Penn pilots co-responder program between mental health clinicians, Penn Police officers

Mental health clinicians will accompanying police officers in the event of mental health crises during some overnight periods

BEN BINDAY Senior Reporter

Penn announced the pilot of a co-responder program designed to improve mental health response on campus.

As a partnership between the Division of Public Safety, the Office of the Associate Vice Provost for University Life, and Wellness at Penn, the pilot program will feature a mental health clinician accompanying a Penn Police officer in the event of mental health crises during some overnight periods. Prior to the launch of the pilot, mental health counselors conducted a virtual assessment during these crises.

“Right now, a student [would be put] on the phone with a counselor, and the officer would do an on-site assessment in conjunction with the mental health counselor on the phone,” Vice President for the Division of Public Safety Kathleen Shields Anderson said. “And then, together, they talk about what the best next steps and referrals are for that student in that moment of crisis.”

Currently, outside of business hours, mental health professionals are only available over the phone. Associate Vice Provost for University Life Sharon Smith said that it was important to improve the quality of care at all hours, not just during the day.

“We have an ongoing community of care,” Smith said. “And we want to view that community of care through the lens of what goes on at 2 a.m., and what goes on at 2 p.m.”

Chief Wellness Officer Benoit Dubé said that there is a difference between a clinician attending in person rather than over the phone, as has been done historically.

“If you’re having a bad day, talking to someone over the phone versus going out to coffee with someone is very different,” Dubé said. “It’s a lot easier for the conversation to evolve faster in person than over the phone because you communicate both verbally and nonverbally.”

Shields Anderson added that it is beneficial for the clinician themselves to examine cues that are not apparent virtually, enabling them to make a faster and more accurate judgment.

“For someone experiencing a true crisis, it’s helpful for our officers to be in the room and see not just what is being said, but also how the person appears, and what is the state of their house, and their room,” Shields Anderson said. “There are other kinds of contextual clues that you can gather about where the person is mentally from being present.”

The City of Philadelphia launched its coresponder pilot program in the spring of 2021 known as the Crisis Intervention Response Team Program, in which a police officer and mental health professional responded to calls together.

Dubé said that the program, which was introduced at the Board of Trustees meeting in early March, is being piloted with the goal of improving student health and quality of life, similar to previous programs led by DPS and Wellness at Penn.

“The reason why we are piloting this program is in line with what we have done in the past — working on the betterment of our students,” Dubé said.

Dubé, Smith, and Shields Anderson said that the idea for the pilot was independently discussed by the three teams prior to last summer, and the groups came together to coordinate the pilot at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.

“Our approach to policing has changed our approach to mental health, our responsiveness to mental health, [and] the stigma surrounding seeking help, all from a societal perspective,” Dubé said. “So we’re seizing that moment because there’s a window for us to innovate and do better.”

Shields Anderson and Dubé said that Penn will hire a flexible amount of mental health professionals to staff the pilot. They said that the hiring process should conclude within the next several weeks, followed by training to familiarize the hirees with the culture at Penn and the expectations of their positions.

A now-expired online job listing stated that the hired workers “will work in concert with other emergency response resources to respond to calls for service, conduct socio-clinical assessments, and make appropriate referrals and handoffs to emergency medical care and/or other University and community support services.”

The leaders of the pilot expressed hope that students will see the pilot as a way Penn continues to look out for their best interests.

“We want [students] to recognize that we have their best interests at heart,” Smith said. “We all have an idea of how we want to support our students, and so students across the board, as diverse as they are, will get something of a similar experience.”

Hill House dining hall was found in compliance with the Philadelphia health code two months after being cited for 16 violations.

On April 5, the Philadelphia Office of Food Protection re-inspected Hill and recorded three points of concern regarding food safety violations, compared to the 38 points of concern that the dining hall received earlier this year. The same day, Kings Court English House Dining Hall completed its annual inspection, where six points of concern were recorded.

Of Hill's three violations, two violated "good retail practices," including an inoperable refrigerator and an idle broom and dustpan. The third violation was classified under "foodborne illness risk factors and public health interventions," due to the absence of a sign that reminded employees to wash their hands.

In response to a request for comment, Penn Business Services Director of Communications and External Relations Barbara Lea-Kruger referred The Daily Pennsylvanian to a statement published on Penn Dining's website on April 6. The statement wrote that Hill "successfully completed re-inspection" and Kings Court "successfully completed its annual inspection."

"We appreciate the support and patience that the Penn Community has given us as we addressed issues previously identified and awaited reinspection from the Health Department," Penn Dining wrote. "We are currently waiting for the Health Department to return to campus to inspect additional cafés. Please know that we remain committed to taking a proactive approach in maintaining a safe and healthy dining environment."

