News

• March 23, 2020

  Campus Ministries Continue to Serve the Community

  The leaders of Penn campus ministries are coming together on virtual platforms to support the people of Penn and of Philadelphia while also supporting each other. Howard heads the Spiritual and Religious Life Center @ Penn. He is keeping in touch with the more than 50 different campus ministries in the Penn Religious Communities Council, covering a full range of religions, faiths, sects, and movements.

• March 19, 2020

  Five Tips to Stay Positive and Healthy During Social Isolation

  In this strange new time, it’s important to stay connected to the people you love and replace the physical contact that’s been lost. Though the coronavirus situation is changing daily, even hourly, by now the need for physical separation from those not in your household is clear.

• March 19, 2020

  Teaching Art Online Under COVID-19

  As we individually scramble to stock our pantries and secure our loved ones, we are also figuring out how on earth to switch our hands-on teaching of studio-based art to virtual platforms.

• March 19, 2020

  Coronavirus and the Philly Concert Scene

  Speaking to several different Philly-area concert promoters throughout the day today, the common theme is that everything is changing by the hour as fears about the spread of coronavirus continue to escalate.

• March 17, 2020

  A Simple Exercise to Help Stay Calm in the Face of Coronavirus Uncertainty

  Martin Seligman, director of Penn’s Positive Psychology Center, offers a quick and straightforward way to refocus the mind. The situation with coronavirus and COVID-19 is changing daily, and such uncertainty and flux can lead to anxiety and fear. “The human mind is automatically attracted to the worst possible case, often very inaccurately,” says Martin Seligman, who founded the field of Positive Psychology and runs Penn’s Positive Psychology Center. To refocus the mind, Seligman suggests a simple exercise called “Put It in Perspective,” which starts by conjuring the worst-case scenario, which our minds tend to do first, then moves to best-case scenario, and finishes with the most likely scenario. The idea is to redirect your thoughts from irrational to rational.