December 2, 2021

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII NO. 28

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Demands intensify for Penn to fire scholar accused of crimes against humanity

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Students say ‘sauna’like rooms are disrupting their sleep and studying The University switched on-campus air conditioning systems to heating systems in mid-October STEPHANIE CHEN Staff Reporter

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Mariá Paula Romo was dismissed by the Ecuadorian Assembly for her oversight of the government’s allegedly abusive response to protests ELIZABETH MEISENZAHL Senior Reporter

A petition calling for Penn to fire a visiting scholar accused of committing human rights abuses as a high-ranking Ecuadorian state official has garnered nearly 11,000 signatures.

The petition, created on Aug. 26, calls for the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies to fire Mariá Paula Romo, who is a visiting scholar for the fall 2021 semester. Romo “was [censured] and dismissed by the Ecuadorian Assembly as a Minister of Government accused of crimes against humanity, attempted bribery, among other charges,” according to the petition started earlier this year by Janio Alvarado.

Romo called the petition a “political attack without basis” in a statement emailed to The Daily Pennsylvanian on Nov. 30. “Neither in Ecuador nor anywhere in the world do I face a single trial for any crime,” Romo wrote.

Romo served as the minister of government in Ecuador in 2019, during which she oversaw a government response to protests that Human

Rights Watch alleged included “serious abuses.” Human Rights Watch reported that security forces killed at least four of the 11 protesters who died and used excessive force on others, including throwing tear gas canisters at people at close range and “fiercely beating and arbitrarily detaining” protesters. The attacks reportedly led to suffocation, eye damage, and other injuries to protesters.

The protests took place in response to a series of austerity measures that eliminated fuel subsidies, signed into law in October 2019, Human Rights Watch reported.

In November 2020, the Ecuadorian National Assembly voted to censure and dismiss Romo for the violent response to the 2019 protests.

The specific charges included the use of expired tear gas canisters, which are more volatile and dangerous, and alleged abuses of protesters by police.

Executive Director of Marketing and Communications for the School of Arts and Sciences Loraine Terrell declined to comment.

Romo applied for the visiting scholar position in the spring of 2021, and began her term in the fall of 2021, Director of the CLALS Program Tulia Falleti said. Falleti added that the position, which is unpaid, grants the scholars access to the University’s resources to pursue independent research topics, but does not involve teaching.

Falleti said that in response to a letter that the

CLALS Program received in September calling on Penn to withdraw Romo’s appointment, the program conducted an internal investigation. Falleti said Romo’s profile was removed from the CLALS webpage while the investigation took place, although her appointment as a visiting scholar was not revoked because of the strength of her research proposal on democracy in Latin America and her background in both academia and government, particularly her role as a delegate in the Ecuadorian Constitutional Convention in 2007 and 2008. Falleti added that the profile page has not been put back up because of a CLALS staffing shortage.

“All this experience is my contribution to any academic environment that honors the meaning of the University: universality, a safe space for plural thought, which does not lend itself as the setting for an episode of cancel culture and totalitarian claims such as the one that represents that petition and its promoters,” Romo wrote.

Falleti said that the investigation that began in September did not find grounds for terminating Romo’s position.

“Whether what Romo did as Minister was right or wrong, whether it was legal or illegal, which is not something that I will determine, but that the courts will determine, regardless of that, SEE ROMO PAGE 2

Penn urges students to limit social gatherings, get booster shot as COVID-19 cases rise The University’s COVID-19 positivity rate increased slightly last week to 0.84%, mimicking a nationwide trend

DEREK WONG

JONAH CHARLTON Senior Reporter

As the University’s COVID-19 positivity rate rose from 0.64% between Nov. 14 and Nov. 20 to 0.84% between Nov. 21 and Nov. 27, Penn is strongly recommending that community members limit social gatherings in the final weeks of the semester.

Penn strongly recommends that community members limit social gatherings and receive a COVID-19 booster shot in the final weeks of the semester as COVID-19 positivity rates increase across the country and the Omicron variant begins to spread.

Chief Wellness Officer Benoit Dubé told The Daily Pennsylvanian on Tuesday that Penn urges members of the community to limit social gatherings, specifically those that are large, indoors, and unmasked. Penn also sent an email to all faculty and staff on Nov. 17 recommending that depart-

ments postpone in-person December gatherings to January or beyond in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the holiday season.

The University’s COVID-19 positivity rate increased slightly last week, rising from 0.64% between Nov. 14 and Nov. 20 to 0.84% between Nov. 21 and Nov. 27, mimicking a nationwide trend. The increasing positivity rate comes as the Omicron variant — the newest iteration of COVID-19 that differs from previous variants due to its unusually high number of mutations that have the potential to make vaccines less effective — begins to rapidly spread across the globe, including its first appear-

OPINION PAGE 4

56 scholars ask: “Why is an Ecuadorian politician and alleged human rights offender a visiting scholar at Penn?”

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When Penn and Villanova faced off in 2018, the Quakers BACKPAGE came away with a big 78-75 win in the Palestra. A lot has changed since then.

ance in the United States on Wednesday. The patient was fully vaccinated but had not received the booster shot, according to health officials.

To combat the new variant as well as the uptick in cases, the University is planning to host a COVID-19 booster shot clinic “in the coming weeks,” but the timeline of exactly when the clinic will be held remains up in the air, Dubé said.

Booster shots are available to be scheduled at all three CVS Pharmacy locations near campus: 3401 Walnut Street, 3925 Walnut Street, and 4314 LoSEE GATHERINGS PAGE 2

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Penn Dining extends hours, expands breakfast options

Students living in on-campus housing are facing excessively high temperatures in their rooms, which they say has adversely affected their ability to comfortably work and sleep.

When the University switched the air conditioning systems to heating systems in midOctober, students living in the high rises and New College House West experienced temperatures reaching what they said felt too warm.

College sophomore Alexandra Shank, who lives in Rodin College House in a four-person suite, said her bedroom has f loor-to-ceiling windows that make the room feel like a “sauna” on certain days. Shank believes that room numbers in the high rises ending with “-03” have walls made mostly of windows, which she says let in a lot of heat.

Students who reported their rooms being warm were generally those whose rooms have a southern exposure and receive a lot of afternoon sun, Barbara Lea-Kruger, director of communications and external relations, wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian. There is currently no plan to change the current HVAC system as a whole, she wrote.

Room temperatures left some students, including College sophomore Jules Pearson, unable to sit in their apartments and do homework during the day. Pearson said she felt forced to go to the library or another space on campus to do work.

“I started to have headaches. I would feel very sweaty. And just kind of like I was in a pressure cooker,” Pearson, who lives in a four-person suite with Shank in Rodin, said.

“When I would walk in the door, I would just be overwhelmed by heat.”

Shank similarly said the indoor heat has hindered her and her roommates from studying and eating lunch in their rooms, now choosing to instead go to the student lounge on their f loor, the high rise rooftop lounge, and libraries on campus.

“I get headaches and I feel really sleepy.

And it’s just entirely too hot to spend certain hours in there,” Shank said. She added this was frustrating when she needed to record videos for class assignments or attend meetings.

The high temperatures carried into the night as well, which made it challenging for some to sleep. College sophomore Ganen Chinniah, who lives in Harrison College House, said the nighttime heat and humidity in his room had a negative impact on his sleep quality.

Students in New College House West experienced similar heat levels to those in the high rises.

Engineering sophomore Rohan Epur, a NCHW resident, said his bedroom is set at 75 degrees Fahrenheit and can only be adjusted by three degrees up or down. “[Even] if we set it all the way down, it just randomly resets to the middle, like after a couple of hours,” Epur said.

Even though he talked to the NCHW front desk, as well as his resident advisors and graduate associates, about the problem and was told they would look it, Epur said nothing has improved so far. When Pearson lived in Hill College House last semester, she said the college house offered residents fans to use when it started getting hotter toward the end of the semester.

“Even with the fan in the hot room, it’s still too much, so I have to keep the windows open,” Epur said, adding that he has sometimes woken up sweaty and with a sore throat. “I tried using lighter sheets, and then I tried using none at all, which is uncomfortable, but even then it was still too hot.”

Students are buying fans and keeping their windows open to maintain the heat levels, but say this leads to other distractions seeping into their rooms, like insects and street noise. Lea-Kruger wrote to the DP that Residential Services can provide students, who request it, a box fan to help pull air from the outside in if they open their windows.

Students said they would have appreciated if Penn surveyed residents’ opinions before shifting the air conditioning system to heat.

“I feel like it is kind of one of those silent suffering issues that doesn’t get a lot of attention,” Pearson said. “I also wish that somebody had told me before I moved into the high rises that this might be a potential consequence of living here.”

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MERT expands available medical services as calls return to pre-pandemic levels

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ROMO FRONT PAGE

this is happening in the context of high political polarization, in which she is seen as the enemy of a large sector of the country,” Falleti said.

Falleti also said that Romo’s censure and removal were political, not legal, processes, and that she has not been found guilty by a court. Romo was previously affiliated with Rafael Correa, who was formerly the president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, but disaffiliated from him during his term.

Falleti said that in a country with high political polarization and where many Ecuadorians still

support Correa, who is currently not in Ecuador because of corruption charges, Romo’s removal must be understood as a political matter.

Assistant professor of Urban Studies at Trinity College Julie Gamble was one of four professors who wrote to the CLALS Program in September, prompting the internal investigation. In the letter, Gamble and her colleagues requested the withdrawal of the visiting scholar offer to Romo, as well as an explanation of the process by which she was selected. Gamble and Assistant profes-

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Penn Dining extends hours, expands breakfast options

cust Street.

“We have a responsibility to one another to take the necessary steps to prevent this from spiraling,” Dubé said. “Worst case scenario, we become complacent, don’t have a care in the world, and pretend like it is 2019, and then there is widespread transmission and we’re forced to shut things down further. We have to take the steps now — by limiting social gatherings — to prevent this.”

He added that while Penn currently has no plans to put any sort of mandate in place on social gatherings, it is an option that remains on the table, depending on how the newest wave of the pandemic unfolds.

“By making this strong recommendation now, it will hopefully help us avoid having to ratchet things up and actually cancel social events or get rid of all registered events for the time being,” Dubé said.

