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A Message from President Amy Gutmann to the Penn Community Regarding Provost Wendell Pritchett

In May, our esteemed colleague and dear friend Wendell Pritchett announced that he would be taking a leave of absence from his duties as Provost to tend to some significant health challenges. I am very pleased to report that Wendell is healthy again and that he is eager to return to campus in January, which is very good news for all of us who treasure his friendship and value the extraordinary work he has done for Penn.

At this point, after much reflection with his family, Wendell has decided that he would like to return to his position as a member of the faculty of the Penn Carey Law School. While I had very much hoped to welcome him back as Provost, I fully understand and support this deeply felt and very personal decision.

As I approach my final months at Penn, there are so many important things still to accomplish and, as I reflected on the best ways to maximize Penn momentum over this period, it was clear to me that I could benefit greatly from Wendell’s service and wise counsel. After discussing this with him, Wendell has enthusiastically agreed to accept a role as Senior Advisor to the President to help me as I conclude my final semester as President.

Wendell will assume this role through the end of the spring semester, and then return full-time to his faculty position in the Penn Carey Law School. I am most grateful to him and look forward to working with him in the months ahead. Wendell also wanted me to share with you that from the beginning of the current presidential search process, he made clear to the search committee that he did not wish to be considered as a candidate. This is consistent with his plans to return to teaching, which is his great personal passion.

Beth Winkelstein, who has been serving admirably as Interim Provost during Wendell’s leave of absence, has graciously agreed to continue in that role until Penn’s next president selects the next provost.

As thrilled as I am that Wendell will be back in College Hall next semester, working closely with me, I am most delighted to know that Wendell is healthy and well. I know you will all join me in welcoming him back to campus in January and in celebrating the exceptional job that he did as Penn’s Provost, while also treasuring the fact that he will continue to serve our students long into the future.

—Amy Gutmann, President

A Message to the University Community: Penn Cares COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Clinic

I am pleased to announce that the University will be holding a three-day COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Clinic for all students, faculty, staff, and postdocs on December 15, 16, and 17, at the Gimbel Gymnasium in the Pottruck Health and Fitness Center. Due to supply constraints, we will be offering the Pfizer vaccine exclusively. You can schedule your appointment by visiting coronavirus.upenn.edu

You can read more information below or visit the Penn Cares Getting Vaccinated page.

Schedule Your Booster

The clinic will be open from 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. each day, and appointments can be scheduled by visiting coronavirus.upenn.edu. As this event overlaps with final exams for many of our students, we encourage faculty and staff to schedule their appointments on either Wednesday or Thursday, leaving Friday appointments for students. 

Bring Your Vaccine Card

As a reminder, the CDC recommends that everyone ages 18 and older get a booster shot at least six months after their second Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two months after their Johnson & Johnson vaccine. To this effect, please be sure to bring your vaccine cards with you to your appointment. 

Mixing and Matching

The CDC recommendation also allows for mixing of vaccine manufacturers for booster shots. Individuals who received two doses of Moderna at least six months ago and individuals who received a single dose of Johnson and Johnson at least 2 months ago are eligible for a Pfizer booster. The CDC issued Emergency Use Instructions (EUI) allowing Pfizer boosters for those who received a non-FDA recognized vaccine. Bottom line: the best booster shot is the one that is currently available to you.

Upload Your Booster Information

Although the University is not requiring booster vaccines at this time, students should ensure their booster vaccine (3rd dose) information is uploaded to their Student Health Portal, and faculty, staff, and postdocs should upload their information into Workday. Step-by-step instructions for uploading vaccine information into Workday can be found here: Self Service: Enter Vaccination Information.

Remain Vigilant

As we monitor the impact of the Omicron variant and increases in positivity on campus, Quakers must continue to remain vigilant and follow all public health guidance to minimize any risk of transmission. Masking, vaccines and avoiding large indoor gatherings remain our best tools to minimize transmission.

Together, we have the ability to make thoughtful choices as we head into the final weeks of the semester and into a much deserved winter break. The decisions we make today can help us avoid outcomes such as having to quarantine due to exposure, delaying or limiting travel during the break, and disrupting our end -of-semester academic activities.

Thank you for continuing to do your part to keep Penn and our surrounding communities healthy and safe.

Benoit Dubé, Associate Provost and Chief Wellness Officer

Consultative Committee for Vice President for Public Safety

Senior Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli has announced and will chair a consultative committee to advise him on the appointment of a new Vice President for Public Safety. Maureen S. Rush, who has served in the role for the past twenty years, will retire from Penn on December 31.

The members of the committee are:

Rudie Altamirano, Executive Director, International Student and Scholar Services & Immigration and Integration Services, Penn Global

Glenn Bryan, Assistant Vice President for Community Relations, Office of Government and Community Affairs

Dennis Culhane, professor, School of Social Policy & Practice; Past Chair, DPS Advisory Board

Will Gipson, Special Advisor to the Vice President of Social Equity and Community; Faculty Director, W.E.B. Du Bois College House; chair, DPS Advisory Board

Leslie Hurtig, Vice Dean for Administration, Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Lisa Lewis, Faculty Director, College Houses & Academic Services and Gregory College House; Associate Dean for Equity & Inclusion; and associate professor, School of Nursing

Caroline Li, Penn Undergraduate Assembly Member

Joann Mitchell, Senior Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer

Richard Moore, President, Spruce Hill Community Association

Jeff Rowland, Executive Director, Staff & Labor Relations and Recruitment Services, Division of Human Resources

Sharon Smith, Associate Vice Provost for University Life

Michele Volpe, Chief Executive Officer, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center

Wendy White, Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Marie Witt, Vice President, Business Services

The work of the committee will be supported by Senior Vice President for Human Resources, Jack Heuer, working with Mark Hall of Spelman Johnson, a premier executive search firm dedicated to serving higher education. Confidential nominations and applications can be sent to mah@spelmanandjohnson.com.

Kathleen Shields Anderson: Interim Vice President for Public Safety

caption: Kathleen AndersonSenior Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli announced the appointment of Kathleen Shields Anderson as the Interim Vice President for Public Safety effective January 1, 2022. Mr. Carnaroli previously announced the retirement of Maureen S. Rush, following 27 years of dedicated service to the University, including 20 years as Vice President for Public Safety.

Ms. Anderson currently serves as the executive director of operations and chief of staff and has been with the Division of Public Safety for the past 10 years, having joined from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Her experience will help facilitate seamless operations during the leadership transition. As previously communicated, Ms. Rush has agreed to remain as a special advisor to the SEVP to assist in successful transition and onboarding of the next Vice President for Public Safety.

Konrad Kording, George Demiris: Named University Professorships

caption: Konrad Kording caption: George DemirisTwo Penn Integrates Knowledge Professors, Konrad Kording and George Demiris, have received named University Professorships. The announcement was made on December 6 by President Amy Gutmann.

“Konrad Kording and George Demiris are innovative, cross-disciplinary Penn scholars whose outstanding teaching and research reflect the inspiring legacies of Nathan Francis Mossell and Mary Alice Bennett,” said President Gutmann. “I am delighted to name these University Professorships, and I am proud to ensure Mossell and Bennett’s memory lives on far into the future. It is because of these two pioneers’ determination, and their greatness, that Penn endures as a leader in education and medicine.”

Dr. Kording, who holds joint appointments in the Department of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will become the Nathan Francis Mossell University Professor.

When Nathan Francis Mossell graduated in 1882, he became the first African American to earn a medical degree from Penn. He soon became a prominent physician, the first to be elected to the Philadelphia County Medical Society. He helped found the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School, which treated Black patients and helped train the next generation of Black doctors and nurses.

Dr. Mossell was part of a family which included his niece Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, who earned her Ph.D. from Penn in 1921 and became the first Black person to obtain a Ph.D. in economics in the United States. She was also the first African American woman to graduate from Penn’s Law School. She was married to Raymond Pace Alexander, the first African American judge appointed to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

“Dr. Mossell was truly inspiring. He had to fight for everything, yet never reneged on his principles. He pretty much started a hospital and was a major champion for the advancement of equality for African Americans,” Dr. Kording said. “In my research, where I study how intelligence works, I am inspired by scholars like him who combine many different insights. He was a wonderful man, and I will be proud to carry his name.”

