March 18, 2021

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII NO. 8

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52 weeks, faces,

stories

To commemorate the 52 weeks since the University was evacuated, The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke to 52 members of the Penn community, who shared how the pandemic has impacted their lives.

JONAH CHARLTON Senior Reporter

O

ne year ago — on March 18, 2020 — Penn’s campus laid completely dormant for the first time in nearly a century.

Locust Walk, which just a week before was a bustling campus thoroughfare, was eerily empty. The Quad’s cast-iron gates, typically positioned wide open for thousands of students to pass through every day, were shuttered closed. And in Van Pelt Library, previously packed with students cramming for midterm exams, no one could be found.

The University had just made the unprecedented decision to shift classes online and close on-campus housing for the remainder of the semester in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. The decision prompted cancellations of cherished Penn traditions such as Hey Day, commencement, and Penn Relays.

In the 52 weeks that followed, the 40,000 members of the Penn community and people around the globe had their worlds turned upside down by a pandemic that has taken nearly 2.7 million lives.

After initially planning to reopen campus in the fall, Penn reversed its plan and closed on-campus housing following a nationwide

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spike in cases just weeks before students were scheduled to move in. In the spring, Penn was able to reopen on-campus housing to an overwhelmingly successful degree following a fall semester positivity rate of 1.55%. After a spike in early February to a positivity rate of 4.58% in the undergraduate community, Penn’s COVID-19 positivity rate has decreased for five straight weeks to a semester low of 0.19%.

Nearly one year after the campus first closed, Penn announced last week it was planning for a return to in-person, on-campus instruction in fall 2021, giving the Penn community a glimmer of hope that the end of the pandemic may be within sight.

To commemorate the 52 weeks since the University was first evacuated, The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke to 52 members of the Penn community, including students, faculty, staff, and West Philadelphia community members, who shared how the pandemic has impacted their lives. Ranging from University administrators detailing their decision to close campus to personal reflections on loss and grief, read their stories on pages 6 and 7.

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With excess funds due to pandemic, PSG pursues new projects

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Penn Student Government will launch a grocery delivery service among other projects to benefit marginalized communities on campus

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Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor and author of Grit

The COVID-19 pandemic has left Penn Student Government’s reserve fund with more than $900,000, allowing it to spend more money than usual on new initiatives this year — many of which are intended to benefit first-generation, low-income students and students of color.

After students evacuated campus last March, many Student Activities Council-funded clubs did not use much of the money allocated to them, resulting in an unusually high amount of money left to the reserve fund. College junior and SAC Chair Grayson Peters said that, although the size of the reserve fund, an account that holds unused funds that have been allocated to PSG branches by the University, was due in part to COVID-19, money has been accumulating in the fund for years.

Now, PSG is working with the Office of Student Affairs to use the money to make large, one-time purchases or endowments, including an endowed fund for public service internships and a grocery delivery pilot program for highly aided students.

College junior and Undergraduate Assembly Vice President Mary Sadallah said that OSA approached PSG this fall about the large amount of money in the reserve fund and encouraged PSG to spend it on projects to help students. If PSG Steering, a group made up of the heads of all six PSG

branches, does not vote to use the funds, the University can also use the money for projects, Sadallah said.

“It’s student money, so we wanted to jump on that opportunity and use it in ways that we saw fit,” Sadallah said.

College senior and UA President Mercedes Owens said PSG decided to fund five new initiatives out of the reserve fund to help FGLI students and other marginalized communities on campus.

One will be a grocery delivery pilot program for highly aided students, which will use $150,000 of the reserve fund. Owens said that she is still working with a vendor to determine the logistics of the program, but she expects to see it running within one month.

Sadallah is leading a $100,000 COVID-19 care package project for students living in Philadelphia, which will include items that help students socialize outside safely, including picnic blankets and beanies, to encourage students to spend time together outside, even in colder weather. Packages will be free for students living near or on campus and all items will be distributed by early April.

PSG also contributed $18,600 to the shipping costs for P sweaters — which are traditionally sold by the junior Class Board each year — for the Class of 2022. Owens said the 2022 Class Board faced unusually high costs for P sweaters this year because of the need to ship to students away from campus.

Another $150,000 will go towards a social equity fund for social events for minority groups on campus. Owens said that, while funding exists for SEE PSG FUNDING PAGE 3

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The current Penn Student Government’s reserve fund of $900,000 will allow the organization to spend more money to benefit first-generation, low-income students and students of color.

Everything you need to know for your next big move, all online.

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speakers and programming for minority groups, some of these groups lack the independent funding for social events that predominantly white Greek organizations or other clubs have. The social equity fund aims to bridge that gap, Owens said.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021 PSG will also allocate $320,000 towards an endowed fund for public service research and internship positions that are often unpaid or underpaid, Peters said. PSG is working with the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and the Civic House to set up this program.

In August, PSG contributed $250,000 of the reserve fund to fund Black student programming

through UMOJA, Makuu: The Black Cultural Center, and the Center for Africana Studies. PSG also called on Penn to match the donation — but the University would not commit to doing so, maintaining that it has increased funding for Black student groups over the past several years.

Owens said that, although not all of these projects will be launched this year — especially the

public service internship funding — they all have received approval from OSA to be implemented.

“If [the initiatives] are not implemented this year, the plans, and the infrastructure, and the allocations have already been made, so they will be implemented eventually,” Owens said. “If something doesn’t immediately pop up, it takes time to have it be approved and actually implemented.”

Seniors, recent graduates navigate job market decimated by COVID-19 Many recent and soon-to-be graduates have found fewer available opportunities and had employment offers rescinded SUMMER WYLIE Staff Reporter

Finding employment is rarely easy — but for the Penn Classes of 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 has made navigating the job market even more difficult.

Many recent and soon-to-be graduates have found fewer available opportunities, had employment offers rescinded, and felt uncertain and anxious throughout the application process. Some of those who found employment worked remotely, and applications and interviews were conducted online.

The Class of 2020 had a slightly lower percentage of students graduate with a full-time job than the Class of 2019. According to Penn Career Services’ Class of 2020 Career Plans Survey Report, which aggregates post-graduation plans for slightly more than three-fourths of the graduating class whose plans are known, 74% of students graduated with full-time employment, 15% planned to continue education, and 6% were still seeking employment.

For the Class of 2019, 77% graduated with full-time employment, 14% planned to continue education, and 5% were seeking employment.

Generally, fewer members of the Class of 2020 accepted job offers late in the spring of their senior year compared to the Class of 2019. Five percent of employed Class of 2020 graduates accepted job offers in April 2020 as the pandemic intensified in the United States. But in 2019, 10% of employed graduating seniors accepted offers in April.

Students graduating from Wharton’s MBA program in 2020 similarly faced struggles

finding employment — 93.5% of 2020 Wharton MBA graduates entered the job market with full-time employment, the lowest percentage since 2010.

Some students who secured a full-time job upon graduating in 2020 feared that their offers would be rescinded because of the financial strain and safety concerns the pandemic imposed on employers.

2020 College graduate Matthew Schnitzer considers himself among the more fortunate members of his class. He spent the summers after his sophomore and junior years interning at Hines, a real estate investment firm, and worked there two days a week in the fall of his senior year. He was offered a full-time position after graduation and now works at Hines as an analyst. Schnitzer credits the experience he had with the firm and the relationships he had developed as reasons why he was able to hold onto his offer.

He said he felt anxious when he received an email from his employer in April 2020 asking to discuss his start date — which was ultimately moved up from July to June 2020.

“I was just terrified that it was going to be what I had heard was the case for so many of my friends — that I was going to get on the phone, and they’d say, ‘We said we wanted you to start in July, [but] why don’t you start in January, or September, or what have you.’”

2020 College graduate Raquel Levitt also feared a delayed start date or rescinded offer for her job. She said she received a job offer from American Express, where she now works as an analyst, in the fall of her senior year through on-campus recruiting. But instead of spending the rest of the year celebrating her achievement, Levitt said she felt anxious in the spring as the offers of many of her peers were rescinded.

Levitt’s roommate, 2020 College graduate Caroline Terens, decided not to participate in fall 2019 recruiting because she did not yet want to make a decision on her future. She started to submit applications in the spring to work at nonprofit and social impact organizations, a

field she said was hit hard by COVID-19.

“Once [COVID-19] happened, and that’s when I started applying to jobs, I would really not even hear back from companies, or three months later, get told that they postponed their hiring process or were pausing it completely. And that was kind of the story for all of spring and all of summer,” Terens said.

Terens spent most of fall 2020 applying to positions and networking with past internship connections and Penn alumni using QuakerNet, sharing that some people with whom she spoke compared the situation to that of those graduating during the Great Recession.

She said she found the time-consuming nature of networking and application processes to be comparable to a full-time job, adding that it was difficult to have to compete against older individuals who were unemployed because of the pandemic. Many people lost jobs during the pandemic, and the United States unemployment rate peaked in April 2020 at 14.8%.

Terens was ultimately hired and began work in November 2020 as a grants coordinator at Share Our Strength, a nonprofit combating hunger and poverty.

She said she enjoys her job, which is entirely remote, and is eager to move to the office and have the chance to learn from her colleagues in person.

For the Class of 2021, the pandemic has hampered their post-graduation job search, starting with their 2020 summer internships — many of which were canceled or scaled down, making it harder to secure post-graduation return offers. Engineering and College senior Vraj Shroff received a full-time offer at the end of his tech internship last summer, but he said many of his friends’ internships were canceled.

Despite his return offer, Shroff participated in virtual fall recruitment but said the process was delayed, as some tech firms did not begin recruiting until late summer instead of early summer. Such delays resulted in students receiving offers later than usual, providing them with less time to accept or reject their offer,

Shroff said. Shroff received one offer the week before the deadline, and he had little opportunity to speak to Career Services, his professional connections, or explore other opportunities and options.

He added that there is increased instability in hiring during the pandemic, adding that his friend lost their internship at The Walt Disney Company and is currently struggling to find other work. Shroff said he has felt that jobs in finance have been made more difficult to find in light of the pandemic than those in engineering, which motivated him to accept his return offer in tech rather than seek employment in finance.

College senior Melissa Cortes said she faced a “frantic” search for a summer internship last spring.

After advancing through first-round interviews before COVID-19 hit, one of her potential internship opportunities was canceled. Relying largely on connections made during her participation in the Penn in Washington spring 2020 program, Cortes was able to land a remote summer internship with New York Attorney General Letitia James.