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Paul Sniegowski wrote in an email to students in the College on Tuesday that the University is “strongly encouraging” all students, faculty, staff, and postdoctoral students to participate in screening testing after arriving back on campus following travel over Thanksgiving break. Dubé echoed Sniegowski, adding that due to the nature of the holiday — uniting with those outside of normal social circles and sharing food indoors — and the virus’ high transmissibility rate, testing upon returning to campus was of the utmost importance.

“These steps — gateway testing this week and limiting social gatherings through the end of the semester — are easily within our control and we are strongly encouraging this change in behavior,” Dubé said.

As for the educational format of the spring semester, Dubé said the University remains hopeful that learning will continue in person with all community members wearing masks, despite the nationwide uptick in cases and the new variant.

“This hope is based on fact and the evidence of no transmission in classrooms or the workplace,” Dubé said. “Unfortunately, the new variant and the changing nature of COVID-19 don’t allow us to be so sure quite yet. Our individual actions now have the power to determine the actions in the future, so taking these small steps is crucial.”

sor of Anthropology and Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College Nicholas Limerick recently published an open letter on this matter with 54 additional signatures.

Gamble said that, regardless of the political context of Romo’s removal from office, it is indisputable that she was the minister of government while the 2019 human rights abuses occurred.

“It’s a very well-known fact that she was removed from office,” Gamble said. “It’s a very well-known fact that she was responsible for hu-

man rights abuses.”

Gamble said she hopes Penn will address both the letter and the petition, which Gamble, who is currently in Ecuador, said is widely known in the country. “ The petition itself is something that’s powerful and deserves a response, and I hope the University is able to respond in a way that is worthy of the 10,000 plus voices that have placed their names there,” Gamble said.

The changes were made based on feedback submitted by students as well as discussions with the Dining Advisory Board and the Undergraduate Assembly TIFFANY HE Contributing Reporter

Penn Dining announced changes to dining services across campus, including extended hours, more meal exchange opportunities, and new breakfast offerings, in an email to students on Monday.

Barbara Lea-Kruger, Penn Business Services director of communications and external relations, wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian on Nov. 30 that the changes were made based on feedback submitted by students as well as discussions with the Dining Advisory Board and the Undergraduate Assembly.

Penn Dining expanded Gourmet Grocer’s hours to open at 9 a.m. from Monday through Friday. The Meal Exchange program is also now available from opening to closing every day of the week.

The Meal Exchange program was also extended to Café West. The program operates the same as that of other meal exchanges with a combination of one entrée, two sides, and a beverage. At Café West, beverage options include a 12-ounce coffee or tea, according to Lea-Kruger.

In addition to lunch sandwiches and salads, Penn Dining also now offers new breakfast options at the Cafe at McClelland, Gourmet Grocer, and Café West through the Meal Exchange program.

Lea-Kruger wrote that new items include a rotating variety of breakfast sandwiches that are available all day “for those that want to take them back to their residence for the next day.”

Café West also now serves three flavors of specialty hot chocolates, including chocolate fudge brownie, peppermint, and white mocha. Each order includes a complimentary souvenir Café West mug.

According to Lea-Kruger, Penn Dining will send all dining plan holders a fall survey to complete by the end of the week to provide additional

SUKHMANI KAUR

Gourmet Grocer, which is housed in the Class of 1920 Commons, will now open at 9 a.m. from Monday through Friday.

feedback. They also plan to hold focus groups in Penn Dining in the future, they should contact the spring semester.

Penn Dining, the Dining Advisory Board, or the She added that if students have suggestions for Undergraduate Assembly directly.

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MERT expands available medical services as calls return to prepandemic levels MERT is a student-run organization that responds to medical emergencies in the Penn community KEVIN BRYAN Staff Reporter

Calls to Penn’s student-run Medical Emergency Response Team are surging back to pre-pandemic levels, with more incidents relating to general medical emergencies than student intoxication this semester in a break from previous years.

MERT — a student-run organization that responds to medical emergencies in the Penn community — is maintaining strict COVID-19 precautions while also expanding their pre-hospital treatment services and outreach to student groups on campus. The organization’s campaigns to increase awareness of their operations on campus have led to more non-undergraduates to also take advantage of MERT, Joshua Glick, MERT’s medical director and MERT alumnus, said. “[MERT] is seeing a lot of things that they haven’t seen in prior years — diabetic emergencies, seizures, older people with chest pain,” Glick said. “[MERT’s] call volume is not the old school, majority intoxicated students. Intoxicated patients are down, alternative medical and trauma calls are up.”

In response to this trend, Glick said MERT widened

Two Penn students named 2022 Rhodes Scholars They will receive funding for up to three years of study at the University of Oxford JASPER TAYLOR Contributing Reporter

Two members of Penn’s Class of 2022 have been awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, which gives students funding for up to three years of graduate study at the University of Oxford.

College senior Nicholas Thomas-Lewis from Kimball, Neb., and Wharton and Engineering senior Raveen Kariyawasam from Colombo, Sri Lanka, bring Penn’s total number of Rhodes Scholars to 33. The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest international scholarship program in the world, awarding 102 scholarships each year to students from all over the world.

This is the fifth year in a row that Penn students have

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021 the scope of their on-campus services during the pandemic, including recently adding glucometers for diabetic emergencies and training its members to utilize albuterol, a device used to help with asthma and other severe respiratory issues. MERT also held in-person training for its team members this semester, including their first in-person mass casualty incident drill since fall 2019.

In light of the pandemic, Glick said student officers continue to ask patients COVID-19 screening questions from a distance before acting. If a patient responds ‘yes’ to any of these questions, Glick said a team member can choose to engage, but only after donning full personal protective equipment. These protocols will likely remain in place for the foreseeable future, he believes.

While MERT does not release their exact call volume numbers, Chief of MERT and College senior Emily Kopp, who has been part of the organization for all four years of her undergraduate career at Penn, said the team’s activity this semester has risen to a level similar to that of her first and second year.

In addition to their regular shifts throughout the week, Kopp said that MERT operations have expanded this semester to include being on standby during athletic events and other large gatherings such as Hey Day. Kopp said that MERT responds to all kinds of medical emergencies — not just calls for alcohol intoxication-related incidents. Their average response times for emergencies is five minutes, according to MERT’s website.

“If you broke your ankle, or you fell off your skateboard, or your chest is hurting, calling MERT is the fastest way to get medical care around here,” she said.

Kopp also encouraged students to access MERT’s free services without fearing any extra payments, saying many community members are reluctant to call for MERT because they believe it will lead to extra costs.

“MERT is free, period. Anything provided by MERT is free. The [Penn Alternative Response Unit] unit is also completely free in transport, and ambulances from

SUKHMANI KAUR

Penn’s student-run Medical Emergency Response Team, commonly known as MERT, at their training on Oct. 24.

the fire department are free during certain hours,” Kopp said. AR-1, a unit of the Philadelphia Fire Department, addresses low-acuity medical incidents across Penn’s campus.

Vice President for Public Safety and Superintendent of the Penn Police Department Maureen Rush emphasized MERT’s importance as an additional layer of protection to campus alongside Penn Police and the University’s Alternative Response Unit.

Rush added that MERT’s student-run operations make it an asset to campus security, because an undergraduate patient might feel more comfortable receiving advice from a fellow student than from AR-1 or Penn Police.

MERT works closely with College Houses and Academic Services to maintain the security of on-campus student residents. CHAS uses MERT as a University resource to respond to students’ medical needs, whether those needs come on the weekend or after hours, Executive Director of CHAS Hikaru Kozuma wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Residential advisors and graduate resident advisors often rely on MERT’s services to respond to student emergencies. Over Labor Day weekend alone, RAGRAs in the Quad, which is home to many first years on campus, made over a dozen calls to MERT for student intoxication and other incidents, according to one anonymous GRA, who requested anonymity in fear of retaliation from CHAS. “MERT is a really important resource for us. When we do have residents that need medical attention, MERT is the first thing we reach out to,” another GRA, who also requested anonymity. said. “They have been nothing but seamless, fast, well trained, [and] responsible.”

Kopp said students should never hesitate to call MERT’s emergency services number at (215) 5733333.

“We always encourage people to make healthy choices. We just want everyone to be safe on campus, so we’re glad every time someone calls. Whenever you’re in doubt, you call.”

“I’ve always found that I really wanted to do something that could make a change and a difference in society and studying at Oxford is really going to allow me the opportunity to do that,” Thomas-Lewis said.

He plans to pursue master’s degrees in medical anthropology and evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation, which is a research-based program focused on studying the practices and policy surrounding issues such as poverty and mental health.

Thomas-Lewis, who will be one of the 32 American Rhodes scholars for 2022, said he draws a lot of inspiration PHOTOS FROM NICHOLAS THOMAS-LEWIS from his family. Thomas-Lewis said his father struggled AND RAVEEN KARIYAWASAM with alcoholism which motivated him to make sure no one Nicholas T homas-Lewis ( lef t) and Rave en else has to go through what he went through.

Kariyawasam (right)have received the Rhodes He said youth-based intervention is necessary to break Scholarship. the cycles of intergenerational issues such as addiction.

In addition to his coursework, Thomas-Lewis is a cobeen among the recipients of the scholarship. In 2020, Col- chair of the Admissions Dean’s Advisory Board, a tour lege graduate Mackenzie Fierceton was named a Rhodes guide for the Kite & Key Society, and a member of Penny Scholar, and in 2019, two Penn students won scholarships. Loafers a cappella.

Thomas-Lewis is a double major in cognitive science Kariyawasam is studying finance and entrepreneurship and health and societies with a minor in neuroscience. and innovation at Wharton and bioengineering in the EnHis interests involve mental health and addiction, as well gineerng School. He entered Penn as a bioengineering maas how to combat those issues from a social perspective. jor and soon became interested in engineering and health Thomas-Lewis said that his majors have allowed him to care software. His curiosity about why certain lab technolgain a more holistic understanding of these topics. ogy wasn’t present in his home country and hadn’t been

applied to the real world led him to add the degree from Wharton in addition to Engineering.

Kariyawasam said he is focused primarily on the relationship between health care software and the social and cultural barriers that can limit accessibility. He said some of the stand-out research projects he has worked on during his time at Penn include an electronic medical record system for low-resource countries and a self-monitoring kit for cystic fibrosis patients in low-resource settings.

Outside of class, Kariyawasam is an executive board member of the Wharton Undergraduate Healthcare Club, a DJ at WQHS, the editor-in-chief of the biotech academic journal Synapse, and vice president of Phi Sigma Biological Honor Society.