Dr. Demiris, who holds joint faculty appointments in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences in the School of Nursing and the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics in the Perelman School of Medicine, will become the Mary Alice Bennett University Professor.

Mary Alice Bennett was a physician and the first woman to obtain a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she was the first female superintendent in the women’s section of the state mental hospital in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and the first woman president of the Montgomery County Medical Society.

Dr. Bennett argued strongly for the ethical treatment of the mentally ill and introduced occupational therapy such as music, painting, and crafts to the Norristown hospital. Dr. Bennett’s then-revolutionary policy of humane and respectful care for patients became widely adopted and won her broad professional recognition.

“It’s an immense honor to receive a professorship in the name of Dr. Bennett, who was a trailblazer, leader, and innovator. Her work highlighted the importance of respecting patients’ privacy and dignity and demonstrated her passion and commitment to improving people’s lives,” Dr. Demiris said. “In my own work, I aim to pursue a patient- and family-centered approach to designing and evaluating health information systems for older adults. I could not think of a greater inspiration than Dr. Bennett, and I hope my research and teaching will honor her remarkable legacy.”

Call for Honorary Degree Nominations

Dear Colleagues

We invite you to nominate candidates to receive an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania at Commencement. Candidates should exemplify the highest ideals of the University, which seek to educate those who will change the world through innovative scholarship, scientific discovery, artistic creativity, and/or civic leadership. 

We encourage you to involve your faculty colleagues, within and across departments and schools, in the nomination process. Nominations should highlight how nominees meet the criteria for selection. Please do not contact the nominees, as the selection process is confidential and candidates should not know that they are being considered. We particularly encourage nominations from departments and schools whose fields have not been recognized by the awarding of honorary degrees in recent years. You can view a list of previous Penn honorary degree recipients here

The University Council Committee on Honorary Degrees welcomes nominations at any time and conducts review on an ongoing basis. Candidates may ultimately be selected several years after their initial nominations. Please note that it is University policy to bar from consideration Penn standing faculty, trustees, or members of school and center boards of advisors. The University Council Committee’s recommendations are forwarded to the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees and Awards for final selection. 

If you would like to submit a nomination, please follow this link to additional information on the honorary degrees selection process, including an online nomination form. If you have any questions, please contact Laura Brennan at lmbr@upenn.edu or (215) 573-5047. 

Penn emeritus faculty are eligible to receive honorary degrees through a special nomination process. University deans propose candidates for consideration by the Council of Deans. The Council’s nominations are then reviewed by the President and Provost, and final selection is made by the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees. 

Honorary degrees are important statements of Penn’s values and aspirations, and we strongly encourage your participation in this process. 

—Amy Gutmann, President 

—Jonathan Moreno, Chair, University Council Committee on Honorary Degrees

Penn Medicine: COVID-19 Care Innovations Saved Patients’ Lives

Nearly two years since COVID-19 first appeared, there are more tools than ever before to tackle the pandemic, including highly effective vaccines and a much better understanding of the disease and its treatments. Now, too, we have the evidence to show that a trio of bright ideas implemented at Penn Medicine to provide the right care in the right places have saved lives and greatly improved the way we care for patients with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 Triage Tool

Released at the height of the spring 2020 surge, the COVID-19 Triage Tool was developed to give patients an easy, effective way to determine what level of care (if any) they may need in response to COVID-19 exposure or symptoms. It was also designed to ease the burden on health care providers by steering patients with mild cases away from emergency departments and escalating sicker patients to the right level of care.

A study in Applied Clinical Informatics noted that the Triage Tool, which comprised a Frequently Asked Questions page and an automated chatbot, categorized the overwhelming majority of patients who used it into the appropriate severity level. For those patients whose symptoms warranted immediate attention, the tool, integrated into Penn Medicine’s systems, directed them where to turn for next steps, instead of toward a call center which would only have to repeat the screening. The researchers say symptom-checking tools like this – whether for COVID or another health crisis – should both improve patients’ experience and safely free up call centers and clinicians to attend to the patients who are most in need.

COVID Watch

A study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine described the tremendous success of another Penn-born tool, COVID Watch. This automated text messaging system provides continual monitoring of patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis through twice-daily check-ins. When patients indicate in reply to an automated text that they have worsening symptoms, they are sent follow-up questions and put directly in touch with a nurse staffing the program who can direct them to the hospital, if needed.

Researchers found that use of the system helped save lives, as often as one life every three to four days. COVID Watch also demonstrated equity and efficacy among different populations. “We saw a higher proportion of higher-risk patients and also low-income and Black patients enrolled in COVID Watch, but the fact that we measured a significant benefit associated with enrollment in the program is a good indicator that there truly is a treatment benefit for everyone,” said the study’s lead author and co-primary investigator, M. Kit Delgado, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology, as well as the deputy director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit.

The COVID Accelerated Care Pathway

When patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, they don’t always need to be in an ICU on ventilator support. In fact, some just require a day or two of inpatient care to stabilize before they can be discharged to ride out the rest of the illness at home, with monitoring. This idea was the foundation of the COVID Accelerated Care Pathway (CACP), which debuted at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania almost exactly one year ago, and which was described in a new analysis in the American Journal of Managed Care.

The CACP helps clinicians determine which patients can be admitted briefly to observation units and then safely return home, which frees up beds for sicker patients, increases efficiency, reduces readmission rates, and aids in recovery. Patients cleared for discharge are followed up with via COVID Watch (or COVID Pulse, which employs a pulse oximeter for remote monitoring). According to Keith Hemmert, medical director of HUP’s emergency department, “Identifying these patients early in their encounter with the health system allowed us to set them on a trajectory toward early discharge to home, and meanwhile allowed us to prioritize the right resources for patients who were seriously ill with COVID-19.”

Deaths

Horst S. Daemmrich, German

caption: Horst DaemmrichHorst S. Daemmrich, emeritus professor and former chair of the department of Germanic languages and literatures, died November 26 at his home in Flourtown, PA. He was 91.

Born in Pausa, eastern Germany to parents who ran a successful business making cloth and delicate white lace, his idyllic childhood ended at age 9 as Germany invaded Poland. His family was forced to manufacture Nazi uniforms instead of lace. Over the next six years, his family faced scant food, falling-apart shoes, and even the bombing of his boarding school. His father was drafted in 1944 and captured by the American army. In 1947, with Germany divided, schools reopened and his father safely home, he joined a friend in protesting the East German communist regime by handing out banned western newspapers before escaping to West Germany. 

He completed his high school studies in Munich and worked for a United States Army PX. In November 1953, he boarded a freighter for America. In Detroit, Dr. Daemmrich lived with an aunt while studying political science at Wayne State University. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Dr. Daemmrich won a scholarship in 1959 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Chicago. He switched his academic focus to German literature and achieved his PhD in 1964.

Dr. Daemmrich trained two generations of graduate students in German literature at Penn and chaired the department for a decade before retiring in 1998. Famous for his engaging lecture style, Dr. Daemmrich made his popular course “Mann, Hesse, Kafka” a must for many undergraduate students outside the German field. Before coming to Penn, he taught from 1962 to 1980 at Wayne State University.

“In his lifelong engagement with literature as a genuine human pursuit, he extended themes and motifs into a study of perennial moral conflicts, providing guidance from the great poets and writers,” said professor emeritus of German Frank Trommler.

In 1990, Penn honored him with its top teaching prize, the Ira H. Abrams Award. His career included more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, along with additional books he edited. Dr. Daemmrich and his wife, Ingrid, contributed to Penn in setting up and increasing the value of the Daemmrich-Guenter Fund with awards prizes to graduate students in Germanic studies and comparative literature. 

Dr. Daemmrich devoted more than six decades to literary criticism, studying major German writers ranging from Goethe to Günter Grass. He is best known for his research on recurring thematic patterns, which he explored in a series of books. Dr. Daemmrich remained focused, directing his family to mail out copies of a self-published memoir he wrote for his family. In September 2021, he published his final book, Self-Realization.

Dr. Daemmrich is survived by his daughters, JoAnna Daemmrich (David Loughlin) and Ursula Daemmrich von Luttitz (Eckart); his son, Arthur Daemmrich (Saiping Tso); and seven grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held in Dr. Daemmrich’s honor on Saturday, January 8, 2022, 11 a.m., at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church, 411 Susquehanna Road, Ambler PA 19002. Interment private. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his name may be made to the University of Pennsylvania.

