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Penn Medicine: $22 Million from NIH HEAL Initiative to Address the National Opioid Crisis

The nation has been grappling with the opioid epidemic for years—and the city of Philadelphia has been hit hard by the crisis. While data is showing slight declines in overdose deaths, the opioid crisis remains a public health emergency. Efforts to stem the epidemic have included prescribing fewer painkillers, providing free naloxone trainings across the city, offering recovery programs in emergency departments and launching dedicated research efforts to examine the cause and impact.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced awards from the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (NIH HEAL Initiative), which was launched in April 2018 to improve prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction and enhance pain management. Through this initiative, Penn Medicine has been awarded five grants totaling more than $22 million to apply scientific solutions to reverse the national opioid crisis.

New Strategies to Prevent and Treat Opioid Addiction

caption: David MandellA team lead by David Mandell, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Mental Health, Kyle Kampman, professor of psychiatry and director of the Charles O’Brien Center for the Treatment of Addictions, and Hillary R. Bogner, associate professor of familymedicine and community health, is receiving a $11.2 million grant from the initiative.

Their team will study the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) and psychiatric disorders in the primary care setting with a collaborative care model. The collaborative care model places licensed clinical social workers specially trained in mental health care in primary care offices. These experts will work with 39 primary care practices in Philadelphia, their primary care physicians and psychiatrists to proactively identify, assess and direct patients to treatment options as needed during their appointments.

Clinical Research in Pain Management

caption: Laura DemberLaura M. Dember, professor of medicine in renal-electrolyte and hypertension and epidemiology, was awarded a $5.5 million grant from the NIH HEAL Initiative.

Penn will serve as the Scientific and Research Data Center for the Hemodialysis Opioid Prescription Effort (HOPE) consortium. The center will provide scientific and operational leadership for the design, implementation and analysis of a randomized clinical trial of behavioral and pharmacologic interventions to reduce pain and opioid use among people with kidney failure receiving maintenance hemodialysis. The trial will be conducted at eight clinical centers that are separately funded by the HEAL initiative.

J. Richard Landis, professor of biostatistics, John Farrar, associate professor of epidemiology, and Dr. Kampman are co-principal investigators. 

caption: John FarrarDr. Farrar was also awarded a $931,000 grant from the NIH HEAL Initiative. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and six additional Penn Medicine centers will serve as Specialized Clinical Centers—or “hubs”—for the NIH’s Early Phase Pain Investigation Clinical Network (EPIPIC-Net).

The Specialized Clinical Centers will provide infrastructure to implement high-quality, comprehensive studies of patients with well-defined pain conditions, as well as the design and performance of two clinical trials to test promising new treatments for pain. The Penn Medicine site will assist the EPPIC-Net to make clinical, neuroimaging, biomarker and preclinical data, as well as biosamples, available through public access data and biospecimen repositories.

Michael Ashburn,  director of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care, will serve as co-principal investigator. 

Novel Medication Options for Opioid Use Disorder and Overdose          

caption: Kyle Kampmancaption: George WoodyDrs. Kampman and George E. Woody, a professor in the department of psychiatry, have been awarded $4 million from the NIH to study a path towards improving the success of opioid detoxification, focusing on a transition to extended-release injectable naltrexone (XR-NTX), a medication that reduces opioid relapse and overdose risk.

Transitioning to XR-NTX requires motivation and detoxification, which are major hurdles for those with an OUD. Detoxification with lofexidine—a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for opioid detoxification about one year ago—does not have much effect on the achiness and other symptoms of withdrawal that lead some patients to drop out of treatment. The study will test whether pregabalin—a medication shown in studies to suppress many of those withdrawal-related symptoms—can be safely combined with lofexidine to improve the success of detoxification and transition to XR-NTX treatment, as compared to lofexidine alone.

Enhanced Outcomes for Infants and Children Exposed to Opioids

caption: Dylan TisdallA team led by Dylan Tisdall,  research assistant professor of radiology, and Allyson Mackey, assistant professor of psychology, was awarded a $550,000 grant from the initiative.

The researchers will conduct a feasibility study to address the knowledge gap in understanding how opioid exposure impacts early brain development. While neuroimaging studies in young children offer an opportunity to quantify these developmental processes, existing imaging methods are not ideal for this group of patients, since young children exposed to opioids are prone to in-scanner motion. The Penn team plans to develop novel neuroimaging methods optimized for young children. They will evaluate these methods in a sample of 100 children, ages three to five, recruited from the community in Philadelphia that has been hardest hit by the opioid crisis. They will test whether the new technologies improve the quality of the raw imaging data and reduce motion biases.

caption: Allyson Mackey“It’s clear that a multi-pronged scientific approach is needed to reduce the risks of opioids, accelerate development of effective non-opioid therapies for pain and provide more flexible and effective options for treating addiction to opioids,” said NIH director Francis S. Collins, who launched the initiative in early 2018. “This unprecedented investment in the NIH HEAL Initiative demonstrates the commitment to reversing this devastating crisis.”

$3 Million Stand Up 2 Cancer Grant to Support Therapy Trial

caption: Angela DeMicheleA new $3 million grant to support a clinical trial evaluating a combination therapy to prevent triple-negative breast cancer from recurring will be led in the clinic by Angela DeMichele, the Alan and Jill Miller Professor in Breast Cancer Excellence in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of the ACC’s 2-PREVENT Translational Center of Excellence. The grant was awarded by Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) in partnership with Genentech, and will be administered by the organization’s scientific partner, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a tumor type in which cancer cells lack hormone epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), estrogen receptors (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR). Because the cancer cells test negative for all three receptors, hormone therapies and drugs that target the receptors are not effective treatments. TNBC is aggressive and can spread after treatment with radiation, chemotherapy or surgery.

“Currently, women with triple-negative breast cancer have a high risk of recurrent, metastatic disease after they are initially treated,” said Dr. DeMichele, who also serves as the co-leader of the ACC’s Breast Cancer Research Program and director of the ACC’s Breast Cancer Clinical Trials Unit. “This trial will utilize a blood test for circulating tumor DNA to identify women at risk. Our goal is to harness the immune system to eliminate the cancer once and for all.”