Kariyawasam said he decided to apply for the Rhodes because of the opportunity to study at the Oxford Martin School where he could merge his interests in business and STEM. He will join a special program on global epilepsy within the Martin School which focuses on epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries. He will pursue a D. Phil. degree, which is known as a Ph.D. in the United States, in engineering science while concentrating in bioengineering.

“I really wanted to find a place where I would fit in,” he said about Oxford. “Since I’m an international student, I’ve stayed in America for five years. I kind of want to see what’s happening across the pond, too.”

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4 OPINION

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OPINION Why is an Ecuadorian politician and alleged human rights offender a visiting scholar at Penn?

THURSDAY DECEMBER 2, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 28 137th Year of Publication DANE GREISIGER President ASHLEY AHN Executive Editor HADRIANA LOWENKRON DP Editor-in-Chief ISABEL LIANG Design Editor CONOR MURRAY News Editor PIA SINGH News Editor HANNAH GROSS Assignments Editor BRITTANY DARROW Copy Editor KYLIE COOPER Photo Editor ALFREDO PRATICÒ Opinion Editor SUNNY JANG Audience Engagement Editor BRANDON PRIDE Sports Editor LOCHLAHN MARCH Sports Editor SOPHIE HUANG Video Editor QIANA ARTIS Podcast Editor ALESSANDRA PINTADO-URBANC Business Manager RAUNAQ SINGH Technology Manager JASPER HUANG Analytics Manager GREG FERREY Marketing Manager EMILY CHEN Product Lab Manager ERIC HOANG Consulting Manager

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Guest Column | María Paula Romo was removed from her government position for her role in state violence but received an appointment by Penn

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all 2021 is a time of reflection, as social and economic inequality has only increased in Latin America due to a global pandemic. Nearly two years ago, a wave of mobilizations against massive state cuts to social spending swept across cities in the region. From Colombia to Ecuador and the Southern Cone, Latin American cities became temporary war zones as civil society mobilized to contest the devastating cuts.

Police and militaries responded with severe violence and repression.

October 2019 marked a dark period in Ecuador, an Andean country with a population of over 16 million. The country experienced 10 days of extreme conflict in which police forces brutalized Ecuadorian citizens, including members of Indigenous pueblos and nationalities, university students, volunteers, and medical personnel.

During those deadly protests in Ecuador, one state official, Minister of Government María Paula Romo, was in charge of the police and security. In this position, she was the state official authorizing the deadly police response to mobilizers and first responders.

Where is Ms. Romo now? She is a visiting scholar for the fall 2021 semester at the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

As social scientists who have collectively spent decades researching in and about Ecuador, we express our profound distress that Penn has appointed Ms. Romo as a visiting scholar for the semester. After a large campaign by Ecuadorian citizens to rescind the appointment — directly to the Center and on Twitter — as well as a petition from a handful of Penn affiliates, CLALS removed Romo’s public profile but upheld Romo’s position. In other words, Penn legitimized Romo by maintaining an association, hid that they were doing so, provided Romo research opportunities through the use of the University, and used talking points for “free speech” to describe an upper-level state agent who has been allowed to give countless interviews in wide-reaching media sources, far more than most citizens will ever dream of.

The evidence against Ms. Romo is vast and alarming: While presiding over the 2019 deadly police response, Romo permitted the use of expired tear gas (which is more likely to cause health issues), the launching of tear gas at close ranges of protestors, and the bombardment of tear gas in humanitarian zones located at universities in Quito that were receiving and treating injured

Editorials represent the majority view of members of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. Editorial Board, which meets regularly to discuss issues relevant to Penn’s campus.

Participants in these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on related topics.

We also ask the University to publicly answer the following: What is Penn’s policy for awarding visiting scholar positions to politicians? Many universities have policies against awarding such positions to any politicians, including those

PHOTO BY ASAMBLEA NACIONAL DEL ECUADOR | CC BY-SA 2.0

people, pregnant women, and children were all victims of police brutality. To write the final report on the incident, the Ecuadorian ombudsman’s office, received 519 testimonies describing the human rights violations that Romo, along with other political leaders like President Lenín Moreno, committed.

Ultimately, hundreds of protesters received grave injuries, and 11 people died.

Based on her role in the state violence against the mobilizations, Romo was censured and removed from her position as the minister of government.

The Ecuadorian Ombudsman’s Office (“Defensoría del Pueblo”) also found her, along with several other government officials, to have allegedly committed crimes against humanity.

We write this guest column today to draw attention to Ms. Romo’s visiting scholar position at Penn. It is even more troubling that the Center seems to be concealing the appointment from the public while maintaining it.

The Director of the Latin American and Latinx Studies Program, professor Tulia Falleti, communicated to us that Penn is unwilling to withdraw the position, even as pressure has mounted from many Ecuadorian citizens. If this is Penn’s decision — with which we strongly disagree — we seek Penn to publicly announce its decision by returning Ms. Romo’s visiting scholar profile to the CLALS website, responding to the Change. org petition signed by more than 10,000 people, and widely circulating any future events with Ms. Romo.

who have been convicted for crimes against humanity.

Why has CLALS removed Ms. Romo’s web page while maintaining the appointment? All other visiting scholars have them, and events and appointments are publicized.

Why is the CLALS director not responding to a Change.org petition against the appointment with over 10,000 signers?

In sum, as scholars who live in North America, South America, and Europe, and who all study Ecuador, we are disappointed by the decision to award the position to Ms. Romo and even more troubled by Penn and CLALS’ avoidance of transparency and responsibility for their actions by erasing publicly available information about the circumstances of the appointment.

This column was cosigned by 54 additional professors, experts, and scholars. For the full list of signatories please visit the article online at thedp.com.

NICHOLAS LIMERICK is an associate professor of anthropology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a 2015 Penn Ph.D. graduate. His email is limerick@tc.columbia.edu.

JULIE GAMBLE is assistant professor of urban studies at Trinity College and a former postdoctoral fellow at Penn’s Perry World House. Her email is julie.gamble@trincoll.edu.

Why ‘school choice’ can mean a better education for underserved students

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Lexi’s Take | Expanding educational options, both in Philadelphia and beyond

he term “school choice” is defined as “a program or policy in which students are given the choice to attend a school other than their district’s public school.”

Typically, this results in school districts broadening the types of schools they have, which manifests itself in an expansion of the types of schools available to most students, which often include magnet, charter, or private schools. While I would imagine this to be a fairly uncontroversial definition, Republicans and Democrats have remained divided on this issue for decades.

In light of increasing conversations surrounding parental involvement in education, school choice issues have grown in national prominence over the past election cycle. As a tutor with the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, I’ve been able to get a glimpse into the lived experience of Philadelphia public school students. Combined

LETTERS Have your own opinion? Send your letter to the editor or guest column to letters@thedp.com.

protestors.

A comprehensive Human Rights Watch report also details “excessive force” and “arbitrary deaths and arrests” on the part of her administration. Particularly noteworthy, Human Rights Watch found that elderly

GARY LIN

with work on Board of Education races in my own city, it’s caused me to reflect on my own 13 years as a public school student. These realities, juxtaposed with that of many of my Penn peers who attended private schools, led me to an interesting question: Why should the quality of education your child receives be based on your income?

The School District of Philadelphia poses a unique example on the implementation of school choice policies. In a city with one of the largest school districts in the country, the Philadelphia Board of Education is appointed, rather than elected, creating accusations of little transparency. This poses accountability red flags,

making it difficult for parents to express their concerns at the ballot box. The district also has seen increasing disparity in achievement among racial and socioeconomic groups, with only 32% of children in the third grade meeting the appropriate reading levels.

Philadelphia, unlike many other urban centers throughout the country, also has an expansive charter school system. In Philadelphia, charter schools receive district and state funding while also operating outside various city and state restrictions. A 2015 Stanford study which looked at urban charter schools found that, in Philadelphia, socioeconomically disadvantaged students at charter schools learned more than their comparable peers at district schools in the city. District reports have continued to show similar results, although not all charter schools participate in the studies.

We’ve seen similar results at the relatively new elementary charter schools in my home city of Stamford, Conn. Waterside School serves an almost entirely economically disadvantaged population and yet has significantly higher reading and math proficiencies than both city and state standards. The Stamford Charter School for Excellence, founded in 2015, has seen the same: With a population of 98% children of color, 98% of students met proficiency in math and 87% did so in reading, earning them a ranking among U.S. News & World Report Top Schools in Connecticut.

Critics of charter schools will often point to the “choice” oriented nature of these schools, arguing that because of their opt-in nature these schools don’t adequately represent the low-income populations of their cities. Similarly, they will often claim selfaggrandizing, wealthy boards of trustees advocate for overly innovative curricula.

This rhetoric essentially says that financially disadvantaged parents don’t deserve, or have the capabilities, to make choices about which programs best suit their child’s needs in the same way wealthy parents who send their children to private schools do.

In cities with wealth-based achievement gaps like Philadelphia, where city-funded magnet schools often disproportionately serve wealthy students, this becomes even

more problematic. These measurements don’t even take into account the infrastructure conditions of these schools, many of which are deplorable. As someone who lived through my district’s mold crisis, and whose high school is being demolished, I was particularly saddened to see the conditions that many of the Philadelphia public schools were faced with during my time with the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project.

Penn’s failure to pay Payments in Lieu of Taxes and the University’s tax-exempt status continues to help perpetuate these problems. These issues are compounded

by Penn’s more favorable admittance of wealthier students across the board. This holds true within the Philadelphia school district as well, often accepting significant numbers of students from magnet schools like Masterman and Central High schools.

These schools have been criticized for their admissions processes, resulting in a process overhaul this year.

While the existence of charter schools doesn’t repair this problem, they can offer distinctive programs which make students more competitive in the college admissions process. One example is the incorporation of required professional experiences in schools like Philadelphia’s Mastery Charter, which requires an 18-week internship in 10th grade as well as other supplemental career readiness programs. As Penn students, we are all well aware of the invaluable difference these experiences can make in college admissions.

Charter schools may not be the perfect solution to fixing America’s education system, but they do provide a band-aid over a wound which can, if done correctly, marginally tip the scales of wealth inequality in education. The simple fact is that every parent deserves a say in their child’s education, no matter how much money they make. Before advocating against vaguely labeled “school choice” policies, be sure to consider the impacts that parental involvement can have on a child’s success.