James McGann, International Studies

caption: James McGannJames McGann, senior lecturer of international studies at the Lauder Institute, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, and senior fellow at the Fels Institute of Government, died on November 29. He was 66.

Dr. McGann earned his MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a National Fellow at Stanford University while writing his doctoral thesis, which examined the nature and evolution of public policy research organizations in the United States such as the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute and others. He compared and contrasted the mission, structure and operating principles of these leading think tanks to determine how those factors influenced the institutions’ role in policymaking. His research and consulting enabled him to work with governments and civil society organizations in over 100 countries. He authored over 15 books on think tanks and was the creator and editor of the annual Global Go To Think Tank Index.

Dr. McGann previously served as assistant director of the International Relations Program at Penn. Earlier in his career, Dr. McGann served at the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Harvard University Institute of Politics, among other roles in the higher education and philanthropic sectors. His lifelong interest in think tanks arose from his doctoral dissertation, completed at Penn, which examined the evolution of some of the United States’ most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, and others. Dr. McGann was also affiliated with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Dr. McGann served as a consultant and adviser to a range of organizations including the United Nations, the Carnegie Corporation, and the World Bank. Dr. McGann also created a global network of think tanks and was a sought-after thought leader on the challenges and opportunities facing the sector. Among his many passions, Dr. McGann was dedicated to mentoring interns and training the next generation of think tank scholars and staff. The Think Tanks program hosted hundreds of interns over the years, who stand as a significant part of his legacy.

Think tanks around the world expressed significant sadness at Dr. McGann’s passing, echoing the feelings of Heritage Foundation founder and former president Ed Feulner, who said, “Jim had a brilliant intellect, a big heart, and he desired to make the world a better place for all humankind. He achieved that in spades with the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program that he created. That is the legacy he leaves to the world. He was a good friend of Heritage and of the think tank community, and he will be deeply missed.”

He is survived by his wife, Emily M. Cohen; daughter, Maya; siblings, Jack McGann (Linda), Loretta McGann, Katherine McMahon, and Barbara Maguire; sister-in-law, Amy Cohen (Noel Rubinton); and many nieces and nephews. His memorial service was on December 4.

Margy Meyerson, Penn Libraries Board

Margy Meyerson, G’93, a philanthropist and a former member of the Board of Advisors of the Penn Libraries, passed away on November 16. She was 98. 

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Brooklyn, Mrs. Meyerson won an essay contest at an early age and was invited to tea with Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House. She attended high school at the Brooklyn Friends School and then graduated from the University of Chicago. After graduating, she obtained a master’s degree in urban planning from Bryn Mawr College, then became an eminent urban planner. In that field, she met her husband Martin Meyerson, HON’70, who served as Penn president from 1970 to 1981. Mrs. Meyerson served for several decades on the Board of Advisors (formerly Overseers) of the Penn Libraries, and after Mr. Meyerson’s death in 2007, remained an engaged citizen of Penn, establishing the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professorship in Interdisciplinary Studies at the School of Arts & Sciences. In 1993, she received a master’s degree in sociology from Penn. 

Mrs. Meyerson taught at Drexel University and the University of California, Berkeley, and co-edited the book Urban Housing with Bill Wheaton and Grace Milgram. She was a noted scholar of urban studies, serving as a research director of the American Society of Planning Officials and as a research fellow at Yale University. She served on several prominent boards around the world and led the restoration of the Darwin Martin House, a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece in Buffalo, NY, which is now one of Buffalo’s leading tourist attractions. She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania by the Governor of the Commonwealth in 1982.

A 2008 recipient of the Alumni Award of Merit, Mrs. Meyerson was a steadfast participant at innumerable university events over the years, not only as one of Penn’s most cherished first ladies, but also as a long-time member and emeritus member of the Penn Libraries Board of Advisors. In addition to her service on the Libraries’ board, she also served as co-president of the Friends of the Penn Libraries, honorary chair of the Orrery Society, co-chair of the committee for the libraries’ 250th Celebration, and long-time member of the Penn Museum’s Women’s Committee.

“As ‘First Lady’ of the three universities, she was a gracious and beloved hostess and a close intellectual partner with her husband. She was deeply curious, an extensive reader, and an engaging conversationalist, ” said Mrs. Meyerson’s sons in a written tribute.

Mrs. Meyerson is survived by her sons, Adam (Nina Shea) and Matthew (Sandra), seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Governance

From the Faculty Senate Office: Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions

The following is published in accordance with the Faculty Senate Rules. Among other purposes, the publication of SEC actions is intended to stimulate discussion among the constituencies and their representatives. Please communicate your comments to Patrick Walsh, executive assistant to the Senate Office, either by telephone at (215) 898-6943 or by email at senate@pobox.upenn.edu.

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Report from the Senate Tri-Chairs. Faculty Senate Chair William Braham reported on the following matters:

  • Dr. Gutmann will join the January 2022 SEC meeting, and advanced questions, comments, and discussion topics for her are welcomed by writing the Senate Office (senate@pobox.upenn.edu).
  • Prof. Braham invited feedback from Faculty on the class meeting time schedule launched earlier during the Fall 2021 semester.

Continued discussion on a proposal to amend the Faculty Handbook to remove gender binary language. A proposal to amend the Faculty Handbook to remove gender binary language, revised by the LGBTQ+ Faculty Diversity Working Group, which drafted the original proposal, was shared with SEC members. The revised proposal, which recommends that gender binary language be replaced with “they” and “them” and calls out all places in the current Handbook where specific edits should be made, was shared with SEC members for further discussion. The revised proposal includes a preamble that lists potential meanings of the word “they.” An amendment to the revised proposal was offered by a SEC member that truncates the preambulatory list to read as follows:  “Throughout this Faculty Handbook, the singular pronoun “they” is used to refer to faculty, staff, students, and other persons, and is inclusive of people of all genders.” 

Vote on a proposal to amend the Faculty Handbook to remove gender binary language. Upon motion and second made, the revised proposal, as amended, passed by a vote of SEC members with 32 in favor, 1 against, 2 present but not voting, and 18 absent and not voting. (The dissenting voter noted favorability toward removing gender binary language in the Handbook but preferred an alternative approach: to eliminate usage of pronouns in the Handbook altogether in favor of replacing those pronouns with their referential nouns in full for each occurrence.)

The proposal, together with a note of endorsement by the Faculty Senate, will be forwarded to the Vice Provost for Faculty with a request that the proposed changes be implemented.

Per the Faculty Senate Rules, Section (9)(A)(iii), the action will not take immediate effect if a minimum of twenty protests against the action is registered by Members of the Faculty Senate with the Senate Office in writing (senate@pobox.upenn.edu) no later than January 7, 2022.

All-faculty Seminar in collaboration with SNF Paideia: “Academic Freedom and Responsibility in Contentious Times”. At 4 p.m. ET, a Faculty Senate seminar was held virtually and open to all Penn faculty, of which an archived recording will soon be available on the Faculty Senate Seminar Series website.

Coverage of December Trustee Meetings

During a Stated Meeting of the Executive Committee of the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees on Thursday, December 9, 2021, President Amy Gutmann reported on the in-person Commencement Ceremonies for the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021 (Almanac November 16, 2021).  She also noted the launch of a $750 million investment to advance Penn’s pathbreaking contributions to innovative and impactful areas of medicine (Almanac November 23, 2021). President Gutmann also congratulated Penn’s two 2022 Rhodes Scholars (Almanac December 7, 2021).

Trustee Board Chair Scott Bok presented revisions to resolutions approved at the November meeting, the first to clarify   that the creation of Penn Live Arts did not change the name of the Annenberg Center building. The second resolution revised the start date of the term of Mr.  Imasogie as a Charter trustee to January 1, 2022.  Mr. Bok also presented a Resolution to elect Kevin S. Penn to the Investment Board.  Interim Provost Beth Winkelstein reported that the results of a recent faculty survey indicated the majority of faculty members were pleased with their level of engagement with their students. She also indicated that, as part of Penn’s sustainability initiatives, a pilot program was launched to provide a free SEPTA Key Card to all enrolled Penn graduate and professional students who live in the Philadelphia area. 