Dr. DeMichele will work with team leader Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, director of the breast immuno-oncology program at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston, on this project. The team plans to use a blood test called liquid biopsy to detect the spread of the disease before it can gain a foothold in distant organs. When cancer cells are detected, patients would receive a combination of drugs. One drug is ipatasertib, which is an investigational therapy that blocks activity in the PI3K/AKT cellular signaling pathway, which can prevent cancer cells from multiplying and spreading. The second drug is atezolizumab, which is a PD-L1 inhibitor that can free the immune system to attack cancer cells.

The 2-PREVENT Translational Center of Excellence at the ACC, which Dr. DeMichele co-directs with Lewis Chodosh, the Perelman Professor in Cancer Biology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is a multidisciplinary research program focused on preventing recurrent breast cancer through improved understanding of breast cancer metastatic behavior, development of new technologies to find minimal residual disease and translation to novel clinical trials that target the ways in which cancer cells survive initial treatment with the goal of reducing mortality from breast cancer.

The grant is supported by SU2C Catalyst Founding Collaborator, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and is the latest fruit of SU2C’s collaboration with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry under the SU2C Catalyst® initiative. SU2C Catalyst is a collaborative program that leverages the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostic and devices industries to accelerate the development of new treatments, and combination therapies, to patients as rapidly as possible through early-phase clinical trials or translational research.

Gregg Semenza: 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

caption: Gregg SemenzaPenn alumnus Gregg Semenza (M’82, Gr’84) was among a trio of researchers jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research on how oxygen availability affects cells. He shares the prize with William Kaelin, who runs a research laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and is also a professor at Harvard Medical School, and Peter Ratcliffe, who runs an independent research group at Oxford University, where he also serves as a professor. 

Dr. Semenza graduated from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine in 1982 and from the School of Arts and Sciences with a PhD in genetics in 1984. He became a faculty member at Johns Hopkins Medicine in 1990, where he currently serves as the director of the Vascular Program at the Institute for Cell Engineering.  He is the tenth Penn person to have won the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine, more than any other category.

The Nobel Committee awarded Drs. Semenza, Kaelin and Ratcliffe with the honor because of their research on how cells sense and respond to changes in oxygen availability. The scientists identified molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varied oxygen levels. Their respective discoveries established a basis for understanding how oxygen levels impact cellular metabolism and physiological function, paving the way for strategies to fight cancer, anemia and other diseases. 

“This is a basic aspect of how a cell works and, from that standpoint along, it’s a very exciting thing,” Nobel Prize Committee Member Randall Johnson told CNN.com, adding that it’s a “textbook discovery.”

Dr. Semenza isolated the hypoxia-inducible factor complex, or HIF-1, from cultured liver cells. In response to low oxygen levels, the HIF-1 protein binds to the DNA segments that contains the gene for the hormone erythropoietin. Previous research had demonstrated that low oxygen levels lead the body to release more erythropoietin, which leads to the production of red blood cells. 

Dr. Semenza began studying how oxygen affects cells during his PhD research at Penn, where he studied the β-globin gene. In a paper, Semenza wrote that deficient production of the β-globin gene causes ineffective production of red blood cells that carry oxygen and sometimes leads to anemia, a condition in which the body does not have enough red blood cells. 

Drs. Semenza and Ratcliffe, working separately, found the oxygen-sensing mechanism was present in virtually every tissue in the body. 

Dr. Semenza also identified a protein complex, known as the hypoxia-inducible factor, that binds to cells’ DNA in an oxygen-dependent fashion. His research has led to an anemia drug, roxadustat, that was approved in China last December, according to Bloomberg News

“Virtually all cells sense changes in oxygen availability, given the central importance of molecular oxygen to maintaining intracellular bioenergetics,” said Celeste Simon, a Penn Medicine researcher who has collaborated with Kaelin. “The importance of the work by Drs. Kaelin, Ratcliffe, and Semenza is their discovery of a key oxygen sensing pathway. 

“As such, drugs both activating and inhibiting this pathway will be useful for treating various forms of cancer or renal failure. The work of all three laureates exemplifies how years of hard work and collaboration can reveal the secrets of some of the most important biological processes in nature.”

Twenty-nine Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Penn—either as graduates or as professors (see https://tinyurl.com/mostnobels). The last Nobel Prize awarded to a Penn affiliate was in 2011, when former professor Thomas Sargent was awarded the prize in economics. Thomas Sargent was awarded the prize in economics. Other recent winners include Ei-ichi Negishi, who earned his PhD in chemistry from Penn in 1963, and shared the 2010 prize in chemistry for having independently made advances in using the palladium complexes as catalysts to link  together carbon molecules into larger, more complicated structures (Almanac October 12, 2010). In 2002, Raymond Davis, Jr., former research professor of physics, shared the prize in physics for work that gave rise to neutrino astrophysics (Almanac October 15, 2002).  

Michael Gamer: British Academy Global Professorship

caption: Michael GamerMichael Gamer, professor of English in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, has been selected as a Global Professor by the British Academy, which comes with a prize of £749,100 (approximately $920,000). 

Global Professorships are given to senior scholars undertaking innovative, curiosity-driven research in the humanities and social sciences.

Global Professorships are four-year grants for research in the UK and require a British host university to act as sponsor; Dr. Gamer’s sponsor will be the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London. While there, Dr. Gamer will research and document every performance, review and contemporary commentary of melodrama in Britain before 1843. His project will explore how melodrama’s stage effects, including pantomime and immersive soundscapes, created new theatergoing experiences for audiences and how the same techniques influenced printed genres.

At Penn, Dr. Gamer was a 2017-2018 Price Mellon Research Fellow at the Price Lab for Digital Humanities, where he created a digital database of the 18th- and 19th-century playbills held by the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and the
British Library. 

His most recent book, Romanticism, Self-Canonization, and the Business of Poetry, was published in 2017, and he also contributed to Interacting with Print: Modes of Reading in the Age of Print Saturation. He is the recipient of several teaching awards.