LEXI BOCCUZZI is a College sophomore studying philosophy, politics, and economics from Stamford, Conn. Her email is abb628@ sas.upenn.edu.

EDITORIAL

Penn should mandate boosters as soon as possible

R

ecently, the Food and Drug Administration announced an expansion in eligibility for COVID-19 booster shots to all Americans age 18 and older.

Penn students may soon have easy access to such vaccines; earlier this week, Penn’s Chief Wellness Officer, Benoit Dubé, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn plans on offering COVID-19 booster shots in the coming weeks.

However, the availability of boosters may not be enough. With the first confirmed case of the new omicron variant in the United States, coupled with the waning effectiveness of initial vaccinations against infection, there is the significant possibility of COVID-19 disruptions to campus operations. To protect the well-being of its student body, faculty, and West Philadelphia neighbors, Penn must mandate booster shots as soon as reasonably possible.

The conversation for mandating boosters is still in its initial stages. After all, it has been just two weeks since the CDC recommended booster shots for American adults.

Peer institutions such as Harvard have stated they will not require booster shots in the foreseeable future. As such, the Editorial Board is not arguing that such boosters be mandated immediately; rather, it believes booster shots should be mandated when more is known about the efficacy, and mandates start to be implemented. In other words, Penn, as it no doubt is currently doing, must continue to closely monitor the efficacy of current and future booster shots, as well as their effectiveness against new COVID-19 variants.

Ensuring that everyone on campus has this added layer of protection would ensure that those on campus are able to carry out their daily activities safely. Although data is not yet complete, initial information gathered by the CDC portrays vaccines as becoming less effective against infection and relatively mild symptoms. Preventing these outcomes may not necessarily save lives, but it does minimize community spread and quarantine times, both of which can cause major disruptions. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said “booster shots have demonstrated the ability to safely increase people’s protection against infection and severe outcomes and are an important public health tool to strengthen our defenses against the virus.”

Furthermore, mandating boosters would serve as protection against new COVID-19 variants. Experts argue that the increase in antibody levels provided by booster shots could very well ward against variants such as Omicron. There is precedent for this; the existing vaccine has proven relatively effective against the Beta and Delta variants, and there is a significant chance that it will have the same efficacy against the Omicron variant. Certainly, Omicron might require a new booster or vaccination, but existing boosters already offer a guaranteed level of protection against many variants.

There is also an ethical lens to consider. Community spread doesn’t just impact campus, it impacts our West Philadelphia neighbors too. Those who are unvacci-

SUKHMANI KAUR

nated, or unlikely to have a booster, aren’t all feverous anti-vaccine activists. Many of them are too young to be vaccinated, or only recently became eligible, such as with the just 5% of children ages 5-11 who are vaccinated in Philadelphia. Other epidemics, such as the wave of gun violence in Philadelphia and mistrust in the medical system due to historical racism, are also dragging down vaccination rates in the city. To protect others, Penn must ensure its own campus is protected, and thus mandate booster shots.

Despite nearly two years of global disruptions, there is still much unknown about the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how effective vaccines will be in minimizing it. Given this, the University’s administration must take all steps possible to protect students, faculty, employees, and community members, and require booster shots to strengthen immunity.

THEDP.COM | THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

OPINION 5

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021

Why you should not expect the dining staff to be more kind

Locust Walk should be redensified to include more cultural spaces

Artur’s Dialectic | The cruel side of kindness

Guest Column | Why reshaping Locust Walk can energize student life and make campus a better place

O

ne night, during my first year of college, as I was walking through the aisles of Wawa in the early hours of the morning on a quest to attain my beloved coffee, the dizziness of my eyelashes suddenly reconfigured into steady attentiveness. One printed message near the cashier caught my eye. It read: “You may not see it [because of the mask], but we are serving you with a smile.”

Anecdotal experience informs that it is not a rare occasion for Penn students to be left underwhelmed with their dining hall experiences. A substantial majority of Penn students are either unsatisfied with the current dining experience, believe that the experience provided is not congruent with the high price paid for a plan, or are in some form or the other agitated with the lack of flexibility that the dining plan provides. While this dynamic justifies, I believe, a demand for a better quality of food services on campus, are we entitled to demand better hospitality through expressions of kindness and friendliness from the dining staff? Can we ask for the smile behind the mask? I say we cannot.

We can demand professionalism but ought not to be the exploiters of emotional labor. I claim that while kindness is typically an expression of positive emotion, it can also be a medium through which we can conceal exploitation under the disguise of friendliness. What is the cruel side of kindness, then? The expression of power over the last 500 years (as philosopher Michael Foucault argues with his historical analysis of power as well) has changed drastically — it is no longer the case that a monarch rudely and viciously oppresses their peasants.

Today, the expression of power is a lot more subtle.

Kindness can very well be a medium of oppression.

The classical Marxist example depicts the traditional exploited worker with their rude boss and compares it with the postmodern employer who is friendly and cheerful, asks you how your last night out was, but makes you work overtime and expropriates the profits of your surplus labor nonetheless.

Moreover, philosopher Slavoj Zizek provides another illustrative example of the concept. Imagine it’s Sunday afternoon and your old-fashioned, authoritarian father tells you (his young child), “You are going to visit your grandmother and you’re going to behave there properly.” The archetype of the tolerant, postmodern father, as he calls it, would say, in contrast, the following, “you know how much your grandmother loves you but nonetheless, you should only visit her if you really want to.” Zizek concludes, “every child who is not an idiot, and they are not idiots, knows that this apparent free choice contains an even stronger order, it’s not only ‘you have to visit grandmother’ but ‘you have to visit your grandmother and you have to like it.’”

The overwhelming majority of the dining staff at

W

KYLIE COOPER

Penn are subcontracted, which means that the locus of responsibility for their treatment as workers is decentralized from merely Penn as a regulator. This apparent distance of accountability between Penn and some of its workers means that implicitly we, as students, share incremental parts of that responsibility. We ought to be more cognizant of the situation that these dining staff workers might find themselves in (the possibility of being overworked and underpaid). This dynamic makes the nature of any of our demands very delicate.

The fact that Penn is an elite institution may incline some to demand nothing short of customer service excellence on campus. While I think that is a sensible conclusion, I urge that we have to rethink what constitutes customer service excellence. While it may come to be a lot of things, I stress that kindness per se should not be included. We should be sufficed with professional service. I agree with the perspective that professionalism and kindness are not mutually exclusive per se, allowing for the possibility of both quality service and kindness. However, this should not incline us to equivocate kindness as a prerequisite or even a necessary condition of professional service. While the scenario in which both coincide is pleasant, it is not to be demanded.

Demanding anything above that sensitive threshold (professionalism) is analogous to the previous message from the Zizekian kid: Not only should you work too much and be underpaid, but you should also like it.

Progressing toward a post-pandemic situation without masks, in a world where we have commodified smiles as an asset of customer service, they will continue to be masked by the market economy.

In the absence of a genuine smile underneath all masks, be brave and give one yourself.

ARTUR VLLAHIU is a College sophomore studying philosophy from Kosovo. His email is arturvhh@sas.upenn.edu.

ith the return of the full student body to Penn’s campus, the fight over replacing the remaining fraternities on Locust Walk with cultural and resource centers has inevitably resumed. The recent assault at Psi Upsilon’s Castle has spurred a petition nearing 6,000 signatures, and it is likely that the Coalition Against Fraternity Sexual Assault’s campaign events, which flourished pre-pandemic, will return with renewed force.

While I fully support the CAFSA’s mission and long-term vision for Locust, it is also true that eviction of fraternities from non-Penn-owned buildings remains an almost impossible action, and a full turnover of buildings may not be possible. To that end, I propose that the Locust Walk debate be expanded to include not only the repurposing of existing fraternity houses, but also the addition of new, infilled construction of dedicated student centers along and near Locust Walk.

It may not be obvious, but the shortage of oncampus space for student organizations and vital resources like Counseling and Psychological Services is the legacy of a mistake Penn committed decades ago. The 20th-century urban renewal era saw the University partner with the City of Philadelphia to expand west and north into majority-minority neighborhoods, with entire neighborhoods condemned and demolished. This has been welldocumented in places such as Black Bottom, now the location of the University City Science Center.

At the same time, Penn hollowed out its campus core immediately on and adjacent to Locust Walk with the demolition of numerous small-scale buildings, all for little more than vacant green space.

These green spaces include rows of buildings in front of Van Pelt along Woodland Walk, the 37th & Locust social science plaza, Hill Square, and perhaps most egregiously, the “Superblock” from 38th to 40th streets, where scores of off-campus student housing as well as fraternity houses, totaling over 1,200 residents, were leveled for the grass lawns and concrete moats surrounding the highrise dorms.

While many of these spaces are beloved and well-used today, it is undeniable that some, such as the southeast corner of 39th & Locust next to Harnwell College House, were deliberately designed to be unusable in practice and nothing more than a vacant, passing thought for pedestrians. If more of the former buildings in those spaces were preserved, there could have been generous space for the PanAsian American Community House, Makuu, and La Casa Latina, instead of being crowded in the basement of ARCH (which, by the way, was also a lively and open social destination until a key amenity was evicted in 2006).

The oft-cited 1991 Report to Diversify Locust Walk called for the western end of Locust to “reflect the mixed-use character of the eastern Walk in order to avoid the possibility of a segmented campus.” And even earlier, the 1977 Landscape Development Plan surveyed students and found the Superblock plazas were “too open” and lacked scale.

To date, Penn has done very little to rectify this apparent problem. It is regrettable that neither of Amy Gutmann’s new college houses (Lauder and New College House West) have any space dedicated to student organizations or outward-facing mixed use. Also negligent is the University’s master plan, Penn Connects, which continues to forgo creating student resource space even while critical entities like Student Health Service and CAPS remain isolated on Market Street (to say nothing of Penn Violence Prevention’s musical chairs). But the Locust Walk effort represents a premier opportunity to rectify these mistakes once and for all on the highest administrative level through Gutmann’s successor. The charge is simple: Considering the unprecedented number of student organizations and activities, return Locust Walk to the liveliness it once had 70 years ago.

