From the Interim President: Update on the Work of the University Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community
May 30, 2024
To the Penn Community,
This past fall, we established a University Task Force on Antisemitism and a Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community. Today, I write to share with you their final reports, which can be found online on the task force and commission websites.
First, I want to express my deep gratitude to the members of the task force and the commission for their expansive outreach and for the thoughtful work they have put into these reports. These groups included faculty scholars, students, and staff, as well as former and current Trustees. They conducted dozens of listening sessions, reviewed hundreds of emails, consulted experts within and outside of Penn, produced online surveys, and spent countless hours in discussion with members of the Penn community and with one another. Throughout the process, I know that there were many strongly held beliefs expressed and passionate exchanges, and that these reports are the product of the rigorous, civil, and intellectual debate at the heart of Penn’s excellence.
The thoughtful recommendations contained within these reports offer concrete guidance for actions Penn can and will take now, as well as aspirational goals that will inform our institutional priorities for the future. The reports are both reaffirming and complementary. They contain shared themes, such as affirming Penn’s values and clarifying University policies and reporting, and offer distinct ideas for building community, investing in research and scholarship, and supporting the student experience.
Some of the recommendations in the reports are reflected in work already underway; other elements of implementation lie ahead of us and will benefit from further input as we assess which strategies make sense for Penn. I look forward to working with our Penn community to continue bringing these recommendations to life. We own the implementation process, and the culture it will create, together.
I encourage you to spend some time reading the reports and reflecting on our shared responsibility to cultivate a vibrant community that embraces our missions, acknowledges our differences, models civil discourse, and celebrates our successes so that everyone at Penn can thrive.
—J. Larry Jameson, Interim President
Penn Engineering & Harvard: $12 Million NSF Grant for Sustainable Computing Project
Penn Engineering, together with collaborators at Harvard University, has been awarded $12 million by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to participate in a groundbreaking, multi-institutional research initiative that aims to lay the foundations for environmentally sustainable computing.
With the rapid growth of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and sensor systems, the demand for computer systems that offer both scalable performance and environmental sustainability has never been greater. However, despite recent efforts to achieve net zero carbon emissions, the computing industry’s energy usage continues to rise at an alarming rate, outpacing the growth of renewable energy installations.
NSF Expeditions in Computing: Carbon Connect—An Ecosystem for Sustainable Computing will be led by Benjamin Lee, a professor in the departments of electrical & systems engineering and computer & information science at Penn Engineering, and David Brooks, the Haley Family Professor of Computer Science at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Carbon Connect will redefine the way computer scientists approach environmental sustainability by establishing new standards for carbon accounting in the computing industry, with the aim of influencing future energy policy and legislation.
The project will pursue three main objectives to reduce the carbon footprint of information and communication technology:
- Develop transparent and accurate carbon accounting methods, including standardized protocols for measurement and reporting.
- Focus on creating innovative tools and strategies to reduce computing’s carbon footprint by 45% within the next decade.
- Coordinate the design and management of future computer systems to deliver sustainable performance for artificial intelligence and virtual reality applications.
“We will explore technical solutions to computer systems design that account for the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape,” said Dr. Lee. “Carbon Connect will also shape those regulations by modeling computing’s environmental impact and identifying areas that require collective, coordinated action in industry and society.”
In addition to its technical objectives, Carbon Connect will foster an interdisciplinary community of researchers in computer science, electrical engineering, industrial ecology and energy policy. By training the next generation of innovators and creating an academic-industry consortium, the initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of sustainable computing practices.
2024 Penn Graduate School of Education Teaching & Service Awards
Awarded to current students, faculty, and staff, the annual Penn GSE Awards recognize outstanding service and commitment to the Penn GSE community. The 2024 honorees are:
The William E. Arnold Award for Outstanding Contributions by a Student
Laronnda Thompson, a student in the human development & quantitative methods PhD program, is a first-generation low-income (FGLI) Scholar. Her research focuses on the developmental effects of literary content intended for children, giving special attention to governmental educational mandates and literacy curricula policies as they impact the psychological well-being of the child. Her research aims to proliferate, support, and improve effective advocacy for communities disenfranchised by systemic or sociohistoric ills.
