City of Philadelphia

Building a better world, one side gig at a time

The 10th piece for this series showcases a nurse who founded a low-cost dance studio, a staffer who fosters kittens, an HR specialist who teaches high schoolers life skills, and an English professor who volunteers for his old summer camp.

Michele W. Berger, Katherine Unger Baillie

A gateway from high school to Penn Medicine

Penn Medicine’s Pathways Emerging Careers Program invites Philadelphia high school graduates to start a career with Penn Medicine with extra coaching, training, and mentoring.

Meredith Mann

Projects for Progress, two years in

An Oct. 17 event celebrated six teams of Penn students, faculty, and staff working to promote equity and inclusion in Philadelphia by addressing health care, education, and systemic racism as part of the Projects for Progress.

Kristina García



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

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 Inquirer

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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Philadelphia Inquirer

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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Philadelphia Inquirer

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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Philadelphia Inquirer

Bus Revolution would bring frequent bus service to 1 million SEPTA riders

In an Op-Ed, graduate student Jonathan Zisk of the Weitzman School of Design says that SEPTA should green-light the Bus Revolution project and allow the rollout of transformative bus service across the Philadelphia region.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Here’s what these youth advocates have to say about Philly’s truancy problem, and how they would fix it

The Netter Center for Community Partnerships has more than 30 years of investment in connecting resources that address truancy, such as establishing after-school programming.

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