Paul K. Saint-Amour, the Walter H. and Leonore C.  Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and professor and chair of the English department, noted that “Michael will be on leave from Penn for all four years—from January 2020 through December 2023. It’s very unusual for Penn faculty to be away for so many consecutive years; that Michael was given the green light to do so is a testament to the importance of this grant and to his value to the University as teacher, scholar and citizen.”

David Hershkowitz: Penn Dental Chief of Division of Restorative Dentistry

caption: David HershkowitzPenn Dental Medicine recently welcomed David Hershkowitz to the School’s full-time faculty as associate professor of clinical dentistry and chief of the division of restorative dentistry. His appointment was effective October 1. 

As chief of the division of restorative dentistry, Dr. Hershkowitz will oversee the preclinical, clinical and postgraduate education initiatives within the division as well as its faculty and staff. This is one of three divisions within the School’s department of preventive and restorative sciences, led by department Chair Markus Blatz.

Dr. Hershkowitz comes to Penn Dental Medicine from New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry, where he has served on the faculty since 2008, most recently as clinical associate professor and associate chairman of the department of cariology and comprehensive care. There, he managed the predoctoral clinical facility and the more than 400 faculty and staff of the Department. He also had oversight of the school’s AEGD program.

Prior to his time at NYU, Dr. Hershkowitz served on the clinical faculty, 1995-2008, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine. Among his roles at Stony Brook, he served as director of emergency care, director of anesthesia and director of the General Practice Program.

Dr. Hershkowitz holds a DDS from State University of New York at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine (1986). He is also a certified anesthesia assistant and completed a general anesthesia residency at the Hospital of the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1987. Dr. Hershkowitz had a private practice in general dentistry in Stony Brook, New York, 1987- 2014 and has practiced within the NYU Faculty Practice since then. 

“Along with his wealth of clinical care knowledge and academic experience, I know that Dr. Hershkowitz also brings collegiality and teamwork to all his endeavors,” said Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean Mark Wolff. “I’m excited to have him joining our team.” 

Don Harrison: Summer Mentorship Program Director

caption: Don HarrisonDon Harrison, longtime program coordinator of the Provost’s Summer Mentorship Program (SMP), has been named the director of the program, effective October 1.

Mr. Harrison began his work with SMP in 2008, the first year VPUL was assigned responsibility for the program. SMP began in 2006 as a summer college preparatory program for Philadelphia 10th and 11th grade public and charter school students. The students were paired with participating Penn professional schools. Currently five of Penn’s schools—PSOM, Nursing, Engineering, Law and Dental—engage these students in specially created curricula and activities that give them opportunities to explore possible career choices. Each year 60-70 students share in these experiences. In addition to the curriculum in the school to which they are assigned, the students are offered test prep, financial literacy, life skills, college application process assistance/information and other services that help them to hone their skills and strengthen their self-confidence.

Mr. Harrison has been central to the program; he has increased and expanded its offerings and served as the late Gail Oberton’s right hand partner in the growth and enhancement of SMP. She passed away on May 29 (Almanac July 16, 2019). Mr. Harrison has created a college prep guide and has brought a variety of innovative approaches to recruitment of participants, support to school partners, and creative joint activities for students.

Mr. Harrison is a native Philadelphian and a graduate of Central High School and Penn State University.

Nominations for University-Wide Teaching Awards: December 6

Nominations for Penn’s University-wide teaching awards are now being accepted by the Office of the Provost. Any member of the University community—past or present—may nominate a teacher for these awards. There are three awards:

The Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching honors eight members of the standing faculty: four in the non-health schools (Annenberg, Design, SEAS, GSE, Law, SAS, SP2, Wharton) and four in the health schools (Dental Medicine, PSOM, Nursing, V eterinary Medicine).

The Provost’s Award for Distinguished PhD Teaching and Mentoring honors two faculty members for their teaching and mentoring of PhD students. Standing and associated faculty in any school offering the PhD are eligible for the award.

The Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence by Non-Standing Faculty honors two members of the associated faculty or academic support staff who teach at Penn, one in the non-health schools and one in the health schools. 

The nomination forms are available at the Teaching Awards website. The deadline for nominations is Friday, December 6, 2019. Full nominations with complete dossiers prepared by the nominees’ department chairs are due Friday, February 7, 2020.

Note: For the Lindback and Non-Standing Faculty awards, the health schools (Dental Medicine, Nursing, PSOM and Veterinary Medicine) have a separate nomination and selection process. Contact the relevant dean’s office to nominate a faculty member from one of those schools. 

There will be a reception honoring all the award winners in the spring. For more information, please email provost-ed@upenn.edu or call (215) 898-7225.

Criteria and Guidelines

  1. The Lindback and Provost’s Awards are given in recognition of distinguished teaching. “Distinguished teaching” is teaching that is intellectually demanding, unusually coherent and permanent in its effect. The distinguished teacher has the capability of changing the way in which students view the subject they are studying. The distinguished teacher provides the basis for students to look with critical and informed perception at the fundamentals of a discipline, and s/he relates that discipline to other disciplines and to the worldview of the student. The distinguished teacher is accessible to students and open to new ideas, but also expresses his/her own views with articulate and informed understanding of an academic field. The distinguished teacher is fair, free from prejudice and single-minded in the pursuit of truth.
  2. Skillful direction of dissertation students, effective supervision of student researchers, ability to organize a large course of many sections, skill in leading seminars, special talent with large classes, ability to handle discussions or structure lectures—these are all attributes of distinguished teaching, although it is unlikely that anyone will excel in all of them. At the same time, distinguished teaching means different things in different fields. While the distinguished teacher should be versatile, as much at home in large groups as in small, in beginning classes as in advanced, s/he may have skills of special importance in his/her area of specialization. The primary criteria for the Provost’s Award for Distinguished PhD Teaching and Mentoring are a record of successful doctoral student mentoring and placement, success in collaborating on doctoral committees and graduate groups and distinguished research.
  3. Since distinguished teaching is recognized and recorded in different ways, evaluation must also take several forms. It is not enough to look solely at letters of recommendation from students or to consider “objective” evaluations of particular classes in tabulated form. A faculty member’s influence extends beyond the classroom and individual classes. Nor is it enough to look only at a candidate’s most recent semester or opinions expressed immediately after a course is over; the influence of the best teachers last, while that of others may be great at first but lessen over time. It is not enough merely to gauge student adulation, for its basis is superficial; but neither should such feelings be discounted as unworthy of investigation. Rather, all of these factors and more should enter into the identification and assessment of distinguished teaching.
  4. The Lindback and Provost’s Awards have a symbolic importance that transcends the recognition of individual merit. They should be used to advance effective teaching by serving as reminders to the University community of the expectations for the quality of its mission.
  5. Distinguished teaching occurs in all parts of the University.  Therefore, faculty members from all schools are eligible for consideration. An excellent teacher who does not receive an award in a given year may be re-nominated in some future year and receive the award then.
  6. The Lindback and Provost’s Awards may recognize faculty members with many years of distinguished service or many years of service remaining. The teaching activities for which the awards are granted must be components of the degree programs of the University of Pennsylvania.