Of course, this solution could easily be seen as just sidestepping the issue of expelling the Locust Walk fraternities by merely leaving them be while other demands are met. But I want to reiterate that the reasons for their removal — harassment, hazing, and traumatic assault — remain unequivocally valid, and should still be addressed. It is precisely because we are having the discussion about the removal of fraternities that we should consider the comprehensive history of why the campus is the way it is today, and why we only have so much building space to go around.

I believe that redensifying Locust is the key to not only getting the University authority to seriously consider CAFSA’s demands, but to also expand future possibilities for countless other student organizations and resources to find their home on the main campus spine. They too can serve the Penn community where density and activity are highest, thereby giving their support to the campaign. In the end, we have the opportunity to gain an even stronger and unified non-Greek student presence when we expand and rethink our campus.

BEN SHE is a graduate student in the School of Design studying urban spatial analytics from Philadelphia. His email is bensh3@ design.upenn.edu.

How Castle exposed a campus rife with performative activism Joint Column | Our social media presence paints a far different picture than our in-person presence, so how much do we really care?

S

ituated at the center of Penn’s campus, hidden behind mid-century Gothic Revival limestone, is Castle, home to the Psi Upsilon fraternity. However, behind its ornamental walls lies a controversial history. At a Sept. 4 party, a Penn sophomore was allegedly attacked by a Psi Upsilon brother inside the building, prompting a University investigation into the incident. Yet, an investigation was not the only result of the assault. When The Daily Pennsylvanian broke news of the story in late September, it infuriated much of the student body, who demanded that Penn take action.

Following the article’s release, posts expressing concern and outrage spread like wildfire. Particularly, an Instagram infographic provided by the Coalition Against Fraternity Sexual Assault that promoted participation in the protests held outside of Castle, as well as one detailing their 2021 demands, were widely liked and shared. Anybody with an Instagram account could easily learn the surface details of the incident by simply scrolling down their feed. Support came in the currency of likes, comments, and reposts.

Yet, the outpouring of shock and indignation did not resound as intensely on Locust Walk as it did through handheld screens. The Instagram post by CAFSA promoting the protest received 420 likes, and a petition to evict Psi Upsilon from Castle garnered nearly 6,000 signatures. However, the DP noted that only around 50 students showed up on the first day of protests, 40 on the second day, 25 on the third day, and 50 on the final day. These numbers are far less than what social media may have led one to expect: Where was everybody who liked and shared posts regarding the incident? Where were the students who signed the petition? The number of students actively speaking out and protesting seemed to gradually dwindle as social media remained wrapped up in the incident at Castle.

On behalf of the Class Board 2025, the Class of 2025 President Will Krasnow said, “We’re calling on all authorities [and] administration to do a thorough investigation of this scenario because at the end of the day, it’s incredibly important to the Class Board of 2025 that every student at Penn is safe and feels welcome and included.” However, the presence of most of its members was notably missing on the first day, much to the disappointment of many.

Following criticism from the first-year student body on Instagram, multiple members of Class Board 2025 released personal statements regarding the incident and reposted protest information, encouraging the Class of 2025 to attend. Many of them also attended the protests in the following days.

However, several students viewed this as a way to save face rather than a genuine desire to act. A member of the organizing group behind the protests against Castle, who asked to remain anonymous, stated, “We had just voted in those in student government, so I understand their reluctance to show any alliance to this movement. However, they ran on platforms that would be for the students and would represent us, but most of them didn’t even show that they cared about this.” And, for the most part, we agree — it can be difficult to insert yourself into such a narrative so early into your position;

SAMATHA TURNER

but, when they were elected, they pledged that they would speak up for their student body.

When we asked about the Board’s response to the criticism, Wharton first year Juan Ramos said, “A lot of them did show up to the following protests, but it was very reactionary and not from initially wanting to come. They didn’t go on their own accord until after when they were called out. They had even apologized. We don’t necessarily need your apology — we need your action.”

According to Krasnow, scheduling issues are what prompted the lack of an appearance: “I think it was just difficult with scheduling. There was a twohour period window, and a lot of us had tests and exams. It happened to be that on that first day, and we couldn’t be present.”

Still, they have yet to release a collective statement denouncing the assault, and as Ramos notes, it wasn’t until they were called out for their lack of action that their condemnation of the incident became clear on social media. Scheduling issues may have contributed to their absence on the first day; but, they also did not share information on the protest until their passivity was pointed out by their peers.

This begs the question: What constitutes genuine allyship? To what extent would Class Board 2025 releasing a statement on the incident, attending the protest, or even sharing an infographic on the event contribute to positive change? Given the considerable masses that were already sharing such posts in the student body, how impactful would it have truly been if the Board members had done the same ear-

lier?

A senior in the College, who attended the protest each day and who requested to remain anonymous, said, “[Social media] was good in a way that there was attention spread and that people were able to engage with the issue, but there was a lot more engagement and outrage online than in person.” In reference to the protests’ attendance, they added, “I was personally frustrated because I have heard a lot of people talking about coming to the protest, but we did not see that many people there each day.”

Impactful activism warrants time to prepare and think. Ironically, our compassion and emotions may impede us. It’s possible to argue that activism is only effective through immediate action; yet, such a swift response often prompts performative activism to take form, slowing down the potential for real change.

Much of our activism was first presented on Instagram, which doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing; social media is an efficient way to spread information and open a public discourse. However, when it becomes a one-off action, a trend, it’s difficult to claim that we’re genuine in our support. We need to back our online personas with an in-person presence, or, at the very least, continue to engage in information regarding the incident. Performative activism isn’t posting on social media. It’s doing so without attending a protest or supporting CAFSA. It’s attending a party at Castle after you’ve spoken out against it. It’s turning our back on constructive conversations. At this moment, we are far from who

we think we are.

We must ensure that our rhetoric is no longer performative. Ramos said, “Reposting it on social media has become something that doesn’t actually do anything anymore because everyone just does it because they think that that’s what society wants them to do.” Though the spread of information is important, he’s right — it does little in terms of establishing impactful, tangible action, and this is a dialogue that needs to persist.

As of mid-November, Penn has yet to share any details about the incident or investigation. Where is the voice of our administration? More importantly, where are the voices of our peers? Why have we abandoned the protests and flyers that we so heavily relied on after the story first came to light? Again, over 5,000 of us have signed a petition to evict Psi Upsilon from Castle to date — what has come out of it? Greek life has perpetuated racism and rape culture for decades: It’s rampant with misogyny and classism, and Castle itself has a complicated history.

Yet, it continues to thrive. Does our activism mean anything if it isn’t persistent?

After the Castle protests, Instagram engagement toward CAFSA decreased from 420 likes to a new low of 17 on their most recent infographic, which is perplexing considering the initial ferocity of the student body in response to the incident. Have we already forgotten? It’s vital to remember that an alleged assault, racially motivated no less, is not something that you should use to boost your image.

Activism is not meant to be self-serving. Continued action is necessary, and no, social media likes don’t necessarily indicate a lack of student engagement with an issue ­— especially those who take a quieter approach to activism. Nevertheless, it does point to a poignant lack of sustained interest from many.

Our activism should not be contained to Instagram. Have any of the victim’s demands truly been met? It’s easy to argue that performative activism isn’t inherently bad (it can be turned into real activism); however it’s a dangerous trend, especially when the discussion stalls after a week. Instead of reposting statistics, sign the CAFSA Community Coalition Form, urge your clubs to join the club Coalition, join their leadership — call the administration and express your disappointment. Continue to walk out. It can be hard to create real change on campus; however, the fact that frat culture has been an issue for so long without much change just goes to show how most activism related to it has been performative by nature — it persists because we let it. We cannot abolish a culture that we are actively participating in: We need to work to end Penn’s legacy of performative activism.

KAYLA COTTER is a College first year from Manalapan, N.J. Her email is kmcotter@sas. upenn.edu.

EMILY NG is a College first year from Brooklyn, N.Y. Her email is emilyng@sas.upenn.edu.

6 NEWS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021

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Students discuss immigration, hazing at ‘Can We Talk?’ event Moderators encouraged students to engage with others who have different perspectives CLAIRE REDMER Contributing Reporter

The Penn Red and Blue Exchange hosted “Can We Talk?” — an open discussion forum for students from all perspectives to discuss prompts related to contemporary politics and society — on Nov. 30.

Participants from Penn and local universities discussed immigration, hazing, how female performers present themselves, college admissions preferences, climate change, and Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert on Nov. 5 that resulted in 10 deaths. Students said they enjoyed the ability to have an open conversation with others who hold different viewpoints. “[We hope] to create a sense that political discussion is not something to be avoided, but to be embraced and to give people skills that they can use for any kind of difficult or challenging conversation in their lives,” Chris Satullo, “Can We Talk?” project manager, said.

Satullo began the event by introducing nine ground rules meant to encourage productive and respectful dialogue. The rules included active listening, building off of previously stated points, and remaining open to new ideas. The students were split into

breakout rooms, with two trained moderators facilitating each discussion.

“These conversations, which have become harder, are just a way to hear where people are coming from, not just looking at the data, not just listening to one or two anecdotes, but really mashing it all together based on everyone’s experiences,” Wharton senior Charlie Ross, a moderator for the event, said.

Ross attended a previous event as a participant, but said he gained a new experience from moderating this year. He added that while students agreed on most issues, there were slight deviations in how they think about the issues based on their experiences and previous knowledge.

“I think [what] was super interesting as a leader of one of the sessions is actively withholding my opinion,” Ross said. “It was nice hearing ever yone and then also being able to push the conversation a step deeper, because I wasn’t really thinking about my response.”

The event’s virtual format meant that students from multiple colleges and universities could attend, both as moderators and attendees. Alejandra Rivera, a senior at George Mason University, decided to attend “Can We Talk?” because of her positive experience attending the last event in October.

“I attended the last ‘Can We Talk?’ and completely fell in love with the environment and the conversations that came out of the topics,” Rivera said. “I really like when there’s someone that disagrees with my opinion because I love hearing the other side’s perspective.”

Rivera was able to bring her perspective as a first-generation Salvadoran American to the conversation about immigration, specifically when hearing from someone who held a different perspective than she had.

Jason Check, a sophomore at Drexel University, also had a positive experience with the talk.

TYLER KLIEM

“Can We Talk? Civil Dialogue for Troubled Times” was held virtually on Nov. 30.

“It’s nice to see that people can have such different viewpoints on some issues, such as immigration, but then when we talk about the hazing policy or Travis Scott, we kind of agree,” Check said. “It’s interesting to see how not ever ything is just about politics.”