One Penn Dining café awaiting re-inspection is 1920 Commons, which has been found to not be in satisfactory compliance twice this year. This includes a number of both new and repeated violations of city health code observed on March 3. Dining facilities must correct any health violations or risk losing their health license or facing legal action.

Since the DP reported on health code violations and food illness allegations in Penn dining halls on Feb. 21, students have shared conflicting opinions about the quality of Penn Dining’s offerings.

Wharton and Engineering first year Samantha Ouyang said that she was disappointed with Hill's breakfast offerings since the second day of pre-orientation last fall.

“I don't really use my meal plan at all,” Ouyang said. “There's free and better food practically everywhere at Penn, whether it be from clubs, events, or just walking down Locust.”

However, College first year Ahaan Chhatwal disagreed with Ouyang’s assessment.

“I like Hill for breakfast since I don’t need to wait in a line to get a smoothie and can pick up as many as I want,” Chhatwal said. “Plus, you get to make your own omelet with little wait provided you come early.”

None of the observations reported in Hill's most recent inspection were repeat offenses. In a statement provided to the DP in February, Kruger wrote that repeat violations are “what diners should be most concerned about”.

“I always knew our dining halls had health violations, but hearing the news specifically didn't really affect whether I ate there or not, since I already wasn't eating at the dining halls much at all,” Ouyang said.

Ouyang added that the situation was "almost expected," so re-compliance did not make her feel "all that different."

Chhatwal said his dining schedule was similarly unaffected by the violations. He said that KCECH often uses paper plates and plastic cutlery, so he was less concerned about the sanitariness of unwashed utensils there.

“As long as I didn’t fall sick, and don’t know of anyone else who did, the health violations didn’t affect my eating schedule," Chhatwal said.

Xavier Shankle and Ranim Albarkawi elected as UA president, vice president

This election was the first in three years to have in-person debates for UA presidential and vice presidential candidates

NITIN SESHADRI

Wharton junior Xavier Shankle and College junior Ranim Albarkawi will serve as the Undergraduate Assembly’s next president and vice president.

The Nominations and Elections Committee announced the results on April 5. This spring’s election also decided leaders for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 Class Boards.

Shankle won with 771 votes, a 262 vote margin of victory over College junior Chuck Schumer’s 509 votes. Shankle said that he was “overcome with joy” after finding out that he secured the presidency.

“It was a joyful moment and very humbling moment to know that students had confidence in me to be UA President for the next year,” Shankle said.

Shankle said that he looks forward to serving as a bridge between students across campus and University administrators in this role.

“A big part of my tenure will be working to amplify student voices,” Shankle said. “My goal is that [student

Bring-Your-Own restaurants are a staple of the Penn experience. Which one is the cheapest?

The DP analyzed 24 popular restaurants across University City and Center City

SNEHA PARTHASARATHY

Reporter

Philadelphia’s Bring-Your-Own restaurants are a staple of the Penn student experience. The Daily Pennsylvanian set out to find out which BYO is the cheapest.

The DP’s analysis examined the menus of 24 BYOs across University City and Center City, analyzing the prices of dinner entrees and appetizers in each restaurant to determine which are the cheapest.

According to the analysis, the median menu dish price — excluding sides, drinks, and desserts — averaged to be $19.39 across all 24 restaurants. A majority of restaurants analyzed had median dish prices between $15 to $22.

Because of Philadelphia’s strict liquor licensing policy, many restaurants classify themselves as “BYOs,” allowing customers to purchase and bring their own drinks when dining. These BYOs serve customers without checking their identification information, assuming all members of the party are over 21.

Many clubs at Penn host events and socials at BYOs, which often accept reservations for large groups. However, Philadelphia’s extensive BYO scene leads to a significant variety in the prices of menu items across different restaurants.

Mizu Sushi Bar had the cheapest median menu item at $10.99, while Pumpkin BYOB, which only offers a prix-fixe menu at $55, was the most expensive. After Pumpkin BYOB, Figs had the highest median dish groups] will now find it much easier to have their concerns addressed and understood.”

Albarkawi won her race with 496 votes, a 34 vote margin of victory over College sophomore Hannah Liu and 202 vote margin of victory over College sophomore

Maya El-Sharif — Schumer’s running mate.

“I’m extremely grateful,” Albarkawi said. “Xavier and I are both extremely grateful … you don’t typically see people like us in these positions.”

As UA vice president, Albarkawi will chair UA Steering — a group that comprises of 41 student organizations. In this role, Albarkawi said she is working to ensure collaboration and relationship-building between student groups.

As a Philadelphia native, Albarkawi said that her life experiences bring an important perspective to University decision-making.

“[I will] make sure that we are making decisions that are conscious of Philadelphia and the impact that Penn has there,” Albarkawi said. “[I will] continue to work with administration and student groups to ensure that what we are doing is socially responsible.”

