4/22
Staff
Reflecting on a year shaped by COVID-19
Penn Today brings together noteworthy stories and images from the past year and highlights ways for individual members of the Penn community to share their personal experiences.
New Projects for Progress prize designed to promote equity and inclusion
Applications are now open for a new University initiative, Projects for Progress, which will award prizes of as much as $100,000 to support proposals by teams of students, faculty, and staff designed to promote equity and inclusion and make a direct impact in Philadelphia.
Penn announces COVID-19 childcare grant
The Penn COVID-19 Childcare Grant helps faculty, staff, and postdoctoral trainees at the University who incur childcare expenses for care during the academic year.
Honoring outstanding staff members with 2020 Models of Excellence awards
The traditional Models of Excellence ceremony could not take place in April because of the coronavirus, but the entire Penn community celebrates the 2020 honorees.
Cassandra Adams helps students navigate the health system in a crisis
As part of the Essential Staff Profiles series, Cassandra Adams’ work as a medical receptionist with Student Health Services is a critical service that helps keep students safe navigating their medical needs.
Finding meaning amid misfortune
In an audio message, President Amy Gutmann urges the Penn community—from Camden to California, Canada to Kuala Lumpur—to make the very best of this new way of life.
How to defend your virtual meeting from uninvited, malicious guests
As ‘Zoombombing’ becomes widespread, Penn’s Office of Information Security provides tips on staying secure.
Penn Human Resources gives advice for working from home during the coronavirus crisis
Penn human resources offers tips and resources for working from home during the coronavirus crisis
Staying protected from COVID-19 phishing schemes
Nick Falcone, Penn’s information security officer, recommends taking extra steps to keep technology secure during such unprecedented times.
Cookbook features tasty recipes from campus chefs
Members of the Penn culinary staff have recently released a cookbook, “The Penn Family Cookbook,” with some of their favorite family recipes.
In the News
How Penn coaches and staffers are playing a vital campus role while budgets get slashed
Among the unique circumstances that the pandemic has brought to campus, up to a third of Penn’s 200 full-time athletic staffers, including coaches, took on COVID-related duties during the fall semester to avoid being furloughed amid deep budget cuts.
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‘History is being made.’ Colleges scramble to create archives that will record life during the pandemic
Penn is archiving the community’s experiences of the coronavirus pandemic. “What we generally get in our archives is the raw data of an institution’s history, the decisions that are made, when certain things happened,” said acting university archivist J. M. Duffin. “We rarely get anything that’s part of the human side. In order to understand the human side, we need to try to get people’s direct testimony of their experiences.”
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Running club chases down theft suspect in University City
The Annenberg (Lunchtime) Running Club was lauded for its role in capturing a man accused of theft during one of their triweekly outings. “Running is typically a useless sport where you turn fat cells into heat, but occasionally it can be useful, and here was one of those opportunities,” said founding member Kyle Cassidy.
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Should Colleges Let Students Choose Their First Roommate? Some Say No.
Ryan Keytack of College Houses said that Penn tries to accommodate mutual roommate requests, but also encourages students to “experience something new.”
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Hand-shaking Tips for Making the Right Impression
Joseph Barber of Career Services wrote about the impact a firm, dry, and confident handshake can have on first impressions.
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Why I Learned to Respect the FBI
Jonathan Zimmerman of the Graduate School of Education described his college experience of being interrogated by the FBI and how it impacted his views on the organization over time.
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