She ramped up her search for full-time employment in the fall of 2020, looking to work at a firm with resources that would help prepare her for law school.

Cortes was eventually hired as a legal analyst at Goldman Sachs in December. She said, however, that the application process was difficult — as some firms she was considering were not accepting applications.

Cores also found the entirely virtual hiring format difficult, adding that she prefers in-person interviews where she can better detect and respond to social cues.

Though a large number of recent graduates have been able to find employment amid an unstable job market, some students felt the process of finding a job was much more stressful during the pandemic than it would have been otherwise.

“It was really hard to deal with the recruiting season without the support that we had last year,” Shroff said.

Penn students, experts report negative impact of pandemic on mental health While CAPS has not experienced any notable changes, other organizations have seen an uptick in individuals seeking help since the onset of the pandemic HELEN RUDOLER Staff Reporter

One year of social isolation, loss of loved ones, and uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a deep toll on people’s mental health as seen around the world and within the Penn community.

Students have turned to Counseling and Psychological Services’ telehealth services and student-led organizations like Penn Initiative for Minority Mental Health and Project HEAL: Help to Eat, Accept and Live to cope with the pandemic’s effects on their mental health.

While CAPS has not experienced any notable change in the number of students seeking services, according to CAPS Senior Clinical Director Michal Saraf, other organizations have seen an uptick in individuals seeking help since the onset of the pandemic.

College sophomore Nicole Harrington has been to CAPS every semester she has been at Penn. She’s had an overwhelmingly positive experience, which she attributes to having a Black female counselor during her first year with whom she could identify, and who she still keeps in touch with. This semester, she has been attending virtual counseling sessions. Harrington likes to make the most of a situation, but said that the virtual experience is not ideal. On top of missing the connection of an in-person conversation, she said she has found that there are technical issues and distractions when attending a session from home.

“With the transition to online sometimes it gets laggy, or there’s a dog barking or things like that, so it’s hard,”

Harrington said.

Even with the pitfalls of virtual sessions, Harrington said she has still found her CAPS sessions to be positive and productive.

All CAPS programming — including both drop-in and standing appointments — has been conducted virtually since the outset of the pandemic in mid-March.

CAPS later expanded its hours from 45 to 57 hours per week in October 2020 in an effort to reach students across time zones and to meet student needs, regarding the pandemic specifically as well as typical college stressors.

“People are coming in for a range of concerns that are similar to the range that we have always seen, but now the context [behind those concerns] may be the pandemic,” Saraf said. “Sometimes concerns due to the pandemic are standalone, but often it’s in concert with other things that people are struggling with.”

While some students found support at CAPS, many other students connected with student-led organizations — including Project HEAL: Help to Eat, Accept and Live, which is a national organization that works to eliminate barriers to receiving treatment for eating disorders.

Within the Penn chapter, students fundraise for the national organization as well as facilitate conversations and workshops about eating disorders and body-positivity.

College sophomore and co-leader of the Penn Project HEAL chapter Audrey Singer said that she has received an increased number of individuals reaching out and looking for help as well as looking to become involved.

College sophomore Hannah De Oliveira has become involved with Project HEAL over the past year, after first coping with her own eating disorder at the beginning of the pandemic.

De Oliveira said she entered into treatment for her eating disorder in spring 2020 and though the program was initially in person, it became virtual after she stepped down to a lower level of care. She said she found

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S tudents have turned to C ounseling and Psychological Services’ telehealth services.

the switch to virtual therapy challenging.

“I think you just connect with people in general more when you’re in person and you have better experiences both therapeutically and in general with people when you’re in person. So I think that transition was really hard,” De Oliveira said.

She said that recovering during quarantine was particularly difficult because there was so little she could do to stay active. This fall, however, she became involved in Project HEAL to continue her own recovery as well as to use her own experience coping with her eating disorder during quarantine to help other students.

Kristin Szostak, the site director at The Renfrew Center of Philadelphia in Center City, said that people who suffer from eating disorders have been particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic largely due to forced isolation. She added that eating disorders often manifest when individuals are looking to take control of

an aspect of their lives and are in almost survival mode.

“No one alive has experienced something like the pandemic,” Szostak said. “This can certainly manifest itself in a number of different presentations, including in an eating disorder.”

She said that since the onset of the pandemic, the Renfrew Center has seen a striking increase in outpatient providers referring people for treatment. Szostak added that she believes conversions around both mental health and eating disorders have become less stigmatized over the past years and the pandemic has aided in the destigmatization.

“Given the acuity of the situation we are in globally, this has really launched the conversation [around both mental health and eating disorders] more than it might have come up organically,” she said.

For College first year Amy Vidal, destigmatizing conversations around minority mental health is why she joined Penn Initiative for Minority Mental Health, a group dedicated to creating safe spaces for discussion of mental wellness for minorities at Penn.

“Transitioning to Penn from the high school level to the college level has been challenging for me personally,” Vidal said, adding that PIMMH was a place where she was able to openly discuss these challenges.

College first year and PIMMH member Naveen Farook had a similar experience. She said that not being able to experience her first year at Penn as planned was a major disappointment, and that while Penn closing oncampus housing this fall was the right decision for the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff, it was still difficult for her to reconcile that with her suffering mental state.

“Your mental health doesn’t really take into consideration the logical circumstances,” Farook said.

“Your mental health just depends on how you feel, and how you’re reacting to everything that’s going on around you.”

Philadelphia and Penn’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, explained SARIKA RAU Staff Reporter

Earlier this week, Penn announced it is planning for in-person, on-campus instruction for the fall semester, citing the increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide as a large reason for its optimism.

Top University administrators wrote that President Joe Biden's March 11 promise to make every adult in the United States eligible for vaccination by May 1, as well as his projection that there will be enough vaccines for every adult in the United States by the end of May, have allowed the University to be hopeful regarding in-person instruction. Philadelphia health officials also predicted that the city will be able to meet Biden's goal and vaccinate a majority of residents by July.

But what exactly does all of this mean for members of the Penn community, and what should they do after receiving the vaccine? The Daily Pennsylvanian has answers to all of those questions and more — here is everything you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout: Where does Philadelphia's vaccination process stand right now?

Currently in Philadelphia, the vaccine is available to people in phases 1A and 1B, which includes essential frontline and healthcare workers, people working and residing in congregate settings, people 65 years

KYLIE COOPER

Philadelphia resident Mary Hall gets vaccinated at the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium vaccine clinic at Temple University’s Liacouras Center. and older, and people with high-risk medical conditions.

These phases only apply to people living in Philadelphia, not the state as a whole, because Philadelphia receives its vaccine supply directly from the federal government, giving the city more freedom in determining its vaccine distribution.

A central aspect of Philadelphia's plan is including people under 75 years old with certain health conditions and some essential workers in phase 1B, when they would be vaccinated in phase 1C under state guidelines. As a result, Philadelphia can cater to its population of people of color and low-income residents, which is larger than

elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

These health conditions are more common in people of color and in low-income residents, Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said at a weekly briefing.

What would a potential vaccination rollout on campus look like?

Penn still has yet to receive word from the city regarding when it may receive an allotment of vaccines. In addition to the timeline, many of the logistics regarding a potential vaccine rollout at Penn — including potential vaccination sites, vaccine storage facilities, and how students would register to receive the vaccine — remain up in the air.

Setting up the physical infrastructure not only to vaccinate thousands of people within the Penn community, but also to keep track of their medical records, is nothing short of a herculean task in and of itself, Chief Wellness Officer Benoit Dubé said. The Penn health system, Penn Wellness, and Penn Medicine are already working in conjunction to prepare for mass vaccinations regardless of the specific type of vaccine the University may receive.

Vaccinations for faculty and staff will be conducted in partnership with the Penn health system, while Penn Wellness will handle student vaccinations, Dubé said. Specifics about vaccination plans are yet to be determined.

Dubé also explained the first step in answering any of these logistical questions is knowing which type of

vaccine the Penn community will receive from the the city. This, he explained, leads to even more specifics that need to be worked out.

"We actually don't get to decide [which vaccine we get]," Dubé said. "We don’t have a calendar of 'you will get this, and this is when you will get it,' so there are all of these uncertainties we are juggling with, but behind the scenes, we’re preparing to be able to administer vaccines."

The three vaccines currently in circulation — Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — each have different requirements for the number of doses that are necessary for full vaccination, the required length of time in between doses, and necessary storage methods.

“There are all these permutations that we have to plan for, and we have to be flexible,” Dubé said.

What should students do until it's their turn to be vaccinated?

The short answer: Wait your turn and be patient.

Director of Campus Health Ashlee Halbritter said that the benefits associated with being vaccinated are not a reason for students to cut the line or jump ahead of those who are mandated by the city to receive the vaccine first.

"We at Penn, and maybe even across the city, could absolutely see a reduction in case counts in general if we vaccinated our college student population," SEE VACCINES PAGE 4

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Students recount losing family members to COVID-19 complications The students expressed hope that their stories would compel their peers to follow COVID-19 safety protocols LINDSEY PERLMAN AND SUKHMANI KAUR Staff Reporter and Contributing Reporter

College junior Diana Cruz watched in horror in Long Beach, Calif., as one by one, her family members got sicker and sicker with COVID-19. First, it was her sister, 23, who tested positive on Dec. 30, 2020 and lost her sense of taste. Then it was her mother, Maria Guadalupe Rodriguez, 63, who kept sleeping for longer and longer hours each day, until she could barely walk and eventually became comatose. Finally, her father, 65, and other sister, 27, fell ill.

Cruz went from pleading with her mother to go to the hospital to “pulling the plug” on her ventilator just days after she was declared brain dead on Jan. 14.

Looking back, she can only wonder if her mother was covering up the severity of her illness to shield her from more emotional distress.

Cruz said she doesn’t know why she was spared from contracting the virus herself. In the final weeks leading up to her mother’s passing, Cruz, a pre-medical student, said she watched her coursework play out in real life. As the youngest in her family, Cruz was thrust into caring for her ill family members — running around her house masked as she cooked meals, incessantly cleaned rooms, and brewed many batches of fresh tea for her family members.

Although Cruz’s other family members eventually recovered, she said the loss of her mother made her feel helpless.

Thousands of miles from Penn’s campus, Cruz said she heard rumors of students throwing parties and disregarding social distancing, prompting feelings of helplessness and anger as she witnessed the detrimental impact of COVID-19 first-hand. She remains full of questions: How had her mother contracted COVID-19 when her family had been so careful with safety protocols, and why had the virus been able to wreak such havoc on her family?