During the Budget & Finance Committee meeting earlier that day, Executive Vice President for the Health System J. Larry Jameson provided an update on Penn Medicine’s research space planning and recent advances by Penn Medicine physicians. He also discussed the faculty growth rate and research spaces.

The following three resolutions were approved at the Stated Meeting: a resolution to authorize a ten-year lease for the Perelman School of Medicine for Research Growth in University City, Philadelphia for a total obligation up to $40,700,000, inclusive of up to $24,200,000 in capital; a resolution to authorize a ten-year lease for Penn Medicine’s aging-related research and clinical programs for a total obligation up to $26,400,000 inclusive of up to $13,300,000 in capital net of landlord allowance; and, a resolution to authorize a ten-year lease for the Perelman School of Medicine-Pennovation Works Lab Building at 3401 Gray’s Ferry Avenue for a total lease obligation up to $16,200,000, inclusive of up to $10,300,000 in capital.

The Board of Trustees winter meeting will be held on March 3-4, 2022.

Supplements

The Book Nook

Looking for that perfect holiday gift idea for your literary friend or family member? Penn faculty, staff, alumni, and students have been busy writing books in all genres. Somewhere in our annual book supplement is sure to be the perfect stocking stuffer for all kinds of readers! 

View our book supplement here: https://almanac.upenn.edu/uploads/media/121421-bookspread.pdf

Honors

Adeyinka Dayo: TORCH Scholar

Penn Dental Medicine faculty member Adeyinka Dayo has been recognized by the National Dental Association Foundation and Colgate-Palmolive as the inaugural recipient of their Trailblazers in Oral Health Research Scholars of African American Heritage (TORCH) fellowship. The TORCH program seeks to attract and develop young researchers of African heritage with the goal of increasing representation and participation in oral health research in both academia and industry, and in turn, ultimately advance the impact of oral health science on communities of color. Selected for their contributions to the field and their promise for making future contributions, recipients receive a stipend, mentorship, and professional development programs as well as industry exposure through Colgate.

“As an African American clinician-scientist, I understand the gravity of the global impact of health disparities and the importance of translational clinical research in bridging the gap,” said Dr. Dayo. “I’m honored to be part of this program, because it will provide me the tools which I need to further refine my research and dedicate my time to establish possible radiographic links between vascular calcifications and comorbidities, most especially diabetes – a condition affecting over 34.2 million U.S. adults.”

Originally from Nigeria, Dr. Dayo, an assistant professor of oral medicine, has been part of the Penn Dental faculty since 2019, after obtaining her master’s in dental science and certificate in oral and maxillofacial radiology from the University of Texas Health, San Antonio in 2018. Presently, she is a 2022 DMD candidate in the Penn Dental Medicine advanced standing students program, which enables foreign-trained dentists to earn their degree.

Currently, she plans to conduct an ethically guided retrospective chart review, as well as design new prospective clinical trials with broad collaboration, to establish the link between medial arterial calcification, diabetes, and periodontal bone loss. The World Health Organization (WHO) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG target 3.4) aims to reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) through prevention and treatment. “NCDs kill about 40 million people annually [and cause] approximately 70% of deaths globally,” said Dr. Dayo. “Hence, sensitive biological predictive markers for early detection of these disease conditions will contribute toward achieving the goal of reduction in mortality rate from NCDs. It will be a privilege for me to be able to contribute in this way to help reduce the global burden of diabetes.”

Holly Fernandez Lynch, Quayshawn Spencer, and Connie Ulrich: Hastings Center Fellows

caption: Holly Fernandez-Lynchcaption: Quayshawn Spencercaption: Connie UlrichThree faculty from the University of Pennsylvania, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Perelman School of Medicine; Quayshawn Spencer, School of Arts & Sciences; and, Connie Ulrich, School of Nursing, have been named Hastings Center Fellows for deepening public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, science, and technology.

Drs. Fernandez Lynch, Spencer, and Ulrich are three of 24 new Hastings Center fellows joining an elected group of more than 200 that produce publications on ethical issues in health, health care, science, and technology to inform policy, practice, and public understanding of bioethics. 

Holly Fernandez Lynch is the John Russell Dickson Presidential Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics in the department of medical ethics and health policy at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine with a secondary appointment as an assistant professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Dr. Fernandez Lynch’s scholarship focuses on clinical research ethics and regulation, access to investigational medicines outside clinical trials, Food and Drug Administration policy, and the ethics of gatekeeping in health care. She is the founder and co-chair of the Consortium to Advance Effective Research Ethics Oversight, a group working to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of institutional review boards. She served as a member of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections from 2014 to 2019. She currently serves on the boards of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research and the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics.

Quayshawn Spencer is the Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences. He specializes in metaphysical issues in the philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of race. He has written about the nature of a biologically real object, the nature of a scientifically real object, the nature and reality of race in U.S. race talk, and whether there exists any biological racial classification that is useful in medical research. His most recent book is What Is Race? Four Philosophical Views (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Connie Ulrich is the Lillian S. Brunner Chair in Medical and Surgical Nursing and a professor of medical ethics and health policy and nursing in Penn Nursing’s department of biobehavioral health sciences. She is also associate director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health and has a secondary appointment in the department of medical ethics and health policy in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Her research focuses on advancing empirical bioethics in clinical practice and research. Dr. Ulrich’s current work includes a project that aims to better understand the role and responsibilities of clinical ethicists during COVID-19 and the ethical challenges in supporting clinicians, patients, and families and will produce a book, Nurses and COVID-19: Ethical Considerations in Pandemic Care. She is also the principal investigator of a bioethics educational grant that aims to develop and train nurse and physician bioethicists in Tanzania.

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, law, political science, and education. The Hastings Center was critical to establishing the field of bioethics in 1969 and has been evolving ever since. Founded by philosopher Daniel Callahan and psychoanalyst Willard Gaylin, the Hastings Center is the oldest independent, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary research institute of its kind in the world.

Three Schwartzman Scholarship Recipients

A University of Pennsylvania senior and two 2019 graduates have received Schwarzman Scholarships, which fund a one-year master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Daniel Ruiz de la Concha, from Puebla, Mexico, is a double major in international relations and in urban studies and is minoring in Latin American and Latinx studies (LALS) in the School of Arts & Sciences. Shuxi (Shirley) Liu, originally from China, and Heather Tang, originally from Toronto, graduated in 2019 from the Wharton School. They are part of the seventh class of Schwarzman Scholars and will enroll at Tsinghua in August. This year, 151 Schwarzman Scholars were selected from more than 3,000 applicants and include students from 33 countries and 106 universities. 

Ms. Liu is interested in promoting cross-cultural understanding through commerce. She recently worked supporting global acquisitions at Roland Berger, an international management consultant firm, in Boston. She also was an intern with financial and consulting firms in the U.S., France, and China. As a Schwarzman Scholar, she plans to study strategies to influence and strengthen relations between China and the rest of the world through cross-border mergers and acquisitions and overseas operations.

Mr. Ruiz de la Concha is president of the Mexican student association Mex@Penn, on the board of Wharton Latino, and a member of the LALS Undergraduate Advisory Board. He has been an advocate for the Latino community, fostering unity among students from Latin America, and establishing service opportunities within the local Latino community. He has led research and fundraising projects to create awareness and fight human rights violations in Mexico, particularly violence against women.

Ms. Tang currently leads Google Canada’s on-platform COVID-19 response initiatives, partnering with local government agencies to connect users with authoritative information. She is interested in accelerating social impact through tech entrepreneurship and public policy and plans to further explore this intersection through the Schwarzman Scholars program.

Mr. Ruiz de la Concha and Ms. Tang applied for the Schwarzman Scholarship with assistance from Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. 

Features

Penn Medicine: Medical Miracles on 34th Street

After Penn Medicine’s First Living Donor Uterus Transplant, Donor Meets Baby Carried in Her Transplanted Womb

caption: Womb donor Chelsea Jovanovich (left) smiles on as Cheryl Urban (right) meets her son Telden for the first time.

