Netter Center for Community Partnerships

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Walter Licht’s legacy of civic engagement

For more than 40 years at Penn, Walter Licht has crafted a career of equal parts renowned historian, teacher, and community activist, including creating the Penn Civic Scholars Program. Licht recently announced he is stepping down from his positions at Civic House.

Learning civil discourse and open-mindedness from high schoolers

In the city’s first regional Ethics Bowl, facilitated by Penn philosopher Karen Detlefsen and Graduate School of Education doctoral student Dustin Webster, six local teams competed for a chance at Nationals.

Balancing academic rights and responsibilities

Ira Harkavy of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships wrote about the challenges universities face when balancing academic advancements and social responsibilities. “Higher education institutions would better fulfill their core academic functions, including advancing knowledge, teaching and learning, if they focused on improving conditions in their societies, particularly their local communities,” he argues.

Two men stand in front of the brick and stone stairway leading to the Penn Museum

The inaugural Provost’s Graduate Academic Engagement fellowship cohort

The Provost’s Graduate Academic Engagement fellowship supports scholarship and civic engagement in West Philadelphia. Paul Wolff Mitchell, an anthropology doctoral student, and Michael Vazquez, a philosophy doctoral student, are the inaugural cohort.

Penn President Amy Gutmann exits the voting booth at Vance Hall

Penn President celebrates new voting machines by exercising her civic duty

Amy Gutmann cast her ballot at Vance Hall two hours shy of polls closing in this off-year election, with new voting machines on site and across the entire city.

Four adults and three high school students posed with social media frames

Closing the wealth gap in West Philadelphia

The City of Philadelphia and Actions Not Words have selected Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships to develop and implement a new entrepreneurial program, Project Elevate, offering financial literacy education at public high schools.

a person sitting at a microscope looking at a computer screen surrounded by pipet boxes, chemicals, and cabinetry

From the classroom to the lab and back again

Senior Adithya Sriram is busy earning two degrees, researching new applications for graphene, and preparing physics courses for students in West Philadelphia.

A volunteer with Penn Leads the Vote talks with a student outside on College Green

Get out the student vote

Penn Leads the Vote, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, and the Office of Government and Community Affairs work in tandem to make Penn a civic-minded population of voters in all elections.

A person in a pink button-down shirt leaning against a brick wall.

Contest fosters local solutions to global sustainability challenges

SoleProvider won the Sustainable Solutions competition created by rising senior Richard Ling. The automated texting system offers Philadelphia’s homeless a simple way to request a particular need and for users to fulfill it.

Students in the Young Quakers program play lacrosse at Franklin Field.

Young Quakers host Urban Youth Lacrosse Jamboree

From June 1-2, 175 young lacrosse players from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston assembled at Franklin Field for the fifth annual Urban Youth Lacrosse Jamboree.

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