October 15, 2018

Page 1

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2018 VOL. CXXXIV NO. 46

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

FOUNDED 1885

WHEN

A Player Gets Up

DAZED Part I: Three Penn sprint football players deal with the effects of playing through brain injuries in the 2017 season WILLIAM SNOW Senior Sports Reporter

PICTURED ABOVE KEVIN LAJEUNESSE

I

t was just a normal midseason practice. No full contact allowed, per school rules, so the players hit dummies to practice their tackling. It was just a normal hit as well. A player dove toward a dummy, like he had countless times before. But he fell awkwardly, hitting the ground head-first. He got up, dazed, and moved on with the drill. It’s normal to play through injuries on Penn sprint football, that player — and many of his teammates — said. He continued on to finish the week of practice, and he played a full game that weekend against Chestnut Hill. The Quakers triumphed in a 20-7 contest. But at the end of the game, Kevin Lajeunesse couldn’t tell his athletic trainers and medical staff what month it was. Lajeunesse had suffered a concussion earlier that week and played on, exacerbating its symptoms and leaving him in a state of unforeseen impairment. He was deemed ineligible to play for the rest of the season,

CHASE SUTTON | SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR

and he limped through his classes for the rest of the semester. For Lajeunesse, and at least two of his teammates during the 2017 season, playing through concussions forced them to suffer serious consequences. Not only did they have to walk away from the sport they loved all their lives, but they also had to consider whether they could even continue on at school. What follows is an account of the journeys of Lajeunesse, Matt Gorman, and Connor Ashton as they faced the dark potential consequences of playing sprint football for Penn, struggled to recover from their injuries, and came to terms with life after college athletics. As they looked back on their time playing for sprint football, however, none had regrets about how they spent their time or about the decisions they made. They all said they would do it all again. “I Paid For It Dearly” When Lajeunesse got up dazed, he didn’t know he would be feeling the effects one year later. But as he

sat down to chat with a coffee in his trembling hand and special lightreducing sunglasses hooked over his Penn Athletics shirt, he was just glad the worst was behind him. In the weeks following his con-

cussion. “But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seen stars before,” he noted. Previously, the symptoms had gone away. Most concussion symptoms clear within two or three weeks, but he was diagnosed with Post-

"I took my chemistry final exam ... and after I finished the final, I went home and laid in bed for three days." - Kevin Lajeunesse cussion, he had a hard time sleeping, and he suffered from raging headaches and extreme sensitivity to light. He struggled to keep up with classes, having suffered the injury not even halfway through the semester. This was his first diagnosed con-

Concussion Syndrome, meaning his symptoms could last for much longer. Everyday life became more difficult for him, especially when he needed to exert cognitive energy. “I strongly considered the possibility [of taking a leave of absence]

given how I was finishing out my first semester,” Lajeunesse said. “I took my chemistry final exam because I was locked into that class that semester, and after I finished the final, I went home and laid in bed for three days.” Resting over winter break didn’t alleviate his symptoms. He still suffered from the headaches, ocular migraines, poor balance, and more. Nonetheless, he chose to return to campus rather than take a medical leave of absence. Lajeunesse, a College junior, studies neuroscience as a BBB major. (“It’s painfully ironic,” he quipped.) The following semester, however, he knocked out general requirements as he waited for his brain injury to heal. He got through by attending lectures with his eyes closed, by strategically scheduling classes with breaks to rest in between, and by listening to audiobooks instead of reading. Even still, he said, “I felt like I was trying to win a boxing match

with an arm tied behind my back.” He made it through the semester, took summer classes to get back on track, and says he even feels good enough for a full course load this fall. But he still wakes up in the middle of the night with the tingly feeling of needles sticking in his face. His doctors can’t explain the phenomenon. For periods during the day, he feels dazed, and he still has a tremor in his hand. He has recently made a slow return to basic exercise, but has had to give up his long-time hobbies of skiing and weightlifting for good. A year on, he wonders what might have been different if he hadn’t played on after getting up dazed. “I can’t help but wonder, if I had … stopped after that day I got dinged in practice instead of playing through it. Would I have been able to recover in a week or two as most people do, instead of suffering for a year? That’s something I have to live SEE CONCUSSIONS PAGE 2

Office of the Provost now requires faculty bias training

Refugee tour guides at museum inspire interest in Middle East

The decision was made in March 2017

The Global Guides program was launched last spring

COURTNEY DAUB Staff Reporter

Amid ongoing efforts for greater inclusion, the Office of the Provost now requires all faculty members involved in faculty searches across schools to undergo unconscious bias training. Requirement went into effect this semester, but the decision was made in March 2017 as part of the President and Provost’s Faculty Inclusion Report, Executive Director of Faculty Affairs Lubna Mian said. While the Office of the Provost

has offered centralized unconscious bias training intended for hiring committees since 2006, the training will now be required for faculty members on hiring committees. Penn Dental professor Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, who headed the Senate Committee for Faculty Development, Diversity, and Equity, made the initial recommendation in May 2012 that faculty involved in hiring take bias training. “We thought that was a good place to start,” Jordan-Sciutto said. “I think that this will go a long way to making an inclusive environment which will only further enhance all the scholarship and education that occurs here.”

Bias training has long been an issue of interest among graduate school faculty. In April 2017, more than 80 faculty members signed a letter in support of expanding programming for reducing bias and encouraging fellow faculty members to attend a training. The majority of the signers were from the Perelman School of Medicine. Chair of the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Group Dan Kessler, who signed the letter, said the release of the letter occurred around the same time conversations about bias were happening within Biomedical SEE BIAS TRAINING PAGE 3

OPINION | Re-examining Penn’s heroes

“Ignoring the shortcomings of Penn icons to preserve the pristine image of their character is dishonest and beneath us.” — DP Opinion Board PAGE 4

SPORTS | Surviving the Lions

In a low-scoring, defensive game, Penn football outlasted Columbia thanks to freshman cornerback Mohammed Diakite’s game-saving interception. BACKPAGE FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ONLINE AT THEDP.COM

NEWS Common Press settles into Fisher Fine Arts PAGE 7

AMY KAPLAN Contributing Reporter

Three years ago, Moumena Saradar left Syria with her family to establish a new life as a refugee in Philadelphia. Now, through a program in the Penn Museum, Saradar spends a portion of her days teaching others about the culture of her homeland. Launched last spring, the Global Guides program employs guides from Iraq and Syria to offer tours of the museum’s new Middle East Gallery. Feedback

from museum visitors indicate that the program is impacting their connection to the exhibit and Middle Eastern culture. To find immigrants and refugees to participate in the program, the museum works with two local resettlement agencies. According to the museum’s website, the institution currently boasts four global guides — three from Iraq and one from Syria. Kevin Schott, the museum’s education programs manager, trains new global guides. Schott said he was particularly excited by the program’s initial impact, noting that it encourages people to look beyond an artifact’s historic significance and garner ap-

preciation for what it means to ordinary people. He added that he was surprised by how quickly the guides formed personal attachments to items in the collection. Saradar, who works as an interpreter when not leading tours, said she was particularly attached to the jewelry on the Queen Puabi sculpture in the gallery. “You just remember your loved ones every time you wear these kinds of jewelry,” Saradar said. “Looking at her adornments and this kind of beauty, I always make a connection with the brides in Syria, where most SEE REFUGEE PAGE 9

NEWS Penn Med has now started CPR training PAGE 9

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October 15, 2018 by The Daily Pennsylvanian - Issuu