October 7, 2019

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2019 VOL. CXXXV

NO. 44

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

FOUNDED 1885

La Casa Latina director will retire after a decade at Penn He announced his retirement on Sept. 20 CELIA KRETH Staff Reporter

Johnny Irizarry, who has been director of the La Casa Latina cultural center for the past decade, is retiring in April.

Irizarry started working at La Casa about 11 years ago, after spending several years as a community organizer in Philadelphia. In addition to his work with La Casa, Irizarry teaches an Academically Based Community Service course under the Latin American and Latino Studies Department. He will

continue teaching at Penn after stepping down from his post as director. “I sincerely feel that the success of La Casa Latina is due to Penn’s amazing students and yes, the people at La Casa Latina across the years that have supported them,” Irizarry wrote in an email to The Daily Penn-

sylvanian. Irizarry declined an interview because he said he did not “feel comfortable with interviews of any kind.” Students who know Irizarry called him “el abuelito” — Spanish for “the grandfather” — for La Casa, College sophomore Diego Caceres said. Losing Irizarry will be like

“losing a piece of [La Casa’s] heart because he’s given so much of his own life,” College senior Lisa Romero said. She has worked with Irizarry as internal affairs chair of the Latinx Coalition. Romero said Irizarry’s care SEE LA CASA PAGE 3

JOHNNY IRIZARRY

Penn Spectrum Weekend centers on intersectionality Alumni, students gathered over three days for the conference JONAH CHARLTON Staff Reporter

Over the past three days, the University hosted Penn Spectrum Weekend, where hundreds of alumni and students gathered on campus to celebrate and reflect on diversity and intersectionality. Penn Spectrum Weekend is a triannual conference, first held in 2010, that focuses on cultural identity and intersectional issues faced by the black, Latinx, Native, Asian, LGBTQ+, Muslim, and first-generation, low-income communities at Penn and in the United States. The programming incorporated how current events and the Trump administration policies impact these communities. On Oct. 5, Penn President Amy Gutmann gave the opening remarks and said the Penn community is at its best when it is at its most diverse, urging the community to “stand up and speak out on our values to make a positive difference in the world.” The weekend’s main session, titled “Civil Rights in the Populist Era,” featured a panel including Pennsylvania state

NINA WEI

The conference was held in Huntsman Hall, with over 150 students attending.

ERIC ZENG

(Left to right) Marc Lo, Camille Charles, and Laronda Thompson discuss cultural identity and intersectional issues faced by the black, Latinx, Native, Asian, LGBTQ+, Muslim, and first-generation, low-income communities.

representative and 2004 School of Social Policy & Practice graduate Movita Johnson-Harrell. The panel discussion, moderated by Perry World House’s Deputy Director LaShawn Jefferson, centered on the

current civil rights climate and policies created by the current administration from workplace discrimination of LGBTQ+ people to gun violence and the lack of action to prevent mass shootings and murders. The “inter-

connected nature of these vices,” Jefferson said, was a core theme of the panel and the weekend as a whole. “We’re all here in this comSEE SPECTRUM PAGE 8

PennDesign offically renamed Stuart Weitzman School of Design A bust of Weitzman was also unveiled at the event GORDON HO Staff Reporter

Penn Design was officially renamed the Stuart Weitzman School of Design on Thursday night, with Penn President Amy Gutma n n a nd Weitzma n attending the naming ceremony outside Meyerson Hall. T he ceremony took place a m id cont roversy su r rounding the University’s decision to rename the school after current design graduate students sharply criticized the renaming.

KYLIE COOPER

Provost Wendell Prichett, President Amy Gutmann, and Stuart Weitzman unveiled the design school’s name, featuring Weitzman’s bust.

