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Penn in the News
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
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Penn In the News
How Penn coaches and staffers are playing a vital campus role while budgets get slashed
Among the unique circumstances that the pandemic has brought to campus, up to a third of Penn’s 200 full-time athletic staffers, including coaches, took on COVID-related duties during the fall semester to avoid being furloughed amid deep budget cuts.
Penn In the News
America, we have a problem
Research conducted since 1996 by Diana Mutz of the Annenberg School for Communication and School of Arts & Sciences found that voters on the losing side of the election have consistently claimed the winner was illegitimate. “What’s new this year,” she said, “is taking these sour grapes feelings to court.”
Penn In the News
‘Is inclusion even possible?’
Dean John L. Jackson Jr. of the Annenberg School for Communication participated in a conversation about how colleges can be more inclusive and equitable. “Difficult as it is, as challenging as it always has been, this is something we have to imagine,” he said. “The alternative is far too dark.”
Penn In the News
Paul Farmer is awarded the $1 million Berggruen Prize
President Amy Gutmann spoke about Paul Farmer, the recipient of the 2020 Berggruen Prize, for which Gutmann was juror. “Dr. Farmer’s call to improve public health systems is a matter not only of science but also of politics, economics, and ethics,” she said. “In this crisis, like the ones that preceded it, our knowledge far outpaces our will to put effective solutions into action.”
Penn In the News
Economists are rediscovering a lost heroine
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in economics, attended Penn as an undergrad in 1916 before returning to the school twice more: once to get her doctorate and again for a law degree, which she used to help desegregate Philadelphia.
Penn In the News
Freeman Dyson refused to let go of his optimism about the world
Kristen Ghodsee of the School of Arts & Sciences commemorated the life of Freeman Dyson, a mathematician and physicist. “He believed that human creativity and tenacity would save us as it had in the past,” Ghodsee wrote. “And it wouldn’t require extraterrestrial vegetation or star-encompassing megastructures but simply a collective willingness of ordinary men and women to self-sacrifice and keep fighting for a better world.”
Penn In the News
Does Electoral College end election for conservative media?
Brian Rosenwald of the School of Arts & Sciences said conservative media are shaped by their audience’s preferences. “As conservative media proliferated, it put a lot more pressure on the hosts to move to the right and embrace warfare politics,” he said. “If they don’t, they get accused of selling out. This is a business.”
Penn In the News
Use it or lose it: Tenant aid effort nears a federal cutoff
Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design found that in some cities more than half of tenants did not qualify for rental assistance programs due to a lack of cooperation from their landlords. “We’ve consistently created programs where owners have ultimate veto power over whether a tenant can access the housing assistance that they’ve applied for and need,” he said.
Penn In the News
Philly survived COVID’s first wave, with tough losses. How do we survive the next one?
Carolyn Cannuscio and Rachel Feuerstein-Simon of the Perelman School of Medicine and Kevin Volpp the Wharton School and Medical School made recommendations for how Philadelphia should handle the next wave of the pandemic. “In this holiday season, we are determined to be cautious and not risk infecting others—and we hope all of Philly will do their part too, as we’ve done before,” they wrote.
Penn In the News
Ethics lesson may hold outside the classroom
Nina Strohminger of the Wharton School commented on a study that explored how classroom discussions about ethics and meat consumption affected student meal-purchasing behaviors. “It's an awesome data set,” said Strohminger.