Author: Kelly O’Connor
Check out Spruce Street Plaza between 33rd and 34th on Spruce Street. The old parking lot across from HUP that once housed food carts has been transformed into Penn’s latest public green space. A great new place to enjoy lunch or just get some fresh air.
Don’t worry, your favorite food carts are just across 33rd street by Franklin Field.
Filed under Kelly P., Photos, Uncategorized
Author: Patrick Bredehoft
As we head into the holiday season, my wife Nancy (Penn Med, ’15) tends to get a little sentimental about our animals.
Mac, the cat, and Lilli, the dog, were both born in Turkey, and traveled back to America with my wife and me when we moved to Philadelphia three years ago. In addition to being home to practicing Jews, Muslims, and Christians, Turkey is the home of Saint Nicholas, who is known today as Santa Claus. A host of holidays are celebrated in Turkey: religious, cultural, and political. As teachers at a small school outside of Istanbul, my wife and I introduced our students to some of our favorite holidays: Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas. We also introduced them to the idea of keeping a dog and cat in our home (pets are far less common among most Turkish families). Somewhere along the way, Mac and Lilli grew closer to one another, perhaps as a result of their own journeys halfway around the world.
Every holiday, Mac and Lilli remind us of an incredible range of experiences in a country we loved, even though it was very different from our own. They remind us that friendships emerge in unlikely places, and that love is a far more valuable occupation than judgment. They remind us of our families, both near and far, and of the innumerable blessings we enjoy.
May your holidays be wonderful, wherever they take you. May you celebrate unlikely friendships. May you be reminded of your blessings.
Mac (on the left) rules and Lilli (on the right) obeys.
Filed under Patrick B.
Author: Lisa Marie Patzer
Penn Alumni has been posting #TriviaTuesday questions via our Twitter site once a week, every Tuesday, since mid-August. Many of the questions and photos are taken from the University Archives, a collection of digital archives made available through the Penn Libraries. We have had one consistent follower (@MikeyZ2) answer nearly all of the #TriviaTuesday correctly. I have learned a lot about the University, trying to find interesting questions and researching the answers.
Here are a few of my favorite:
If you have a knack for Trivia, or you just want to learn more about the University, keep an eye out for #TriviaTuesday on the Penn Alumni Twitter feed. The one for this week was just posted and needs to be answered:
Filed under Lisa Marie Patzer, Social Networking
Author: Lynn Carroll, C’93
I’ve enjoyed getting to know alumni from the classes of the 1930s all the way through to recent graduates. Mildred CW’44 had lunch with the same group of classmates every month for more than 50 years. Dick C’59 comes to Penn every year to get out on the ice with his hockey teammates. The “alumni song” at the end of a Bloomers show brings on more tears than an episode of “Parenthood.” Much has changed about college—and Penn—in the past century, but one thing is universal: college friendships that stand the test of time.
Why are these friendships so intense and enduring? What makes that person we sit next to in Psych 101 so important to our lives, whereas a decade later, coworkers of 5 years or more are mere acquaintances?
Some various theories – feel free to weigh in with your opinions!
– While at college, we become who we are; those who share the journey with us earn a special place in our hearts
– From age 18-22 we are open to new ways of looking at the world, and therefore more likely to be “imprinted” by those around us, similar to infant birds
– As we grow older, we are more guarded and cautious in our relationships, and are unwilling to allow others to see us as vulnerable
Do you still have friends from your days at Penn, and do you expect they’ll remain your friends for your lifetime? Give them a shout out in the comments, and then forward a link to this blog their way. They’ll probably do the same for you in 25 years or so.
Filed under Alumni Perspective, Lynn Carroll
Author: Nicole C. Maloy, W’95
At our Alumni Relations holiday party, we had an “ugliest holiday sweater” contest. I don’t have any “holiday sweaters” per se, but I do have an enormous, multicolored, plaid sweater, a relic from the early 1990’s. It was the obvious choice.
Watch out now!
