identity and activism.
In her remarks at the symposium, Cortes described the cultural center as a “landing space” for students.
She highlighted the establishment of the Latinx Graduation Ceremony in 2021, which offers a bilingual graduation in English and Spanish as students walk the stage with their parents and relatives. La Casa Latina also invites cultural dancers, musicians, and speakers to perform at the graduation. Cortes said that the initiative emerged from student efforts after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many of their formative years.
La Casa Latina gave out seven awards to students and faculty to celebrate their contributions to Penn’s Latin community. The two Service & Dedication Awards went to retired office coordinator Maritza Santiago Torres and Johnny Irizarry, who is the longest-serving director of La Casa Latina.
Amelia Becerra, a College junior and La Casa Latina program assistant, said during the symposium that it’s always “nice to see alumni come back, as they help me believe it is possible to do something here and to see that they’ve all been successful really validates my experience.”
On Sept. 26, graduate students congregated in Castor Courtyard for the Graduate Student Bienvenida. To conclude September’s celebrations, Luis Miranda Jr., a Puerto Rican author, visited the University on Sept. 30 to discuss the role of Latinx voices in politics.
Future events for October include the Dolores Huerta lecture and the 7th PLAC Conference, which will discuss public and community-engaged scholarship in Latin America, the Caribbean, and its diaspora.
College senior and La Casa Latina program assistant, Andrea Barajas, who was also a photographer for the Daily Pennsylvanian, said that planning these events didn’t come without challenges.
During previous Latinx Heritage Months, La Casa Latina hosted events nearly every day. This year, to remedy the stress of organizing such frequent events, Barajas said that La Casa Latina is focusing on “recognizing their capacities and limitations.”
Barajas added that La Casa Latina has worked to plan fun events despite funding options becoming more limited. For example, she led an event in February where she made paper flower bouquets, having purchased paper and fake flowers in bulk from Amazon.
“We’ve had to get a bit more conservative with the financial aspect, but that also means we get to be a little more creative with it,” Barajas said.
Galvez Jr. said that La Casa Latina has greatly evolved since he joined as a first year, especially in terms of engagement and outreach.
“It seems like there are a lot more Latine students on campus, and I think those students are finding the space of La Casa,” Galvez Jr. said. “A part of me is really proud of the work that we’re putting into making sure that people know we’re a center, a resource for them.”
Galvez Jr. also said that there has been an increase in programming and event planning, highlighting the establishment of the bilingual graduation.
“Latine graduating students at Penn always share that that’s something really special to them, especially when their parents may not speak English or come from immigrant households,” Galvez Jr. said. “Having a graduation that they can participate in and semi-understand is really nice as well.”
Looking ahead, La Casa Latina aims to engage with the broader Philadelphia Latinx community, build connections with Latinx alumni, and compile a digital archive of Latinx legacies at the University. In 2025, La Casa Latina will launch a scholars program that supports undergraduate and graduate students.
“Our main goal is to increase our visibility and really show administration and continue to show students that we are a resource for them,” Galvez Jr. said.
With NSO preceptorials, a chance to be curious
On Saturday, Aug. 24, first-year undergraduates have an opportunity to choose from dozens of topical seminars that range from an introduction to the Penn Band to a discussion at Perry World House about global citizenship. The preceptorials run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and are part of New Student Orientation, which spans Aug. 21-26.
“Preceptorials provide exposure to people that students might not otherwise get a chance to meet,” says David Fox, director of NSO. “The idea is to spend a couple hours doing something that might interest you.”
Preceptorials have been part of NSO for at least two decades, Fox says. They are led by a mix of faculty, staff, and student groups who volunteer their time. He emphasizes that it’s sometimes an opportunity for students to interact with a faculty member for the first time in an extended manner. Some students, Fox says, will use the opportunity to continue thinking about how to map out their academic careers and hear from others who’ve been in their shoes.