Students re-elected Wharton and Engineering junior Toyosi Abu as 2024 Class Board president, after he ran unopposed. College sophomore Sri Pinnamareddy was elected as 2025 Class Board president, also running unopposed, after serving as a Class Board 2025 College chair this year. Wharton first year Vedika Jawa was reelected as 2026 Class Board president, receiving 509 votes compared to Wharton first year Bruno Basner’s 274 votes.

All positions for the 2024 and 2025 Class Board were uncontested except Wharton Class Chair for the 2025 Class Board. Wharton sophomores Shivam Sha and Gabriella Gibson both received 35 votes — meaning a runoff will take place to decide the winner.

Last week, the NEC hosted two debates where the UA presidential and vice presidential candidates explained their platforms and plans for the roles. These were the first presidential and vice presidential debates in three years, according to Engineering sophomore Yousef Elyoussef, the NEC’s vice chair for elections.

Elyoussef said that the debates helped students to vote based on the candidates’ platforms rather than on their popularity.

“After each debate, we saw a surge in votes, which was great because it truly showed that people were waiting to vote, people were ready to listen to these potential candidates, and [people were] voting based off of their platforms and what they want to do for Penn,” Elyoussef said.

This year was also the first to have a mandatory diversity retreat for candidates, a two-hour session moderated by College junior Oumy Diasse, the chair of the United Minorities Council, and College sophomore Elizabeth Ramos, the chair of Internal Affairs of the Latinx Coalition.

The session included workshops, group activities, and reflections that helped candidates and current student government leaders to identify the identities of themselves and of others, as well as whether Penn Student Government was diverse and approachable enough, according to Elyoussef.

“We think it’s really important that Penn Student Government starts to have a … more approachable reputation on campus,” Elyoussef said. “We thought that this diversity retreat was really important to help ensure that candidates understand the importance of diversity and inclusion not just in student government, but at all of Penn.”

Elyoussef said that, across the board, candidates in this election were very professional and wanted to run campaigns based around issues they cared about.

“This was a great election, when it came to candidate morale,” Elyoussef said. “I feel like candidates were excited to run … it felt like a much less cutthroat vibe than I feel like elections usually have, and that even students who were going against each other for a certain seat, were very, very professional with each other.”

RANKINGS, from FRONT PAGE

data from statistical surveys and public metrics from the National Institutes of Health as part of its new methodology.

In addition, U.S. News wrote on its website that the weights and measures provided for each aspect were reevaluated.

For law schools, the new methods include an increase in the weight of the bar passage rate, employment rates after 10 months, and the inclusion of the “Ultimate Bar Passage.” It also gives less weight to reputation surveys, LSAT/GRE scores, and GPAs.

price at $25.50, with other Center City restaurants, like La Viola Ovest, also ranking high.

“La Viola is a little more upscale compared to the BYOs on campus, so it’s a nice spot for a date or fancy dinner with friends,” College sophomore Ayesha Patel said.

Patel added that La Viola is a popular spot to eat before sorority date nights due to the quality of the food and the restaurant’s atmosphere.

The analysis found that popular Penn locations, like Ken’s Seafood Restaurant, Pattaya Grill, and Ochatto, were consistently in the middle of the price range.

“The classic choice is Don Barriga, but Ochatto is the nicest experience,” Engineering junior Vikram Singh said. “[But] my favorite BYO on campus is Virasat Haveli. It is underrated because people don’t know it’s BYO, or that it exists in general. It’s pretty expensive, but the food is good.”

BYOs closer to Penn tended to be less expensive and offered more extensive menus than restaurants in Center City. Italian and American cuisines tended to be more expensive, while Asian, Mediterranean, and Mexican food had lower median dish prices.

“I like Cilantro,” College sophomore Jack Burgess said. “Although it is not as close to Penn, I think it’s cost-effective and very fun.”

For Burgess, one of the highlights of Cilantro Mediterranean Cuisine is that the restaurant offers a discount if customers leave them a review before they leave. He also cited the friendly staff and generous portions as additional reasons why he enjoys the further-away BYO.

Other Asian restaurants near Penn, like Thai Singha House and Pattaya Grill were also on the cheaper side.

“Thai Singha is so convenient and has relatively cheap prices,” College and Wharton sophomore Yared Zegeye said. “Even though it’s small, if you reserve ahead for a group, it’s a great, intimate space.”

Burgess also thinks that Ken’s, which serves Chinese food, is a “Penn classic,” citing the restaurant’s $20 per person price and large portions as reasons why the BYO is popular. “It is a right of passage for Penn students,” he said. College and Wharton sophomore Amaan Omer prefers Japanese restaurant Ochatto and Thai restaurant Pattaya, citing their quality food and location as reasons why he frequents the BYOs.