Heinous. My coworker and classmate said I looked like The Ghost of Cosby Past. One friend noted that the turtleneck was a nice touch. I thanked her, noting that, the beauty of these suckers was that you could pretty much pick a turtleneck at random, and it was bound to match some color in the sweater. Another friend told me she remembers this sweater from our study abroad trip to Lyon, France in the fall of 1993. Who would remember a sweater from nearly 20 years ago? Well, I suppose once your eyeballs are exposed to one of these, there’s a burning sensation, and you just can’t forget, no matter how hard you try.
Colors and patterns aside, why on earth did we walk around in sweaters this big? (To get a true understanding of the size of this thing, check out the group photo from our party – just look at my sleeves. Look at them. Again, I ask, WHY?)
I suppose the “why” doesn’t much matter since all of us walked around looking something like this at the time. I also remember wearing beautiful, long, floral dresses, and rounding out the look with boots. Big, clunky boots. So cute, right?
I’m just sayin’. Right, 90s people? Anyone?
Of course, now I understand why my mother and grandmother would look at my feet in horror. “Why would you wear boots like that with such a pretty dress?” they would ask. “Why don’t you put on some nice sandals or something?” I would adjust my scrunchie, and calmly extol the fabulousness of my ensemble. They would throw their hands up and shake their heads. I suspect they have had that conversation before, only with one another. Fringe and bell bottoms may have been involved (and this would be a good time to re-read the title of this blog post).
Speaking of fringe and bell bottoms, one of the most entertaining parts of looking through the old yearbooks we have at the Sweeten Alumni House – and by “old” I mean from any time before I arrived at Penn – is seeing how the hair and clothing choices, both for men and women, scream out the era. When I was a student, I thought that I and my friends looked totally normal, and it was all those other people, in the past, who looked so funny in their ridiculous hair and clothes. We, on the other hand, looked timelessly fashionable in our dark, matte lipstick at the dawn of Revlon ColorStay, our leotards with baggy jeans and a plaid flannel shirt tied around the waist, and yes, our baby doll T’s underneath those elegant dresses we wore with boots. Perhaps the joke was on me.
Performing with The Inspiration in the vest and jeans combo, another ’90s classic.
Filed under Alumni Perspective, Nicole M.
Author: Lillian Gardiner, GeD’11
Last night, over 60 alumni, friends and family gathered at the Gallery on Market Street to listen to a panel on “Art and the City.” Guests mingled in the Mural Arts Program’s space on the third level of the Gallery where the artists sometimes work.
After Vice President and Secretary of Penn, Leslie Laird Kruhly welcomed everyone, panelists Esperanza Altamar, GFA’00, Jane Golden, and Ernel Martinez, GFA’04 were led by Penn faculty moderator Mark J. Stern, PhD, in a discussion about the impact of the arts. A few of the questions covered included: How important is art to any major American urban center? What impact does its presence – or its absence – have on our children? How can Penn alumni with an interest in art make a difference in Philadelphia?
Participants (from left to right): Penn Faculty Moderator: Mark J. Stern, PhD,Principal Investigator, Social Impact of the Arts Project; Co-Director, Urban Studies Program; Kenneth L. M. Pray Chair Professor of Social Policy; Esperanza Altamar, GFA’00, Director of Youth Programs, Norris Square Neighborhood Project; Former Manager of Community Programs, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Jane Golden, Executive Director, Philadelphia Mural Arts Project; Lecturer, Fine Arts and Urban Studies at Penn; and Ernel Martinez, GFA’04, Artist, Designer, Muralist and Mural Arts Instructor for the Amber Art & Design, and Philadelphia Mural Arts Project
As many of you may already know, in October 2010, Penn Alumni hosted the first-ever Penn Spectrum conference on diversity and community. The “Penn Spectrum on the Road” events are designed to continue the discussions from the conference and carry the ideas to the greater alumni body.
This is also your opportunity to save the date for the fall Penn Spectrum conference to be held in Philadelphia from September 20 to the 22, 2013. Learn more about that upcoming conference and see what other “Penn Spectrum on the Road” events took place on our website.