Ann Kuttner, an associate professor of history of art in the School of Arts & Sciences, has been leading preceptorials since the 2010s, she says, and likes to use the time to show students the Penn Museum and ask them to think more critically about public space—particularly landscape architecture. This year, she’ll lead From Rome to Philadelphia at the Penn Museum, an approximately 90-minute preceptorial that highlights artifacts from the Penn Museum’s courtyard like the famous Roman Wanamaker bronzes. Students will also have a chance to explore the Mediterranean Galleries, and Kuttner will discuss the Roman concept of bringing culture to the masses and their ancient regard for public parks.
For many students, she says, it’s a first chance to reevaluate a museum space as “a place they’d go for pleasure and not just for duty.”
“I think these preceptorials are important, and one of the gorgeous things is it’s a very eccentric program,” Kuttner says. “It’s literally what faculty [and others] come up with. Maybe it happens once and never again, or maybe it comes back around … and then they have the chance to spend some time with a professor who is convinced they are a worthwhile and interesting person.”
It is, she says, a space for students to be curious, to ask questions, and—for faculty—an opportunity to create an idea-generating jump-off point. “I think ideally that’s what a preceptorial also does,” she says.
Malik Muhammad, meanwhile, is director of inclusion initiatives and social justice education at University Life and uses his preceptorial as a welcoming space to talk about belonging. We Belong: Fostering Authenticity at Penn and Beyond will be a 75-minute facilitated discussion for students who want to learn more about how to be their authentic selves on campus. They’ll also learn about Penn’s many cultural resources that are available—including himself.
“It’s all about embracing the full essence of who you are in a tough campus culture like Penn, being able to be your authentic self,” says Malik. “We’ll be talking about barriers to authenticity, opportunities around authenticity, sharing campus resources that are supporting various identities, and then also creating that level of confidence folks can have as they navigate their first-year experience.”
Part of that effort, he says, is to “mitigate that essence of imposter syndrome” as students begin their time at Penn.
Historically, says Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education in the Graduate School of Education, who referenced the work of Christopher Loss of Vanderbilt, preceptorials began as a larger effort in the 1920s to orient new students who were only just beginning to learn about what universities are. The boom decade meant that white men and some women, post-suffrage, were entering the university system in larger numbers. Because of this influx, universities realized the need to either acclimate students or risk losing them.
“What does it mean to have a roommate? What’s my meal plan going to look like? What should I major in? All these things,” says Zimmerman. “And this is the beginning of what we call ‘student life,’ of the whole advising system, and yes, it’s the beginning of the creation of a mental health system.”
Universities, he says, assumed a new responsibility of attending to students’ “well-being and psyches.” Much of universities’ administrative roles, including programs like New Student Orientation, have evolved from this seedling era.
For this year’s preceptorials, adds Fox, he further asks that students take part in a walking tour on Sunday. Those take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug. 25.
“We don’t label them as preceptorials, but in a way they are a variation,” he says.
They cover downtown neighborhoods like Chinatown and Rittenhouse Square, and he hopes first-years will take time to explore West Philadelphia and all it has to offer.
A Haven for Half a Century
Bolstered by philanthropy, the Penn Women’s Center is celebrating 50 years of community, education, and advocacy.
In the early 1970s, Penn was a university in transition.
The campus was expanding west beyond 38th street. Cultural movements in civil rights and feminist liberation resulted in the University’s first course in Black history and the launch of the Women’s Studies program in 1973. That same year, the Penn Women’s Center (PWC) was founded as a safe space for women on campus to promote gender equity.
“The Penn Women’s Center was being built as I graduated,” says Barbara Saidel, CW’73, G’77, WG’79. “What started off as a supportive and safe place for women at Penn has evolved to become an inclusive community for anybody who walks through their doors.”
Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the PWC is one of the oldest women’s centers in the country. Led by director Elisa Foster and supported in part by philanthropy, the PWC team includes a compassionate group of staff and student coordinators who promote gender justice and aim to empower visitors. “The PWC has been at the forefront of the fight for women’s rights and gender justice since its inception,” says Foster.
Recently, the Class of 1973 decided to support the Penn Women’s Center as part of their 50th reunion class gift. “In 2023, our class wanted to support an initiative that signified the changes that happened during our time on campus,” says Class President Bill Keller, C’73, PAR’23. “While meeting with the PWC leadership, we learned that additional funding could support more programs and events that took place in their beloved kitchen space. We were happy to make that happen.”