The analysis also examined the most and least expensive items on each BYO’s menu. Of the 24 restaurants, maximum dish prices ranged from $18.99 at Mizu Sushi Bar to $55 at Pumpkin BYOB. On the flip side, Mizu Sushi also had the minimum dish price with $2.50 for miso soup, while Luna BYOB had the highest minimum dish price with a $14 Caesar salad, after Pumpkin BYOB’s $55 three-course meal.

Omer emphasized that compared to other social events, attending BYOs also has options for students who, like him, do not drink.

“While some people do go to BYOs for the drinks, I go for the community and people,” Omer said.

For medical schools, the official changes to the methodology include an increased weight on faculty-to-student ratios, the addition of NIH grants to assess research quality, and a decrease in the weight of reputation surveys and MCAT and GPA scores. U.S. News also stated that it will continue to incorporate data collected in the previous two years.

The full methodology will be available on April 18 and “prioritizes measures that identify clear and transparent outcomes for prospective students,” according to the website.

In this year's formula for law schools, factors such as at-graduation employment rates and debt are no longer included. Nonetheless, U.S. News will continue to incorporate data such as program offerings, financial aid, and graduate salaries that were reported directly over the last two years.

Similar to its hopes for law school rankings, U.S. News said that it hopes to empower prospective medical students with the knowledge to ensure they choose the correct school.

“The USNWR measures encourage the acceptance of students based upon the highest grades and test scores,” Dean of the Medical School and Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System J. Larry Jameson wrote when the school withdrew from the rankings. “Yet, we strive to identify and attract students with a wide array of characteristics that predict promise."

How often do you visit Chinatown?

You might be a regular at a number of Chinatown businesses: Kevin’s for haircuts, Ken’s for karaoke, SpiceC or Nan Zhou for hand-drawn noodles, Chubby Cattle for hot pot, Penang for Malaysian food, KC or Mayflower for pastries, Heng Fa for groceries … this list could go on forever. Maybe you’ve come to Chinatown during Lunar New Year to watch the Philadelphia Suns perform Lion Dance in the street, or during the Mid-Autumn Festival for the delicious food, games, and performances.

What if we told you that the existence of Chinatown is under threat from an 18,500-person capacity basketball arena? What if we told you that the project’s ensuing destructive demolition and construction would push the Chinatown community, its businesses and residents, to the brink of extinction?

We are the Students for the Preservation of Chinatown, a coalition of college students in the Philadelphia-area dedicated to fighting against the proposed construction of a new 76ers arena right next to Chinatown. Our founders and leaders grew up going to Chinatown daily. We celebrated our most important life events and memories in Chinatown. We went to Chinatown’s annual Mid-Autumn Festival as small children, and I would only stop complaining and crying once my dad lifted me up on his shoulders so I could see the lion dancing of the Philadelphia Suns. Birthday parties, graduation celebrations, and holidays were all spent in Chinatown. We greeted elders as “grandfather” and “grandmother,” “auntie” and “uncle.” Our community nurtured us. It taught us how to value our relationships, honor our elders, and practice our culture. Chinatown is a thriving community. Over 2,000 people live here. There is low-income housing, a senior housing complex, apartments, and houses. There are over 120 businesses, including supermarkets, hair salons, and restaurants. This community also relies on its three churches, a Buddhist Temple, health clinics, daycare centers, and elementary schools. And now, three multi-billionaires aim to force them out. We’ve fought off many large predatory developments to preserve our growing community, and we cannot afford to lose this fight either. Penn has close ties to the three developers, who all have a record of predatory development. David Adelman, the face of 76 Place, is the CEO of Campus Apartments and sits on the Penn Medicine Board of Trustees. Campus Apartments and Adelman have heavily contributed to the legacy of displacement and gentrification of the Black Bottom, a once thriving Black, working-class neighborhood that has now been removed and renamed as University City. David Adelman has continued this pattern across the country, building apartments for college students and then charging egregious rent prices to make his billions.

Josh Harris, co-owner of the 76ers and another developer behind 76 Place, graduated from Wharton and sits on the Wharton Board of Advisors. He cofounded Apollo Global Management, a private equity company that aided in the shutdown of Hahnemann Hospital, an institution that served predominantly underinsured Philadelphians and was the closest thing Philadelphia had to a public hospital.

David Blitzer, the other co-owner of the 76ers and the last developer behind 76 Place, also graduated from Wharton and sits on the Penn Board of Trustees and the Wharton Board of Advisors. He is the Global Head of Tactical Opportunities at the Blackstone Group — a firm that has been accused by the United Nations of violating human rights around the world and contributing to the “global housing crisis.” Adelman, Harris, and Blitzer are people who make decisions for our University and are directly invested in the destruction of Chinatown. As students who care deeply about Chinatown, we are concerned about our University’s deep ties to developers that continue to make billions off of destroying lowincome communities. As students of the University, we say no to using our tuition dollars as the bridge for Penn to remain business partners with deeply unethical developers.