One year after Penn evicted students from campus as COVID-19 was declared a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organization, The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with members of the Penn community who lost family members and loved ones due to complications from the virus. All of them described how their outlook on life and the pandemic were upended in just a year. They expressed hope that their stories would send a resounding message to members of the Penn community who continue to disregard COVID-19 safety protocols.

Saying goodbye Standing in a hospital corridor in May 2020, College junior Evan Rosario clutched a baby monitor in his hand and stared through the glass window at his grandmother, who lay still on her bed. It was time to say goodbye.

“I love you, grandma,” Rosario said to his grandmother, Cynthia Rosario, 73, in his last words to her. “I wish this wouldn’t have happened to you, but it’s okay for you to go. You can rest.”

It was almost midnight, and Rosario’s family had rushed to the hospital, piling into their car for the onehour trip to Inspira Medical Center in New Jersey.

Under the fluorescent hospital lighting, Rosario said that time moved slowly as the baby monitor was passed from family member to family member.

Almost a year later, the experience still haunts Rosario’s memory. Eight months after his grandmother died, his cousin Jeany Pope, 53, who worked as a nurse, also died of COVID-19 complications.

“There’s this emptiness that goes with me and it feels like I’m floating in space watching the world around

PHOTO FROM EVAN ROSARIO

Evan Rosario with a photo of his grandmother, Cynthia Rosario

me,” Rosario said.

Students who lost family members to COVID19 were often not given ample time or space to say goodbye to their loved ones, whether it was due to the quick-progressing nature of the illness or public health protocols intended to limit its spread.

Unlike Rosario, College sophomore Eva Faenza was never given the chance to say to say goodbye to her great aunt. Virginia Rossi, who went by Ginny, died of COVID-19 complications in December 2020. Visitors were not allowed into the hospice care facility, and her great aunt was so short of breath that having a conversation was impossible.

Faenza’s great aunt was a cancer survivor, and only had three-quarters of a lung. Although she battled against COVID-19, she was eventually put into a hospice and died about a week later.

But Faenza said it did not become real for her until she arrived at the in-person funeral the next week, when she was surrounded by family members dressed in black.

Dealing with grief Faenza remembers the chilly, cloudy day in December when her family stood in a crowded cemetery in

New Jersey, watching her great aunt’s wooden casket lined with red flares — her great aunt’s favorite color — be lowered into the ground.

Once she stepped into the church, Faenza said she was overcome with emotion.

“I couldn’t control the crying,” she recalled. “Even though we weren’t close, I think the circumstances of losing someone to the pandemic that probably wouldn’t have died otherwise made me really upset.”

Faenza said she feels fortunate to have been able to attend the funeral in person. Funerals were prohibited in Philadelphia, so Faenza and her close circle of family traveled out of state for the service. For others, however, prohibitions on public gatherings have made it difficult for families to honor their loved ones at a funeral.

Senior Clinical Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Michal Saraf said the pandemic has dramatically altered the grieving process for students. Two major components of grief — the ability to say goodbye to a loved one and the means to engage in rituals surrounding death — are difficult, if not impossible, due to social distancing constraints, she said.

While grief can look different for each person, she emphasized that mourning a loss is both healthy and important to moving forward.

“Mourning is not a mental illness,” Saraf said.

“Mourning is a normal part of human function.”

Rosario said he mourns the loss of his family members by absorbing himself in his work as a student and pharmacy technician at a local Rite Aid in his hometown of Middletown, Del. Rosario stayed home from Penn this semester to support his other grandmother who lived in an assisted living facility and support vaccine rollout efforts within his community.

“I wanted to find a job that gives meaning,” he said.

During his 20-hour workweek, Rosario said he feels lucky to help patients and his local community.

Still, the weight from the loss of his grandmother brings him down when he gets off from his workday, or shuts his laptop after completing coursework.

of flipping between two worlds: home life and school work. She expressed gratitude for her pre-major advisor, who communicated her situation to her professors, and to her professors themselves, who gave her extensions on assignments and exams.

Saraf said that many students who use CAPS services have found their professors to be very accommodating when they face extenuating circumstances, and added that flexibility is essential for students dealing with difficult situations.

“Penn students, who tend to be really driven and hyper-focused on work, sometimes need to take a moment to breathe,” Saraf said. “Let’s talk about what you need to honor this person and let’s help you find room to do that in this strange world.”

Moving forward Months later, Cruz is still reminded of her mother on a daily basis. Cruz remains inspired by her perseverance; her mother left Mexico when she was 20 years old in search of a better life, hoping to be a nurse.

“That’s a big reason why I wanted to be pre-med.

That’s something we shared — medicine and health,” Cruz said.

Oftentimes, though, the reminders take an emotional toll on her. Cruz said she struggled in her physiology class, BIOL 215: Vertebrate Physiology, when the professor was lecturing on the pulmonary system, which played a role in her mother’s death.

PHOTO FROM DIANA CRUZ

Diana Cruz with her mother, Maria Guadalupe Rodriguez

PHOTO FROM EVA FAENZA

Eva Faenza with her great aunt Virginia Rossi

“There’s that creepy lost feeling that makes it tough when there is nothing going on,” Rosario said.

For students like Cruz, mourning is a balancing act

“My mother passed because her lungs stopped, and so her heart stopped, so she no longer had blood flow to the brain. That was one of the first things we learned in class,” she said.

Faenza is also reminded of her great aunt’s death on a near-daily basis every time she sees students disregard COVID-19 safety on campus. She said that her great aunt’s death served as a wake-up call.

“It became very real that I could potentially get really sick from COVID-19,” she said, hoping that other people will realize the same. “Losing a family member, or potentially infecting someone, is just not worth going out and partying every day.”

As deaths caused by COVID-19 deaths in the United States approach 540,000, Rosario implored students to consider the individual lives that were lost and the loved ones that were impacted.

“We should take a second to understand that everyone’s got a story,” Rosario said.

Here’s how Penn’s decisions during the pandemic impacted West Philadelphia Penn’s actions have affected the local community in a variety of ways BRANDON ANAYA Staff Reporter

Over a year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation, forcing thousands of Philadelphians and members of the Penn community to adapt to the challenges of life under various lockdown restrictions. The University’s actions regarding the pandemic have affected the West Philadelphia community in a variety of ways, ranging from its employment of local residents to its economic effects on local businesses.

An on-campus spring semester leads to fluctuating COVID-19 rates Penn invited over 3,000 undergraduates back to on-campus housing in January 2021, which prompted backlash from some West Philadelphians who felt blindsided by the decision, saying that they feared an outbreak would occur due to social activity on campus. They said that the impacts of the virus, which have disproportionately affected Philadelphia’s Black and Hispanic communities, would be exacerbated by students’ return.

First-year students as well as residential advisors reported large parties within days of moving in, confirming the concerns of West Philadelphian residents.

At its peak, undergraduate COVID-19 cases reached a 4.47% positivity rate during the week of Jan. 31 to Feb. 6., but recently dropped to a semester low of 0.19% during the week of March 7 to March 13.

“We at Penn, and maybe even across the city, could absolutely see a reduction in case counts in general if we vaccinated our college student population,” Director of Campus Health Ashlee Halbritter said.

Halbritter added that the benefits associated with being vaccinated are not a reason for students to cut the line or jump ahead of those who are mandated by the city to receive the vaccine first.

“I want students vaccinated as soon as possible and students want the same thing, but this is an opportunity to remind everybody about all of the racial

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Halbritter said. "But guess what? We’ve still had a lot of positive cases with almost zero hospitalizations in our students, and that’s not the case for all of the other groups that fall into the 1A, 1B, and 1C categories.”

Although the vaccine is proven to reduce the likelihood of death or hospitalization in those exposed to COVID-19, it is still unclear whether or not it reduces transmission of the virus post-exposure, making it essential for those at higher risk to be first in line before college-age students, who are statistically at a lower risk of death or hospitalization due to exposure.

injustices that we have been talking about all year,” Halbritter said. “But guess what? We’ve still had a lot of positive cases with almost zero hospitalizations in our students, and that’s not the case for all of the other groups that fall into the 1A, 1B, and 1C categories.”

Some students and faculty seek police abolition after Black Lives Matter protests In the midst of months-long protests against police brutality following the police killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, thousands petitioned the University to cut ties with the Philadelphia Police Department.

Last June, an assembly of Penn community members formed Police Free Penn to formally demand that the University also defund and disband the Penn Police Department, arising out of a petition with over 15,000 signatures. Some criticized Penn for not addressing the extent of its ties to the Philadelphia Police Foundation, and Black students also recounted experiences being profiled by members of Penn Police.

Following the backlash from students and faculty, Penn announced it would conduct an independent review of its Division of Public Safety, as well as stop purchasing tickets to attend Philadelphia Police Foundation fundraising events.

UMOJA, the umbrella organization for Black student groups at Penn, demanded action from the University by means of providing space on Locust Walk for Black students as well as terminating its relationship with the PPD and donating to West Philadelphia organizations. Although Provost Wendell Pritchett told UMOJA members that Penn would commit to donating to Black-owned organizations like the Philadelphia Bail Fund and Black Lives Matter Philadelphia, students told the DP they did not feel optimistic about the University meeting their demands.

The University has since maintained its relationship with the PPD, and demands for space on Locust Walk continue.

Penn pledges millions to resolve issues in Philadelphia’s schools The nationwide push for racial justice also renewed calls for the University to pay Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOTs, which would support public

services such as school systems. Student groups, City Councilmembers, and Penn professors have since continued to argue that PILOTs would provide much-needed financial support to schools — particularly amid COVID-19 — in efforts to address system racism and inequality.

In November 2020, the University announced it would contribute $100 million to the School District of Philadelphia over the next 10 years to address environmental hazards in the city’s schools, including asbestos and lead.

Students and professors criticized this contribution as a short-term commitment, and said that if the University paid PILOTs annually, they should be contributing $36.4 million per year. They did acknowledge, however, that the donation would be beneficial in improving students’ and teachers’ health by fighting against asbestos problems in schools.

Furloughs leave dining hall workers feeling expendable When the pandemic began, Penn’s dining provider, Bon Appétit Management Company, laid off its 140person retail dining staff without pay after March 31.