Governance

From the Office of the University Secretary: University Council Meeting Agenda

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 

4 p.m., Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall

I. Approval of the Minutes of September 11, 2019.  1 minute 

II. Follow Up Comments or Questions on Status Reports.  5 minutes

III. Presentation by the President, Provost, and other administrators on the State of the University.  60 minutes (presentation 30 minutes, discussion 30 minutes)

IV. New Business.  5 minutes

V. Adjournment

Honors

Charlene Compher: Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy

caption:Charlene Compher

Charlene Compher, the Shearer Endowed Term Chair in Healthy Community Practices, professor of nutrition sciences, director of the nutrition programs, and vice chair of Penn Nursing’s department of biobehavioral health sciences, has received the biennial Penn Nursing Award that honors Norma M. Lang, the professor and dean emerita of Penn Nursing. Dr. Compher is also director of Clinical Initiatives for the Penn Nutrition Science and Medicine Center and directs microbiome-related diet assessment research for the Penn-CHOP Microbiome Program. Dr. Compher maintains a clinical practice with the multi-professional Home Parenteral Nutrition program of the Clinical Nutrition Support Service at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The award is given to a Penn Nursing faculty member or a graduate from the School’s doctoral program who has made a distinguished contribution to nursing through scholarly practice. Dr. Compher was selected in recognition of her national and international impact on interprofessional practice, education, research and policy in the areas of nutrition science and clinical nutrition.

She will deliver the lecture “Mission Possible: Excellence in Clinical Nutrition,” on Thursday, November 21, 3-5 p.m., in the Ann L. Roy Auditorium of Claire M. Fagin Hall. Register for the event at https://tinyurl.com/compherlecture 

Sarah Barringer Gordon: NEH Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded Sarah Barringer Gordon,  Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law at Penn Law and professor of history at SAS, and Kevin Waite, assistant professor in the department of history at Durham University, a $242,000 collaborative research grant for their project, “The Long Road to Freedom: Biddy Mason (1818–1891) and the Making of Black Los Angeles.” They were selected on the basis of their proposal to co-author a book and create a website detailing the story of freedwoman Biddy Mason, who played a pivotal role in developing the First African Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Dr. Gordon is an expert on religion in American public life and the law of church and state. Much of her work focuses on the ways that religious liberty developed over the course of American national history. Dr. Waite is a political historian of the 19th-century United States with a focus on slavery, imperialism and the American West.

Paul Heaton, Amanda Bergold: NSF Grant

Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice Senior Fellow and Academic Director Paul Heaton and former Quattrone Center fellow Amanda Bergold have been awarded $175,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their project, “Improving Filler/Suspect Similarity in Eyewitness Lineups Using Facial Recognition Systems.” Their project will examine the use of facial recognition software in eyewitness lineups. Through this work, they expect to develop core insights that can enable law enforcement agencies to create better eyewitness lineups that reduce erroneous identifications, which are a leading contributor to wrongful convictions. Dr. Heaton is an expert on legal and regulatory program and policy evaluation; his research aims to apply methodological insights from economics to inform issues in legal and criminal justice policy. Dr. Bergold, now an assistant professor of criminal justice at Marist College, is a social psychologist who studies how the principles of psychology can be applied to the legal system. 

Cheryl LaFleur: 2019 Carnot Prize

caption:Cheryl LeFleurThis year marks the fifth annual Carnot Prize for distinguished contributions to energy policy—the 2019 recipient is Cheryl LaFleur, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A lecture in her honor will be given by Penn energy economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, professor of economics, October 24 at the Energy Forum at the Kleinman Center (see Inaugural Energy Week @ Penn article). Provost Wendell Pritchett will present the award. 

Olivia S. Mitchell: Ketchum Prize

caption:Olivia Mitchell

The FINRA Investor Education Foundation recently awarded Olivia S. Mitchell, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor and a professor of insurance/risk management and business economics/public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the 2019 Ketchum Prize—its highest honor (which comes with an award of $10,000)—for her extraordinary research on pensions and retirement income and her efforts worldwide to advance financial literacy. 

“For more than two decades, Dr. Mitchell has been at the forefront of research focused on retirement savings and planning. Her in-depth analyses of the intersection of public and private pensions, insurance and risk management, financial literacy, and public finance provide a clearer picture of Americans’ household finances and their ability to accumulate wealth over time,” said FINRA Foundation President Gerri Walsh.

“For most Americans, Social Security and employer-sponsored or individual retirement plans are the cornerstones of retirement, but an alarming number of Americans are financially unprepared for the retirement that awaits them. Dr. Mitchell’s research underscores the critical role that financial literacy plays in Americans’ financial decision-making and behaviors,” Ms. Walsh added.

Dr.  Mitchell is also executive director of the Pension Research Council and director of the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Security, both at the Wharton School. Concurrently, Dr. Mitchell serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and as a senior editor of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.

Dr. Mitchell is one of the world’s leading and most influential economists. Her research explores how systematic longevity risk and financial crises can shape household portfolios and work patterns over the life cycle, the economics and finance of defined contribution pensions, financial literacy and wealth accumulation, and claiming behavior for Social Security benefits.