On Nov. 18, we held our first protest, marching from Penn’s campus to Campus Apartments’ office. We’ve emailed the administration expressing our concerns about the University’s ties to the arena proposal. On Feb. 22, we spoke directly in front of President Liz Magill, expressing these same concerns. On March 3, we attempted to deliver our demands to the Board of Trustees.

We are asking Penn to cut ties with the three developers behind 76 Place and their corporations, end the move to privatized student housing, reevaluate the Wharton curriculum by requiring its students to take courses that develop an understanding of international human rights standards as a basis for practice, and issue a statement in support of Chinatown against the arena. After a few remarks to administrators inside, we took it to the streets outside, meeting many students, community members, and Chinatown residents in a rally.

Some people would object to seemingly harsh action against the University. We wish that we did not have to do this, either. We wish we had all the time in the world to fully exhaust the proper channels despite the bureaucracy. But Chinatown does not have time.

76 Devcorp is planning to complete requests for city approval for the project by this fall. Chinatown is just recovering from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and a spike in violent anti-Asian hate crimes. Our youth are facing the loss of a community that they can grow up in. Our elders are facing the loss of their longtime homes that they have felt safe in. Our community is facing the loss of everything they have built since Asian immigrants in Philadelphia were forced into the area we call Chinatown 150 years ago.

We care deeply about our community. We would not be who we are today if not for Chinatown. The generations before ours fought to preserve this beloved community for us. We now have a responsibility to return the favor, to make sure that our elders have this community to grow old in, and that the generation after us can have a place in which to grow up and connect with their culture.

When you see us protesting, know that we are fighting for our community’s right to exist. The privilege of our education requires us to use our voices to fight for those who are never heard: the non-English speaking, the workers, and the elders. As students, we will continue to demand that this university practices ethical leadership. We demand that Penn cut ties with people who destroy communities, and who play with communities’ housing and land as commodities to increase wealth regardless of who is harmed.

Next time you go to Chinatown, look up and look around. See the community as we see it — a home, a cultural center, a spiritual center, a carefully tended collection of relationships and memories. We are more than a place to eat — we are a home, and we will fight.

STUDENTS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF CHINATOWN is a coalition of college students in Philadelphia and the surrounding Philadelphia area dedicated to fighting against the proposed 76ers arena next to Chinatown. They can be reached at spocphilly@ gmail.com and on Instagram, @ spocphilly.

In 2021, Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, caught flack for his statements about the city’s crime spike. “We don’t have an issue of lawlessness,” Krasner said. “We don’t have a crisis of crime. We don’t have a crisis of violence.” The statement came in the midst of a record year for homicides in Philadelphia, a number that has skyrocketed in virtually all major American cities since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Krasner was swiftly accused of downplaying the collective experience of individuals who have lost loved ones to violence. In an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer, former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter called Krasner’s words, “some of the worst, most ignorant, and most insulting comments I have ever heard spoken by an elected official.”

Following public backlash, the DA released a statement, admitting his words were “inarticulate,” and that Krasner had intended to say that overall crime in Philadelphia was declining, even though homicides and gun violence had increased.

Despite Krasner’s retraction, Nutter appeared on the Michael Smerconish show to admonish the DA’s leadership and his “soft-on-crime” approach. In response to a social media post that criticized Nutter for unfairly blaming the DA for Philadelphia’s crime problem, Nutter said, “I’d say that your job, as a district attorney, is to prosecute people who commit crimes. There are any number of systems that have their issues. What I’m asking, in Philly at least, is that the DA prosecute people.” his

Policing, prosecution, and incarceration have indeed changed dramatically in Philadelphia since Krasner assumed office. In the last five years, the DA has shifted resources away from prosecuting low-level offenses, reduced the use of cash-bail for petty crimes, instated a conviction integrity unit to monitor cases where there may have been a wrongful conviction, and created a database to review allegations of police misconduct. Under Krasner’s leadership, Philadelphia’s prison population has plummeted, falling from 6,604 in May 2017 to 4,417 in February 2023.

Krasner has garnered a large base of Black and Brown supporters. Still, some Philadelphians argue that the DA’s office is not aggressive enough when it comes to prosecuting certain crimes.

Living within the boundaries of Penn’s campus — more often than not called the “Penn Bubble” — it is easy to forget the realities that hound this city just beyond college walk. While the University is often encouraged to deepen its relationship with the surrounding community, we as students also have a civic obligation to Philadelphia. Your Penn experience is not complete until you’ve educated yourself on the issues that plague this city. Your education is not complete until you’ve fulfilled your responsibility to better the lives of those around you. One issue that students should concern themselves with is mass incarceration.

Whether or not you agree with Krasner’s approach to the problem of mass imprisonment, you cannot, in good faith, argue that Philadelphia’s penal system is not uncharacteristically punitive. Of all the major United States cities, Philadelphia has the highest incarceration rate per capita.