In response to a petition with over 8,000 signatures called for the University to compensate the laid-off workers, Penn decided to pay the staff for the remainder of the semester, until May 15.

In July, Bon Appétit sent a letter to employees requesting they confirm by the end of the month whether they would continue to work at Penn for the fall semester. Workers were told that if they did not return to work in the fall, their unemployment benefits would be cut off when the dining halls reopened in August. Several chefs expressed discomfort in resuming their work during the pandemic, and felt as if they had no choice but to return.

When the initially planned in-person fall 2020 semester was switched to be entirely online, Bon Appétit furloughed its entire staff at Penn. Those who had worked at the University for decades told the DP they felt disrespected learning they were furloughed from a TV news segment rather than their employer.

“The only thing it takes is for one person to put themselves in the shoes of the employees that work here,” one dining worker previously told the DP.

“Maybe that would just change the way that they treat us, because I don’t think any of them could survive living with what we have to live with.”

Despite interacting with students every day this spring semester, Bon Appétit workers were not allowed to schedule on-campus COVID-19 tests until almost a month after dining cafes began to open on campus on January 10.

Penn aids some local businesses amid economic harm In March 2020, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf issued a stay-at-home order, forcing all non-essential businesses to close, including many in University City. Penn then provided short-term rent abatement and grants ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to locally owned and operated retailers.

Executive Director of Real Estate Ed Datz told the DP that the University has continued to offer assistance to struggling businesses in the University City District boundaries. He explained that Penn has been evaluating each business’ monthly sales, providing rent, and operating expense relief according to the needs of each business, ranging from 25% to 75% reductions in rent.

Datz said that although businesses have improved their sales since the beginning of the pandemic, many are operating at a fraction of their pre-pandemic levels.

If students have the chance to get the vaccine — without breaking the city's regulations — whether due to underlying health conditions or other circumstances, Dubé said they should absolutely get it.

"Be resourceful, but patient at the same time — don't get carried away, and please don't cut the line," Dubé said.

What should Penn students do after being vaccinated?

Given that the majority of Penn students and local community members are unvaccinated, Dubé said it is unlikely that Penn's current public health guidelines for vaccinated community members will change before the end of the spring semester, even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

shifted their guidelines in early March.

According to the CDC's new guidelines, fully vaccinated people can visit other fully vaccinated or low-risk, unvaccinated people from a single household indoors without wearing masks, and they do not need to quarantine or get tested after a known exposure if they are asymptomatic — this provides much-needed clarity regarding what fully vaccinated people are safe to do.

The CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people should also continue to wear masks and practice physical distancing in public and while visiting with unvaccinated people who are at high risk or are from multiple households. Additionally, those who are fully vaccinated should still avoid medium- and

large-sized, in-person gatherings.

Earlier in the semester, Penn shifted its guidelines for fully vaccinated students, faculty, and staff, no longer requiring them to quarantine after exposure to known cases or after travel as long as they remain asymptomatic and are within three months follwoig receipt of the last dose. Fully vaccinated members of the Penn community are still required to get tested regularly in an effort to minimize COVID-19 transmission.

“We’re at a critical point. It’s frustrating because we’re almost there; we’re almost reaching the finish line, but this is not when we need to start breaking the rules and taking chances, so our public health guidance, as of now, will likely not change,” Dubé said.

AVI SINGH

A masked person stands in West Philadelphia’s Clark Park on March 10, several blocks away from Penn’s main campus.

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Students start @sincethepenndemic Instagram account to highlight bright spots of COVID-19 Students have started podcasts, shared recipes, drawn portraits, and more ROBERT YU Contributing Reporter

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Penn students have found joy in creating custom sneakers, releasing music on Spotify, launching podcasts, and skydiving.

An Instagram page called “Since the Penndemic” aims to spotlight student achievements and passion projects to emphasize the bright spots of students’ experiences during COVID-19. Wharton senior Anna Jellinek, Wharton junior Louisa Cacchione, Wharton senior Maggy Grigg, and College junior Mateen Tabatabaei started the account, @sincethepandemic, on Feb. 7 for a project in MKTG227: Digital Marketing and Electronic Commerce. Although the page has grown far more than the founders anticipated, its mission to illuminate the positive aspects of the last year remains the same.

As of March 6, Since the Penndemic has highlighted 14 students, including some who improved their homecooking skills, brewed their own kombucha, and shared recipes while encouraging honest dialogues about food.

The team has also showcased student art ranging from photography to portraiture.

Another post highlighted how Magic Carpet, a popular vegetarian food truck, has adapted to the pandemic by offering new online ordering and delivery options.

“We’re trying to be as loose as possible with our definition of who is in the Penn community and what is an achievement that is worth sharing,” Tabatabaei said.

Jellinek added that achievements can be monumental or just bring a smile to someone’s face.

Penn students can submit information about themselves to be featured on the account using a Google Form, which prompts users to respond to the statement “Since the Penndemic I’ve...” Jellinek said that when they first launched the account and did not have many followers, few people were willing to submit stories, requiring the founders to seek students out themselves.

Now, more people from outside of the founders’ circles are submitting their own stories.

The founders said that the idea for the project was inspired by their professor, Ron Berman, who suggested that social media pages that spread positivity and hope are especially empowering during a pandemic. The team decided that it would create a project that would uplift the Penn community, which led to the creation of Since the Penndemic.

If in-person activities resume next fall, Cacchione said the account will shift its coverage to illuminating how practices necessitated by the pandemic, such as online office hours, could improve in-person campus life.

While Penn students remain physically distanced from each other, the founders said the account has brought them closer to each other and helped them feel more connected to other Penn students. Jellinek said the project has helped her re-live the excitement of meeting interesting people on Locust Walk, and Grigg said she has enjoyed bonding with the other team members.

Cacchione said that running the account has also allowed her to gain a more positive perspective on the pandemic.

“It’s been a year of growth and some really cool opportunities,” she said.

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The first momentous pandemic decision I had to make, back in early March 2020 — to evacuate Penn’s campus — was absolutely heart-wrenching, even though it was essential. Each day we didn’t delay saved lives. Yet emotionally, it was the toughest call of my presidency and probably my entire professional life. The response of the Penn community was not only heartening, it was often heroic, banding together with kindness and compassion to see our way through.

More recent momentous decisions — to welcome students back to campus in January and most recently to invite our graduating seniors to an on-campus commencement in May — have been among the most uplifting of my professional life, and strikingly for the very same reasons. Having welcomed students back to campus, I see students making conscious choices each day to keep each other and our entire Philadelphia community safe, while simultaneously giving back and supporting one another. This is making an on-campus commencement possible. To me, it’s perfect proof that there’s nothing like the friendship and bonds created here — there’s no place like Penn.

—President Amy Gutmann

I won’t soon forget the deep sadness of walking down a quiet Locust Walk with no students.

Standing outside of an empty Franklin Field when it should have been the Penn Relays. Offering a prayer into a cell phone camera, instead of in front of robed graduates. Sitting in a quiet office with no work-study students. No food trucks, no tea with colleagues, no bumping into my work family near the LOVE statue while walking to a meeting. All of it very suddenly was gone. With every day of this early spring, it feels like all that was lost is growing back. New life is coming. More feet are on Locust Walk. And I am most grateful.

—Vice President for Social Equity and Community Chaz Howard

vide uninterrupted patient care to our students, while keeping our own staff and campus safe!

Personally, it was particularly challenging to focus my energy on our campus while grieving my own COVID-19-related loss of a loved one.

—Medical Director for Student Health Service Vanessa Stoloff Getting acclimated to this new role in the midst of a pandemic not only helped to redefine the role itself, but also redefined these words: nimble, flexible, advocacy and support — not only for me personally, but in the work that I do with the students as well.

—Patient Care Manager for Student Health Service Yuliis Bell A surprising and successful ability to run a center and deliver services to students in the remote domain. Deeply mourning hugging my family and friends in person and relishing the unexpected joy of virtual gatherings where laughter is shared.

—CAPS Senior Clinical Director Michal Saraf Cultivating hope and joy was a struggle at the beginning, but providing therapy, keeping in touch with our amazing CAPS staff, Zooming with loved ones, and meeting with students were connections that felt healing for me. There is a shared humanity that continues to move me forward.

The hope and joy feel a little more accessible now.

—CAPS Director of Outreach and Prevention Services Batsirai Bvunzawabaya "I am inspired and proud of the courage, compassion, and innovation of all health care workers on the front lines — but especially nurses. Our Penn School of Nursing undergraduate and graduate students and faculty have been part of these efforts – whether through clinical experiences, volunteer, and/or professional service — and I am so proud and grateful of their efforts."

—Nursing School Dean Antonia Villarruel "The crisis was the biggest experiment that anyone could have conducted. It taught me how resilient we are as a community. The students and faculty came together to find innovative methods to navigate the crisis in ways I simply could not have imagined."

—Penn Engineering School Dean Vijay Kumar "Prior to the onset of COVID-19, our office had

Through the grief, sadness, and loss, I was forced to have honest conversations with myself about the world I want to create in partnership with my loved ones, friends, colleagues, and students. In this moment, I feel a renewed faith that our relationships with one another and the love that we give to each other are the most important things we can collectively uplift.

—Vice Provost for University Life Mamta Motwani Accapadi Compared to most people, I have been privileged during this pandemic. Nonetheless, this past year has been hard on me. I had a grandchild born in July and have not been able to hold her and probably won’t until she is a year old. I have three other grandchildren and have not been able to play with them. FaceTime and Zoom engagements just are no substitute for in-person play. I also have not been able to be with my 87-yearold mother.

—Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Ezekiel Emanuel

"This has been a year of profound challenges for me and all of us at the Penn Women’s Center. It’s been so important to prioritize wellness and radical selfcare. As a team, we’ve learned to give each other grace and to meet our students where they are, providing them with what they need at that moment in time."

—Penn Women's Center Director Sherisse LaudHammond

"The pandemic encouraged me to turn local and do whatever I could do to aid my fellow neighbors in this trying time."

—College senior Heta Patel

of the essential workers."

—Penn Police officer Nickol Taylor "My wife lost her job and we were laid off without no pay, really just trying to stay afloat during this pandemic. It's been hard times for my family — like many others — but we're still trying to get through."

—Grassroots chef Troy Harris "We can’t wait for normalcy to return, as one of the great pleasures of this business is the relationships we develop with the students."

—Smokey Joe's owner Paul Ryan "Since we can’t be at the Greenfield Intercultural Center in person, we’ve enjoyed hosting programs, support, and community-building online.