As proud new mom Chelsea Jovanovich tenderly placed her newborn son into Cheryl Cichonski-Urban’s arms, the two women marveled at baby Telden’s angelic features, sweet disposition, and one other remarkable detail that two moms don’t typically share: The uterus where Telden spent months growing inside Ms. Jovanovich’s body is the same uterus that brought Ms. Urban’s children into the world about a decade before. It was a profound moment that marked a special bond between the two prior strangers involved in Penn Medicine’s first-ever living donor uterus donation.

After having her own two kids, Ms. Urban, who is from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, never gave too much thought to her uterus again until one day in June of 2019 when she said she saw a story about uterus donation on the local news. “When I heard [this donor’s] story, I was blown away. I needed to find out more,” Ms. Urban said. “Whether it be faith, stars aligning or whatnot, something drew me to this story. I felt it in my heart that this was something I was meant to do.”

She was so inspired by the story, she decided right then and there she wanted to donate her own uterus. With the support of her daughter, son, and her husband, Brian, Ms. Urban signed up online for Penn Medicine’s Uterus Donation program the very next day.

More than 2,000 miles away in Billings, Montana, Ms. Jovanovich was also looking at the Penn Medicine Uterus donation website. After years of heartbreaking fertility news, she was hoping to be accepted as a recipient.

What these women didn’t know at the time was they would go on to be linked forever by a selfless gift that would allow Ms. Jovanovich and her husband to have the baby they had long hoped for. When she was 15, Ms. Jovanovich learned from her doctor that she had Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome, a congenital disorder in which women are born without a uterus. Women with the condition suffer from Uterine Factor Infertility (UFI), a previously irreversible form of female infertility that affects as many as five percent of reproductive-aged women worldwide. A person with UFI cannot carry a pregnancy either because she was born without a uterus, like Ms. Jovanovich, or had the organ removed for medical reasons. Individuals may also have UFI because they have a uterus, but pregnancy is not possible due to fibroids, scar tissue, or other conditions.

“It was a lot harder on me emotionally as I got into my child-bearing years,” Ms. Jovanovich said, recalling the devastating diagnosis. “Your friends are having babies, and you can’t. It was pretty hard and I went through some rough patches.”

She and her husband Jake had even gone down the surrogacy route, only for it to not work out at the last moment. Feeling out of options, Ms. Jovanovich learned about uterus donation from her doctor and searched programs online, but it felt like a moonshot.

“Even though I felt like this was something completely out of reach for me, I applied anyway. I never thought I’d be accepted,” she said.

As it turns out, Ms. Jovanovich was accepted into the program, and Ms. Urban was accepted as a donor. After rigorous testing, Ms. Urban found out there was a patient waiting for a uterus, and that she was an exact match. She went ahead with the donation having no idea who the recipient was, with the surgeries taking place in February of 2020, right before the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kathleen E. O’Neill, an assistant professor of obstetrics and co-principal investigator of Penn Medicine’s Uterus Transplantation for Uterine Factor Infertility (UNTIL) trial, worked with the Ms. Jovanovich’s throughout the whole process.

“Women with UFI have limited pathways to parenthood. My goal was to provide women with UFI an additional option in uterus transplant. Moreover, uterus transplant is the only option that allows women with UFI the opportunity to carry and deliver their own babies. Once the participant heals from their surgery, a single embryo is placed into the uterus. If the participant becomes pregnant, she is monitored closely by a team of obstetricians who specialize in high-risk pregnancies. This program is a team effort and success required over 100 people from seemingly every part of Penn Medicine,” Dr. O’Neill said.

For this case, Dr. O’Neill worked closely with Nawar Latif, surgical director of the Living Donor Uterus Transplant Program and co-principal investigator of the Uterus Transplant trial, who performed this first-of-its-kind of surgery at Penn Medicine to remove Ms. Urban’s uterus, providing her with intensive recovery care in the weeks that followed.

“It was a huge milestone for me personally and for Penn Medicine. That moment was a culmination of countless hours of preparation and training. The feeling of responsibility towards the donor, recipient, and the entire program was tremendous. I felt anxious, but confident that the transplant process would be successful. Being one of two gynecologic oncologists in the country who perform this kind of surgery is very special!” Dr. Latif said.

Paige Porrett, who has since joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as the director of VCA Transplantation and the director of clinical and translational research at the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute, performed the uterus transplant on Ms. Jovanovich, together with Kim M. Olthoff, the chief of transplant surgery and Donald Guthrie Professor in Surgery.

A living donor uterus transplant is still a very rare surgery, with only 20 having been performed in the United States as of April 2021. Dr. Latif used a minimally invasive robotic approach, after observing similar surgeries performed in other countries and cities, and undergoing multiple training and rehearsal sessions ahead of time.

Dr. Latif had performed dozens of robotic radical hysterectomies before (a surgery to remove the uterus, cervix, and part of the vagina), but to perform the living donor surgery, he had to deconstruct and rebuild the entire approach to this kind of hysterectomy and to map the entire vascular anatomy of the donor.

“Cheryl is the ultimate, most altruistic person I have ever met. Her interest to help others and advance science was a clear drive for her,” he said. “She never wavered during the long process of planning, surgery and healing, she’s a super woman.”

Ms. Urban said meeting with the doctors reinforced her decision. “Once I met Dr. O’Neill and Dr. Latif, they totally gained my trust and I 100 percent put my faith in them.”

After the successful surgery, Ms. Jovanovich and her husband stayed in Philadelphia for the next step in their journey. They learned the embryo had successfully implanted, and with a little help from science, were officially pregnant.

Almost a year after the transplant, with a baby boy on the way, Ms. Jovanovich reached out to Ms. Urban through their social workers to thank her for her gift. Since that day, the two began talking more regularly—Ms. Urban joined the Jovanoviches at their virtual gender reveal and baby shower, and the two women met in person for the first time in May of 2021.

“She and I went from communicating through our social workers, to sending emails, to trading cell numbers. It’s amazing how we click. Two strangers who instantly became soul sisters,” Ms. Urban said.

On May 18, 2021, Ms. Jovanovich gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the child she and her husband had dreamed about, and the first grandchild on her side of the family. A few weeks later, Ms. Urban and her husband, Brian, arrived to meet the Jovanovich family for a very emotional reunion, and to see baby Telden for the first time.

“Thank you for, everything,” Ms. Jovanovich said through tears as she hugged the couple.

Despite the discomfort that comes with major surgery, it’s been a journey Ms. Urban said fondly.

“It’s been like a fairytale,” she said. “It’s so unbelievable. I sit, think about it, and I can’t believe it happened. I can’t believe it worked.”

 

Penn’s First COVID-19 Lung Transplant Patient Recovered to Celebrate His Triplets’ High School Graduation

caption: Fred Rahmanian with his family.

On some of the worst days of his battle with COVID-19, Fred Rahmanian remembers waking up in his hospital bed to look at photos of his wife and three kids that someone had lovingly taped to the wall in his room. Mr. Rahmanian was one of millions of Americans sickened by COVID-19, but when he first went into the hospital in October of 2020, it didn’t cross his mind that he might be the first patient with COVID-19 to receive a lung transplant at Penn Medicine, and the first in the state, months later.

In October, Mr. Rahmanian, a 54-year-old husband and father of teenage triplets, was one of four people in his family to test positive for COVID-19. While his kids recovered quickly, he found himself in an ambulance on the way to his local hospital in Reading, PA, where he continued to feel worse and wasn’t responding to treatment.

His condition continued to deteriorate, and late on November 11 he rapidly became so sick that doctors deemed him too unstable to even transport to a tertiary center for more advanced care. That’s when his local hospital called for assistance from Penn’s Lung Rescue Mobile ECMO team, kicking off a long chain of Penn Medicine care that would see Mr. Rahmanian through to a remarkable recovery.

Penn’s Mobile ECMO team usually travels by helicopter to quickly pick up very sick patients. The Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine provides functions normally performed by the patients’ own heart, lungs, or both. It withdraws unoxygenated blood from the patient, oxygenates it, and pumps it back into the body—this oxygenation process removes carbon dioxide and replaces oxygen just as healthy lungs would. There was one complication though, on that particular night; a storm raging outside made flight conditions impossible. So the team pivoted. William Vernick, co-medical director of the Penn Lung Rescue, Asad Usman, a Penn anesthesiology and critical care fellow, along with the PennSTAR Team, physically went to pick Mr. Rahmanian up and take him to Penn by ambulance, hooking him up to the ECMO machine for the trip.