Staff Recognition of Service Award
Leland McGee, an adjunct assistant professor in the policy, organizations, leadership, and systems division, has interests in advancing education equity through the translation of research to practice. His focus on student-centered, community-engaged education envisions a K-20+ education continuum with a goal of producing competent civic citizens.
At GSE, Dr. McGee serves as the co-director of the Penn Experience Course, an asynchronous course designed to help students get the most out of their Penn experience, inside and outside the classroom, on and off campus. The course helps to prepare students for difficult conversations about racism and other forms of oppression. He is co-founder and manager of the GSE Writing Commons, which supports the culture and practice of academic writing at Penn GSE by creating supportive hybrid spaces to nurture people as writers and by recognizing that identities, cultures, and knowledge-building practices are integral to the writing process. Dr. McGee also serves on the GSE Committee on Race, Equity, and Inclusion, and previously served on the Penn Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collaboration. Before pursuing master’s and doctorate degrees from Penn GSE, Dr. McGee had an extensive legal career. He spent most of that career in government agencies, including serving as a New Jersey deputy attorney general, a New Jersey deputy ratepayer advocate, and a City of East Orange assistant corporation counsel. He culminated his legal career by serving as a New Jersey administrative law judge.
Hannah Brenneman is a 2015 graduate of the MSEd Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program at Penn GSE. After several years of part-time teaching and program coordination for the educational linguistics (ELX) division and teaching ESL/EFL internationally, she joined Penn GSE as a full-time staff member in October 2021 and is currently the division’s associate director of fieldwork and service learning. Ms. Brenneman facilitates and maintains key academic community partnerships with local, national, and international schools, businesses, and community-based organizations and advises all TESOL and ICC master’s students in their fieldwork, service-learning site placements, and academic requirements. In addition to partnership building and student advising, Ms. Brenneman manages the TESOL mentor program and is the program coordinator of Practical English for Daily Living (PEDAL), ELX’s ESL program that provides hands-on training for TESOL master’s students and free ESL classes for English language learners in Philadelphia and around the world.
Roshonda Scipio is a dedicated advocate and program manager with a strong educational background. She holds a master’s in public health from Temple University and a bachelor of arts in human services from Villanova University. Currently serving as the program manager for the urban teaching residency program at GSE, Ms. Scipio has consistently demonstrated her passion for social justice initiatives and community service throughout her career.
Ms. Scipio assisted in the establishment of the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. In this role, she provided crucial support for student clinics, where students represented individual clients in state and federal court cases involving wage theft. Additionally, she played a key role in producing influential reports shedding light on injustices affecting various marginalized groups, including low-wage workers, immigrants, unrepresented litigants, and individuals involved in the criminal justice system in Philadelphia.
Ms. Scipio also played a significant part in creating OASIS, the first online database of AIDS Service Organizations, housed at the AIDS Library, underscoring her commitment to addressing health disparities and promoting access to information. Her dedication to service extends beyond her professional endeavors, as evidenced by her lifetime membership in Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Furthermore, she has actively served on local, state, and regional levels, demonstrating her leadership and advocacy on multiple fronts.
Faculty Recognition of Service Award
Damani White-Lewis, an assistant professor in the policy, organizations, leadership, and systems division, is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies racial inequality in academic careers and contexts using methods and theories from organizational behavior and social psychology.
Dr. White-Lewis’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has appeared in The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, and others. His dissertation received the 2020 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Association of Chief Diversity Officers. He has also received honors and awards from the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education, and the American Educational Research Association. As a public scholar, he has been featured in outlets such as Inside Higher Ed and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, and regularly advises college campuses and external organizations on addressing issues related to the academic profession, racial equity, and institutional transformation and systemic change in higher education.
Caroline Hill, a capstone instructor and founder of 228 Accelerator, is a thought leader who lives, works, and designs at the intersection of education, innovation, and equity. Her work inspired the creation of equityXdesign, a powerful design framework that merges the values of equity work and innovation with the intentionality of design. Her latest venture, 228 Accelerator, catalyzes the redesign of the relationships that normalize mistreatment and oppression, builds bridges between the powerful and the powerless, and accelerates our journey to a more inclusive society.