During a “Study Break” event in May, the Women’s Center was bustling with activity. Students made candles in the sustainable kitchen and noshed on homemade cookies, while others organized flower bouquets to bring home. “Events like this are a bit more light-hearted and a good distraction during reading days,” says Nicol Paulino, C’25, a student program assistant who is also a Penn Anti-Violence Educator and a Reach-A-Peer volunteer. In the back garden patio, still more students gathered to pet dogs and catch up. Beyond programming, the Center also serves students, staff, and faculty by offering confidential counseling; community spaces for studying, relaxation, and meetings; and a lactation room for nursing parents that includes a hospital-grade breast pump.
A Home on Campus
The Greenfield Intercultural Center celebrates 40 years of community building.
When College senior Timethius Terrell was losing motivation to continue his non-profit startup focused on intercultural allyship, he turned to the Albert M. Greenfield Intercultural Center (GIC) for help.
Not only did GIC director Valerie de Cruz CGS’02 and associate director Kia Lor GEd’16 provide guidance, but Terrell has also become one of the many regulars at the center, which for 40 years has been a haven for people of all ethnicities, backgrounds, and nationalities to come together and breathe after a hard day at Penn. He even interned at GIC during the summer of 2022.
“I still consider myself to be an active member of this community,” Terrell said this spring. “Maybe not as formally,” he allowed. “I think that’s what makes it special, though—you don’t have to be.”
The Greenfield Intercultural Center was established in 1984, six years after the United Minorities Council, a coalition of minority student organizations, signed a petition to have its own space on campus.
To mark its 40th anniversary, the GIC is holding events throughout the year, including a celebration in their building at 3708 Chestnut Street that took place on January 27—exactly 40 years after its founding. The celebration included musical performances, cake-cutting, and the presentation of awards to Penn alumni who were recognized for embodying the spirit of the GIC through work in their communities. One of the honorees, Angbeen Saleem C’12—a creative artist, writer, and poet who “spent all of my free time at the GIC” as a work-study student there—read two poems she had written for the event.
“A lot of these alumni come back and they bring their kids and they say hi to Val,” remarked College senior and GIC work-study student Oumy Diasse. “You could kind of just look around and see everyone’s super familial.”
In addition to providing a friendly space for students to meet casually and share meals, the GIC also sponsors events related to culture and race and has helped establish and nurture programs and organizations for minority groups including the Persian Student Society, the Turkish Student Organization, and Natives at Penn [“Native Pride,” Jul|Aug 2019], which marks its 30th anniversary this year. It also helped to launch Makuu: The Black Cultural Center, the Pan-Asian American Community House (PAACH), and La Casa Latina Center, all of which are currently based at the revamped ARCH building on Locust Walk [“Gazetteer,” Nov|Dec 2022]. In 2016, Penn’s First-Generation Low-Income Program (FGLI) opened in the GIC, which also started an alumni mentorship program for FGLI students called Penn FLASH.
The January 27 celebration brought many alums back. “A lot of the stuff I do now is connected to my time here,” said Sean Vereen GEd’00 GrEd’05, who was the associate director of the GIC from 2003 to 2006 and now runs the Philadelphia-based college and career-access program Steppingstone Scholars. De Cruz, who’s served as the GIC’s director for the last 27 years, is another reason alumni love to return. “[Valerie] has a real power to stay connected to people,” Vereen noted. “She makes them feel like individuals. And she has weathered all the changes on campus and been able to maintain [the GIC].”
“I think the most important thing I bring is the building of relationships,” said de Cruz.
For current work-study student and College sophomore Kaynath Chowdhury, “the GIC’s a home.” At the center she often finds herself washing dishes, taking out the trash, giving tours, helping with events, and greeting people at the door. It’s a far cry from office work, she says; it’s more like what she would do at her own family’s house.
The familial atmosphere seemed to make an impression on College freshman Theo Greenfield C’27, the great-grandson of prominent Philadelphia-based businessman Albert M. Greenfield, whose foundation supplied the grant to launch the GIC. An additional $1 million gift from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation a decade ago helped to endow the GIC and increase staffing and expand its programs.
