TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mental health task force releases final report Recommendations come a year after announcement JODY FREINKEL Senior Reporter
Created in the wake of six student suicides in 15 months, the Task Force on Student Psychological Health and Welfare released its final report on Tuesday.
Penn lacks hard ban on studentfaculty sex
Penn only prohibits relationships that violate academic conflicts of interest ELLIE SCHROEDER Staff Reporter
While half of the Ivy League, with Harvard most recently joining the ranks, rely on strictly defined policies to enforce sexual misconduct regulations, Penn’s 20-year-old policy lets social norms do the work. On Feb. 2, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes Harvard College, introduced a ban on all sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduate students. The policy change marked a departure from the previous rules, which did not explicitly ban sexual relationships between faculty and students to whom they did not have teaching or advising responsibilities. Contrarily, Penn’s policy, last updated in 1995, reads, “ … although this policy prohibits consensual sexual relations only between a teacher-supervisor and that individual’s student, the University strongly discourages any sexual relations between members of the faculty (or administration) and undergraduates.” Columbia and Princeton also currently hold policies similar to Penn’s. In enacting the policy change, Harvard joined Yale, Dartmouth and Cornell, all of which do not permit sexual relationships of any kind between undergraduates and faculty members. Harvard professor and Chair of Faculty of Arts and Sciences Committee on Sexual Misconduct Policy and Procedures Alison Frank Johnson said rather than being spurred by any single event, the policy change came as part of a larger process of reviewing sexual misconduct policies. Frank Johnson said the policy was “absolutely non-controversial” at Harvard because it only reaffirmed existing behavioral norms. “Since we all think it’s a bad idea, why not just write that down?” she said. Although Frank Johnson acknowledged the ban does limit people’s private lives, she said the new measure is “well worth the benefit of affirming that we are here as teachers, prioritizing the pedagogical relationship between faculty and undergraduates.” Currently, Penn’s policy on student-faculty relationships has two main components: prohibiting sexual relationships between students — both graduate and undergraduate — and faculty that have any kind of academic, advising or mentoring role, as well as banning faculty from evaluating students with whom they have been romantically involved. Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen said that Penn’s current policy is a “very strong way to deal with inappropriate sex between teachers and students.” “I can see the argument that a more categorical ban on relationships between undergraduates and faculty would make some sense,” Allen said, adding that the large presence of Liberal and Professional Studies undergraduates at Penn, who are older than traditional undergraduates, would make it more difficult to justify and enforce such a policy. However, although Allen believes that Penn’s sexual misconduct policy already effectively protects its students, she remains open to future change. SEE SEX PAGE 8
PHILLY PREPARES FOR POPE PAGE 6
The eight-page report focuses on “cultural change rather than structural change,” Co-Chair of the task force Anthony Rostain said. “Destructive perfectionism,” according to Rostain, is one thing the Penn community needs to fight. The report contends “the drive for academic excellence along with the perception that in order to be successful one needs to hold leadership roles
in multiple realms contributes to the amount of stress and distress experienced by Penn students.” Specific recommendations include completing a website that centralizes the University’s health resources by the fall of 2015 and clarifying leave of absence policies to students. The report emphasizes four key recommendations: increasing communication about mental health
resources, making information about resources more accessible, educating and training the Penn community on mental health and optimizing the resources devoted to Counseling and Psychological Services. The task force was announced last February by President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price to research SEE TASK FORCE PAGE 5
SHE’S GOT THE POWER Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is Penn’s 2015 Commencement speaker COREY STERN Deputy News Editor
Though her audience usually consists of diplomats from around the world, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power will address the graduates and attendees at Penn’s 259th Commencement on May 18. Power, who is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, was named today as this year’s commencement speaker. A cabinetlevel officer, Power is currently one of the most powerful women in the federal government. Power will be Penn’s first female commencement speaker since actress Jodie Foster in 2006. Prior to Foster, actress
Jane Alexander, who also served as chairwoman of the National Endowments for the Arts, was the last woman to speak at Penn’s Commencement in 1995. “Not only is she a woman with a very high level position in the government and someone who is incredibly accomplished as a scholar and human rights advocate, she also is in a position … where there are very few women,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said. “I think it will be great to hear from someone who has been as successful as she has and will only go on to do more.” In addition to the several cabinet-level officers, two other U.S. representatives to the United Nations have delivered addresses at Penn Commencements. John Foster Dulles spoke in 1949, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. spoke in SEE COMMENCEMENT PAGE 8
FLING
Fling in the making: planning the year’s biggest weekend Directors began planning Fling in October JESSICA MCDOWELL Deputy News Editor
DP FILE PHOTO
Students discussed Spring Fling plans at a SPEC meeting earlier this month
In the midst of chilling winter weather and potentially the first real snowstorm of the year, Spring Fling seems like an eternity away. But for some students, Fling has been on their agendas for months. Spring Fling is an annual tradition that, with the exception of final exams, is the only thing all Penn students experience together. For one weekend in April, all of Penn comes together for a few days of music, carnival attraction and, for many, some ethanol-heavy partying. But one thing
that is often overlooked amidst the day parties and star-studded performances is the work that goes into making the entire event possible. Approximately 50 undergraduate students plan the massive weekend-long event — from the concert to the food vendors for the quad. While Fling itself is still far away, the planning is not. At this point in the year, the Fling and concert directors of the Social Planning and Events Committee have decided on the theme and logo for the weekend and have known who will headline the concert for about a month and a half. Wharton senior George Li is one of the Spring Fling directors. Along with the other Fling directors and members of the SEE SPRING FLING PAGE 3
Fifty shades of sexual violence
and abuse. The volunteers handed out notes, one of which read “True manhood does not seek to compromise a woman’s purity, true manhood stands BRIGITTE DESNOES up to heroically protect it.” Contributing Reporter The controversial movie, based on At 8 p.m. on Feb. 13, hundreds of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy by Penn students crowded into The Rave E.L. James, illustrates a romantic retheatre to watch a sold-out showing lationship developing in the context of “Fifty Shades of Grey." of the main character’s obsession On the other side of the country, a with BDSM. BDSM — which engroup of students at the University of compasses bondage and discipline Southern California stood outside of (B&D), dominance and submission a local theatre in protest to the show- (D&S) and sadism and masochism ing of the same film. The students (S&M) — practiced by 5-10 percent donned “Blue about Grey” T-shirts to of the population, according to the emphasize their disgust at the picture National Coalition for Sexual Freethe movie and books paint about a dom. relationship that promotes obsession Penn students’ responses to the
Film sparks debate about healthy relationships
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movie was much less volatile than at some other schools. College senior Joanna Kamhi has attended almost every Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention meeting since her freshman year, but believes that sexual violence has no place in the discussion of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” “BDSM calls for the informed, mutual consent of all participants, and so sexual violence really doesn’t play into it. Thus, I think that BDSM is a totally valid choice for people who are interested,” she said. “Unfortunately, BDSM gets stigmatized because people don’t understand that BDSM community members act within a very strict structure of consent.”
ASAP is one of many groups that are part of the Penn Women’s Center, and focuses specifically on raising awareness of sexual violence on campus. Every spring, they host “Take Back the Night,” a campuswide protest and survivor vigil. Communications professor Carolyn Marvin believes that regardless of the real-life implications of BDSM, what should be emphasized when approaching the “Fifty Shades of Grey” phenomenon is its fictional nature. “While imaginative works always have license to transgress the moral rules of real life if their creators SEE 50 SHADES OF GREY PAGE 7
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