We can't wait to welcome students back into our space for home-cooked community dinners, and signature programs like the Intercultural Leadership Retreat, our civil rights history spring break trip, and our annual Powwow."

—GIC Director Valerie De Cruz

Miss students in-person. Appreciate my LGBT Center teammate Malik and staff oodles. Truth is essential and not to be assumed. Be grateful. Care takes many forms. Happiness really is a dog’s kiss.

Miss students in-person. Accidental ‘run ins’ are essential. Penn staff rock. Art matters. Love — in its many forms — truly is my foundation. Did I mention I miss seeing students in person?

—LGBT Center Director Erin Cross "The pandemic has led to a pause in our menstrual distribution pilot program with the Undergraduate Assembly and Period@Penn and a complete restructuring of our pre-orientation pilot program, PennGenEq. While this has been disappointing, PAGE has been taking the time to slow down, re-evaluate our goals, and to work on welcoming more people into our community."

—Penn Association for Gender Equity Char and College junior Sam Pancoe

"Historically, our performances have been sold out, with rowdy crowds and an incredible energy that can’t be described. Virtually, we’ve had to create this magic in a different way in order to ensure the safety of both our members and our audiences."

—Bloomers Comedy Chairwoman and College senior Reagan Bracknell

"Using the Collaborative Online International Learning model, our virtual multinational nursing and midwifery exchange course is a pilot project, but we’re hoping to make it sustainable for years to come."

—Nursing Ph.D. candidate Nina Juntereal

has changed the very nature of how we work, parent, and live."

—La Casa Latina Director Krista Cortes "While I’m an introvert always working on the next big idea, the past year’s losses and racial tensions made me appreciate my connection to others. I’m heartbroken by the memories my children didn’t get to make, the students that I didn’t get to fully connect with, and the families that lost loved ones. I’m hopeful that we can see the gifts in each new day and be better to each other."

—Makuu Director Brian Peterson "This past year has brought unimaginable pain and suffering. There were missed milestones, instability, distrusts towards leaders, and over half a million lives lost. I worried most about our vulnerable student communities, and I continue to worry today because our community is experiencing an unprecedented amount of hate crimes fueled by rampant and unchecked racism.

I would like to experience that “light at the end,” but I know there is a lot of work needed in order to heal."

—PAACH Director Peter Van Do

“COVID-19 has created unprecedented times that have affected us all, and Nursing students are no exception. Granted we did get the vaccine and I’m not complaining about that at all, but COVID-19 and its regulations are unyielding. I do feel lucky to have a more 'standard' experience, as we are the ones with the most in-person classes, but like everyone else, I am looking forward to getting back to normal.”

—Nursing junior Kristian Correa

“Balancing the responsibility of my role as the Undergraduate Assembly president and what it means to me with the responsibility of taking care of my body and mind has been one of the most intense internal challenges I have ever faced.”

"We ask ourselves what really matters in crises, and the pandemic has given us all a chance to reset. While home in West Virginia during the fall semester, I was blessed to reconnect with family and help build my hometown’s high school football program. This reminded me that love and serving our communities are what matter — the foundations we should turn to. As IFC president, I hope to build these ideas of service and pure fraternity within our campus’ Greek community."

—Interfraternity Council President and College junior Kaden Stenger

“A lot of the work we're doing and have done over the past year is focusing on short-term challenges and taking advantage of opportunities that have arisen due to the changes Penn has made in response to the pandemic.”

—SCUE Chair External and Engineering junior Aidan Young “I had COVID-19 over a year ago. It’s not “just the flu” even if you personally have a mild case.

My long-term symptoms have had more of an impact on my life than the two weeks I actively had COVID-19. Be smart — we owe it to the West Philadelphia community.”

—Engineering sophomore Julia Lottman “As the realities of the pandemic became more present in our lives, our emotional well-being became challenged by the lack of opportunities to speak with people who may be experiencing similar hardships. As a result, Lambda Alliance

"As the president of Panhellenic Council, I’ve been trying to use this time as a chance to realign our vision and to think critically about the prejudices and barriers to entry that Greek life may provide. So, I’ve definitely been trying to use this time to voice my concerns and see how much positive change I can be a part of making."

—Panhellenic Council President and College and Wharton junior Shriya Beesam “The pandemic made me realize the importance of personal relationships. It allowed me to spend quality time with those important to me and to prioritize what’s important in life: your friends and family. It also taught me how to adapt to difficult situations.”

—Former President of Penn Dems and College senior Owen Voutsinas-Klose “When I started as a residential advisor in Riepe in fall 2019, I was focused on meeting my

“Despite circumstances nearly unfathomable a year ago, I remain hopeful for our future for one reason alone: the resolve of our community.

Faculty pivoted their classes, staff adjusted their engagement models, alumni reached out across the miles. This flexibility was critical to our success, but the resiliency shown by students is what gives me inspiration and hope.”

—Wharton Dean Erika James “In the fall, with my kids essentially homeschooling, I took up the responsibilities of a stay-at-home dad, but one that has a full-time job teaching nearly 500 Penn students. Worst

of all, I’ve mourned countless deaths of family members, and friends, and students. I’m grateful to still be working and healthy — both physically and mentally.”

—Associate Director of Undergraduate Mathematics and senior lecturer Nakia Rimmer “It’s been tough to spend so much time at home with my family (my kids’ schools have not reopened yet) and my social life has completely changed — I used to go out and have dinner parties with friends all the time. I haven’t done that in a year, and I feel like I don’t know how to be outgoing and to socialize anymore.”

—Director of Microeconomic Principles and Economics senior lecturer Anne Duchene

—UA President and College senior Mercedes Owens

NEWS 1

“I know we all can’t wait for more normal times; but maybe we have also learned a bit about how adaptable and resilient we all can be, too, when we have to. I think we will all look back on this time in a few years with a mix of mild disbelief and considerable pride at how tough and resourceful we were.”

—College Dean Paul Sniegowski

“I feel that I lost a bit of myself over the course of the past year, seeing both my social and nursing identity crumble under the stresses of pandemic life. Despite this, I remain optimistic for a bright future and a change to the current narrative.”

—Nursing sophomore Kaity McGeehan

"I am lucky to have met friends who are very accommodating towards my circumstances. They helped me stay engaged in the community and make the most out of this challenging situation."

—College first year Jesse Zhang, who is studying from his home in Beijing

"While I'm thankful to continue seeing patients in the midst of a pandemic, I'm also disheartened to see the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans which highlight anti-Asian sentiments that have been here all along."

—Penn Dental third year Hyejo Lee

"During my gap year, I explored internships in the nonprofit space, spent more time with family, and am about to start a six-week backpacking trip. I am hopeful about pandemic recovery and the next three years at Penn!"

—Rising College sophomore and member of Penn swim and dive Lauren Henderson

residents and building a hall community. This year, COVID-19 has forced me to be more of a

disciplinarian, which was always my least favorite part of the job. Overall, my residents have been really resilient and they continue to inspire me!”

—RA in Riepe and College senior Zoe Osborne

"I hope this time has helped people to appreciate one another. Some may better appreciate the value of our teachers, our health care workers, all

been managing the unpredictable immigration landscape. The pandemic has further exacerbated these tough challenges. I am honored to work with a team who remained dedicated, resilient, and steadfast in their work."

—ISSS Director Rudie Altamirano

"Acappella is, by nature, a group effort, so not being able to thrive on each other’s energy when navigating virtual rehearsals and attempting to create a close-knit family while miles and miles apart has been disheartening. I only hope we use these collective challenges to grow closer in the

Professionally, I take much pride in the heroic and incredible SHS team who changed internal operations in such a way that allowed us to pro-

"It was definitely a deterrent in getting to know people that I would be spending my university life with, especially in the first semester when everything was remote. All things considered, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to see new faces on campus now." ­—Engineering and Wharton first year Ethan Shin, who studied from his home in Hong Kong in fall 2020

"The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the many ways that my identity as a mother, scholar, and administrator are bifurcated by the ways I am asked to show-up in spaces. Yet, I am never only one of these things. It's important to me to normalize bringing our full selves into academic spaces, while also recognizing that the pandemic

"The past year has forced me to reconsider everything I took for granted in the past. From in-person meetings and check-ins to having the ability to directly engage with an audience, it’s definitely been a learning experience."

—Mask and Wig Chairman and Engineering and College senior Will Deo

The COVID-19 paradox continues to reverberate to this day: While we were forced to slow down and, at times, stand still, many have also been forced to absorb more work, spanning more hours, with fewer opportunities to rest. This has been especially true of our campus partners who have been leading the University’s Penn Cares efforts this year. I remain in awe of the steadfast determination my colleagues have shown this year. Similarly, our students have shown tremendous strength and resilience, inspiring all of us with their creativity and grit.

—Chief Wellness Officer Benoit Dubé

aftermath of the pandemic." ­—President of Off the Beat and College junior Kristen Smith

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“[The students] have fairly startled me with their earnestness and decency. Is it still hard as a teacher? Incredibly so. I find you can get only half as much done. I have no idea why, although perhaps it's just me. To the extent we are holding it together, the kids get the major credit. Would I ever wish to do this again? I'd almost rather go to hell.”

—English professor Paul Hendrickson “Teaching CHEM 101 remotely last fall was a good challenge! We built a strong online chemistry community! I have been grateful to my chemistry research group at Penn for their commitment to engaging safely in laboratory work during this public health crisis.”

—Chemistry professor Ivan Dmochowski “Having to conduct classes remotely for one year highlighted a very important part of the teaching/ learning experience, which could have been underestimated before: the value of interaction and being in each other's immediate presence.”

—Senior lecturer and Director of the Portuguese Language Program Mercia Flannery “I feel like we’ve been at sea for a year, but thankfully land is in sight. Much as a sailor needs time to readjust from 'sea legs' after returning home from a journey at sea, we will need time to readjust from our pandemic selves as we return to a more normal world.”

—Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology David Christianson

52 weeks, faces,

stories To commemorate the 52 weeks since the University was evacuated, The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke to 52 members of the Penn community, who shared how the pandemic has impacted their lives.

JONAH CHARLTON Senior Reporter

“The pandemic, and remote teaching, brought me into my students’ homes and brought them into mine. This reminded me that we are not just students and faculty—we are people.”

—Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor Angela Duckworth “The past year has taught me that I'm far more resilient than I previously thought and that there is always room for improvement.”