“There are people here who have dedicated their lives to not just the GIC but the mission of the GIC as an intercultural center,” said Theo, who came to the anniversary event largely out of curiosity. “It’s honestly inspiring. … I would like to become more involved.”
While the 40-year milestone provided a welcome chance to celebrate the work that has gone into making the GIC what it is, attendees were also looking ahead. “Places like the GIC are not just havens but really the center of the work that the University has to do in the future,” Vereen said.
“If you don’t see yourself envisioned in this space,” de Cruz said, “come tell us how you can envision yourself in this space, and we will work with you to create that. And that will in turn change Penn. That’s the story.”
—Hannah Chang C’27
Laying the groundwork at Penn before taking to the air
Who
Amanda Yagerman, a fourth-year from Queens, New York, has always loved the humanities and became a history buff after having two inspiring teachers in high school who brought lessons to life. But as she prepared to apply for college, she was interested in the Navy ROTC program, where they tend to value STEM majors. “When I was applying, I said that I’d major in biology because I thought, ‘Hey, I could end up liking it. Who knows? Let me try it,’” she says. “Regrettably, it just wasn’t for me.”
So Yagerman had to get up the nerve to write a letter to the Navy to get approval to switch to a history major. It wasn’t guaranteed. But since getting the OK, the history and English double major hasn’t looked back.
“The reason that I’ve always loved history is that I’m fascinated by the idea that there have been so many different iterations of the human experience,” she says. “There’s so much that we all have in common, but there’s also so many civilizations and societies that have risen and fallen that had completely different value systems than us and lived their lives in a completely different way.”
As for double majoring in English, “my mom was an English major, and she always raised me with a healthy respect for the Oxford comma,” Yagerman says. “There have been so many courses that overlapped, and I’ve been able to really combine the two in interesting ways.”
What
As a part of the Navy ROTC program at Penn, Yagerman says her experience has been “the best of both worlds.”
“A free Ivy League education is nothing to sneeze at, and I get to enter the military as an officer, which gives more opportunities for a career path that otherwise wouldn’t have been open to me,” she says. “What’s nice is that I am a college student for most of my time.”
Yagerman’s day-to-day is something like this: most weekdays she is at the NROTC unit from 6 to around 10 a.m. or so, and the rest of the day is her “normal college student” time. One day a week, the NROTC students must walk around campus in uniform for visibility, and the training consists of a physical component, leadership labs, and naval science classes. Penn is the host school of the Philadelphia consortium NROTC unit which also has students from Drexel and Temple.
Yagerman will be commissioned into the Navy as an ensign on May 18 and then will become active duty when she graduates from the College of Arts & Sciences the next day. She’ll then head to flight school with the main goal of flying helicopters.
Why
Yagerman says combining her time at Penn with the NROTC experience has been “pretty great”.
I’ve gotten the college experience; I’ve formed such great professional and personal relationships at Penn, but I’m also training to enter the military and I get all those benefits, too,” she says. “I wanted the college experience. But I also really felt like I needed discipline and direction in my life, and I wanted to be part of something that was bigger than myself.”
Penn’s diverse community will directly benefit her in her new role as a naval officer, she says.
“I’ve had the chance to interact with people who come from so many different backgrounds, religiously, ethnically, politically, and people with very different viewpoints. As a naval officer, I’m going to be encountering so many people who are coming from so many different walks of life and who have so many different perspectives. Being at Penn has taught me to communicate with people better.”
Something they always stress in our training for the Navy is being a good leader, Yagerman says.
“I think one of the main parts of that is really knowing who you’re leading and caring enough to get to know who you’re leading. That’s another thing that Penn has really taught me, in the history department particularly,” she says. “Most of our classes make an effort to be intersectional and take a look at the same historical event or problem from varying viewpoints. That’s a really important way to learn how to successfully get your point across and make connections with people as you move in the world.”
Improv for interviewing
What’s your favorite movie? Favorite subject? What would you bring to a picnic? What do you do to relax? Thinking of quick answers to these questions can help students prepare for the job market, says J. Michael DeAngelis, senior associate director of communications and technology at Career Services.
