5/18
City of Philadelphia
‘Motivated to vote’
Co-directors Eva Gonzalez and Harrison Feinman of Penn Leads the Vote push for 100% student voter registration in the Year of Civic Engagement.
Gouverneur Morris: A Founder, disabled American
Best known for writing the “We the People” preamble to the Constitution, Gouverneur Morris also lived with painful disabilities. History doctoral candidate Jennifer Reiss looks at him through this underexplored lens.
Anti-discrimination task force aims to ‘flatten the hate’
Launched in April, the new Task Force on Supporting Asian and Asian American students and scholars at Penn is offering events, seminars, and resources for countering and reporting stigma and anti-Asian behavior.
Guthrie Ramsey’s creative journey of healing, collaboration, and persistence
Music Professor Guthrie Ramsey has released a new album of songs meant to pay homage to his many musical partnerships. The project was prompted by his cancer diagnosis and influenced by the global pandemic and uprising against racial injustice.
Cholera vs. flu: Philadelphia’s historical epidemic successes and failures
Philadelphia’s response to the 1918 influenza might be the poster child of how not to handle an epidemic. Timothy Kent Holliday makes the case that the city was well equipped for outbreaks decades and even centuries earlier.
SP2 graduate is now a policy fellow for Philly’s LGBTQ population
Sayeeda Rashid, who identifies as a queer South Asian woman, advocates for social justice in the Philadelphia Mayor’s office of LGBTQ Affairs.
High school meets business with Bridges 2 Wealth
Bridges 2 Wealth, a financial literacy program that celebrated its one-year anniversary with the Netter Center in February, collaborates with Penn students and Philadelphia schools to close the wealth gap.
A ‘Collective Climb’ to combat poverty
With the President’s Engagement Prize, seniors Hyungtae Kim, Kwaku Owusu, and Mckayla Warwick will work to combat poverty in West Philadelphia through education, shared resources, and community collaboration.
Improv with an impact
With their President’s Engagement Prize, Wharton School seniors Philip Chen and Meera Menon plan to create The Unscripted Project, a nonprofit that will run 10-week improv courses in Philadelphia public schools, partnering with the Philly Improv Theater.
A historical ‘Earth Day Project’
On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, historian Anne Berg and a team of students are launching an online exhibit looking at Penn’s connection to the Philadelphia celebration.
In the News
Comcast’s Sports Complex plan for South Philly would make our city less livable
In an Op-Ed, Vukan R. Vuchic of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that Philadelphia should make transit more accessible rather than striving to accommodate more cars.
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How did a white woman come to write the newest definitive text on Philadelphia’s Black history?
Penn alum Amy Jane Cohen is profiled for her new book “Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape,” which examines Black history through the lens of events, institutions, and individuals across the city. The book includes a reflection from Penn chaplain Charles Howard.
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Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions
Shoshana Aronowitz of the School of Nursing and Ashish Thakrar of the Perelman School of Medicine comment on the lack of specificity in Philadelphia’s plan to remove drug users from Kensington and on the current state of drug treatment in the city.
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Philadelphia’s Market Street East searches for growth and renewal — with or without a new Sixers arena
Akira Drake Rodriguez, Rashida Ng, and Dominic Vitiello of the Weitzman School of Design say there should be a more robust and inclusive conversation about the future of Philadelphia’s Market Street East.
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Act 135 nonprofits bust blight. Vulnerable owners pay the price
A Penn Carey Law analysis found that Act 135 petitions in Philadelphia have disproportionately been filed against Black and Asian property owners.
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A burial for 19 Black Philadelphians, 200 years in the making
Penn Museum Director Christopher Woods says that the interment of 19 Black Philadelphians at Eden Cemetery represents a reckoning with the Museum’s colonial past and an act of reconciliation with the local community.
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