St udents had cr it ique d Weit z m a n , a fa sh ion ic on a nd 1963 W h a r ton g r a duate, because h is profession as a designer is not related to any academic program offered at Penn. They also said they were frustrated over the lack of transparency and student input throughout the process. During the event, Gutmann spoke about the importance of Weitzman’s contr ibution and emphasized that the designer would maintain a constant presence at the school in the future. While alumni at the ceremony SEE WEITZMAN PAGE 8

Penn Med researcher studies dangers of vaping Frank Leone researches tobacco dependency HAWTHORNE RIPLEY Senior Reporter

Pulmonary researchers at Penn Medicine are investigating the health complications of vaping in an effort to tamp down the growing number of hospitalizations for lung-related injuries in recent months. The national outbreak has focused attention on the potential dangers of vaping and has even prompted policy responses from

schools and the federal government. Frank Leone, a leading pulmonologist at Penn Med, said vaping does not break addictive habits and is not a healthy alternative to cigarettes, based on his patient work and ongoing research on tobacco dependence. Leone, who is the director of Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Program, conducts research on vaping that involves clinical trials with patients, identifying targets for pharmacotherapy, and implementation work a im ing to challenge assumptions made by doctors and patients about

dependence. “You’re not really transitioning away from the smoking behavior,” he said. “Smoke is the vehicle for nicotine. You’ve changed the vehicle, but you’re still delivering nicotine to the brain, and all the connections that led you to smoke in the first place are still alive and well.” Based on his research with tobacco dependence, Leone said users cannot simply quit vaping after learning about health complications. “Nicotine won’t let that decision sit easy in your soul,” he said.

OPINION | Penn’s squash court fees are elitist

“Instead of charging exorbitant prices for faculty, alumni, students, and other community members, the Penn Athletics administration ought to have kept the old system in place.” PAGE 4

SPORTS | Friday Night Frights

Penn football struggled to generate much on offense against Dartmouth on Friday night, eventually dropping its home opener at Franklin Field. BACKPAGE FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ONLINE AT THEDP.COM

Leone said the idea that electronic cigarette aerosol is healthier than smoke has always been an assumption based on the “mental shortcut” that since cigarettes are toxic, a “vapor” alternative will be safer. Instead of “vapor,” Leone uses the word “aerosol” to clarify that vapes do not contain water vapor, but rather a complex mix of several dangerous chemicals. “The lung doesn’t really care that you’re not exposing it to smoke anymore if what you’re exposing it to is also toxic, and there SEE VAPING PAGE 3

NEWS

NEWS

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Skimmerfest features courtship. and zack villere

Black Ivy League Conference stresses need for diversity in recruitment Speakers talked about the importance of diversity in businesses NINA WEI Staff Reporter

At the Black Ivy League Business Conference last weekend, speakers talked about the power of diversity in corporate business and the power of resilience. The conference, which took place in Huntsman Hall, was attended by about 150 students across Ivy League schools. The annual conference, which is hosted by Black Wharton Undergraduate Association, began in 2016 and aims to connect minority students with elite professionals in the fields of finance and consulting, according to the conference’s program. This year’s conference focused on “the power of you” and featured speakers who are mostly Penn graduates working in corporate businesses and other young Ivy League graduates in tech and business industries. The keynote speaker, Mandell Crawley, who is the head of Private Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley, began his speech by giving a brief introduction to the company and answering questions about the need for embracing diversity across elite corporate firms. Morgan Stanley is working to bring “more diverse, talented people into [its] programs” and that the current generation is the “answer to the diversity problem,” Crawley said. “Adversity does not discriminate. If it comes and knocks at your door, you’ve got to have the ability to overcome it,” he said. “You can say life is unfair, but in the end you have to have a substantial amount of resilience because of the reality we face being black and brown in this society.” Following the morning keynote, the conference broke into three small panel discussions led by young graduates from the Ivy League universities who worked at large companies such as Morgan Stanley, Bain & Co., and Facebook. The graduates talked about what it was like working at each company and answered questions from the students. The afternoon events focused on networking opportunities such as a lunch, a career fair, and more panels from “Young and Black” in Corporate, Finance, and Tech speakers. Wharton sophomore Zahra Barrow, the co-chair of Special Events of the conference and a member of Black Wharton Undergraduate Association, said it was important for students to have opportunities like the conference to network. “It is important to build collaborative skills,” she said. “One of our goals of the conference is to show students how to find mentors, show them how other peers and professionals have done it, and how they could build a community wherever they go.”

Penn prof. presents research on public health ads

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