If you stumbled over a response, you’re not alone, DeAngelis says. “People get hung up on right answers and wrong answers,” he says.
A former theater major, published playwright and podcast creative, DeAngelis runs a semiannual workshop, “Improv for Interviewing,” that uses games and techniques from the theater world to guide students to enter the job market by thinking on their feet.
“Improv is all about keeping the conversation going,” he says. “If you’re in the interview, they already think you can do the job.”
The interview is a way to assess soft skills and interpersonal communication, but many people panic and seize up over simple questions. Everyone gets nervous, DeAngelis says. “I was nervous walking over here today,” he told a group at an April 16 session in Van-Pelt Dietrich Library Center. “Oh, this is such a weird workshop, are people going to like it?”
Bianca Vama, a fourth-year neuroscience major from New York City, is applying to medical schools and interviewing for summer programs. She attended the spring workshop as a good way to get advice and to practice and better handle unexpected prompts, she says.
Lisa Yang, who will graduate with a master’s in higher education from the Graduate School of Education in May, found the workshop on Career Services’ Handshake, a platform that gives students and alumni access to employers, job and internship postings, networking resources, and events. “I’m looking for opportunities to sharpen my interview skills,” she says.
Originally from Beijing, Yang is applying for academic advising and program coordinator positions in the U.S. and China but struggles to bring her authentic point of view and have honest, normal conversations while under pressure. “I always overthink and over-prepare for an interview,” she says.
For one exercise, DeAngelis had the group stand in a circle. Holding a small stuffed Ewok that “will bite you on the arm if you hold it too long,” DeAngelis asked Yang a question, tossing the toy as he waited for an answer.
“Lisa, what’s your favorite vacation?” he asked.
“Uh … what kind of vacation?” Yang responded.
“Doesn’t matter,” DeAngelis said. “There’s no wrong answer.”
“When I was in middle school, I went to Europe,” Yang answered. Yang tossed the stuffed animal and addressed another participant, “What have you been watching lately?”
DeAngelis says he has led this workshop a half-dozen times. He first started over Zoom in the summer of 2020, at the request of the Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships. “They were hearing from folks on campus that students were really stumbling over the personal, anything that didn’t have to do with their academics or research,” he says. “That was in line with what we were hearing from employers.”
Conversations, small talk, and storytelling are transferrable skills that are helpful in any profession, he says. “I’m such a strong believer in the liberal arts, particularly being a theater major,” he says. “I can rely on that training that I have to ask questions, to keep a conversation going, to listen.”
The workshop has traditionally attracted international students, who have the additional challenge of answering off-the-cuff questions in a foreign language, DeAngelis says. Regardless of reticence or language difficulties, everyone ends up participating, he says. “I’ve never had to pull teeth. Sometimes you get that one person who’s like, ‘No, no, no,’ … And then they get up and do the last one.”
For students looking to practice interviewing skills, Career Services offers mock-interview practice for both in-person and Zoom meetings. They also have rooms that students can reserve to speak with potential employers. “Improv for Interviewing” workshops and other services can be requested through the Career Services website, DeAngelis says.
Nicholas Yohn, a third-year student studying finance and statistics at the Wharton School, already knows where he’s going to land this summer. Originally from Hoboken, New Jersey, Yohn will be interning at a private equity firm and wants to make the most of his experience.
“I’m going to be meeting a lot of new people, trying to understand the firm,” Yohn says. He is also hoping to entertain future job offers and says, “This is for me to be able to keep up the conversation and think on my feet.”
Private equity is a relationship-driven business, Yohn says, and he wants to start making contacts and learning to talk about himself in professional settings “in a way that’s not overly prepped.”
In the workshop, Yohn volunteered to play a scene where two participants are given established roles—in his case, a student called into the principal’s office—and secret identities—the principal is also his long-lost father!—a detail revealed later in the conversation.
The exercise is relevant to interviewing, Yohn says. A lot of firms ask potential hires scenario-based questions based on ethics, deadlines, or interpersonal conflict, giving interviewees 20 seconds to film a response with no re-dos, he says.
“I’ve been hit with some of those curveballs,” he says. “It’s a skill I’m trying to work on.”