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Louisa Shepard
News Officer
Louisa Shepard covers several subject areas in the School of Arts and Sciences including History of Art, Music, and English, which includes Cinema and Media Studies, Center for Creative Writing, and Kelly Writers House. She also supports coverage at the Graduate School of Education, PennDesign, the Libraries, the Penn Museum, the Arthur Ross Gallery, the Institute for Contemporary Art and the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.
Penn Reading Project gets freshmen on the same page
The Penn Reading Project, in its 28th year, is designed to bring the freshmen class together on one academic project. The Class of 2022 read Thornton Wilder’s “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” as part of the Provost’s “Year of Why?”
Theatre students perform on international stage
Portraying dual roles of conjoined twins from the 19th century and a pair of modern-day researchers, junior Duval Courteau and senior Aria Proctor took the stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland with the one-act play, “Curio.”
A chance to be an art curator
In a creative approach to curating its next art exhibition, the Arthur Ross Gallery is opening the choice of artworks to the public through its first-ever crowdsourcing effort.
Bringing world leaders together around competing visions of the global order
Former U.S. National Security Advisors H.R. McMaster and Susan Rice will be the headline speakers at a two-day Perry World House colloquium in September, with former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg participating in the Penn Biden Leaders Dialogue.
Convocation 2018
Welcoming students at a ceremony on College Green, President Gutmann encouraged the Class of 2022 to work together, with each other, and the Penn community.
Preserving Philadelphia’s Society Hill
The histories of more than 1,500 properties in a storied Philadelphia neighborhood are now accessible on the new website, “Preserving Society Hill.” Working with digital-humanities specialists in the Price Lab and the Libraries, PennDesign’s Francesca Ammon created an interactive map to document this innovative case study in urban renewal.
Incoming freshman experience college and community ahead of first semester
In its 32nd year, the weeklong Africana Studies Summer Institute brought 65 incoming freshmen to campus in July, introducing them to the program’s courses, professors, graduate students, and fellow undergraduates.
Centennial of Nelson Mandela’s birth
It has been 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela, elected as South Africa’s first black president after being imprisoned by the apartheid government for nearly three decades. Penn Professor Tukufu Zuberi of the School of Arts and Sciences discusses Mandela’s legacy and his continuing impact today.
Penn brings Philadelphia’s rare manuscripts to the world
Leveraging the University’s expertise with technology and rare centuries-old manuscripts, Penn Libraries is digitizing and cataloging medieval and early modern texts from 15 Philadelphia-area institutions. The three-year project is known as BiblioPhilly.
Stains Alive
For Libraries fellow Erin Connelly, stains are some of the most exciting discoveries in her study of medieval manuscripts. She is part of a national team analyzing stains in medieval texts using modern multispectral imaging. An exhibition at Van Pelt-Dietrich Library displays the researchers’ discoveries.