GRAD GOODBYES

Clint Smith is the author of award-winning bestseller How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, and two poetry collections. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic Mia Bay, Roy

Penn Electric Racing unveiled its new car at College Green

Penn Electric Racing unveils new fully electric race car ahead of June competition

Penn Electric Racing is a student-run

Formula SAE Electric Team composed of 70 undergraduates

ERIN HONG

Contributing Reporter

Penn Electric Racing unveiled its new, fully electric race car at College Green on March 31, which will be ready to compete in the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition in June 2023.

Penn Electric Racing is Penn’s student-run

Formula SAE Electric Team, composed of 70 Penn undergraduates. These students work in three different sub-teams — mechanical, electrical, and operations — to build a fully electric race car at the end of each academic year. Since the team began competing nine years ago, they have built eight cars and won 39 trophies.

“It’s super cool that we’re actually able to build a car. I think that unlike other clubs at Penn, Penn Electric Racing is creating a real-world product,” Engineering junior and Penn Electric Racing Operations Lead Eddy Yang said.

On average, students on the team work 15 to 20 hours a week, according to Yang. They spend the fall semester designing the car and the spring semester assembling it.

“Since our previous years’ designs were hindered by COVID-19, we had to do a big knowledge shift from the previous generation of Penn Electric Racing. Building the knowledge from the ground up was a big challenge,” Anthony Kim, a Wharton and Engineering sophomore who worked on assembling the car, said. “This year, we were able to adapt and work on perfecting the design choices in person.”

“The last few months have been very busy,” Engineering junior and Mechanical Co-Lead of the team Anton Ludwig said. “The event on College Green is a chance for us to show the Penn community what we’ve been doing.”

Ludwig looks forward to the competition in June. Last year, the team placed ninth out of about 70 teams in the competition. This year, they plan to do even better, Ludwig said.

“Every year, we try to improve the car. In my opinion, it’s super impressive that a group of students is completely building a new car from scratch. It’s a big accomplishment, and I’m proud to show it off to the entire school,” Yang said.

According to the University's announcement, Lee chaired the school's Tenure and Promotions Committee from 2020 to 2021. During her time as deputy dean, she overhauled Penn Carey Law's Legal Practice Skills program and served on multiple University committees, including the Social Responsibility Advisory Committee.

"I look forward to working together to build on the law school’s defining strengths, ensure that we remain at the forefront of scholarly excellence, and prepare our graduates for fulfilling lives of practice, leadership, scholarship, and service at the highest levels," Lee wrote in the announcement.

After Lee takes office, Ruger will return to the faculty of Penn Carey Law. Ruger was first appointed as the dean of Penn Carey Law on July 1, 2015, succeeding Michael Fitts. He agreed to extend his tenure until July 1 after the 2022 U.S. News and World Report ranked Penn Carey Law as No. 6 on the “Best Law Schools” List.

Ruger also established Penn’s Law Office of Inclusion and Engagement — now called the Office of Equity and Inclusion — in 2019 to increase diversity and inclusion at Penn Carey Law, as well as launching new initiatives to increase equity and inclusion under the purview of Associate Dean for Equity and Justice Arlene Rivera Finkelstein.

Ruger has also played the role of prosecutor in the University’s disciplinary proceedings against Penn Carey Law professor Amy Wax, who has stirred controversy for repeatedly making discriminatory remarks against Asian and Black Americans. After initiating the sanctions process in January 2022, he asked the Faculty Senate to impose major sanction on Wax, as is the procedure of punishment for tenured faculty members.

The process is still underway and no definite disciplinary hearing date has been set as of March 23. In August 2017, Lee joined four other law professors in signing onto an opinion column in The Daily Pennsylvanian, where the professors criticized an opinion article by Wax where she called for a return to "bourgeois" values. The professors called Wax's argument "bad history."

As a professor, Lee led a study examining how constitutional law is shaped by administrative agencies, and she published a book titled "The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right" in 2015. Lee previously signed onto a guest column in the DP calling on Penn to pay payments in lieu of taxes, and in October 2018, she joined over 2,400 law professors in opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

At GSE, Strunk will follow Dean Pam Grossman, whose eight-year term ends on June

30. She will begin her term amid the completion of the landmark $36 million expansion of the GSE building, which began under Grossman's tenure and will centralize GSE facilities.

Strunk is a professor at Michigan State University with focuses in educational policy and economics. She is the inaugural director of Michigan State’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative — the Michigan Department of Education's strategic research partner.

Citing GSE's "commitment to real-world impact," in the announcement, Strunk wrote that she is excited to begin collaborating with GSE students, faculty, alumni, and staff in the coming months.

Strunk will follow Grossman, who appointed more than one-third of the current standing faculty, doubled research grants, and has grown partnerships between GSE and West Philadelphia’s schools, according to Penn Today. Under her leadership, GSE was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. News & World Report's ranking of graduate education programs for the past two years and was in the top five for seven consecutive years.

Previously, Strunk served as the president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, and her work with Michigan State's EPIC program informed COVID-19 recovery efforts in schools statewide.

“Katharine Strunk’s career has been built around the concept of ‘research with consequence,’" Magill wrote in the announcement. "She has a long and distinguished track record and an exciting vision for the role of educators and education schools in research universities and society.”

FLING, from FRONT PAGE

SPEC Treasurer and College senior Jeffrey Yu said that students began planning this event at the start of the school year in September. He said that listening to student feedback has been integral to the process.

“We work with agencies and try to find talent that both is within our budget and appeases the student body,” Yu said. “This year, a lot of artists are going on tours or hosting different events, so navigating all of that has been a challenge, but it has also paid off.”

Yu said that compared to previous years, this year’s concert will be more of a “festival experience” with concessions, photo opportunities, and other activities.

“Spring Fling is going to be a really great time,” Yu said. “It is going to be a way to celebrate the end of classes and the end of the year."

In its previous iterations, Spring Fling’s concert has featured artists including Chance the Rapper, Kesha, and Tiësto. Students can purchase tickets for the concert online.