Kite and Key Society celebrates a century

Sunshine streams through the changing leaves on a perfect autumn morning as 10 Penn undergraduates stand near the “LOVE” sculpture on College Green, addressing groups of visitors at the beginning of a 90-minute tour through campus. The student guides are among the members of the Kite and Key Society, founded a century ago.

“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the University of Pennsylvania,” says fourth-year Lauren Krasilovsky, president of the student-led society, starting the tour paired with fourth-year McKenzie Davis, vice president.

In partnership with Penn Admissions, Kite and Key leads campus tours, the guides stopping at 10 places along the way to share information about the University and about their own personal experiences as undergraduates. They also conduct virtual campus tours, live chats, and discussion panels, sharing Penn with people around the world.

The organization has an extensive alumni network, and many will be returning to campus to celebrate the society’s 100th year at a Homecoming brunch on Nov. 16. This year, Kite and Key has about 150 members, chosen through an application and interview process, led by a 10-member executive board.

“We have students from all the different corners of campus, who represent so many different areas of study, so many backgrounds and experiences, as well as so many extracurricular involvements,” says Krasilovsky, from Los Angeles, a communication major with a minor in consumer psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. “We all love Penn so much. It’s a really great group of people.”

“We want to share our Penn experiences and show people that Penn is such a special place, that anyone could find themselves here, and have a great experience here,” says Davis, from Bethesda, Maryland, a bioengineering major in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “We are connecting with people and helping them realize that Penn could be a place for them.”

Fall is the busiest time, as prospective students are preparing their admissions applications. The in-person tours are scheduled twice a day and can accommodate up to about 150 guests; most tours are at capacity. Kite and Key, in person and online, reaches an estimated 80,000 visitors each year, says Andrea Zaleski, Admissions’ director of audience engagement.

“It is a caring, supportive, loyal group of students that want to do this every single day, to meet any student wherever they’re coming from, to share their experiences, to help them get a sense of what it might be like to be a student here at Penn,” Zaleski says. “They love to answer questions. They are such a wealth of knowledge and information.”

The guides say they are aware that for some visitors their tour may be the only personal interaction at Penn. “It’s really, really important to us that we do the absolute best that we can to make sure that everyone who steps foot on this campus and goes on a Kite and Key tour has a good experience,” Davis says.

100 years and counting

The name a nod to the University’s founder Benjamin Franklin, Kite and Key is completely managed by students.

“It’s the students’ initiative. It’s their core values that keep them going. They’re the ones scheduling all the students for shifts. They’re making sure the training is happening. They’re working with Admissions to understand feedback and to incorporate improvements. It really is the spirit of the Penn students,” Zaleski says.

“We definitely wouldn’t be able to welcome as many visitors that we do, or engage with as many folks as we get to, whether it’s on campus, or virtually, if it wasn’t for the partnership with Kite and Key.”

Founded by 10 undergraduate students in the spring of 1924, the society became known as the “handshake of the University,” according to Kite and Key. The group was “an upperclassmen-exclusive honor society with a dedication to service” limited to 15 students “chosen for Penn pride, knowledge, cordial manner, and geographical diversity.”

The society started formal campus tours in the late 1930s, and in the 1970s moved away from being a senior honor society and toward becoming a larger service organization.

Tours on campus and online

The main role for Kite and Key members today is to lead campus tours, scheduled 11 per week during the fall, morning and afternoon Monday through Friday, and Saturday morning. About a dozen guides are on each shift; members sign up for at least one tour a week.

The guides gather in the Kite and Key lounge in Claudia Cohen Hall, where the shift captain shares that day’s information. Then they file into the Admissions auditorium, standing in front of the seated crowd to introduce themselves and get their group assignments.

The tour has 10 stops, starting and ending at the Claudia Cohen Hall Admissions entrance, including such landmarks as the Quad, Houston Hall, College Green, and points along Locust Walk. What the guides say at each stop follows a framework, hitting topics like the four undergraduate schools, student life, extracurriculars, housing, student communities, athletics, safety, wellness, and the city of Philadelphia.

Although they follow the same path through campus, the guides do not follow the same script. They talk about their experiences at Penn inside and outside of the classroom, and the experiences of their friends. “Our tours are very story-based and rooted in our personal experiences. No tour guides have the same tour,” Krasilovsky says.