Foteini Mourkioti: NASA Grant

Foteini Mourkioti, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery and of cell and developmental biology in PSOM and co-director of the Musculoskeletal Regeneration Program in the Penn Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is leading one of only four animal studies awarded a new research grant from NASA. The agency has awarded 15 grants for new space biology research designed to help achieve NASA’s goals under the Artemis lunar exploration program. Teams of investigators will use state-of-the-art genetic and other biological techniques to explore how life adapts and changes during spaceflight, and the results could help support human exploration of the Moon, and ultimately, Mars. Dr. Mourkioti’s work will investigate how space-flight-like conditions impact telomere length in muscle stem cells and how that impacts muscle atrophy.

Penn: 2nd on Forbes’ Most Fortune 100 CEOs

Penn is second on Forbes’ list of graduate schools attended by the most Fortune 100 CEOs.

Forbes released a study on September 28 that investigated how many Fortune 100 CEOs obtained graduate degrees and the percentage of CEOs who attended Ivy League institutions. Five of the Fortune 100 CEOs earned their graduate degree from Penn. Harvard University earned the top spot with seven graduates on the list, and Columbia University ranked third with three CEOs.

Forbes found that 54% of the Fortune 100 CEOs held graduate degrees, with 30% attending an Ivy League institution. Of the CEOs with graduate degrees, 59% earned an MBA, 16% earned doctor of law degrees, and 21% earned non-MBA master’s degrees. Forbes added that 69% of these CEOs attended private schools while 27% attended public schools.

Among the top 10 Fortune 100 CEOs, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was the only CEO to receive an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League school, Forbes reported. The study found 11% of Fortune 100 CEOs obtained an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League institution. 80% held undergraduate degrees from top public colleges such as Texas A&M University and the University of Michigan. 

Penn: Times Higher Education World University #11 Ranking

In the recent Times Higher Education World University rankings, University of Pennsylvania came in #11 overall. In the rankings by subject, University of Pennsylvania was ranked #13 in the arts & humanities, a new category this year.

According to the Times Higher Education website, “the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020 includes almost 1,400 universities across 92 countries. The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.”

“The arts & humanities ranking specifically highlights the universities that are leading across art, performing arts, design, languages, linguistics, literature, history, philosophy, theology, architecture and archaeology subjects.”

In 2011, Penn ranked 22nd on this list.

Penn’s Orphan Disease Center: Allergan Foundation Grant

Penn’s Orphan Disease Center (ODC) has received a $100,000 grant from The Allergan Foundation to support the ODC Jump Start Program. The program aims to serve smaller, ultra-rare disease groups who are in the early stages of establishing a research program and lack the scientific knowledge, resources and infrastructure to do so. The program partners with patient groups and families to address gaps by identifying key opinion leaders and introducing new researchers to a disease. ODC facilitates the development of animal models, establishes patient registries, organizes research as well as patient-focused meetings, and/or connects the patient community with relevant academics and members of industry to ultimately advance science in otherwise overlooked disease areas. This grant will help to underwrite the costs of the program, allowing the ODC team to continue its work in rare disease research.

PennVet: 2019 Green Purchasing Award

The University of Pennsylvania’s 2019 Green Purchasing Award, presented by Penn Purchasing Services and Penn Sustainability, was announced at the annual Purchasing Services Supplier Show on September 24. 

Now celebrating its fifth year, the Green Purchasing Award program recognizes the outstanding contributions of an individual or team that significantly advances the development of sustainable purchasing practices at Penn.

This year’s award went to Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine for the positive impact they have made in managing their print services since they became one of the early adopters of the Penn Managed Print Services Program. Prior to enrolling in the program in 2014, the School was managing over 65 printers, comprising 28 different models from three different manufacturers.  The fleet of printers was located throughout the campus as well as the New Bolton Center. 

Since signing up to participate in the Managed Print Services Program, PennVet has substantially reduced purchases of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)—branded toner and has managed the entire portfolio of printers under one contract. They were also able to recover used toner and document their recycling efforts.

“This year’s recipient of the Green Purchasing Award underscores the value that can be derived from managing print services in a department or throughout a School or Center,” said Mark Mills, executive director and chief procurement officer for Purchasing Services. “Our honorees from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine made smart, responsible purchasing decisions that have resulted in considerable cost avoidance savings while realizing a significant reduction in electronic, paper, and plastic (ink/toner) waste.”   

Over the life of their program, results of the team at PennVet’s efforts include:

  • 767 toners were recycled, saving 576 gallons of oil and averting 2,150.4 kg of CO2.  The School experienced a first-year cost reduction savings of 38.5%;
  • 641 potential purchase orders were avoided.  The estimated cost avoidance savings, based on an average of $25 per purchase order in administrative burden, is $16,025; and, 
  • 384,000 sheets of paper were not printed, which is the equivalent of 256 trees saved.  The direct cost savings of the 384,000 pages over the period has been $7,680.  

This initiative aligns with Penn’s Climate Action Plan, the University’s comprehensive strategic roadmap for environmental sustainability.

caption:Left to right: Bob Melso, Docusense; Dan Garofalo, Penn Sustainability; Ray Skwire, Penn Vet; Maddy Schuh, Penn Sustainability; Smith Ragsdale, Penn Vet; Elizabeth Main, Penn Sustainability; Justin Henderson, Penn Vet; Jerry Cheng, Penn Vet; Casey Scott, Penn Purchasing; Colleen Reardon, Penn Purchasing; Mark Mills, Penn Purchasing. Not pictured from Penn Vet: Christine Paris.

