News

• April 30, 2020

  Four Penn Faculty Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

  Guthrie Ramsey of the School of Arts & Sciences, Kathleen Stebe of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Eve M. Troutt Powell of Arts & Sciences, and Barbie Zelizer of the Annenberg School for Communication join a group recognized for their world-class leadership and expertise. Ramsey is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music in the School of Arts & Sciences and board member for the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. A musicologist, pianist, and composer, he is a widely published author of books on African American music and musicians.

• April 29, 2020

  Announcing the Sachs Program 2020 Grant Awards

  The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation is awarding upwards of $270,000 in funding to 34 successful applicants this year. Grants are being awarded in eight categories, and the recipients represent a diverse cross-section of Penn’s community: students, staff, and faculty from seven of Penn’s twelve schools, as well as many of Penn’s arts and cultural centers.

• April 24, 2020

  New Summer Savings Grant Provides Aid to Replace Lost Summer Earnings

  While some employers have committed to offer paid remote work, including Penn’s summer work-study program, many other job opportunities are no longer available. These unprecedented shifts leave many students without essential summer income they would normally contribute toward academic expenses. To mitigate the loss of expected pay, Penn announced this week it will provide all undergraduate students whose financial aid packages include a summer savings expectation with an emergency COVID-19 Summer Savings Grant for the 2020-21 academic year. This increase in financial aid applies to both incoming and returning aided undergraduate students and will replace the entire amount of a student’s summer savings expectation.

• April 21, 2020

  How Philly’s Neighborhoods Can Help Us Understand Pandemics

  In fact, Philadelphia and other modern cities could not have survived or continued to grow without innovations like sewers and water filtration systems, which allowed urban density to occur safely. Around the same time that city officials were enlarging Fairmount Park, scientists were beginning to understand that illnesses like typhoid and cholera were caused by microorganisms. The field of public health started shifting toward developing immunizations and medical treatments rather than improving urban infrastructure. Yet even now, medicine alone still cannot protect everyone from disease outbreaks, as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates.

• April 21, 2020

  Weitzman School’s Megan Ryerson Invites Students to Remotely Join in Her Family’s Activities

  Professor Megan Ryerson in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design connects with her students by inviting them, remotely, to dinners and movies with her family. “I immediately felt this loss of connection: in the classroom, in seminars, in casual lunches. What is a world-class university if it is not people exchanging ideas together in person, proximate to that electricity and synergy?” Ryerson says. “Penn is not just about delivering an education; it is an experience.” Describing herself as “relentlessly positive,” she tried to think of how to connect with her students and have them connect with each other.