Graduate School of Education

Angela Duckworth, the Christopher H.

With a grade point average hovering below 1.0, Larry McDaniel Jr. tried and failed at community college, dismissed on four separate occasions.Now a master’s student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, McDaniel says his progress was part of a long, difficult and emotional journey.

The room is packed. The 24 adults seated in the class, from at least a dozen countries, are each connected to someone at the University of Pennsylvania. They are here to learn to speak English, free of charge.

Growing up at 52nd Street and Haverford Avenue in West Philadelphia, Glen Casey did not believe he belonged at the nearby University of Pennsylvania.

Seventeen-year-old Sadie Tanner Mossell arrived at Penn in the fall of 1915 filled with strong-willed ambition, a determination to succeed, and the utmost confidence, in a world that told her she was ugly, ignorant, and inferior. She grew up surrounded by excellence, flowing across generations, and knew that prevalent notions of black inferiority were false and uncivilized.

Each of the five students in the English class is a refugee, each from a different country, each with a different language. The volunteer teacher, Anne Pyzocha, is a student herself, pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

The way organizations choose to structure internal relationships among participants can create valuable social connections, if done properly, according to Amanda Barrett Cox, a fourth-year doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who published her findi

Two doctoral students from the University of Pennsylvania were selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as inaugural Health Policy Research Scholars. They are Jasmine L. Blanks Jones and Sondra Calhoun. 

The Burrison Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania will open a new exhibition Thursday, Sept. 8, featuring the photography of Penn alumnus Andrew Feiler, a 1984 Wharton graduate. The exhibition features photographs that depict Morris Brown College, one of the 105 historically black colleges and universities. Morris Brown was originally established in 1881 and was all but shut down in 2002 after years of fiscal hardship and a high-profile mismanagement scandal.

Blending interdisciplinary work with community engagement, two professors from the University of Pennsylvania are working with grade school teachers to address misconceptions and fears about Islam, as well as issues impacting students from Muslim communities.