Features

Charles Addams: The Addams Family’s Ties to Penn

caption: Charles AddamsA new animated film, The Addams Family, premiered last week. The new film is the first 3D computer-animated rendering of Mr. Addams’ characters, and its release inspired a look at his career. The movie paid tribute to the creative genius of Charles Addams, who conceived the Addams family characters in the original The Addams Family cartoon. The artist, born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, attended the University of Pennsylvania 1930-1931, after transferring from Colgate University because he wanted to take art courses. His curriculum turned out to be first-year architecture instead of art, so the following year he attended the Grand Central School of Art in New York City (Almanac November 8, 1979). Despite the short stint, he left a lasting legacy in the fine arts community at Penn, as well as in the entertainment industry and American culture as a whole. Mr. Addams is known for his fantastical cartoons that possess a ghoulish, haunting quality. He sold his first sketch to The New Yorker in 1932, and his work continued to appear in the publication for which he freelanced for a span of more than 50 years (Almanac May 8, 1980). His development of the Addams Family comic contributed to the basis of The Addams Family television series, which premiered in 1964 on ABC and ran for two years, and the three live-actions films that followed. The Addams Family, Addams Family Values and Addams Family Reunion have since become American favorites.  Mr. Addams’ work has been exhibited at the Fogg Art Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Almanac May 8, 1980). His prominent cartoon collections include Drawn and Quartered (1942), Addams and Evil (1947), Monster Rally (1950), Homebodies (1954), Nightcrawlers (1957), Dear Dead Days (1959), Black Maria (1960), The Charles Addams Mother Goose (1967), My Crowd (1970), Chas. Addams Favorite Haunts (1976), and Creature Comforts (1981). Many of Mr. Addams’ works have been published as books.

In 1980, Mr. Addams received an honorary Doctor in Fine Arts degree from Penn. He was “richly deserving of recognition for the finite time he did here at Pennsylvania in the thirties and the infinite pleasure he has given to generations of monster-lovers ever since, this noted—if not notorious—member of the University Family is now slated to receive from their hand the honorary degree” (Almanac May 22, 1980).

The “Addams Family mansion” in particular was thought by many to be inspired by the intricate architecture of Penn’s College Hall. The iconic building embodied the “cobwebby, gloomy Victorian structure inhabited by a vampire” (Almanac May 8, 1980).

When Mr. Addams died in 1988 at the age of 76, his ashes were buried, per his instructions, in “The Swamp,” the pet cemetery on his estate. 

In his memory, the Lady Colyton (Barbara Estella Barb), Mr. Addams’ ex-wife, endowed the Charles Addams Memorial Prize, which awards $10,000 annually to a graduating MFA student for the promise of outstanding talent and achievement as an artist. 

caption: Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall is located at 200 South 36th Street, overlooking Walnut Street. It was originally planned to be located in the former Asbury Methodist Church, where renovations were nearly complete, but it burned down before the planned opening (Almanac March 18, 1997). Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller.

In 1995, Lady Colyton announced a gift to create the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall as a space for the fine arts community at the University. Penn President Emerita Judith Rodin described the gift as a “tribute to the artist whose Gothic characters played out their dramas to the endless delight of us all.” Donations for the building also came from 1970 graduates Fern Karesh Hurst and Barbara and Harvey Kroiz, among others (Almanac April 3, 2001). The state-of-the-art building opened in 2001 with an exhibition that included several of Charles Addams’ original New Yorker cartoons given to Penn. Linking the campus to the building are The Kelly Family Gates—bronze gates with sculptural hands designed by Mark Lueders, MFA’93, who won a juried competition and was inspired by Mr. Addams’ “Thing” character. The hands were molded from Penn fine arts students, staff and faculty (Almanac May 13, 2003).

caption: The silhouette was designed by Lindsay Falck, landscape architecture lecturer. Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller.

The reappearance of Mr. Addams’ work on the big screen honors the prominence of his artistic career. Decades after his conception of the Addams Family, Mr. Addams continues to please audiences with his macabre creations. His art never ceases to inspire new works in the world of entertainment.

Mr. Addams was a distant relation (despite the spelling difference of their last names) to presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and a cousin of social reformer Jane Addams. John Adams of Massachusetts and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania crossed paths during the early days of the republic. The first time they met was at the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774. Both were supporters of independence and they worked together in Paris to obtain French support for the American cause. 

 caption: This illustration of The Addams Family in front of College Hall, including his famous characters (from left to right) Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday, Lurch and Grandmama, was specifically designed for the March 1973 issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Events

Inaugural Energy Week @ Penn: October 21-25

Energy Week at the University of Pennsylvania gathers a wide array of researchers and learners for a concentrated week of energy programming beginning October 21 through October 25 with events across the disciplines of business, communications, design, law, engineering and science. View the calendar at energyweekatpenn.com

Energy Week @ Penn is sponsored by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology.

Designing New York’s Energy Transition

Monday, October 21, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Upper Galleries | Meyerson Hall

Graduate students in landscape architecture present design proposals intended to advance implementation of New York State’s new Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Aggressive and recent as it is, the future that this law will create is hard to imagine. Design can help explore the possibilities and allow citizens to visualize and debate a shared vision for fossil fuel plant sites—soon to be liberated—and for the renewable energy landscapes that will replace them. Drop in and hear the critiques of a diverse panel of experts.

Seminar: Organic Chemistry Seminar

Monday, October 21, noon-1 p.m.

Carol Lynch Lecture Hall | Chemistry Complex

Associate professor Natalia Shustova from the University of South Carolina shares her research on materials for sustainable energy conversion, sensing, switches, and artificial biomimetic systems.

Display: Penn’s Electric Race Car

Monday, October 21, 1-5 p.m.

Outer Plaza | Fisher Fine Arts Library

Penn Electric Racing builds world-class electric vehicles that have set a North American acceleration record. Their newest vehicle REV5 is America’s first competitive custom 4-wheel drive racecar. Check out the hottest car on campus and meet the students who design and race it.

Showcase: Energy Week Launch

Monday, October 21, 4-6 p.m.

Energy Forum | Kleinman Center

Welcome to Penn’s first Energy Week: explore a showcase of energy innovation with posters, prototypes and video highlights. Grab a drink and meet the researchers behind these projects.

Screening: Bitcoin & Energy in Iceland

Tuesday, October 22, 6-8 p.m.

Annenberg Forum | Annenberg School

As cryptocurrency and blockchain technology rapidly enter mainstream discourse, the on-the-ground practices of the industry remain opaque and hard to grasp. Cryptocurrency mining occurs in specific places for specific reasons, and over the past few years, Iceland has seen rapid growth in the construction of blockchain data centers—largely due to its abundance of cheap, renewable energy. Annenberg doctoral candidate and filmmaker Zane Cooper presents his immersive virtual-reality documentary on Iceland’s blockchain industry. Explore the film with your own VR headset, meet the filmmaker, and see a working cryptocurrency mining machine up close.