—Former President of the Kite and Key Society and Engineering senior Sofia Gonzalez turned to implementing a buddy program in the fall and coffee chats in the spring to connect students with peers who desired friendship and learning about others’ experiences.”

—Chair of Lambda Alliance and College junior Blake Rubenstein

“While at times, the pandemic made it challenging to continue fostering relationships among our members, it helped us realize the importance of being a home for new Penn students feeling especially disconnected during the fall semester.”

—Former Wharton Women President and Wharton senior Rhea Nangia

These quotes have been shortened for brevity and a full version can be found online on March 21.

8 NEWS

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THEDP.COM

In Photos: Penn’s campus, one year into the pandemic Last April, Daily Pennsylvanian photographers documented what campus looked like in comparison to previous years. Flowers and greenery bloomed to a campus that had been evacuated one month prior. This March, our photographers revisited some of the same spots around campus to see what has changed. Although students returned to campus this January, many common meeting spots and winding walkways remain largely empty

— especially given the winter weather.

While the Penn community continues to learn virtually after one year of the pandemic closing down campus, a return to campus normalcy is in sight as the University plans for in-person instruction this fall and will hold an in-person commencement for the Class of 2021 this May.

KYLIE COOPER Photo Editor

AMELIA SHARPE

MELANIE HILMAN

ANA GLASSMAN

LILIANN ZOU

ALEXA COTLER

SON NGUYEN

EMILY XU

EZRA TROY

AMELIA SHARPE

ALEXA COTLER

SUKHMANI KAUR

ANA GLASSMAN

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OPINION 9

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

OPINION After a year of pandemic, a reflection on loss and hope

Every COVID-19 death was an entire lifetime

Guest Column | Penn’s Chief Wellness Officer on the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of Penn

Socially Distant | We need to start seeing the individual lives in the graphs and tables

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ho would have been able to predict where we are now, one year into this unexpected and unprecedented pandemic? Our lives have been upended and changed almost entirely from how they were not so long ago.

It’s been a year when we all developed learned helplessness as we watched COVID-19 positivity rates soar higher and higher each day, while the number of deaths in our country increased along with it — all while being bombarded with disinformation in the news.

It’s been a year of uncertainty; after the unrelenting storm of COVID-19’s initial onset, we have been stuck on an exhausting roller coaster of hope, apprehension, and doubt.

It’s been a year of loss – both feeling lost and experiencing loss. Whether we’re mourning the loss of a loved one due to the virus, grieving the loss of what life once was, or wondering what comes next, we’ve all been there. And it’s not been easy. And it’s okay to say it.

It’s been an emotional year, filled with a lot of stress, that has come along with feelings of loneliness and isolation. But, it’s also been a year of transformation, potential, and promise.

Many have tapped into a previously unsuspecting inner strength to adapt in the face of adversity. Most have reawakened a search for meaning and purpose, reaffirming a greater importance for self-care.

Although it may be difficult to believe at times, we will get through these incredibly difficult times. Things are changing rapidly, sometimes by the minute. We must be patient and trust that our health care professionals, epidemiologists, scientists, and leaders will guide us through to the other side of this pandemic.

With every challenge, there are opportunities, and with the incredible work of scientists across the world, the development and roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines have begun.

We now have hope for a future where we can gather together again safely.

Patience, perseverance, and hope will create a path forward for us.

I truly believe that we will be stronger as a society, with a greater understanding and appreciation for what it means to be together.

Working at Penn throughout the past year has helped me come to the realization that it’s the people who make everything better. It’s the health care personnel, the grocery

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CINDY CHEN

store clerks, the sanitation workers, the housekeeping and food services staff, the contact tracing teams, the testing site crews, the researchers, the laboratory staff, our construction crews, our transportation staff, and everyone else who dedicated their time and efforts to keep our campus healthy and safe.

We owe an incredible amount of gratitude to each and every person who has demonstrated incredible resilience, remained nimble, and adapted to change in their roles across the University.

I am excited about what the future holds. This year, we can now look forward to being able to safely gather together in a modified fashion and take part in some traditional milestone events that we have so missed over the past year, including an in-person commencement. I feel confident that if we continue to adhere to the Penn Cares public health guidance, we will have more events like these to look forward to. Together, we can create a safe community for each other and for our West Philadelphia neighbors.

What a year it will be.

BENOIT DUBÉ is the chief wellness officer and an associate professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. His email is bedube@ upenn.edu.

The exploitation of Black vaccination sites takes Penn privilege to a new level Outspoken on Occasion | Penn students exploiting vaccination efforts for the Black community shows a lack of awareness and empathy

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ver the past few weeks, being able to receive a COVID19 vaccine has become as revered as winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The event is often chronicled by many on their social medias, posing with their vaccination cards as one would with an “I Voted” sticker. As I saw such posts circulating my own feed, I wondered how Penn students were able to receive the vaccine at a relatively early time. It was then I realized some, not all, but in numbers large enough for concern, Penn students were taking advantage of vaccine clinics intended for West Philadelphia’s Black residents, an act which I believe is a flagrant display of privilege and lack of social awareness within the Penn student population. This has also enabled classism in vaccine distribution within the Philadelphia community between the poorer, Black residents, who have historically had their agency reduced, and Penn students who are able to advocate for themselves.

The Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium is a Philadelphia-based organization with the mission of “reducing the incidence of disease and death from coronavirus” in the Philadelphia Black population. Since the project began, founder Dr. Ala Stanford has been in the streets of Phil-

Penn students have exhibited in their social spheres. Structural racism is not just limited to Black death at the hands of law enforcement. It also comes in the form of restricted access to affordable health care. And if a Black person is able to receive that health care, chances are the care is impacted by some degree of racial prejudice. Thus the warranted distrust many Black individuals feel towards our health care system necessitates such efforts like the BDCC. Being committed to anti-racism means understanding how pervasive racism is in our country, and actively working to combat it. Stealing vaccine doses intended for Black Philadelphians at BDCC sites is to enable this oppression; some Penn students have effectively become the oppressor they have been so vocal in denouncing in the newfound trend of social media activism.

Penn students are part of a larger nationwide trend in exploiting such vaccination programs. In desperation for COVID-19 vaccines and met with the unresponsiveness of state health departments, non-Black citizens are flocking to less-restrictive and more accessible vaccination sites intended for Black people. What these individuals do not realize is that without the work of organizations like the BDCC, many

CHASE SUTTON

adelphia’s poorest neighborhoods, bridging the gap in accessibility to COVID-19 testing and vaccines attributed to a lack of government efficiency. On March 1, 2, and 6, the BDCC vaccinated people for a total of 18 hours across the three days. According to the BDCC website, the requirement for vaccination is Phase 1B eligibility and legal residence in any of the hardest-hit Philadelphia zip codes — of which Penn is one. With Penn students receiving vaccines, however, it would seem the 1B eligibility requirement is less enforced.

The need for prioritization in vaccine distribution for Black Philadelphians is clear. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen how COVID-19 can be significantly more life-threatening for Black people, with a mortality rate nearly six times higher than that of white people who contract the illness. With a 41% Black population that is also twice as likely to live in poverty as white Philadelphians, the threat of COVID-19 to Philadelphia becomes all the more real. Such discrepancies in health outcomes are the reason for initiatives like the BDCC and their focus on the Black community.

To not see the issue in going to vaccine clinics intended on vaccinating poor, year-round Black residents of West Philadelphia serves as a contradiction to the “wokeness”

Black Philadelphians would never receive a vaccine.

This is not the case for other communities like Penn, who may be able to receive vaccines through the University as early as May of this year. The pandemic and subsequent efforts to vaccinate at-risk communities have given Penn students the opportunity to show up as allies off of their social media pages, and yet when the time came to do so, they failed.

Wealthy, privileged, non-Black Penn students and their Canada Goose jackets waiting in line for vaccines from the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium is irony in its cruelest form, perpetuating systemic classism that keeps communities like West Philadelphia in poverty and sickness. Understand your position, understand your privilege, and before you walk into that vaccine clinic ask yourself: am I taking a vaccine from someone who needs it more than I do? Chances are, if you’re a healthy, college-age student who has been following Penn’s Student Campus Compact, the answer is yes. And if you are too disillusioned to understand that, maybe you aren’t as “woke” as you think you are.

ALEX EAPEN is a first year in the College from Elkridge, Md. His email is aeapen@sas.upenn.edu.

ver the past year, we have been inundated with statistics. Cases, deaths, hospitalizations, vaccinations, positivity rates, seven-day averages, false negativity rates. We have been forced to understand and interpret all kinds of numbers and graphs to get an understanding of how COVID-19 spreads in our communities and how dramatic its impact is. Without these statistics, we would have no way of contextualizing COVID-19 in our lives.

We encounter these numbers everywhere — on social media, in the news, in conversation with others — and we (rightfully) use them as a way of guiding our behavior. Amidst the surge in cases and deaths at the start of the winter, we doubled our masks and proceeded with caution. Now, with a steady increase in nationwide inoculation, we feel our optimism returning after a year of yearning for normalcy. Rarely does our interpretation of statistics extend beyond our own lives, and rarely do we pause and really think about the immensity of those numbers.

But here’s a statistic worth pausing for: as of the writing of this column, 527,726 Americans have died of COVID-19. Five hundred and twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six.

It’s difficult for us to think about numbers larger than what we can see. We can visualize a room full of five, 10, 50, or even 100 people, but our comprehension of larger numbers begins to break down. For example, we know intrinsically how long 50 seconds is, but as we expand that, the values become increasingly out of touch. 500 seconds is a little over eight minutes. 5,000 seconds is roughly an hour and 20 minutes. 50,000 seconds is nearly 14 hours. 500,000 seconds, however, is 5.8 days. Large numbers create a cognitive disconnect, a wall that just escapes our comprehension. We can’t realistically understand how much 500,000 really is, no matter how much we try.

So, we resort to comparison. One on hand, we can make the loss seem unfathomably large. As President Biden said last month, the death toll represents “more Americans who have died in one year ... than in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined.”

It’s as if the entire population of Atlanta (and then some) perished in a single year. Yet, other comparisons seemingly dwarf COVID-19’s impact. For instance, the number of Americans who died of COVID-19 can fit in approximately 4.9 University of Michigan stadiums.

But do those comparisons really get you any closer to making sense of 527,726?