“Even though it was late at night, I remember the drive quite vividly. The rain was so heavy that I couldn’t go more than 30 mph on the highway. It made for an extremely long drive, but seeing him do well definitely made it worth it,” said Dr. Vernick.

Once at Penn, and after a few weeks on ECMO, Mr. Rahmanian was still alive, but it was clear to the medical team that Mr. Rahmanian’s lungs were not getting better. Maria M. Crespo, medical director of the Penn Lung Transplant Program, helped care for Mr. Rahmanian during this most critical time. His care team knew he had one option left to save his life: transplant. No one at Penn Medicine had ever performed a lung transplant on a patient with COVID-19. In fact, it was almost unheard of at that point in the global medical community.

“Fred’s case was unique because although his lungs were severely injured by the virus, he was otherwise a healthy man. We were confident that with the care he would receive at Penn, he had a good chance of recovery, so we all worked together to make sure we got every detail right,” Dr. Crespo said.

Hearing that is when Mr. Rahmanian said the gravity of the situation really set in. “When I realized what they were asking me, that’s when it dawned on me, this is the last of the options. Otherwise this is it for me. My family had already resolved with the fact that that this was probably it if I don’t decide to do the transplant,” he said, recalling what went through his mind. “I want to see my kids’ graduation, I want to see them turn 18, I want to see them go to college. There’s so many things that we haven’t done yet.”

The Transplant Infectious Diseases Program at Penn Medicine has been in operation for decades, providing comprehensive care for the evaluation and management of infectious diseases for patients before and after transplant. This last year they played an especially critical role with the COVID-19 pandemic, as transplants were still critical to saving lives of patients with various illnesses. Sarah Longworth, assistant director of the Transplant Infectious Disease Program, cared for Mr. Rahmanian during his treatment.

“As with any patient being considered for transplant, we want to make sure that recent infections are at minimum controlled, and at best fully resolved. This is true for COVID-19 as well, particularly in patients like Fred in whom this infection was the cause of his organ failure,” Dr. Longworth said. “Since Fred was the first patient we transplanted for COVID-related lung disease, we were in uncharted waters with no clearly defined standard of care. He was tested multiple times for COVID-19 to ensure the infection had cleared before we proceeded to transplant, in order to minimize risk of re-infection of his new lungs.”

Qualifying to be a transplant patient is complex under normal circumstances, but here doctors were dealing with those complexities on top of a patient who was critically ill with COVID-19, a virus that the medical community was still learning about with a constant flow of new discoveries. This translated to a new list of criteria for Penn Medicine patients to meet before being placed on the transplant list.

Not every ECMO patient with COVID-19 can be considered transplant candidates. For example, to qualify, candidates have to be under 60 years old if they’re on a ventilator or ECMO, can’t have more than one organ failing, and must have a BMI less than or equal to 35, along with additional guidelines. These specific lung transplant guidelines for COVID-19 related lung injuries were developed and issued by Dr. Crespo, Joshua Diamond, associate medical director of the Penn Lung Transplant Program, and Christian Bermudez, director of thoracic transplantation at the Penn Transplant Institute.

“Currently the stakes are high for lung transplants. First, there’s the absence of enough organ donation to meet the need for lung transplants in the U.S. Further, there’s the impact of patients who have been on prolonged ECMO support before they can become transplant candidates – for those patients, surgery can carry a high risk,” said Dr. Bermudez, who performed the surgery.

Within 72 hours of being listed for transplant, doctors found Mr. Rahmanian a perfect donor match. On December 31, 2020, Dr. Bermudez and his team went into the operating room for what would be more than six hours of surgery. Just after 5:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Mr. Rahmanian woke up with a new set of lungs and a new chance to live. When he woke up, he took some of the easiest breaths he’d taken in months, and learned some additional news.

“I was told, you made history, you’re the first one in Pennsylvania!” he said. “This whole thing has been a miracle. Everyone knew I was at the end of the line. There was no expectation that I would live until Penn stepped in.”

Usually transplant patients take six to eight weeks to recover in the ICU, but after just 20 days Mr. Rahmanian was taken to Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center, where he continued his recovery.

“With an incredible mental and physical strength Fred was able to overcome adversity with the help of the ICU nurses, doctors, and physical therapists, and was in optimal condition for transplant after more than seven weeks of ECMO support. This hard work fortunately paid off as he had a swift recovery leaving the hospital only 20 days following his lung transplant,” Dr. Bermudez said.

On February 24, 2021, Mr. Rahmanian spent the first night in his own bed since October 27, 2020. At the time of the surgery, fewer than eight lung transplant centers nationwide were performing lung transplants in COVID-19 patients with acute lung injury. As of March, Penn was one of 28 hospitals in the United States that had performed heart or lung transplants for patients with COVID-19 according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

“At Penn I felt very comfortable that I was being taken care of. Everyone that I interacted with was very helpful, very sympathetic. They essentially granted me a miracle by choosing to do this for me.”

Mr. Rahmanian said that from the moment he agreed to the transplant, his driving force to recover was his family and return to some sense of normalcy. Recently, he did get to watch his triplets turn 18 and graduate from high school.“I was grateful that I was given more time,” he said.

Articles adapted from Penn Medicine News.

Penn Engineering Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dedicates New Suite to Foundational Figures

caption: ODEI Director Laura Stubbs, Dean Vijay Kumar, former Director of Multicultural Affairs Cora Ingrum and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion C.J. Taylor at the ribbon cutting for the new ODEI suite. Photos by Felice Marcera.

Forty years ago, Penn Engineering established the Office of Minority Programs, centralizing the school’s growing efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse and representative body of students and faculty members. 

Now known as the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), this branch of Penn Engineering is redoubling its commitment to this mission. As part of the $10 million in DEI investments laid out in the school’s strategic plan, Penn Engineering has prioritized physical spaces where students can come for support, collaboration and community.

Last week, ODEI cut the ribbon on its new suite in the Towne Building, featuring a conference room and study space dedicated to two of its foundational figures: Cora Ingrum, ODEI’s former director, and Donna Hampton, the office’s longtime administrative assistant.

The Donna Hampton Study Space features a modern, comfortable architecture intended to encourage informal student gatherings and group work. Surrounding the study space is a suite of offices for ODEI staff and the Cora Ingrum Conference Room, which can be connected to the study space to accommodate larger gatherings.

The ribbon cutting was preceded by a gathering of faculty, staff, students and alumni, celebrating the honorees and the four decades of progress they inspired. 

There, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion C.J. Taylor, Raymond S. Markowitz President’s Distinguished Professor in Computer and Information Science, and ODEI director Laura Stubbs provided a retrospective of the school’s DEI efforts, many of which Ms. Ingrum established in the decade preceding her appointment as director of the Office of Minority Programs. 

Alumni also sent in video messages, showing how much Ms. Ingrum and Dr. Hampton’s office mattered when they were feeling isolated or discouraged by the added pressures of being an underrepresented minority student. 

A virtual tour of the new ODEI suite can be found at https://diversity.seas.upenn.edu/virtual-tour/.

caption: Faculty, staff, students and alumni visited the new ODEI suite.

Cora Ingrum’s Legacy

Cora Ingrum was the director of multicultural programs in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. She had worked there for over 55 years, starting out as a department secretary in 1960, fresh out of high school in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, near Atlantic City. “When I came to Penn, it was not open in the way you think,” she once said. “Students would come in, but there were so many barriers for African-American students. ‘You can’t do this. You can’t do that. You won’t make it. Why are you here? Why are you in my class?’ People would actually say that to students.”

For 21 years, Ms. Ingrum served as the co-investigator and director of a National Science Foundation LAMP grant designed to increase underrepresented minority candidates for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines at Penn. 

To read more, visit https://thepenngazette.com/cora-ingrums-legacy/.

AT PENN

Events

Update: December AT PENN

Exhibits

Penn Museum
Info: https://www.penn.museum/calendar/.

17        Virtual Global Guide Tour: Asia Galleries; 2:30 p.m.

18        Asia Galleries Tour; 11 a.m.

            Global Guide Tour: Africa Galleries; 2:30 p.m. Also December 29, 2:30 p.m.