Developing those stories is part of the training for new recruits, typically 25-30 each semester. They learn skills like public speaking, as well as facts about the University. They also reflect on their experiences at Penn to decide what to share with high school students and their families.

“We really try to make sure the trainees feel very supported, working in mentor groups and one-on-one,” Davis says. “We teach them how to handle almost any situation that they could come across on a tour so that when they go out on a tour by themselves they feel super ready.”

In addition to the in-person tours, Kite and Key produces online programs, including a virtual tour where visitors can “click through campus,” with 360-degree views of indoor and outdoor spaces, narrated by students. And guides lead their 10-stop campus tours through live Zoom sessions, available weekly.

Guides hold live chats so prospective students can ask questions, scheduled at different times to accommodate time zones around the globe. In addition, Kite and Key offers an online panel discussion, “Digging Deeper”, featuring students from historically underrepresented backgrounds talking about their Penn experiences. Kite and Key partners with groups across the University to share Penn’s resources with prospective students; Davis spearheaded incorporating cultural resource centers on campus.

Live virtual programming “allows us to connect with even more students than we typically would with our day tours, because some people cannot come to campus,” Davis says, “and gives more opportunities for those one-on-one connections that you might get during or after a tour.”

Kite and Key has a new group dedicated to producing social media content that appears on Admissions’ Previewing Penn Instagram account, mostly interviews with undergraduate students on Locust Walk. Managing social media as communications chair is Ryan Schager, a third-year from Barnegat, New Jersey, studying behavioral economics in the Wharton School. Schager also handles posts on the Kite and Key Instagram, with weekly spotlights on tour guides, shift captains, and trainees.

“I really love Penn, and I love the thought of being able to share that with prospective students. I also love the aspect of being part of a community that shares my love, enthusiasm, and passion for Penn,” says Schager. “The camaraderie and community of Kite and Key was something that I saw through my friends, and I really aspired to be a part of it.”

Telling their stories

Many of those who now lead Kite and Key didn’t go on college tours in person during high school because of the pandemic, instead relying on newly created online tours, Zoom sessions, and live chats.

“Getting those student insights really shaped where I wanted to go, and helped me pick Penn, and so I wanted to have the opportunity to give that to other students,” says fourth-year Matt Fleischer, a political science major who is also pursuing minors in data analytics and legal studies and history. From Palm City, Florida, he has been a shift captain for three semesters.

“Penn really emphasizes students making a difference while they’re here,” says Fleischer. “I make a point during my tour to give examples of myself or my friends in all four of the undergraduate schools and how what they’re learning in the classroom is being applied to the real world.”

One of the most common questions on the tour is about the undergraduate schools. “Something that I really highlight on my tour, and it’s a big reason why I chose Penn, is the emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and interdisciplinary approaches, that students have the opportunity to take classes across the four undergraduate schools and even some of our graduate schools,” says Krasilovsky. “The biggest thing that I get asked is about navigating ‘Which school is the best fit for me?’”

Schager says he emphasizes the importance of higher education and the opportunities for financial aid. “Coming to Penn, I’ve realized the significant impact of education and how much that could really change someone’s life,” says Schager. “That’s why I feel so passionate about sharing how Penn has made my experience as a first-generation low-income student so much easier because of all the resources, how much I am learning inside and outside the classroom.”

Bernadine Kumi, a fourth-year from Roswell, Georgia, is a political science major with a minor in legal studies and history. She also focuses on financial aid, “talking with students from different backgrounds, students of color who I can connect with on a personal basis, about what I love about Penn.”

Kumi shares that she is a Questbridge Scholar, highly aided financially, and that she was able to study abroad in Greece because of Penn support. “I want people to know that they also can have an opportunity to attend a school of this caliber,” says Kumi, “because I know for a lot of people the financial aspect can be a deterrence in thinking about college.”

The guides say that the hours they are leading tours are the best of their weeks, giving them a break, and time for reflection. “Taking that time to talk about everything I’ve done here at Penn, and everything my friends have done, all the opportunities, reminds me how grateful and happy I am to be here,” says Davis. “Taking that hour and a half every week to just center myself and be grateful has been transformative, I think, to my Penn experience.”

On the last stop of the tour the guides answer the question, “Why Penn?,” and enthusiastically explain their reasons. “It’s one of my favorite questions to answer,” Krasilovsky says. “I have three things, but my ‘Why Penn?’ could be 10, 12, 15 points long. I love that question. It’s getting to talk about what makes Penn special and unique for every person.”