Solitary confinement was actually invented here. In 1787, the Quaker-aligned Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Misery of Public Prisons came to the conclusion that hardened criminals could find salvation if they were kept apart from negative influences — other inmates. This form of incarceration came to be known as the Pennsylvania System, a model that was soon adopted by the rest of the country. By the mid-20th century, Philadelphia’s prison population steadily increased, and the conditions of the jails deteriorated.

In 1970, inmates at the overcrowded Holmesburg Prison rioted after being forcefully subjected to inhumane dermatology experiments, led by Albert Kligman, a researcher here at the Penn In a 1966 interview with Press, Kligman famously recounted his experience entering the congested Holmesburg Prison for the first time: “All I saw before me were acres of skin. It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time.”

In 2022, the city finally apologized to the victims of the Holmesburg Prison experiments. Even so, inmate living conditions haven’t improved significantly since the riots. Following the pandemic, penitentiary conditions worsened as the demand for resources grew. Due to the filthy, unclean conditions of Philadelphia’s prisons, the city has been involved in multiple class action lawsuits since 2020.

Equally disturbing to the overcrowded, decrepit state of Philadelphia prisons is the fact that private corporations earn billions annually from mass imprisonment. One of the corporations profiting from the prison-industrial system is Aramark. Based in Center City, Aramark is the largest provider of food services to U.S. prisons, and has a financial incentive to maintain high incarceration rates. The corporation was linked to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a team of lawmakers and business leaders famous for drafting “Truth in Sentencing” legislation and mandatory minimum sentences — laws that contribute to the growth of the American prison population.

While Aramark likes to brag about its economic contributions to Philadelphia as one of the city’s largest employers, informed constituents recognize that this marginal economic growth comes at the expense of freedom for marginalized people. Some Philadelphians have begun rejecting private prison profiteering by protesting peacefully at the corporation’s headquarters, and refusing to purchase food at sports venues that subcontract the company’s catering services.

Ultimately, recognizing our influence and giving back to the greater community is a crucial part of our Penn experience. As students and beneficiaries of Philadelphia, we have a civic duty to make the city a better place than when we arrived. Through a number of organizations, including the Pennsylvania Prison Society, Vera Institute project, and ACLU Pennsylvania, Penn students can become active members in the fight for prison reform and rehabilitation.

JULU NWAEZEAPU is a College sophomore studying behavioral and computational neuroscience from Chicago. Her email is julunwae@sas. upenn.edu.

Is Penn the New Happy Valley?

A RIANE AMONG MEN | Photos on Instagram are an inaccurate indicator for college experiences

Last week, Penn President Liz Magill reposted a study deeming Penn among the top 10 happiest universities nationwide. Penn placed first in the Keystone State, thereby defeating Penn State University also known as the “Happy Valley” dating back to the 1930s. But wait — there’s a catch.

The study, conducted and published by Resume. io — a company that helps job seekers build resumes predicated on rules and structures — aimed to explore which institutions of higher education contained the most cheerful students. First, the software perused Instagram posts from universities' geotagged locations. Then, it assessed them on a happiness metric with Amazon Rekognition API, an artificial intelligence facial emotion recognition tool. The sampling pool was limited to only public accounts. Essentially, the study evaluated happiness based on external appearance.

At face value, the article seems intriguing with its clickbait headline, but after digging deeper, the unreliability surfaces immediately.

Not only does the study contain flawed methodology by discerning University happiness through social media, but it also speaks to the larger problem of perpetuating Penn Face and inauthenticity. It is harmful to circulate this study without investigating its validity. By reposting it, administrators are only feeding into Penn Face and participating in it themselves.

As president of the University, Magill must be in tune with the mental crisis here. Yet, she hastily reposted this study as a performative act to present Penn’s mental health in a better light. If she actually read it, she would see its overt flaws. Instagram, and all forms of social media for that matter, are precisely curated highlight reels. People tend to frame and glamorize their feeds with positivity while omitting the realities behind the scenes, parallel to how the concept of Penn Face functions.

“It makes sense that we’re deemed a happy college if the metric Resume.io is using is running AI on our Instagram posts to see if we express happiness

— social media is incredibly curated and Penn Face is always prevalent,” College sophomore Yash Mahajan said. “Not many people would post unhappy pictures on a public social media page.”

Oftentimes how people represent themselves on social media bears no resemblance to their true lives.

In 2018, a Twitter account asked for people to share pictures in which their photos projected themselves in a way that did not encapsulate the difficult times hidden behind their smiles. With thousands of comments highlighting this phenomenon, this post was just one example illustrating how smiles in pictures are a futile metric for perceiving happiness.

An additional limitation to the study is considering non-student photos within the sample. While navigating their future academic paths, visitors are attracted to universities to obtain a first-hand glance of a college’s atmosphere and offerings. After doing so, they may take pictures and share them on social media while tagging the location of the college. This is a critical factor distorting the accuracy of this experiment — pictures of non-students could skew outcomes for schools, especially Ivies which receive eager visitors.