“Can We Talk?” was created in 2017, due to polarization sur rounding the 2016 presidential election. Satullo said that the event has seen changes over the years, particularly with the transition to Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event has also embraced more student leadership by bringing

Philadelphia city controller talks criminal justice reform at Penn Dems event About 15 students gathered on Zoom for the virtual event on Monday TORI SOUSA Senior Reporter

Penn Democrats hosted a virtual dialogue on Zoom on Monday featuring Rebecca Rhynhart, the first woman elected as city controller of Philadelphia.

Rhynhart discussed her responsibilities as city controller, her involvement in criminal justice reform efforts, and her experiences as a woman in politics at the event. About 15 students gathered on Zoom for the virtual event.

As city controller, Rhynhart oversees the city’s finances and operations for both the City of Philadelphia and the School District of Philadelphia. She is also responsible for investigating accusations of cor ruption against city agencies and employees. She previously served as Philadelphia’s city treasurer and budget director.

“My job is the financial auditor of the city, but I am also a city-wide elected officeholder, so I want to use my voice and my power to stand up for what’s right,” Rhynhart told attendees.

Rhynhart also discussed her efforts to push for criminal justice reform. In October, Rynhart published an opinion piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer that called upon Mayor Jim Kenney to address the “inhu-

Penn student awarded scholarship to study in Ireland The Mitchell Scholarship funds study at any college or university in Ireland or Northern Ireland EVA NEE Contributing Reporter

College senior Max Wragan has been named one of 12 Mitchell Scholars to receive funding for one year of postgraduate study in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Wragan, who majors in neuroscience at Penn, plans to continue studying neuroscience and chronic pain at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Mitchell Scholars are provided tuition, accommodation, and a stipend for living expenses and travel. They may study any discipline in any college or university in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

The George J. Mitchell Scholarship program is a national scholarship sponsored by the United States-Ireland Alliance. More than 350 people applied for the Mitchell Scholarship this year.

Wragan wants to complete a master’s pro-

NEWS 7

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021

PHOTO BY PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL | CC BY-NC 2.0

Rebecca Rhynhart is the first woman elected as City Controller of Philadelphia.

mane” prison conditions for both inmates and cor rectional officers. She said she had received a significant number of complaints from both cor rectional officers and family members of inmates about poor living and working conditions in the facilities.

“My office of operations looked into what is going on at the prisons. What we found was that while the inmate population has stayed relatively constant since 2019, the number of cor rectional officers has declined drastically, so they were locking down, and still are locking down the prison for many hours — 20 to 23 hours a day,” Rhynhart said. “Inmates could not leave their cells. I went to the prisons twice in June and again in August to examine what was going on and

see firsthand what was going on, and it’s completely hor rifying, honestly.”

Rhynhart called on the city to hire more cor rectional officers to stabilize jail operations. Since publishing her article, Rhynhart said the issue has only worsened and will need continued action from the city’s elected officials.

Rhynhart also said that she is “honored” to serve as Philadelphia’s first female city controller, adding that she believes it helps to shape her work and some of the areas of city politics that she oversees.

“I think everyone brings their life experience and who they are to whatever they do … So, of course, I brought that [aspect of my identity] to my job,” Rhynhart told event

gram in neuroscience before possibly pursuing a Ph.D. or another graduate program. Wragan said that she chose to study in Dublin because of the city’s close-knit community of neuroscientists.

She also said that Ireland has a more “interdisciplinary” approach to neuroscience than the United States.

“The financial structuring of grants and departments in the [United States] limits the depth [of which] you can study the interdisciplinary issue of chronic pain,” Wragan said.

“There is less overlap of different disciplines, which is a more suitable environment to study chronic pain.”

Wragan became interested in the field of neuroscience because she experiences chronic pain herself. Based on her own experience, Wragan realized that there are limitations in the current treatment options for chronic pain, and she wants to correct these limitations by taking a more interdisciplinary approach in her research.

Wragan plans to use her platform as a Mitchell Scholar to advocate for people with unseen illnesses. She said that people with chronic pain may not be comfortable speaking about it, so she wants to encourage more conversation, especially because chronic pain impacts about 20% of people in the United States.

In the future, Wragan wants to develop treatment for patients with chronic pain. She is also interested in working with science policy to bring her work from the lab into everyday life.

“A lot of times, academia has the issue of not being very accessible to the average person, and I’d love to do better advocacy [for

chronic pain] because I care about this issue, because I experienced it,” Wragan said.

Last March, Wragan was also awarded a Goldwater Scholarship. For her research at Penn, she has also been awarded the PincusMagaziner Family Undergraduate Research and Travel Fund and the Ruth Marcus Kanter College Alumni Society Research Grant, Penn Today reported.

Wragan said that the Mitchell Scholarship is unique because of the cohort size of just 12 people.

“We get to know each other more intimately, and it enables closer connection between the scholars, which is really exciting because I’m the only student studying neuroscience there,” Wragan said. “I really value the community and scholarship and that’s something I’ve learned through my experiences at Penn.”

At Penn, Wragan runs the Satellite Learning Program, which she started at Pomona College before she transferred to Penn. The Satellite Learning Program is a remote program that offers tutoring to students or refugees who are experiencing homelessness.

Wragan has also conducted research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, George Washington University Hospital, Pomona College, and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh in Scotland. Her research ranges from studying glial cells, to sequencing DNA of plants that were going extinct, to rolling out clinical trials.

Wragan first heard of the scholarship through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. She applied for the scholarship in August, and after receiving the University’s

on more student moderators and involving students in the creation of the discussion prompts, he added.

In the future, the event plans to become even more student-led. Ross believes that this will help integrate open dialogue into campus conversations and culture.

“I would love for this idea, this civil dialogue, this movement conversation, to begin to make its way into the classroom, make its way into club culture, make its way into just everyday dialogue and everyday conversation that happens throughout the school,” Ross said. attendees.

She also said she found the sphere of Philadelphia politics to be a male-dominated workspace, but that with self-confidence and determination, students can work past the obstacle of gender biases.

“In terms of obstacles, I think there’s definitely times when there’s an interaction that I have that I walk away thinking it was very gendered or odd,” Rhynhart said. “I would just say to the women here — and to all of you — just do not let someone else tell you that you can’t do it, whatever it is that you want to do, because it’s always better to try and balance something then not to try at all.

That’s kind of been my motto in what I do.”

College sophomore Leo Cassel-Siskind, one of the event attendees and a member of Penn Dems, told The Daily Pennsylvanian he was grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the responsibilities of the city controller, especially as a Philadelphia native.

“I always think turnout in local elections, especially being from Philadelphia, is really important,” Cassel-Siskind said. “Turnout in Philadelphia elections is typically pretty ter rible, and so I think it’s important to bring these [locally] elected officials in so that the students can understand the importance of the job that they do, not just for themselves, but as students, people that are here for four years and are part of the Philadelphia community.”

Rhynhart told the DP that she enjoys participating in events with college students looking to get involved in government and politics.

“I love Philadelphia, and I hope that the passion I have for this city will resonate with future leaders cur rently exploring their interests and possible careers,” Rhynhart wrote in a statement emailed to the DP. “As someone who didn’t follow a linear path, I think it’s important for college students to be exposed to people from different backgrounds, with different perspectives and experiences, so they can better understand all the opportunities available to them.”

PHOTO FROM MAX WRAGAN

College senior Max Wragan plans to continue studying neuroscience and chronic pain at Trinity College Dublin.

nomination, she underwent several rounds of interviews in October.

When Wragan found out she received the scholarship, she said she was caught off guard and excited for the “tremendous opportunity.”

“I am so appreciative,” Wragan said. “There were a lot of people involved in this.”

8 SPORTS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THEDP.COM

Six standout players from the fall season SPORTS | Gracyn Banks was Penn’s only field hockey player to earn first team AllIvy honors OLIVIA WEST Sports Reporter

Fall sports have ended, but nonetheless, these Quakers’ outstanding seasons are ones to remember, ranging from veteran, senior captains to inexperienced freshmen.

AUTUMN LEAK Junior outside hitter Autumn Leak earned second team All-Ivy honors this season. Leak led Penn volleyball with 314 kills, and finished third in the Ivy League in overall kills per set. This fall, Leak had 34 blocks, 104 digs, and three double-doubles, as well as 17 matches with a double-digit kill total. She was named MVP of the Sheraton University City Invitational and earned all-tournament recognition at the DePaul Invitational.

BRIAN O’NEILL

ARIANA GARDIZY

Senior linebacker Brian O’Neill finished his season as just one of two on the football team to be named first team All-Ivy — his second time earning the accolade. O’Neill had a team-high 59 tackles, and ranked sixth in the Ivy League in total tackles and ninth in tackles per game.

This season, he had two games with 10 or more tackles, and will graduate with 200 career tackles as a Quaker. In addition, this fall O’Neill showcased his versatility, as the senior had 4.5 tackles for loss, one interception, one fumble recovery, three quarterback hurries, and one pass breakup.

With a fourth-best time in program history at the 2021 Ivy League Cross Country Heptagonal Championships, senior captain Ariana Gardizy secured 15th place in the 6K and helped Penn women’s cross country take fifth place in the competition.

At the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, Gardizy led the Quakers, finishing in 22nd with an All-Region performance. This race also marked a new season-best time for Gardizy, ending two seconds faster than she did at the Ivy Heptagonals.

LEO BURNEY Freshman defender Leo Burney — the only Quaker on the men’s soccer team to earn first team All-Ivy honors — played 1,492 of a possible 1,514 minutes this season. He helped the Red and Blue’s defense hold 14 of its 16 opponents to two goals or fewer, and contributed to the team’s three shutouts.

Burney also scored his first collegiate goal against Dartmouth, an equalizer in the 86th minute of the game, which ended as a win in double overtime. Burney was one of the most constant on-field presences across all of Division I soccer this fall.

NOAH CAREY In the 2021 Ivy League Cross Country Heptagonal Championships, senior captain Noah Carey took seventh place with a personal career-best time as well as the second-best time in program history.

With this result, Carey also earned his first postseason honor with the first team All-Ivy accolade.

At the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, Carey finished third in the 10K, ending with a time just seven seconds behind first place. In his first collegiate NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship, Carey took 119th place out of 253, and missed his career-high mark by just three seconds.