Discussion: Energy at Penn

Wednesday, October 23, noon

Room 108 |ARCH 

Unsure about where Penn gets its electricity? Want to learn what Penn is doing to reduce building-level emissions? Curious about how you can play a part as an occupant? Learn the answers to these questions! Lunch will be provided. RSVP to sustainability@upenn.edu if you plan to attend.

Seminar: Chem & Bio Engineering

Wednesday, October 23, 3 p.m.

Wu and Chen Auditorium | Levine Hall 

Yushan Yan, professor of engineering at the University of Delaware, has chosen to study fuel cells, electrolyzers and flow batteries. 

Seminar: Energy Economics and Finance

Wednesday, October 23, 4-5:30 p.m. 

Classroom | Kleinman Center

Yanjun (Penny) Liao in a conversation about her research.

Seminar: Materials Science & Engineering

Thursday, October 24, 10:45-11:45 a.m.

Auditorium, LRSM

Debra Rolison, head of the advanced electrochemical materials section of the Naval Research Laboratory, shares her research on multifunctional nanoarchitectures for catalysis, energy storage and conversion, and sensors.

2019 Carnot Prize

Thursday, October 24, 4-6 p.m.

Energy Forum | Kleinman Center

This year marks the fifth annual Carnot Prize for distinguished contributions to energy policy—and our 2019 recipient is Cheryl LaFleur, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (See Cheryl LaFleur: 2019 Carnot Prize article).

Conference: Wharton Energy Conference

Friday, October 25, 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

Union League of Philadelphia

Wharton Energy Conference is one of the largest energy conferences in the Northeast, and the premier event organized by an MBA student body. For registration and agenda, visit
https://www.whartonenergyconference2019.com

This is a paid event. Registration is required.

Power Down Challenge E-Waste Collections

October 21-25

Throughout the week, electronic waste will be collected in SEAS, Law, Dental, Nursing and PSOM for anyone to recycle electronic waste, including batteries, phones, computers, cords and more. Visit https://tinyurl.com/powderdown2019 for a list of dates, times and locations.

caption:See Penn’s electric race car outside Fisher Fine Arts Library on October 21. It’s part of the signature showcase event for the Energy Week Launch, which will highlight energy-related research and innovation around campus.

Update: October AT PENN

Exhibits

17    Conformations; a solo show by mixed media BioArtist-in-Residence Laura Splan; Esther Klein Gallery; opening reception: October 17, 5-7:30 p.m. Through November 23.

Fitness and Learning

21    Wellness Walk; Benoit Dube, Chief Wellness Officer;  noon; Ben Franklin Statue; RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/y6ybu6uh (CPHI, Provost’s Office, Penn Libraries). 

Talks

21    Community Conversations; Shadrack Frimpong (C’15, SP2’19), founder of Cocoa360; 5:30 p.m.; Hall of Flags, Houston Hall (Weingarten Center). 

23    Susan T. Marx Distinguished Lecture; Liliana Porter, artist; 6 p.m.; auditorium G17, Claudia Cohen Hall; register: https://tinyurl.com/lilianaporterlecture (ARG).

24    Master Class with Amadou Kane Sy and Muhsana Ali; Center for Africana Studies Fall 2019 Artists in Residence; 5:30 p.m.; rm. 330A, 3401 Walnut St.; RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/yxldngn5 (Africana Studies). 

AT PENN Deadlines 

The October AT PENN calendar is now available. The November AT PENN calendar will be published on October 29. The deadline for the weekly Update is the Monday prior to the week of the issue’s publication. The deadline for the December AT PENN calendar is November 11. The December AT PENN calendar will be published November 26.

Crimes

Weekly Crime Reports

The University of Pennsylvania Police Department Community Crime Report

Below are the Crimes Against Persons, Crimes Against Society and Crimes Against Property from the campus report for September 30-October 6, 2019. View prior weeks' reports—Ed.

This summary is prepared by the Division of Public Safety and includes all criminal incidents reported and made known to the University Police Department for the dates of September 30-October 6, 2019. The University Police actively patrol from Market St to Baltimore and from the Schuylkill River to 43rd St in conjunction with the Philadelphia Police. In this effort to provide you with a thorough and accurate report on public safety concerns, we hope that your increased awareness will lessen the opportunity for crime. For any concerns or suggestions regarding this report, please call the Division of Public Safety at (215) 898-4482.

10/01/19

9:51 AM

300 S 38th St

Subject wanted on warrant/Arrest

10/01/19

10:12 AM

3900 Walnut St

Female wanted on warrant/Arrest

10/01/19

4:36 PM

220 S 33rd St

Unsecured headphone taken

10/01/19

5:07 PM

3700 Hamilton Walk

Secure bike taken

10/02/19

8:39 AM

3400 Civic Center Blvd

Unauthorized male in building/Arrest

10/02/19

9:55 PM

3300 Chestnut St

Male wanted on warrant/Arrest

10/03/19

8:30 AM

4017 Baltimore Ave.

Unauthorized currency withdrawn from bank account

10/03/19

11:51 AM

4109 Walnut St

Fraudulent charges made on stolen credit card

10/03/19

5:38 PM

3400 Walnut St

Unknown male slapped complainant

10/03/19

6:41 PM

138 S 34th St

Merchandise taken without rendering payment

10/04/19

2:16 AM

3335 Woodland Walk

Secured bike taken from bike rack

10/04/19

10:40 AM

451 University Ave

Complainant struck with chair by known individual

10/04/19

7:51 PM

3730 Walnut St

Apple pencil taken

18th District

Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 12 incidents (5 assaults, 4 domestic assaults, 2 robberies, and 1 aggravated assault) with no arrests were reported from September 30-October 6, 2019 by the 18th District covering the Schuylkill River to 49th Street & Market Street to Woodland Avenue.