Further, confounding variables such as a school’s social culture may also influence the results. Known as the Social Ivy, “Penn, which has a reasonably strong party scene, would probably have more really happy faces posted by students during social events, but schools that are a little bit more low-key would have fewer of those even if the student body is happier most of the time,” Wharton sophomore Aneesh Karuppur said.

Although Penn contains well-rounded students, “all this really means in practice is that there are even more angles from which pressure on students gets compounded. That stress carries through to the social interactions students have around campus,” College sophomore Sajan Srivastava said. Thus, it makes sense that this study was reposted in that “top schools like Penn would love to [appear] that their students have fun despite the rigor of their coursework.”

Srivastava mentioned, “I highly doubt that any AI model is intelligent enough to look past the smiles and see what happiness truly looks like in non-candid photos of students; there’s a reason that just about everyone at Penn has either heard about the so-called ‘Penn Face’ or borne it.” In this scenario, failing to acknowledge sampling and experimental errors serves as a misrepresentation to prospective applicants and minimizes the lived experience of current students. Despite its illegitimacy, it is unsurprising that this study was reposted as a marketing strategy.

As Mahajan noted, “Posting that this is one of the happiest schools in the country sets us back in destigmatising Penn Face.” Administrators, and particularly the president of this University, cannot continue to give strength to this term.

Overall, this study merely shows which universities boast the highest number of faces detected as ‘happy’ between the restricted timeline between December 2022 and January 2023. Equating social media with human emotions is simply fallacious. Instead, the study’s misleading title should be revised to qualify its findings and say, “Universities Tagged with the Highest Proportion of Smiles on Instagram,” because that’s all it truly revealed: a picture perfect perception.

Penn must become need-blind for international applicants

THE AIYER ASSESSMENT | International applicants: beware of Penn-y pinching ensure that all applicants are assessed equally, regardless of their financial status.

Moreover, unlike most domestic students, international applicants often find themselves at a perplexing crossroads. They may request aid while applying to Penn, knowing that it will substantially lower or even altogether remove their chances of acceptance. Or, they may find other ways to pay their tuition, usually by taking out hefty private loans that most will spend the rest of their lives paying back. Even with an Ivy League education, it's incredibly difficult to pursue the coveted American Dream under the weight of almost $85,000 worth of student loans.

Dartmouth’s undergraduate population is admittedly smaller than Penn’s by about 36%. Yet, with slightly fewer students to support, Dartmouth has a significantly smaller endowment at only $8.1 billion. This is 61% smaller than Penn’s. Even with their notably tighter budget, Dartmouth went need-blind for international applicants during the most recent application cycle.

“We are committed to making a Penn education accessible and affordable for all students, regardless of your financial circumstances.”

Those are the exact words that Penn uses to address its applicants’ questions about the cost of tuition. Of course, they fail to mention that their need-blind policy only applies if you are from the United States, Canada, or Mexico. For everyone else, get ready to shell out almost $85,000 USD a year!

Only seven universities in the United States are currently need-blind for international students: Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Yale University. It is time for Penn to join these institutions by finally becoming need-blind to all applicants.

When international students apply to Penn, they are forced to disclose that they are in need of financial aid, a factor that is considered when their application is reviewed. This is not a small factor, either. Penn is incredibly transparent in regards to the hurdles that international applicants will inevitably face. They “will be in competition for very limited funds” and, on average, Penn gives out only 100 aid awards a year.

In other words, a Penn education is not accessible and affordable for all students, as they so proudly claim. This is an issue on both an individual and university level.

For the individual, it’s simply unfair to set up financial fences. Penn is choosing to reject certain applicants that, while a good fit for the school, are unable to pay full tuition. In fact, they have explicitly stated that, due to their financial aid policy, “some otherwise qualified candidates will not be admitted.” This opposes the exact reason why the University takes part in need-blind admissions for domestic students in the first place; it is a way to

On the university level, Penn is hurting itself too. International and low-income students offer unique perspectives and experiences to the institution. Without them, the school would be composed of the same homogeneity that permeated this institution a century ago. Many of us came to Penn seeking this diversity, and by establishing barriers to applicants who provide it, the University is doing a disservice to domestic students.

Funds for financial aid are derived from Penn’s endowment, which is currently $20.7 billion. On average, Penn spends about $224 million on all aid packages; yet, they only commit $10 million yearly for international students. In other words, only about 4% of all aid funds are allocated to a group that makes up 13% of the student population. With such a hefty endowment, why exactly is Penn still need-aware for international applicants? According to Student Registration and Financial Services, this can be attributed to Penn’s larger undergraduate student population and smaller endowment, in comparison to other need-blind universities. However, let’s dive a little deeper into said peer institutions.