19        Egypt Galleries Tour; 11 a.m.

            Global Guide Tour: Middle East Galleries; 2:30 p.m. Also December 30, 2:30 p.m.

29        Highlights Tour; 11 a.m. Also December 30, 11 a.m.

 

Fitness & Learning

14        Study and Intern Abroad in Latin America and Portugal; learn about Penn programs in Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, and Portugal; 12:30 p.m.; room 473, McNeil Building and Zoom webinar; register: https://bit.ly/PennAbroad (Penn Global; Center for Latin American & Latinx Studies).

 

Graduate School of Education (GSE)

Online events. Info: https://www.gse.upenn.edu/news/events-calendar.

16        Mid-Career Virtual Information Session; 6 p.m.


LGBT Center

Online and in-person events. Info: https://tinyurl.com/lgbt-center-calendar.

16        Penn Parent Check-Ins; 11 a.m.; online event.

17        Study Break with Goats; 3-5 p.m.; LGBT Center.

 

Talks

15        Immuno-Stromal Axes in Pulmonary and Biomaterial-Mediated Fibrosis; Daniel Abebayehu, University of Virginia; 11 a.m.; Zoom webinar; register: https://tinyurl.com/abebayehu-talk-dec-15 (Center for Engineering MechanoBiology).

            Certifiable Outlier-Robust Geometric Perception: Robots that See through the Clutter with Confidence; Heng Yang, MIT; 2 p.m.; Wu and Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall, and Zoom webinar; join: https://tinyurl.com/yang-talk-dec-15 (GRASP Lab).

16        Special Briefing on State and City Spending of Federal Infrastructure Funds; panel of speakers; 11 a.m.; online webinar; register: https://tinyurl.com/iur-talk-dec-16 (Penn Institute for Urban Research).

            Neural Engineering and the Primate Brain: Working at the Electrical and Optical Interface; Bijan Pesaran, NYU; 3:30 p.m.; room 216, Moore Building (Bioengineering).

 

Economics

In-person events. Info: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/events.

14        Closed-Form Solutions in Additive Random Utility Models; Andrew Shephard, economics; noon; room 101, PCPSE.

 

Penn Dental

Online webinars. Info: https://www.dental.upenn.edu/news-events/events/.

16        Mind the Gap: Closing Gaps in Knowledge with Innovation, Precision and Collaboration; Flavia Teles, microbiology; Diagnosing Disease on a Microchip: Finding Nanoscale Needles in a Nanoscale Haystack; David Issadore, bioengineering; noon.

 

AT PENN Calendar 

More December events are available in our December AT PENN calendar.

To submit an event for an AT PENN calendar or a weekly update, send the salient details to almanac@upenn.edu

2022 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change: Penn’s Commitment to the Legacy

View the January AT PENN 2022 calendar for a full listing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium events. Check back as more information becomes available.

Crimes

Weekly Crime Reports

University of Pennsylvania Police Department Crime Report

Below are the Crimes Against Persons, Crimes Against Society and Crimes Against Property from the campus report for November 29-December 5, 2021. 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 November 29-December 5, 2021. 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.

11/29/21

3:37 AM

3400 Walnut St

Graffiti written on emergency call box

11/29/21

7:00 AM

231 S 34th St

Six Mac mini computers taken

11/29/21

9:10 AM

3730 Walnut St

Flagstone written on

11/29/21

3:28 PM

1 Convention Ave

Jacket and purse taken from unsecured locker

11/29/21

7:37 PM

3931 Walnut St

Unsecured suitcase taken

11/30/21

1:23 AM

255 S 36th St

Secured bike taken/Arrest

12/01/21

9:30 AM

216 St Marks Sq

Unsecured package stolen from porch

12/01/21

2:23 PM

3400 Spruce St

Unsecured wallet stolen from patient’s room

12/01/21

4:09 PM

3800 Walnut St

Confidential sex offense

12/01/21

5:01 PM

3601 Walnut St

Merchandise removed without payment

12/01/21

11:46 PM

51 N 39th St

Confidential sex offense

12/02/21

9:21 AM

3700 Chestnut St

Automobile left running and unattended, stolen

12/02/21

10:08 AM

3715 Woodland Walk

Two paychecks fraudulently cashed by unknown offender

12/02/21

2:22 PM

4046 Chestnut St

Unsecured package stolen from lobby

 

12/02/21

3:36 PM

4217 Chestnut St

Chain-secured bike missing from garage

12/03/21

1:40 PM

4200 Chestnut St

Confidential sex offense

12/03/21

7:04 PM

3900 Chestnut St

Cable-secured bike stolen

12/03/21

8:10 PM

3925 Walnut St

Offender threw a bag of candy at employee

12/04/21

2:26 AM

200 S 37th St

Gunpoint robbery—wallet stolen

12/04/21

12:00 PM

3400 Spruce St

Unsecured jewelry stolen from room

12/05/21

3:27 PM

4100 Walnut St

Unknown offender pushed complainant to the ground

12/05/21

6:57 PM

4000 Walnut St

Boyfriend struck complainant in face

 

18th District

Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 14 incidents (5 robberies, 3 assaults, 2 rapes, 2 aggravated assaults, 1 domestic assault, and 1 indecent assault) with 2 arrests were reported for November 29-December 5, 2021 by the 18th District, covering the Schuylkill River to 49th St & Market St to Woodland Avenue.

11/29/21

6:19 PM

3401 Civic Center Blvd

Aggravated Assault

11/29/21

8:03 PM

4801 Walnut St

Aggravated Assault

12/01/21

4:13 PM

4815 Pine St

Robbery/Arrest

12/01/21

4:13 PM

4815 Pine St

Robbery/Arrest

12/01/21

5:20 PM

S 38th St &                   Walnut St

Indecent Assault

12/01/21

7:29 PM

4806 Market St

Robbery

12/02/21

6:00 PM

4200 blk Chestnut St

Rape

12/03/21

1:27 PM

4813 Trinity St

Robbery

12/03/21

8:37 PM

3925 Walnut St

Assault

12/04/21

2:35 AM

4618 Walnut St

Assault

12/04/21

2:41 AM

200 S 37th St

Robbery

12/05/21

2:57 PM

Walnut St & S 41st St

Assault

12/05/21

3:41 PM

200 blk S Melville St

Rape

12/05/21

7:30 PM

4000 blk Walnut St

Domestic Assault

DPS Advisory to Members of the Penn Community

DPS Safety Advisory to the Penn Community:

Recently, Philadelphia Police have reported an increase in carjackings in the West Philadelphia area. The suspects are usually males, ranging in age from 15 - 30 years of age. They will often approach the victim as they are getting out of their vehicle. While none of these incidents have occurred in the Penn Patrol Zone, we wish to share the following safety information with our community.

Please stay aware of your surroundings while parking and exiting your vehicle. If you feel that you are being followed, or someone attempts to stop your vehicle, ensure that your car doors are locked, and call Penn Police at 215-573-3333, or 911 if outside of the Penn Patrol Zone, or drive to the closest police station.

Philadelphia police continue to investigate these crimes, and Penn Public Safety has dedicated resources to supplement regular patrols in our area.

We encourage you to use all of the free services available to you and offer the below reminders:

  • Use Walking Escort to walk with you to any location between 30th Street and 43rd Streets, from Market Street to Baltimore Avenue 24/7; as well as west to 50th Street and north into Powelton between 10 a.m.–3 a.m.
  • Use PennRides for free transportation to both the West Philadelphia and Center City areas.
  • For a medical emergency, call 215-573-3333 for the Alternative Response Unit (AR-1) and Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT).
  • Call 215-898-HELP 24/7 for members of the Penn Community who are seeking time sensitive help in navigating Penn's resources for health and wellness.
  • Request a safety presentation by going to: https://www.publicsafety.upenn.edu/contact/presentation-request-form/
  • If you see something, say something. Report suspicious behavior immediately to Penn Police at 215-573-3333.

The safety and well-being of our community is our highest priority.

—Division of Public Safety

Bulletins

Indoor Social Gatherings Cancelled

In response to rising COVID-19 case counts on campus, all indoor social gatherings are prohibited. For more information see www.publicsafety.upenn.edu.