With the season concluded, Carey is a first team AllIvy, Academic All-Ivy, and All-Region honoree.

Cross country senior Ariana Gardizy competes in a meet on Sept. 14, 2018.

CHASE SUTTON

GRACYN BANKS Senior field hockey captain Gracyn Banks represented the Quakers as the only member on the team to earn first team All-Ivy honors, her second All-Ivy accolade.

Banks was one of five Ivy League athletes unanimously selected to the first team, the first for Penn since 2016.

Banks was also named to the Division I first team All-Region by the National Field Hockey Coaches As-

sociation, as well as Ivy Defensive Player of the Week twice and Academic All-Ivy. Banks started in all 16 games this season, ranked second on the team in points, and led the Ivy League in defensive saves. Banks is now preparing to represent the United States in December at the 2021 Junior World Cup.

It’s a numbers game: Penn students detail their analytics internships in the NFL SPORTS | Two undergraduates helped implement analytics in their respective teams

NFL. Working with them gave Drapkin an inside look at what the future of gameplay might look like and how teams like the Ravens are well-positioned as the league undergoes a shift.

JOEY PIATT “Much has changed, and the Ravens just have a lot Senior Sports Associate built out because they’ve been doing it for a while now,” Drapkin said. “I think that the [Ravens and Cleveland Nearly every young sports fan dreams of one day Browns] are very exciting to watch as a result of that, growing up to work for their favorite team. because in football, the teams that are sharp analytiSimilarly, nearly every one of them also gives up on cally tend to play with styles and be aggressive in ways. this goal, chalking it up as an unrealistic pursuit. They Higher scoring makes things more exciting.” decide they’re content getting their front office fix by Like Drapkin, Hu spent her internship as an analytics playing in a fantasy league, participating in social media intern. However, Hu interned with a team much newer to water cooler talk, or annually queueing up Kevin Cost- the analytics trend. ner’s Draft Day film.

“The Lions, I would say, are a bit newer in terms of But for a pair of Wharton undergraduates, this fantasy analytics,” Hu said. “The department has only been became a reality last summer. Zach Drapkin, a senior around for a few years … so we’re kind of a small group studying statistics and decision processes, and Sarah Hu, right now.” a junior studying statistics and finance, lived out their Before Hu arrived in Motor City for her internship, childhood dreams as interns with NFL teams. the Lions had undergone drastic organizational shifts.

Drapkin spent training camp with the Baltimore Out went general manager Bob Quinn and head coach Ravens as a football analytics intern. For four weeks, he Matt Patricia, who were let go after several years of worked with the Ravens’ player personnel staff, learning lackluster on-field results. In their places arrived current how to approach the game with the critical lens required general manager Brad Holmes and first-year head coach of front office staffers.

Dan Campbell. Together, the two of them are trying to “A lot of the experience I got was figuring out how both rebuild the Lions roster and construct an analytics they watch practices,” Drapkin said on a recent episode department from the ground up. of The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Quaker Nation podcast.

“Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes are both very much “Hanging out with scouts, understanding how they think embracing analytics,” Hu said. “I think that’s great about things, watching film with them, dissecting film because they’re more willing to listen to what we’re [and] players. Every day, we would go out to watch prac- saying.” tice in the morning, talk to the scouts, ask them what they At first glance, it might seem like nothing has changed were looking for in different players.” for Detroit this season. The team is 0-10-1 and sits at While analytics are becoming a bigger part of the the basement of the NFC North standings. But on the The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation game for all NFL organizations, it is620 not Eighth yet a given that New field, andN.Y. in the front office, the tone is different with Avenue, York, 10018 teams prioritize them. The Ravens, however, are knownCall:this team. The organization is focused on winning, and For Information 1-800-972-3550 For Release Decemberinvolved 2, 2021 with the team plays a role in making to be one of the most analytically minded teams Thursday, in the everybody

NEWYORKTIMESCROSSWORDPUZZLE Edited by Will Shortz

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Check back next O L A to A week for answers C R E T W I S L I today’s V O Mpuzzle!

N Y K A C E O D A U S

P L E D

52 “Abso-lutely not!”

54 Be over 55 Broadcast journalist Paula 56 Purple shade 59 Not do anything 63 ___-Man 64 Zombies’ cry in the face of defeat?

66 Landmark 1973 court case, familiarly 67 Sync up 68 With 13-Down, playground promise 69 White wine aperitif 70 Old Apple Store offerings 71 Ophthalmological ailments DOWN 1 Sweets 2 Discover alternative, for short 3 Toon with a talking map 4 Fundamental 5 On the ___ (frequently, in modern slang) 6 Pro’s opposite 7 Classic clown name 8 Picturesque town on the Gulf of Salerno 9 Adroit 10 Sound made with one’s tongue 11 “I really appreciate it!”

12 Ball game

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Left: Wharton senior Zach Drapkin was an intern for the Baltimore Ravens last summer. Right: Wharton junior Sarah Hu was an intern for the Detroit Lions last summer.

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PUZZLE BY ALAN MASSENGILL

13 See 68-Across 18 Expedite 22 Causes of some brain freezes 24 Sandwich that’s 100% consonants 26 “Ugh!” 27 “My turn!”

28 Can 29 Something that may be pulled in college 30 “Bravo!” relative 31 Author of the “Symposium”

35 Stick with it!

36 Commotion 38 Suppressed 40 “Spare” item 41 Wild times at the mall, say 44 What the D.E.A. might keep tabs on?

46 ___ Ysidro, Calif.

49 Bassett of “Black Panther” 50 Ideal picnic forecast 51 “Yay, me!”

52 Netflix crime drama set in the Midwest 53 World capital with traditional water puppet shows for tourists 57 Preceder of a certain “-naut” 58 Puts on paper 60 Withhold from 61 Canoeing locale 62 Turkey Hill competitor 64 Colorless 65 Photo finish?

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 7,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

8 6

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Skill Level: Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit 1 to 9.

7 5

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Solution to Previous Puzzle:

© Puzzles provided by sudokusolver.com

27 Country music standard at zombie karaoke night?

32 Ending for some government 37-Across 33 Poker giveaway 34 “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” poet 37 Info in a modern bibliography 39 Gets warmer, so to speak 42 Tackles, say 43 Kind of reform or code 45 “Read the clues carefully” and “Check your crossing answers” [You’re welcome!]

47 Big name in nail polish 48 Reason the zombies are, of course, skipping the empty house?

then he [tossed the] Sharpie back, just uncapped. So, I actually have a Sharpie stain on my pants. But now I can tell people — if they ask why I have a Sharpie stain on my pants — that Jared Goff threw a Sharpie.”

While their internship ended months ago, Drapkin and Hu are still a part of their respective teams’ communities. They have continued supporting the players, coaches, and front office staffers that they spent the summer working so closely with. At the end of September, they even traveled to Detroit to see their two teams face off. What seemed like a lopsided matchup at first turned into an instant classic. The Lions nearly completed the upset, losing on a record-setting, 66-yard field goal by kicker Justin Tucker.

“Given that it was both the teams we had been working for over the summer, we thought it would be a good trip to plan,” Drapkin said. “The Lions fans were still sort of cheering and then it took a few seconds for it to hit everyone that [the field goal] went in … that was a historic moment.”

For Drapkin and Hu, the game was the perfect way to end their once-in-a-lifetime summer experiences. It captured the highs and lows that come with not just being a sports fan, but with being someone whose work translates into what happens on the field every Sunday. Those are the feelings that drew the two to want to work in sports, and they are the same ones that will propel them forward as they continue their careers in sports analytics.

No. 1028

Crossword

ACROSS 1 Possible result of a TMZ story 6 Behind, nautically 11 “American Dad!” network 14 Theme of la festa di San Valentino 15 Spanish equivalent of “Basta!”

16 Word with know or show 17 Future zombie’s last words?

19 Virtuoso 20 This is only a test 21 Sauce that’s 80% vowels 22 Worshiper at the ancient Qorikancha (“Golden Temple”) 23 Core group 25 Black-and-white movie effect

that happen.

That feeling of being a part of the team and feeling invested in the team’s on-field result each week was one of the best parts of working with a team for the two Wharton students.

“Being in an organization where everyone loves football and it’s oriented towards winning games, winning championships … There’s just like a sense of like family and camaraderie that I think is really unmatched,” Drapkin said. “It just felt like a special place to be because everyone was interested in the same things and really aligned toward the same goal.”

“One of the coolest things I was able to do there was just be around people who genuinely loved football,” Hu said. “I could just go across the hall and talk to one scout.

We could just start a discussion about one random coverage, and we could talk for a few hours and it would feel like no time had passed.”

The two also relished the “Welcome to the NFL” moments that made them stop and pinch themselves to make sure this wasn’t all just a dream.

For Drapkin, it was arriving for his first COVID-19 test at the Ravens facility and finding that he was standing right behind 2019 NFL MVP and former Heisman winner Lamar Jackson. For Hu, the moment came while she was facilitating autograph signings for Lions quarterback Jared Goff.

“Jared Goff was one of the guys I was assigned to,” Hu said. “So, I gave him a Sharpie and a football, and

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SPORTS 9

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021

A grateful Mia Lakstigala excels for Penn women’s basketball

ISABELLA COSSU

Senior guard Mia Lakstigala attempts to score on a Kings defender Nov. 16

SPORTS | Lakstigala trained with sophomore teammate Jordan Obi in California KRISTEL RAMBAUD Sports Reporter

Imagine this: It’s your sophomore year. You and your team have secured the second seed in the conference standings. You’re getting ready to play in the coveted conference tournament in hopes of reclaiming the title.

And then the whole world shuts down.

Months pass. Hopes for a season grow, and you’re itching to play some basketball again. You’re so close to tip-off. And then, a public statement shuts down your season before it even begins.

That’s the story of so many collegiate athletes last year — including Penn women’s basketball’s very own senior guard Mia Lakstigala.

For Lakstigala, the COVID-19 pandemic heavily affected what was supposed to be a collegiate career spent competing for the Ivy League title. Instead, the last time she played a full season of basketball was in the 2018-19 season — when she was just a freshman.

Even with the pandemic carrying on in the background, Lakstigala didn’t just spend all of that time watching TikToks and learning on Zoom. She used that time to improve as a player, so that when it was finally time to play for the Quakers again, she would be ready.

“I was able to work a lot individually,” she said.

“I really tried to just go to the gym and work on my ball handling and improve my shot.”