This is the wrong way to try to understand how many we’ve lost due to COVID-19. Every attempt at understanding a large number is going to fall short, because our brains can’t make that leap of faith. Instead, we need to zoom in. Instead of looking at numbers in aggregate, we need to focus on each individual loss; we need to acquaint ourselves with each tree, not the forest.

THURSDAY MARCH 18, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 8 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 JASPER HUANG Analytics Manager GREG FERREY Marketing Manager EMILY CHEN Product Lab Manager ERIC HOANG Consulting Manager

THIS ISSUE ALANA KELLY DP Design Editor ALICE HEYEH 34th St. Design Editor QUINN ROBINSON Deputy Design Editor NATHAN ADLER Design Associate TYLER KLIEM Design Associate MAX MESTER News Photo Editor ANA GLASSMAN Opinion Photo Editor SAMANTHA TURNER Sports Photo Editor JONAH CHARLTON Deputy News Editor NICKY BELGRAD Associate Sports Editor AGATHA ADVINCULA Deputy Opinion Editor VARUN SARASWATHULA Deputy Opinion Editor VALERIE WANG Deputy Opinion Editor

ANA GLASSMAN

Elizabeth Duff, 72, was the first woman to drive a bus in Nashville, Tenn. Helen Etuk, 20, was a college student who dreamed of becoming a pediatrician. John Prine, 73, was one of the greatest musicians of all time.

Brandy Houser, 41, was a hospice care consultant who loved karaoke. William “Cody” Anderson, 78, was a radio host at WURD, the only Black-owned radio station in Philadelphia. All of them died of COVID-19.

The 527,721 others led lives just as rich, nuanced, and beautiful as the five here.

Just like you, they had a multitude of experiences — they had days where they couldn’t stop laughing, sleepless nights full of worry, people with whom they were head over heels in love, colleagues for whom they had nothing but contempt. Some of them were kind, some of them were probably jerks. But they were all humans with a wealth of stories to tell, and they were all lost to an illness that they couldn’t have predicted.

For many of them, their last moments were experienced in near-isolation, separated from those they loved. “During COVID-19, aside from the sheer volume of deaths, the hardest part has been that patients are dying often alone without family and friends at the bedside,” said Dr. George L. Anesi, over email. Anesi is an ICU physician and co-chair of the Penn Medicine Critical Care Alliance COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness Committee. Anesi said, “We have to have the hardest family discussions over the phone or video conference, which is difficult.” For those family and friends, the past year has been inexplicably devastating. It means an empty bed, a text that will forever go unanswered, a grandparent who will be known to their grandchildren only through stories and photographs.

Soon, we’ll get our vaccines, take off our masks, and embrace our loved ones in restaurants and bars. As we make our way through the next year and the decade, we’ll come to think of the pandemic as nothing more than a nightmare that gets more and more distant with each passing day. But as we realize the fantasy that we’ve longed for over the past year, we need to remember each life that was lost — not as a dot on a chart, but as a person.

VARUN SARASWATHULA is a College junior studying neuroscience and health care management from Herndon, Va. His email is saraswathula@thedp.com.

SOPHIE APFEL Copy Associate EMMA SCHULTZ Copy Associate TIFFANY PARK Copy Associate SOPHIE NADEL Copy Associate

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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.

10 OPINION

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

Stop calling us the ‘model minority’

There is nothing racist about COVID-19.

America made it racist.

Andy’s Angle | Asian Americans’ sense of belonging in the United States shouldn’t revolve around being a ‘model minority’

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n July, my sister left for Manhattan to start her new job, and for the first time in my life, I could not cast away the uneasy feeling that something serious could happen to her. A rise in COVID-19 cases, coupled with xenophobic rhetoric from the former President, had led to a significant spike in hate crimes toward Asian Americans, ranging from acid attacks to stabbing incidents. After what I had assumed was a gradual decline in such crimes, the recent death of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee only reaffirmed that people like my sister and I are not as welcome in this country as we had thought.

What most do not recognize is that anti-Asian discrimination is not purely the result of COVID19; it is rooted in the enduring notion that Asian Americans are permanent foreigners. No matter how many generations we spend in the United States or how much of our culture we sacrifice for even a semblance of Americanness, we are asked questions like “Where are you really from?” or met with nods of approval when our English exceeds expectations. When Asian Americans are called things like the “model minority,” we grow inextricably tied to our foreignness and fall victim to the cross-generational pressure to internalize these norms. In fact, this euphemistic classification, as I see it, is a key hurdle in preventing us from crossing that invisible line of true Americanness.

At the surface level, the model minority myth characterizes a minority group that is exalted above others for its comparatively high rates of socioeconomic success. As Amira Chowdhury, founder of the Penn Asian American Pacific Islander Politics student organization, puts it, the complexities underlying this label go far beyond mere success in the job market. It encompasses a set of expectations that Asian Americans “do not shake up systems or pose structural challenges to disrupt the systematic barriers of oppression,” according to Amira.

We are well-behaved and quietly do what we are supposed to. We are the agreeable, non-threatening type of neighbor.

More often than not, the term “model minority” is construed not as an insult but as the valorization of the Asian American household. In fact, this is especially true in the eyes of older Asian Americans, most of whom immigrated when there was a different social and political landscape. In the mid-20th century, there was still a relatively small transnational population of Asians, and a connection to an “exotic” Asian country was deemed less attractive than it is today. It is in this context that expressions like “yellow peril” came to be, signifying the existential threat that Asians could pose to the job security of Americans. For first-generation immigrants, it is thus conceivable that any sign of acceptance from white America was welcomed.

According to professor Josephine Nock-Hee Park, director of the Asian American Studies Program, a “basic truth about this country is that race is Black and white. If you are designated a model minority, you are operating within a Black and white system, and it means you are closer to the white term than the Black term.” While the term “model minority” has by no means conferred a great deal of privilege upon Asian Americans, it, at the very least, hinted at a potential departure from the harshly negative implications surrounding the “yellow peril.”

However, the issue with this is that our acceptance in the United States is then conditional on our ability to satisfy the model minority myth. At the heart of our discourse about Asian Americans is the belief that we still belong on another continent.

We are only American insofar as we do not cause an

FELICITY YICK

ANDY YOON is a College and Wharton first year from Seoul, South Korea. His email address is andyy327@wharton.upenn.edu.

For the Class of ’24, the college experience will never be the same Brick in the Wall | Reflecting on our unusual first year and finding a way to move forward

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n the winter of my senior year of high school, every checkbox on the Common Application felt like the be-all and end-all of my entire life. I was obsessed with crafting the perfect college experience. At the end of my four years, I wanted to be able to fondly look back and remember my first foray into independence: navigating through a journey of self discovery, partying on lively and laughter-filled weekends, and meeting new friends from around the world.

But just a few months later, that all seemed inconsequential. I waved goodbye to my friends one day, took the bus home from school, and never returned. The next months were clouded in a horrible, surreal haze. I watched as the nation grappled with the grim realities of COVID-19: lockdowns, personal protective equipment and treatment shortages, economic collapse, terror, loss.

Life felt static — I received my diploma in the mail one day, creased in a flimsy FedEx envelope. It took me a week to even process that I had graduated.

By June, I had begrudgingly accepted that I had lost the end of my senior year, but I had never quite grappled with the possibility of losing my first year of college as well. So Penn’s announcement of an online fall semester, just days before our move-in, shocked me into reality. Waking up every day in my childhood bedroom and attending lectures on my phone was perhaps the furthest thing from the college experience I had always imagined. The best parts of college that I had eagerly anticipated were gone, yet the worst parts remained: I received unbearable amounts of work, struggled to meet deadlines, and could barely pay attention to lectures.

Staring at my computer for upwards of 12 hours a day was both mentally and physically exhausting. Just a few weeks into the start of my first semester, I was ready to give up.

In the spring, many students moved back on campus, but little changed — in many ways, being on campus has been even more isolating. Countless tour guides will tell you how to prepare for college, but no one tells you how to prepare for college in the middle of a pandemic — and Penn certainly didn’t help. Already notorious for neglecting students’ mental health, Penn took away fall break and most of spring break, our only solace in a stress-filled year (but, thank goodness, we received pillowcases). We were largely left to fend for

Emily’s Eye | Asian Americans are being unfairly singled out for a national failure

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inconvenience.

Unfortunately, the illusion of our acceptance into the United States is made overtly clear when Asians are the center of any controversy. At the height of World War II, President Roosevelt indirectly authorized the forced relocation of Japanese American families. While more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps simply due to their association with the Axis Power, a substantially smaller number of German Americans and Italian Americans were affected by similar actions. In 2007, in the weeks following the Virginia Tech school shooting perpetrated by a 23-year-old Korean American, my mom opted to stay home after getting unpleasant looks and overhearing spiteful comments at the grocery store. And today, Chinese Americans are continually the victims of heinous hate crimes, regarded by some as the bane of the current pandemic. To be Asian American is to oscillate between acceptance due to our invisibility and rejection due to our hyper-visibility.

It is in part thanks to the model minority myth that anti-Asian discrimination is not as frequently discussed as it should be: Asian Americans are thought to not encounter much hardship or prejudice, which is entirely untrue. A 2018 Pew Research Center report found that Asians as an ethnic and racial group experience the largest income inequality gap in the United States While anti-Asian hate crimes often do not make headlines and are less frequently reported, they are indeed occurring and cannot be brushed aside.

Our Americanness should not be predicated upon anything. Asian Americans should not need to abandon their cultural heritage or live up to people’s expectations of the model minority to earn a sense of belonging in the United States — to avoid getting assaulted on the street or physically disfigured. It should not be an uphill battle to be and feel like an American. Ultimately, the first step to dispelling our permanent foreignness is to stop calling us the model minority. Characterizing us by our superficial success relative to other minority groups depersonalizes Asian Americans, neglects our complexities, and contributes to the perception that we can be taken advantage of without any consequences.

ourselves with barely any campus activities. However, those willing to risk others’ lives to attain that quintessential “first-year experience” carelessly partied, seemingly causing positivity rates to soar — with, at one point, over 1,000 students in quarantine or isolation. Other first years, unable to handle the crushing isolation, moved back home.

In the midst of the isolation and monotony, I found the excitement I had over attending college — and my love for Penn — quickly dissipating. We were promised support and community, but all we got were red PennOpen Passes and Sick, Isolation, and Quarantine meals. Watching my vision of a perfect college experience melt away into something unrecognizable was dejecting — how was I to justify the four years worth of hard work and sleepless nights that I had invested into my future when college felt like a glorified $70,000 FaceTime call? As a first year, I don’t even know what college could be like — my touchstone for higher education was mainly defined by a computer screen.