Ms. Hill explores innovative organizations and learning models that optimize the role of relationships, uses technologies, and engages people as agents in their own transformation. She supports several national education organizations as they work to design and create more inclusive and responsive organizations and learning models.
Ms. Hill’s work is rooted in more than 20 years of experience in public education, education innovation, management consulting, and engineering. She holds a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia and a master of education in learning and teaching from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received an additional master of science in administration through New Leaders for New Schools, a principal training fellowship.
Rowan Machalow graduated from GSE in 2020 with research interests in international K-12 math curriculum comparisons. At GSE, they studied alignment and communication between standards and curriculum, teaching for social justice, and preschool education. They have previously taught at the elementary and middle school levels, as well as being a preschool director. They have over 20 years of experience in managing K-12 curriculum development and teacher professional development for major publishing companies, and enjoy bringing this experience to students at GSE through their courses.
Excellence in Teaching Award
Julie E. Wollman, a professor of practice in the policy, organizations, leadership, and systems division, is an experienced higher education leader and a nationally recognized innovator in higher education strategy development. For more than a decade, Dr. Wollman served as the president of Widener University and, before that, as the president of Edinboro University of Pennsylvanian, following experiences as a provost and as vice president for academic affairs, dean, doctoral program director, and a tenured full professor in various public and private higher education institutions.
Dr. Wollman’s areas of expertise include the presidency in higher education, leadership qualities and ethical leadership, scenario planning and creative design of college and university strategy, the imperative for change and effective change management in higher education, and the future of higher education. She is a frequent commentator and dynamic speaker on these and other education-related issues, appearing regularly in print, online, and broadcast media outlets and as a keynote speaker. During her presidency of Widener University, Dr. Wollman designed an innovative approach to strategy development that focused on strategic direction rather than traditional tactical plans that quickly become outdated in times of accelerated change. This process has been recognized nationally as an emerging best practice. Dr. Wollman has served on the boards of numerous local, regional, and national organizations. She currently serves on the Board of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA) and led the development of AAUA’s Statement of Ethics for leaders.
Student Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity & Inclusion
Adina Goldstein is a doctoral candidate in the teaching, learning and teacher education program at Penn GSE. She holds an EdM from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on teacher preparation and the experiences of teachers of color during teacher preparation. Ms. Goldstein is a proud Philadelphia native, a graduate of the School District of Philadelphia, and a former School District of Philadelphia middle school social studies and English language arts teacher.
The Laurie Wagman Award for Visual and Performing Arts in Education
Meruyert Bizhanova is the graduate assistant for the Office of Equity and Inclusion at Penn Carey Law. She is pursuing an MSEd in teaching, learning, and educational leadership at the Graduate School of Education, with a pronounced interest in international educational development. Born and raised in Kazakhstan, she completed her bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Nazarbayev University. During her undergraduate studies, Ms. Bizhanova served as a dedicated student representative across several key decision-making bodies within the university. She also served as a young deputy in the Capital Youth Maslihat of Kazakhstan, where she advocated for educational initiatives, historically marginalized student populations, and those facing financial challenges across the country.
As a co-founder of the Qazaq Khan Academy Project, Ms. Bizhanova aims to instigate positive changes within the international education system, particularly in narrowing the urban-rural education gap. She remains steadfast in her dedication to bridging gaps in educational access and opportunity, particularly for marginalized communities and economically disadvantaged students.
Therese S. Richmond, the Andrea B. Laporte Professor of Nursing in Penn Nursing, has received an honorary degree of doctor of public service (DrPS hon) from the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland. The honor, conferred during University of Maryland’s School of Nursing convocation on May 14, 2024, recognized Dr. Richmond’s extensive research and preeminent role in exploring the critical issues related to gun violence and the resulting trauma on individuals and communities.
Ottman Tertuliano, the AMA Family Assistant Professor in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at Penn Engineering, is the recipient of a 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his work studying the characteristics of bones and external forces that affect their likelihood of breaking by examining fractures on the nanoscale.