—Beth A. Winkelstein, Interim Provost
—Craig Carnaroli, Senior Executive Vice President
—Benoit Dubé, Associate Provost and Chief Wellness Officer

DPS Special Property Checks

Under the special checks program, DPS officers check the exterior of registered properties for signs of criminal activity or security breaches at peak travel times during Thanksgiving, Spring and Winter Breaks.

Winter Break: Special checks will begin on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, January 11, 2022, at 3 p.m.

The program is available at no extra charge to residents in the Penn patrol zone, bounded by 30th Street west to 43rd Street and from Baltimore Avenue north to Market Street.

Students, faculty and staff who live in the patrol zone are encouraged to register their residence below. Be sure to list your contact information, other occupants, landlord if applicable, vacancy dates, scheduled repairs, and someone other than a landlord with access or a key to the property.

Register for a special check at https://www.publicsafety.upenn.edu/contact/propertycheck/.

Penn Police will periodically check the exterior of registered properties for signs of criminal activity or security breaches during the break. Special checks cannot be provided for interior areas of apartment complexes.

Remember to close and lock all doors and windows before you leave, and arrange for packages to be delivered elsewhere while you are away. Avoid Package Theft: Have a Plan! https://www.publicsafety.upenn.edu/avoid-package-theft-have-a-plan/.

If you will not be at home when a package arrives, remember to make arrangements for safe delivery. Make use of the Amazon@Penn location in 1920 Commons, use the Residential Services Off-Campus package holding service (for students), check with your landlord to see if they offer package services, or use other package service locations.

One Step Ahead: Tips for Safe Online Holiday Shopping

One Step Ahead logo

Another tip in a series provided by the Offices of Information Security, Information Systems & Computing and Audit, Compliance & Privacy.

The holiday shopping season has always been a profitable time for scammers. This year, with supply chain issues limiting the availability of popular items, it will be even more challenging for shoppers to dodge scams. Here are some tips for staying safe while shopping online:

If something appears too good to be true, it likely is. Sought-after items selling for less than list price are a red flag that something is not right.

Use a credit card rather than a debit card when making online purchases. Credit cards are not directly connected to your bank account—if there are problems with a shady seller, your bank funds remain uninvolved.

Review any available feedback on your seller when purchasing via an online marketplace, such as eBay or Etsy. How long have they been in business? What are their seller ratings? Review the listing carefully to make sure you know exactly what you are purchasing. Be sure you understand any return or refund policies the seller has in place for the item. If you have questions, ask before buying. Remember, most selling platforms also have customer service departments to assist you if you have additional questions, or experience a problem with a purchase.

Only use payment methods supported by your purchasing platforms. Do not accept any offers from a seller to “go off platform” for any reason to conduct or complete a transaction. Also do not use PayPal’s “Friends and Family” option to purchase from a seller, since that option offers no payment protection to you as a buyer. Only use the endorsed payment methods, and nothing else.

Confirm purchase protection status before you buy. Know what purchase protections are offered by the purchase platform you are using, particularly if making a major purchase. If you are planning to purchase from a platform like Facebook Marketplace, where only certain items carry purchase protection, be extra vigilant.

For additional tips, see the One Step Ahead link on the Information Security website: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/news-alerts#One-Step-Ahead.

Annual Notice Regarding 403(b) Plan Eligibility and Contribution Limits

This notice is to provide you with a reminder of:

  • Your eligibility to participate in a 403(b) retirement plan sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, and
  • The annual limits on employee and employer contributions made through the University’s retirement plans that may apply to you.

Eligibility

With only a few limited exceptions, all employees of the University who receive compensation reportable on an IRS Form W-2 are eligible to participate in a University-sponsored 403(b) plan. Certain student employees, leased employees, and nonresident aliens are not eligible to participate in the University’s 403(b) plans. Eligible employees may elect to make 403(b) plan contributions to the University of Pennsylvania Supplemental Retirement Annuity Plan. In addition, employees who are eligible to receive retirement plan contributions from the University may elect to make 403(b) plan contributions to the University of Pennsylvania Matching Plan. 

Eligible employees who wish to enroll or make changes in one of the University’s 403(b) plans should visit www.hr.upenn.edu/retirement and click the “enroll or make changes” link. Eligible employees may also call the TIAA Retirement Call Center at (877) 736-6738 for enrollment assistance or to make changes to their current elections.

Annual Contribution Limits 

There are Internal Revenue Code rules that limit the amount that you can contribute to the University’s 403(b) on a pre-tax and/or Roth basis in any given year and that also limit the overall amount of employee and employer contributions you may receive from all employer-sponsored retirement plans in any given year. 

  • Pre-Tax and Roth Contribution Limit. IRS Code Section 402(g) limits the amount of pre-tax and/or Roth contributions that you may contribute to the plan and any other employer-sponsored retirement plans for a calendar year. For 2022, you can contribute up to an aggregated total of $20,500 ($27,000 if you are age 50 or over and eligible to make catch-up contributions) in a calendar year on a pre-tax and/or Roth basis. 
  • Overall Annual Additions Limit. In addition to the pre-tax and Roth contribution limits described above, IRS Code Section 415(c) limits the total amount of annual additions (contributions you make or that are made on your behalf) to the University’s retirement plans for a calendar year and, importantly, any other qualified retirement plan (including a SEP or Keogh plan) sponsored by a trade or business that you own or control. That is, the code aggregates annual additions to the University’s retirement plans with annual additions to qualified retirement plans sponsored by entities that you own or control. This means, for example, that if you have a separate consulting business and make contributions to a retirement plan established for that consulting business, those contributions must be aggregated with the annual additions to the University’s retirement plans. For 2022, the IRS Code Section 415(c) limit is the lesser of: (1) 100% of your eligible compensation for the year, or (2) $61,000.

You are responsible for monitoring compliance with these limits. In particular, it is your responsibility to notify the University if you participate in any other qualified retirement plan (including a SEP or Keogh plan) sponsored by a trade or business that you own or control. If your contributions or the contributions made on your behalf exceed the applicable code limits, the excess amounts will be addressed in the manner described below.

Excess Deferrals of Excess Annual Additions 

If the total amount of your pre-tax and/or Roth contributions made to the University’s 403(b) plans and any other qualified retirement plan exceeds the code limits in any calendar year, you will have made “excess deferrals.” These excess deferrals, adjusted by any gains or losses, must be distributed to you from the plan (or the other qualified retirement plan in which you participated) by April 15 of the year following the year in which the excess deferrals were made. Depending on whether you made pre-tax or Roth contributions, you may need to pay federal income tax on the excess deferrals and any gains or losses for the year in which the deferral is made. To request a distribution of your excess deferrals, please submit your request by March 1 of the year following the year in which the excess deferrals were made by emailing the Penn Employee Solution Center at solutioncenter@upenn.edu. Please attach a copy of the applicable W-2 from the other employer, or the last pay statement for that year. Please note that TIAA cannot take refund requests directly from the participant. The benefits office will request the refund from TIAA on the participant’s behalf.

Excess Annual Additions

If the total amount of annual additions (contributions made by you or your employer on your behalf) to the University’s retirement plans or any qualified retirement plans sponsored by a trade or business that you own or control exceeds the annual additions limit, you will have “excess annual additions.” Any such excess annual additions must be corrected by distributing the excess amounts (including and any earnings on such excess amounts) from the plan and/or other qualified retirement plans that you participated in during the year. If at any time you become aware that you have excess annual additions, you must notify the Benefits Office by emailing the Penn Employee Solution Center at solutioncenter@upenn.edu

Additional Information

For more details about eligibility to participate in the University’s 403(b) plans and the annual contribution limits that may apply to your retirement plan participation, please refer to the “Summary Plan Description” (SPD) for the 403(b) or other retirement plan in which you participate, or by contacting the TIAA Retirement Call Center at (877) 736-6738.

—Division of Human Resources

Almanac Publication Schedule

This is the final issue of Almanac for the fall 2021 semester. 

The first issue of Almanac of the spring semester is Tuesday, January 11, 2022. 

For the full publication schedule, visit https://almanac.upenn.edu/publication-schedule-deadlines

To submit a news item, event, honor, or other piece for publication, email almanac@upenn.edu with any necessary details. 

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