Penn President Liz Magill opened the April 19 University Council meeting by congratulating five members of the Penn faculty who were newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lizann Boyle Rode, associate vice president in the Office of the University Secretary, addressed topics that had been raised during the open forum portion of the March Council meeting, including a petition for resident and graduate resident assistants to unionize and a settlement that had been reached that day between the city, owners, and displaced residents of the University City Townhomes.

Faculty Senate chair Vivian Gadsden, the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education in GSE, discussed photos taken of students participating in the Fossil Free Penn encampment on College Green in September 2022, stating that they were taken to address a security concern. They have since been destroyed. Dr. Gadsden reminded Council members about the upcoming Forum on Open Expression, which will be held on April 26 to review the proposed Interpretative Guidelines on Open Expression.

The chairs (or their representatives) of University Council’s standing committees presented their year-end reports. The full versions of the year-end reports are available in this week’s Almanac supplement.

Fariha Nawar, vice chair of political affairs of the Penn Asian Pacific Student Coalition, pre- sented on the proposed relocation of the Philadelphia 76ers arena to Center City near the Chinatown neighborhood. Ms. Nawar urged Penn to use its position as an eminent Philadelphia presence and elite academic institution to oppose the arena’s construction. Ms. Nawar asserted that the arena would alter the bustling cultural hub of Chinatown, draw untenable amounts of traf- fic, and generate air, water, and light pollution. She said that Chinatown is a key cultural center for Penn’s Asian students (who make up a siz- able percentage of Penn’s population) and that the onus falls partly on Penn to advocate for the neighborhood’s preservation.

Joelle Eliza Lingat and Kerone Wint of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA) gave a presentation on graduate students’ financial insecurity at Penn. According to a GAPSA survey, 50% of Penn graduate students have loan debt, 7.5% provide for one or more family members, and 18% skip meals occasionally because of financial concerns. They commended Penn’s administration for recently implementing an increase in PhD student stipends, and hoped that this spirit of collaboration would continue. They also summarized GAPSA’s efforts to increase graduate students’ financial security, including providing dining hall/retail vouchers, working with University Life to make free menstrual products widely available, and working with SEPTA to grant students discounts on public transit.

During the new business portion of the meet- ing, Council members urged Penn to increase its symbolic investment in the humanities; request- ed that postdoctoral trainees have free access to Penn fitness facilities and to retirement plan op- tions; called for Penn to help negotiate a more beneficial settlement for displaced residents of the University City Townhomes, and called for Penn to hire more disabled faculty and staff members.