MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2018 VOL. CXXXIV NO. 59
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
FOUNDED 1885
ED applications plateau following drastic spike This year saw only a 0.22 percent increase in applications JULIE COLEMAN Staff Reporter
The early decision applicant pool for Penn’s Class of 2023 has stagnated since last year’s record-breaking 15 percent increase. This fall, 6,746 students applied to be considered for early admission, which is a 0.22 percent increase from the 6,731 students who applied ED last year. Penn
Admissions Vice Dean and Director of Marketing and Communications Kathryn Bezella said the plateau comes as no surprise following last year’s drastic increase. “Being level this year was expected after we grew 15 percent in a single year last year,” Bezella wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian. These numbers do not include applications received through QuestBridge, a non-profit organization that connects lowincome students with top colleges; early decision data including QuestBridge ap-
plicants will be finalized at the end of this week. Penn received 7,073 ED applications last year including QuestBridge applicants. Out of this pool, 1,312 students were admitted during the 2017 ED round. Penn’s early decision applicant pool has been steadily growing every year since 2011. In 2012, 4,780 students applied ED, a five percent increase from the 4,527 students who applied in 2011. In the years following, 5,149 applied in 2013, 5,489 applied in 2014, 5,629 applied in 2015, and 6,147 applied in 2016.
ANNA LISA LOWENSTEIN | DESIGN ASSOCIATE
After 30 years, Du Bois residents revive college house yearbook ‘Positively Black’ will likely be published by spring AMANDA O’BRIEN Contributing Reporter
EMILY XU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
College senior Yosef Robele, who is leading the project, has lived in Du Bois for four years and said he was inspired to create the new yearbook because the dorm has been “a central part of [his] life here on campus and [he wanted] to give something back.”
AMANDA O’BRIEN | CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
The editor’s note in Positively Black, W.E.B. Du Bois College House’s first yearbook from 1989, reads, “I hope...those that follow will band together and continue to produce this publication.” Now, 30 years later, Du Bois residents are doing just that. Students are creating a new edition of the yearbook to celebrate the college house’s residents. College senior Yosef Robele, who is leading the project, has lived in Du Bois for four years and said he was inspired to create the new yearbook after coming across it. “It’s been a central part of my life here on campus and I want to give something back to it before I left and graduated,” Robele said. “I think it was really cool how you can kind of see a snapshot of black campus life during 1989, and I thought that’s something we should continue to document.” Robele, a former Daily Pennsylvanian staffer, is working with six other students to create the yearbook, and Du Bois College House is helping fund the project. 1989 College graduate David France created the first issue of Positively Black, and is now helping Robele develop the new issue years later. “I saw a need for the black community at Penn to come together and discuss the preservation of our legacy at Penn,” France wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Yearbooks are a fantastic community builder. When done right, a yearbook can provide a great platform for expression
and great memories!” While the new yearbook aims to maintain the structure of the original yearbook, Robele said they are still going to make it their own. “We definitely want to make it our own, so we want to keep the same general content but kind of update it and make it more relevant to life now,” Robele said. He added that the new yearbook plans to keep some of its original components — such as photos of black club board members and performing arts groups — but it will mostly focus on Du Bois life. Engineering freshman Ralph Tamakloe, the project’s board secretary, said he joined to help leave an impact on the house’s history. “I wanted to be part of the celebration of the history of the college house,” Tamakloe said. “It’s the 30th anniversary of the old yearbook, which is why we want to make this.” The group plans to complete the yearbook before the end of next spring semester. Robele also hopes the Du Bois yearbook tradition will continue after he graduates, adding that he intentionally reached out to younger Du Bois residents who can continue the project. He said he hopes that “in 10 years, someone comes into the library and they can look at what Du Bois was like 10, nine, eight, seven years ago.” The original yearbook concludes with a message the new generation of Du Bois’s students are taking to heart with their new project: “To the Black underclassmen, you are the future. Don’t let that scare you, instead, let it inspire you to be the best! Work together during your remaining years at Penn and keep Positively Black alive.”
Penn groups discuss climate change impact
New building will be constructed to accommodate GSE programs
The event on Nov. 29 addressed recent environmental reports
It will link Stiteler Hall and GSE Bldg.
NICK PLANTE Contributing Reporter
In the first collaborative panel hosted by the Climate Reality Project and the Penn Environmental Group, experts from the University addressed the significance of some of the most recent reports on climate change Nov. 29. Dubbed “T-Minus Twelve Years,” the 90-minute presentation engaged students, faculty, and local activists in questions about the science, political importance, and social implications of climate change as they relate to Penn and to the rest of the world. According to Climate Reality Project President and Wharton junior Kalyxa
Roman, the motivation to host the panel came after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new assessment in October, and United States federal agencies published their own report on Nov. 23. Both sources warned of dangers of climate change to the environment and international economies at large. “As student groups, I think we just hope to inspire some others to think about and see the action we need to take as feasible items,” Roman said. The conversation was led by PennDesign professor Billy Fleming, Earth and Environmental Sciences professor Irina Marinov, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering professor Andrew Huemmler, Penn Sustainability Office’s SusSEE GLOBAL WARMING PAGE 3
OPINION | Ditching ‘convenience’ friends
“Boiled down, the elementary characteristic of a friend is a person who cares about you.” — Christy Qiu PAGE 5
SPORTS | Behind the scenes contributors
Former Penn athletes May Bethea and Alexa Hoover have become Directors of Operations for their respective sports after successful college careers. BACKPAGE FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ONLINE AT THEDP.COM
JULIE COLEMAN Staff Reporter
The Graduate School of Education building will expand to merge with Stiteler Hall in a construction project that will connect the two spaces. The new project will accommodate the growing GSE programs and will give the school one central home on campus. Penn hired Ann Beha Architects to construct a building that connects the school’s central building at 3700 Walnut Street with the
neighboring Stiteler Hall, which is located just off of Locust Walk on 37th Street. The connection will include a new entrance, a four-story student pavilion, and a twostory adjoining building with classrooms and an innovation lab. In recent years, Penn GSE students, staff, and faculty have been spread across six buildings between 34th and 42nd streets. The expansion into Stiteler was made possible after many Economics and Political Science offices and classrooms moved to the newly opened Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics this fall.
A rough design for this new space is expected to be completed in mid-January, and a more specific timeline for the project will be determined once the design is finished, according to the press release. Around early November, GSE held a town hall meeting with the architecture firm and GSE students, faculty, and staff, who contributed to a discussion of how the new space could be formed. “Penn GSE has taken the first steps this fall toward a state-of-the-art building expansion. Part of the Extraordinary Impact Campaign, the project aims to bring the
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majority of the School’s degree programs into a central location with flexible, technologically advanced learning spaces,” read a GSE press release. The expansion comes at a time when enrollment in in GSE’s master’s program is expanding. Associate Director of GSE Communications Jeffrey Frantz said that enrollment in the master’s program increased by 50 percent between the fall of 2007 and the fall of 2017. He added that despite GSE having a relatively high number of students among SEE GSE PAGE 3
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