Author: Casey Ryan, C’95
I had planned to share with you a story about a trip to Boston for the Penn To You event, Taking a Personal Approach to Cancer: Penn Medicine’s Leading-Edge Discoveries And What it Could Mean for You and Your Family. The discussion would have showcased The Perelman School of Medicine and featured numerous distinguished faculty. This research was featured in the The New York Times this week if you are interested in learning more. However ,we had to cancel the program due to the impending arrival of the now-called Superstorm Sandy.
As we are in the middle of the holiday season, I’d like to remind you that there are still many affected by the storm’s aftermath and here are some stories which highlight what Penn and Penn alumni have done to disseminate the reality of the destruction and the means to improve the situation.
The immense size of Hurricane Sandy, feature the cold front heading toward the storm (picture courtesy of Wikipedia).
However, I was pleased to see that Penn was covering the storm closely and giving updates and commentary throughout and after the crisis.
In Sandy’s Costly Aftermath from the Knowledge@Wharton site, Howard Kunreuther, co-director of Wharton’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, uses one word to describe Sandy, “horrendous.” He continues, saying that “it’s the worst of the century because of a combination of factors – its incredible reach along the East coast, its incredible damage to New York City and Long Island and the incredible amount of flooding along the New Jersey coast, including Atlantic City.” Talking about the financial impact of the storm along, Kunreuther has heard that cost of the story could reach as high as $50 billion citing that risk of business interruption could be very severe if it takes a long time for some companies to start functioning again and would likely lead to this gigantic price tag.
From Penn’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s blog entry, Hurricane Sandy: How Can I Help?, one learns that the best help would-be philanthropists can provide is cash donations to first responder nonprofits, not product donations. The simple reason is that cash allows these nonprofits to get what is needed faster and more cost-effectively and to respond flexibly as needs change.
Lastly, from Penn News’ Helping Those Impacted by Hurricane Sandy, the University acknowledges that many of our neighbors in New Jersey and New York continue to struggle in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. To assist, the University of Pennsylvania’s faculty, staff, and students have undertaken a number of efforts to support the victims of this terrible natural disaster. That means there are several organizations actively supporting those whose lives have been upended by the storm and are accepting donations from those who want to help, including The American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and The Robin Hood Relief Fund.
In this season of giving, I urge you to remember those who could use a little more help this year.
Filed under Alumni Perspective, Casey R., Locust Walk Talk
The Sweeten Alumni House staff took time out of their always busy day to celebrate the holidays with each other. Each person pitched in and brought food for all to share . . . we had meatballs, sausage, buffalo chicken dip, cheese steak dip, many different salads, cookies, cake, and plenty of beverages!
We also had an Ugly Sweater Contest and our very own Jeanine McAdams won for best look!!
Our gift swap was really fun and everyone left with a little gift whether a joke or something nice — nothing over $5.00 was the rule. 
We have a wonderful group of people who work in Alumni Relations. We had a wonderful afternoon!!
Happy Holidays to all of you!
Filed under Kristina C., Sweeten Alumni House, The Sweeten Life, View from Sweeten
Author: Stephanie Yee, C’08
I finally rode on one of the new Penn buses I recently saw cruising around campus. When I entered the bus, I was blown away by the fancy blue leather seats.
Viole!
Close up…
I highly recommend riding the new Penn bus next time you see it. The lighting is great inside the bus, and the seats are incredibly comfortable. These new buses are certainly a huge improvement over the school bus models. Even though a free bus ride home is a free bus ride home, I would much rather ride in these new beautifully decorated buses. I got home feeling very Proudly Penn.
Filed under Alumni Benefits, Alumni Perspective, Campus Life, Stephanie Y.
Author: Rebecca Eckart, GEd’13
Now that the fall semester is coming to a close and I’m almost done with all my papers/projects/exams, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on my first semester of grad school.
Some of the most rewarding things of this semester were:
And now, some of the things I wish I’d known before starting grad school:
Now I’m looking forward to spring semester and graduating in May. I’m planning to do a lot of reading over winter break, so that hopefully next semester will be a little less hectic than this one has been. I’m also really excited to go a Phillies game—I wasn’t able to make it to a home game this fall.
After the race in front of the Rocky statue
Filed under Academics, Rebecca E., Student Perspective
Frankly Penn 