09/30/19

3:09 AM

3900 Walnut St

Domestic Assault

09/30/19

3:10 AM

3900 Walnut St

Assault

09/30/19

2:21 PM

46th & Walnut St

Assault

09/30/19

3:49 PM

46th & Osage Ave

Assault

10/02/19

12:56 AM

4618 Locust St

Robbery

10/02/19

6:38 PM

100 S 40th St

Assault

10/03/19

6:59 PM

3400 Walnut St

Assault

10/04/19

12:05 AM

1003 S 46th St

Domestic Assault

10/04/19

11:06 AM

451 University Ave

Aggravated Assault

10/04/19

10:52 PM

4823 Springfield Ave

Robbery

10/06/19

11:56 AM

1003 S 46th St

Domestic Assault

10/06/19

5:39 PM

1217 S 46th St

Domestic Assault

Bulletins

Penn’s Way 2020 – Raffle Prize Drawings

Penn's Way: A Workplace Charitable Campaign logo.

Week One Winners

Penn Ice Rink/Beijing Restaurant—Skate & Date—Skating pass for two & gift card ($91 value): Joanne Ciconte, Penn Medicine

Penn Athletics—Two Tickets to 2020 Men’s Football ($50 value): Amanda Daly, CPUP

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Two Tickets to 2019/2020 Performance ($100 value): Christopher Preciado, HUP

Thermo Fisher Scientific— Starbucks Gift Card ($50 value): Charlyn Berona, HUP

Saxby’s—Ten free drink vouchers ($40 value): Allison Fantauzzi, Penn Medicine

eCity Interactive—Two Tickets to Verdi’s Requiem, Opera Philadelphia, Jan 31, 2020 ($100 value): Jason Pariser, CPUP

Xfinity Live—Gift Card ($100 value): Shannon Bryant Knox, HUP

Week Four (October 28 Drawing)

Yards Brewing Co.—Gift Basket, assorted six-pack, two pint glasses, $30 gift card ($50 value)

Business Services—Penn fashion scarf ($90 value)

Hip City Veg Marquis & Co—Gift card  ($50 value)

Wawa—Gift Basket ($50 value)

Thermo Fisher Scientific—Darden Restaurants gift card ($50 value)

National Constitution Center—Four admission passes ($58 value)

Penn Woods Winery—Wine tasting for four ($60 value)

Visit http://pennsway.upenn.edu for more information about the raffle and making a pledge. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. on the prior Friday for inclusion in a given week’s drawing. Note: list subject to change. 

National Retirement Security Week

National Retirement Security Week 2019 is October 20-26. Held annually on the third week of October, this week was created in response to a resolution by Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) to raise awareness about retirement savings. In support of National Retirement Security Week, Human Resources will host the following information sessions by TIAA and Vanguard, Penn’s retirement plan providers:

October 22, TIAA at ARCH 108 

11 a.m.-noon– Money at Work 1: Foundations of Investing. Learn about risk versus reward, accelerating savings, and helpful tools and resources. 

1:30-2:30 p.m.–Money at Work 2: Sharpening Investment Skills. Building off of Money at Work 1, you’ll learn about evaluating savings progress, your investment personality, and investment strategies in more detail.

October 24, Vanguard at Irvine Auditorium

11 a.m.-noon–Getting on Track. Strategies for saving more, deciding how long to work, when to start taking Social Security, adjusting your investment mix, and paying off debt.

1:30-2:30 p.m.–A Tour of Vanguard’s Online Tools and Resources. Take a tour of Vanguard’s online calculators, planning resources, and educational articles and videos.

In addition to learning how to optimize your retirement savings, you can also earn 10 Be in the Know Bonus Action Points for each session you attend, for a maximum of 40 Bonus Action points per campaign year.

To register, for these information sessions  visit www.hr.upenn.edu/retirement-security-week

A Drug-Free Workplace

For the health and safety of the community, the University of Pennsylvania is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace. Drug and alcohol abuse endangers individual users, as well as their family, friends and coworkers. The use of any substance that impairs your workplace judgement or abilities puts you, your colleagues, and Penn students at risk.

As Penn observes National Drug-Free Work Week, please take the time to review the University’s drug and alcohol policies.

Penn’s Drug and Alcohol Policies

Penn prohibits the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, sale, possession or use of any drug by its employees in its workplace. Complete policy details are available online:

Understanding Addiction

Addiction is a serious disease, but many effective treatments are available. Visit Penn’s Health Advocate website at http://www.healthadvocate.com/upenn for facts about addiction, recovery and support services for faculty and staff.

Help Is Here

If you or a family member has a substance abuse problem, we encourage you to seek help. Penn provides free, confidential counseling services for you and your immediate family members through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). The EAP will assist you with challenges that may interfere with your personal or professional life, including substance abuse.

For more information about the EAP’s counseling and referral services, visit the Employee Assistance Program web page at https://www.hr.upenn.edu/eap or contact the Employee Assistance Program 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at (866) 799-2329.

You can also refer to Penn’s addiction treatment publication for information about treatment benefits and resources at https://www.hr.upenn.edu/docs/default-source/benefits/opioid-brochure.pdf

Public Notice: UPPD On-Site Assessment for Accreditation

The University of Pennsylvania Police Department is scheduled for an on-site assessment as part of a program to retain its accredited status with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). The assessment is to verify that the University of Pennsylvania Police Department is in compliance with professional law enforcement standards.

Administered by CALEA, a non-profit organization based in Fairfax, Virginia, the accreditation program requires agencies to comply with state-of-the-art standards in four basic areas: policy and procedures, administration, operations, and support services. Additional information can be found at www.calea.org

Agency employees and the general public are invited to offer comments by calling (215) 746-2400 on Wednesday, October 23, 2019, between 2 and 4 p.m.  Comments will be taken by the on-site Assessment Team.

Agency employees and members of the community are invited to offer comments at a public information session Wednesday, October 23, 2019, beginning at 1 p.m.  The session will be conducted in the UPPD Headquarters Building located at 4040 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Comments will be taken by the on-site Assessment Team.

All comments, both by telephone and in person, are limited to 10 minutes and must address the agency’s ability to comply with CALEA’s standards. A copy of the standards is available at the UPPD Headquarters Building. Local contact is Sergeant Nicole Michel, accreditation manager, phone number (215) 573-5681.

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