Lakstigala also got the chance to work on her game with a future teammate: sophomore forward Jordan Obi. Both had moved to California around the same time.

While a move is usually stressful and full of uncertainties, the move for Lakstigala — from her home state of Illinois across the country to California — was a great opportunity to bond with Obi before they went to Penn. They also used the opportunity of having teammates nearby to improve

their game.

“We were able to go to the parks and play pickup against guys. And I think them being stronger and faster really helped me improve my game,” Lakstigala said.

The pickup games, however, pale in comparison to playing alongside her teammates in the Palestra, as the Quakers try to reclaim the Ivy League title in her senior season.

“This year has been really nice to finally wear a Penn jersey again,” Lakstigala said. “It’s really helped me value every single game because nothing is guaranteed, so now I have a whole new perspective on being grateful for every time I get to play.”

Lakstigala had missed out on the entirety of her junior year. Now, as a senior, she has seen a significant increase in minutes.

Within the opening games of the season, Lakstigala has seen career highs in several categories. On Nov. 26 against University of California San Diego, she logged a career-high in minutes with 35. On Nov. 14, in Penn’s season opener against Hartford, Lakstigala scored a career-high 18 points.

Going from playing zero minutes last year to playing with significant minutes this season has certainly been a transition — but definitely a fun one.

Lakstigala cites her teammates as a major factor behind her success this year.

Over her four years as a Quaker, she has had the chance to create lifelong bonds with her teammates and watch them grow as people and players.

“It’s really been great to see everyone just grow so much – not just on the basketball court, but as individuals as well. We’re all super close, so we’re all each other’s number one’s supporters. When one person does well, it feels like an accomplishment for everyone.”

Her bond with her teammates is something that she greatly cherishes about her time at Penn. Her relationships with her teammates are what makes being on the basketball team even more special.

Without these strong bonds, the team’s tournaments to exciting places like Hawaii — which she described as her favorite trip as part of the team — and California wouldn’t be as memorable and

exciting.

Outside of her teammates, Lakstigala cites her family as making her into the person and player that she is today. She grew up surrounded by basketball and played from a very young age.

Additionally, Lakstigala grew up in a basketball family: her father played basketball for the University of Iowa and was her assistant coach in high school.

The Lakstigala family has always been very supportive of her career. She says that her family makes sure to watch all of her games online, because they can’t be there in-person.

With everyone rallying behind her, Lakstigala is ready for what faces her next. Most importantly,

she’s getting ready for the next step in her journey: New York City. Lakstigala will be moving there after graduation. While she’s nervous about the future, she’s excited for this next chapter.

But first thing is first: there’s an Ivy League title to win.

“It took a lot of hard work and dedication [to win the Ivy League regular season in 2019], so we’re trying to emulate that same type of drive each day, whether it’s at practice or just getting work in ourselves. We all try to work hard to achieve that goal of winning the Ivy League,” Lakstigala said. “If we just continue to grow and do what we’re doing, I think we’ll have a really good chance.”

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII NO. 28

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MEN’S BASKETBALL

COMES UP SHORT AGAINST NO. 6 VILLANOVA, 71-56

ANNA VAZHAEPARAMBIL

Sophomore guard Jordan Dingle attempts a contested layout while a Villanova defender tries to block the shot on Dec. 1 in the Palestra.

SPORTS | The Quakers managed to stay within 10 points for much of the second half KRISSY KOWALSKI Sports Reporter

Down but never out.

The last time these teams faced off in the Palestra in 2018, Penn (3-7, Big 5 0-1) came away with a big 78-75 win, but a lot has changed since then.

Penn men’s basketball dropped their opening Big 5 game against No. 6 Villanova (5-2, 2-1) by a score of 71-56. Notably, Penn’s leading big men, junior Max Lorca-Lloyd and freshman Nick Spinoso, were both sidelined with injuries during the game, a major detriment to the team’s frontcourt.

“It’s pretty impressive, [their] physical, mental toughness,” coach Steve Donahue said. “I am pleased with how we performed over stretches and how we competed. It takes every ounce of us to compete against that kind of physicality and toughness.”

Villanova senior Brandon Slater won the tip off against Penn junior Michael Moshkovitz, and the Wildcats scored the first points of the game with a pull up jumper from junior Justin Moore to make it 2-0, Villanova.

The Wildcats came out strong and held the lead for the rest of the game, excluding one tie score.

Sophomore Jordan Dingle (who was questionable for the game due to illness) came away with the first points for the Red and Blue after being fouled on a drive inside. After missing the first free throw shot, he was able to sink the second that cut the lead in half, 2-1. Early into the game, Penn got down by a score of 6-1 after a strong Villanova run, but was able to tie the game at 9-9 with 13 minutes left in the game.

“You watch certain teams and you prepare to play them, and you get caught up in all the good things they do, and that is why they are always a tough matchup for us,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said.

“I think they’re a really good team, [we] couldn’t

put them away, tough as hell. They hit tough shots in this place.”

Out of the media timeout, the Wildcats began to pull away and gained a 22-9 lead in a three-minute span. Penn finally responded with a three-pointer of their own, which came from junior guard Jonah Charles that cut the lead to 22-11.

A few minutes later, Penn continued the runoff of two huge three-point knockdowns from sophomore forward/guard Max Martz to make it a 28-18 lead for the Wildcats with three minutes left in the half.

With the clock winding down at the end of the half, Penn found Charles on the sideline for a threepointer buzzer beater to make it a 33-21 game at halftime.

Coming out of halftime, Dingle scored the first points of the half with a two-pointer to make it a 3323 game, but the Wildcats responded with a 6-0 run in two minutes that put them up big.

The Quakers would end up making a run of their own in the second half to cut the large Villanova

lead and make it a 57-49 game with a little over five minutes left. However, they couldn’t seem to find an answer for graduate student Collin Gillespie, who ended the game with 26 points. For every point that Dingle would score, it appeared that Gillespie had an answer of his own, as Dingle ended the night with 21 points.

“It was an awareness of the situation,” Dingle said. “I recognized what the team needed, and I tried to do that whatever it is. Granted, I may not be feeling 100%, my teammates have my back, [and] my coaches have my back.”

Villanova never gave up control to the Quakers and ended up going on a run of their own to extend their lead to 62-49 with three minutes left in the game. While the Quakers were able to cut the lead to 12 points, they finished the game down by 15, a tough loss for a team in need of momentum as they continue Big 5 play.

The Quakers will be back in action with another Big 5 matchup at Temple on Saturday, Dec. 4.

Plagued by turnovers, Penn women’s basketball falls to La Salle, 63-49 SPORTS | The loss marks the Quakers’ second in Big 5 play this season KATHRYN XU Sports Associate

Penn women’s basketball’s matchup against La Salle was a messy, messy contest.

With the majority of Penn’s usual starters once again out due to suspensions, the Quakers dropped their second Big 5 game of the season to the Explorers, 63-49.

After an early steal on the first play of the game, senior guard Mia Lakstigala was fouled in transition and scored on both free throws. The play foreshadowed much of the first quarter, which saw very little scoring and a great deal of turnovers.

Though Penn (4-3) dominated the Explorers (43) in chances and offensive boards, they were unable to convert on offense. The score stood 4-2 in favor of Penn with all four of Penn’s points scored through free throws, until La Salle guard Claire Jacobs then hit two consecutive three-pointers to put the Explorers up 8-4.

The flow of the game — generally strong defense, followed by turnovers or messy offense — was exemplified by two plays late in the first.

With three minutes remaining, junior guard Sydnei Caldwell stole the ball, but freshman guard Lizzy Groetsch was unable to convert on a layup. And with two minutes remaining, Groetsch managed to steal the ball from La Salle’s Jaye Haynes, but then lost it again to Haynes.

La Salle’s Kenya Côté-Lysius struck back with a buzzer beater three to put La Salle up 12-11 at the end of the first.

“I didn’t think we had any fluidity to us on the offensive side,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said. “We held the ball too long. We did not move the ball. We didn’t cleanly reverse it. Give La Salle credit, because they guarded us pretty well, but there was some poor offensive play in this game.”

The second quarter continued in much the same manner, albeit with La Salle coach Mountain MacGillivray flashing both five-person substitutions and varied shouting postures. Neither team got on a scoring run, and the teams racked up 27 turnovers total around halfway through the quarter.

Penn has struggled to defend against threepointers so far this season, and their struggles SEND STORY IDEAS TO DPSPORTS@THEDP.COM

ISABELLA COSSU

Senior guard Mia Lakstigala rebounds the ball after a missed shot by the Kings during the game on Nov. 16.

continued, as La Salle hit two threes to pull ahead 22-18.

Sophomore forward Jordan Obi picked up some production after a slow first, with eight points in the second quarter and the last Penn score of the half, where Penn led 28-26. Lakstigala continued to make up half of Penn’s offense. “[Lakstigala] made some shots. She was really our only offensive threat out there today,” McLaughlin said. “She had opportunities she left out on the floor … but she competed, and statistically, she certainly helped us.”

In the third quarter, Penn was able to grow its lead despite some offensive struggles, thanks to La Salle turnovers.

Junior guard Mandy McGurk scored her first

points of the game by stealing the ball from CôtéLysius, resulting in an easy layup without another player within six feet of her. After Lakstigala scored a three-pointer, McGurk replicated the move, this time against La Salle’s Molly Masciantonio.

“Mandy’s going to give you everything out there. Everything she has — she’s going to give [it] to you on the floor,” McLaughlin said. “When you get a girl like Mandy taking 15 shots … you know she was trying to make up for some lack of offense in other areas.”

At one point, Penn was able to amass a ninepoint lead. The referee saved a cameraman’s life by catching the basketball before it could hit him in the head, and thus ended what would ultimately be Penn’s best quarter.

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La Salle hit two straight three-pointers and tied the game at 45-45 in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. From there, the Quakers were unable to recover, with turnovers and foul trouble biting them hard. After La Salle went on a 14-0 run, going up 53-45, there was a scoreless stretch reminiscent of the first quarter, where neither team could get much going, until Obi hit two free throws to break the streak.

The only time Penn would score following Obi’s free throws would be off a jumper by Groetsch.

The game ended 63-49, with the Quakers suffering one of their worst-fought losses of the season so far.

Hoping to bounce back, the Quakers will face Bucknell in Lewisburg, Pa. on Dec. 3.

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