Digital schoolwork is ruining our work-life balance

ALLISON’S ATTITUDE | Deadlines should align with synchronous instruction, not arbitrary dates and times

Teaching and higher education are now completely reliant on students’ use of technology. It’s a rare occurrence that material is shared with students in physical form, and sites such as Canvas and Google Classroom have become educational staples. There are many benefits to this model of higher education: It’s much easier to only keep track of a computer for all classes, rather than having a binder full of papers across many different classes. It provides streamlining abilities to students that are unparalleled and substantially cuts prices associated with purchasing physical organization tools and materials.

However, a sizable trade-off of education becoming so technologized is that work now bleeds too much into our personal lives. There’s less separation between work, school, and personal life when technology serves as a medium to complete tasks related to all three. The same device we use to complete homework, schedule interviews, and do research also doubles as a tool of entertainment and a social outlet.

There’s never a clear time separation between the two, either. After dinner with friends on a Friday night, we may have a deadline for an essay at midnight. These arbitrary times that don’t align with the time we allot for school or work related hours extend the professional and educational day into our personal and leisure time.

A New York Times article describes a joke about wanting to stop looking at the “BAD SCREEN” to look at the “GOOD SCREEN.” The author further explains that “the ‘bad screen,’ in this case, is the work computer on which one does dreary things like scheduling meetings and compiling spreadsheets. The ‘good screen’ is the personal computer, on which one does fun things like scheduling meet-ups with friends, at bars, restaurants or at other people’s houses.

The irony of this joke is that for students, the “bad screen” is only one click away from the “good screen.” Thus, the staunch line that used to separate work lives (and in our case as students, educational) and personal lives is no longer what it used to be. I can’t help but be jealous of the reality that existed only 20 or 30 years ago: leaving the physical workspace meant being unreachable until you returned.

One might argue, rightfully so, that technology is good in this way. Some justify technology bleeding so heavily into our personal lives in the name of productivity. After all, we must have become more productive with technology augmenting our abilities to research and accomplish tasks. But, how much more productive does technology make us, when it’s leeching away at our hours that used to be reserved for personal leisure and regeneration?

Although technology’s role in work-life balance is modern, the central question of balancing work and leisure has been salient since Aristotle’s time. On one hand, Aristotle describes work as being extrinsically good: good for the purpose of others and society as a whole. On the other hand, Aristotle describes leisure as being intrinsically good: good for us personally, to lead richly fulfilling and, hopefully, happy lives.

And how he describes leisure is not what we might think in our modern, commercialized, entertainment-focused society. According to American philosopher Gary Gutting, “the leisure Aristotle has in mind is productive activity enjoyed for its own sake, while work is done for something else.” Furthermore, another conception of Aristotelian leisure is “the state or condition of being free from the urgent demand of lower level needs to devote oneself to purely intellectual life.” In this case, intellectual life can mean many things: the pursuit of knowledge through methods that we personally enjoy such as music, art, literature. Notably, a prerequisite to achieve this state of living is a staunch separation from the burdens of the workplace.

This lack of separation in the modern educational setting contributes to a gross invasion of personal time and a decrease in our capacity for leisurely pursuits. The structure of American society, which is fundamentally rooted in the capitalist notion that economic productivity is of chief importance, has permeated most facets of our lives. At Penn, it’s rare that someone would use their free time for an intellectual pursuit without the end goal of adding it to their resume.

Besides, we’re burnt out. At least I am. In the free time I do have — the rare times I’m not

Despite its disregard for international students, Penn still provides substantial financial support to domestic students, right? On paper, at least, we are currently the university with the largest undergraduate student body that provides no-loan financial aid packages at all income levels. Unfortunately, the 568 Cartel lawsuit brought to life that this claim is just too good to be true.

And without aid, a Penn education is far from cheap. Tuition increased by 4% for the 20232024 school year, and now costs unaided students $84,600 yearly. That makes Penn the second most expensive university in the United States. This sticker price is unattainably high for the average American, but is even more absurd when viewed from the perspective of an international student, who may not receive any help paying for it.

At the moment, Penn has no timeline in terms of when, or even if, they plan on becoming needblind for international students. We can only cross our fingers and hope that by the time our children or children’s children apply, Penn will have finally decided that their international students are of importance.

Penn, you claim to care about your international and low-income students. It’s time to start financially investing in them.

SANGITHA AIYER is a College first year from Singapore. Her email is saiyer@sas.upenn.edu stressing about another arbitrary deadline in the virtual world — I feel little excitement at the prospect of pursuing an enriching leisurely activity. Thus, I can only imagine the horror with which Aristotle would observe the world we now live in.

I don’t believe that assigning less work is a solution to this problem. I resolutely believe that aligning the time of our deadlines must align with the times that we work to enable students to live lives outside the workspace that encourage us to enjoy and pursue leisure, guilt-free.