It’s hard to give justice in one column to all that our class went through this past year. We all lost — some more than others. But more than a year after our lives came to a halt, the future is still in limbo. The country is rolling out vaccination programs, and cases seem to be going down, but it’s clear that the world is going to be very different and will be defined by a post-pandemic reality.

So, Class of 2024, where do we go from here? How do we orient ourselves in a constantly changing world, and how do we work towards a future when we have no idea what the future will look like? COVID-19 has reshaped and redefined us, and it’s clear that the past year will stay with us forever. So, yes, maybe we won’t ever know what that coveted college experience really is — but we can create our own. Moving forward, we can work to craft a stronger community — one where Penn puts our well-being first (pandemic or not), and one where we are not divided by competition, but bolstered by our shared experiences. The future is uncertain, and undoubtedly imperfect, but it’s ours to shape.

TAJA MAZAJ is a College first year from King of Prussia, Pa. Her email is tajam@sas. upenn.edu.

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THEDP.COM

acially motivated violence has become extremely prevalent this past year. But how much do you know about violence against Asian Americans? As we reach the one-year anniversary of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American hate has skyrocketed like never before — an issue that has unfortunately been overlooked by many.

Due to the pandemic’s origins in Wuhan, China, everything Chinese-related became the scapegoat for America’s suffering. Incited by former President Trump’s offensive vernacular that referred to the pandemic as the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu,” in addition to his promise to “make China pay,” xenophobia and Asian American hate have become more prevalent than ever.

But the issue is more than mere name-calling.

One of the first Asian American hate crimes to make news over the past year occurred last spring when a Burmese man and his sons were grocery shopping at Sam’s Club, only to be violently stabbed in the face multiple times. In August 2020, an 89-year-old Asian woman was not only slapped in the face, but also had her clothes lit on fire. Over the past year, more and more videos have surfaced depicting Asian Americans being beaten, assaulted, verbally threatened, and robbed.

In fact, Asian American hate crimes have increased by 150% in major United States cities due to the pandemic. This past February, a 91-year-old man was violently pushed to the ground in Oakland, Calif.’s Chinatown, an 84-year-old Thai man was fatally attacked in San Francisco, and a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman was assaulted and robbed in San Jose, Calif. These recent racially motivated attacks, especially those inflicted upon the elderly, are incredibly sickening.

in America (especially compared to China), it is baffling that Asians are the ones still bearing the brunt of the blame. Sure, the pandemic may have started in China, but Americans are the worst at controlling the spread. As of March 17, the United States is leading the world with the most cases and deaths.

Even worse, COVID-19 restrictions are easing up with the removal of mask mandates in Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming.

Yet there doesn’t seem to be any hatred towards non-Asian Americans and their irresponsibility and carelessness regarding this fatal virus.

Furthermore, during Italy’s outbreak back in March 2020, Italian Americans did not face any major racially motivated hatred or violence. This is simply due to racism, as the virus has become solely associated with the people of Asian descent and, by extension, Asian culture as a whole. For instance, references to eating bats are racialized comments that serve to blame Asian culture and their consumption habits. This has consequently created an epidemic of hate, with Asians begging America to “fight the virus, not the people.”

“Racism and discrimination against the Asian community is nothing new in this country, and it’s unfortunate that it takes a[n] ... increase of hate crimes for the issue to finally receive coverage from the mainstream media,” Chen added.

However, despite increased news coverage, many people are still unaware of these hate crimes. Sometimes known as the silent minority, Asians and their struggles are often overlooked and ignored.

Even with social media and clear video footage of these horrendous attacks, more media coverage is necessary to shed light on such a serious issue. Furthermore, the widespread refusal to acknowledge

One of the most devastating attacks occurred on March 16, when six Asian women were shot and killed at Atlanta spas. Even more frustrating is the media’s apparent reluctance to label these murders as racially motivated hate crimes, despite the fact that Asian massage parlors were specifically targeted. Not only does this further oppress the Asian American community, it also diminishes their struggles. Due to the current trend of hatred and violence against Asian Americans in light of COVID-19, racism seems to be the only explanation for why such a despicable action could occur.

As the news continues to pile up with more and more Asians falling victim to racist acts of violence, fear and terror have been instilled in the entire Asian American community. Will it ever be safe to walk the streets in public? When will society finally see Asians as human beings?

“I used to be afraid of walking the streets alone at night,” said Hebe Chen, a College first year. “But after seeing the videos of Asian American people and elders being verbally and physically assaulted, I noticed that, now, when I walk outside during the day, I subconsciously add more distance between me and the people walking towards me or next to me, as if I’m giving myself more reaction time in case someone would take out their hands and shove me too.”

Especially now, given current rates of COVID-19

these crimes, such as last night’s attack, as racially motivated makes it especially challenging.

While Penn has certainly extended support and resources for students affected by such attacks, more can be done to spread awareness and help students feel safe. Given Penn’s large Asian population, as well as its location in Philadelphia, it is crucial for students of all different racial backgrounds to come together and understand the severity of this issue.

Not only is it important to educate the Penn community, it is also necessary to help students like Chen feel safe and protected on their own campus. Simply offering reassurance is a step in the right direction, but Penn must make more meaningful strides in educating students on how to handle and prevent racial attacks.

Equally important — if not more — are the students themselves. Students must take an active role in creating a campus culture that reflects equality and inclusion for their Asian counterparts to feel safe and welcome during these unprecedented times.

Each individual is responsible for their own actions, and racist actions can only be controlled by said person.

ALICE HEYEH

EMILY CHANG is a College first year studying sociology from Holmdel, N.J. Her email address is changem@sas.upenn.edu.

Mental health is not an excuse to party Bridget Believes | Partying should not be the pillar of your Penn experience

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ny claim that partying and socializing is beneficial right now for your mental health is a blatant excuse. As a vocal mental health advocate, I often attest to how crucial it is to take care of ourselves during a pandemic. But there are countless ways to cope other than partying.

If you are actively breaking safety protocols, then you are practically basing your self-worth and happiness levels on partying and socializing.

Frankly, partying shouldn’t be your identity or the pillar of your Penn experience. If it is, then you must re-evaluate your priorities and judgmentmaking. Quite literally, most Penn students I’ve met are far more preoccupied with their plans on Friday than their midterm on Monday. We pride ourselves on our reputation as the “Social Ivy” for an obvious reason, but there’s much more to your life and your college experience than spending a majority of nights out wasted.

Penn students, please stop being selfish and immature. Sorry to break it to you, but it’s not Penn’s fault that many COVID-19 regulations have been broken. The University may not have anticipated such rampant violations of guidelines; after all, we’re expected to be mature enough to make sound decisions. But have we proved ourselves to be capable of restricting our temptations for the greater community? Not at all.

Here’s the reality: The administration put its trust in us — and we broke it. For the people who continue going out and partying: your unhealthy dependency on a night out is the reason why this pandemic has endured.

Many Penn professors have stated that they

understand why some students are partying, because they would have behaved the same way when they were our age. But in doing so, they are practically encouraging students to continue their ways.

Not much has changed since a year ago; going out during a pandemic still puts others at risk.

Don’t get me wrong; I love going out. I actually had my flight and hotel booked for Vegas far in advance for my 21st birthday party (arguably the biggest birthday of your life), but I canceled it because of the pandemic. Why can’t others do the same?

Let’s remember that learning to be alone and feeling wholly secure in yourself is very much underrated. As Penn students, we are too caught up with networking, parading large social circles, and forming new relationships or friendships that this all actually becomes counterproductive and quite detrimental. Your happiness and your friendships shouldn’t be contingent on whether you attend some social event or party — rather, learn to love yourself regardless.

With spring break just over, I’m certain that Penn students have traveled — and inevitably, positive cases will continue surging. Your disregard for others’ wellbeing is glaring and abhorrent. You may not be affected by the pandemic, but you are nonetheless contributing to the pandemic’s effect.

BRIDGET YU is a College junior from Los Angeles, Calif. studying psychology. Her email address is bridgtyu@sas.upenn.edu.

THEDP.COM | THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

OPINION 11

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

EDITORIAL

Penn students, stop misusing your privilege

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ince the beginning of the spring semester, a worrisome number of Penn students have exhibited callous and careless behavior with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, as demonstrated

by Penn’s uniquely high case rates, the continuation of parties and gatherings despite social distancing guidelines, and the faking of PennOpen Passes to get around the University’s rules. Although case rates

CHASE SUTTON

have declined in recent weeks, many students have continued to behave irresponsibly, both misusing their privilege and actively causing harm to others.

This trend has continued over the past few weeks with many students traveling to COVID-19 hotspots, receiving vaccines not meant for them, or both. Penn students who are currently living on campus or even off campus in Philadelphia are extraordinarily privileged to be here, and they need to act accordingly. Penn students are not inherently entitled to be in West Philadelphia — or anywhere but their hometowns — during a global pandemic, but it is an opportunity that many people have been presented with nonetheless. As such, Penn students must stop abusing their privilege, for they harm local communities and their classmates by continuing to do so.

Despite the university’s implementation of Spring Stay to discourage travel, a surprising number of Penn students made the decision to travel to destinations that have been hotspots for COVID-19, such as Puerto Rico and Miami. Over the course of the pandemic and especially recently, Puerto Rico has been inundated by large numbers of reckless tourists who have driven up infection rates, disrespected the island, and frustrated the locals.

Students who traveled to already hard-hit and under-resourced locations like Puerto Rico not only put their native populations at risk, but now also risk infecting more West Philadelphians upon their return.

As students arrive back at Penn from various parts of the country and the globe, it is almost certain that case rates will increase in the coming weeks, both among the student body and the surrounding population, putting even those who did not travel at a higher risk of infection.

In addition to endangering underprivileged communities both in Philadelphia and abroad, over the past few weeks, a number of Penn students have wrongfully used their own privilege to receive vaccines illegitimately. Not only have certain students lied about medical conditions to receive priority access to a vaccine, but others have attended vaccine sites that were explicitly not meant for them, such as the joint Penn Medicine and Mercy Philadelphia clinic, which was created to vaccinate Black West Philadelphians and West Philadelphians of color as part of an effort to combat racial inequity in terms of both disproportionate case rates and vaccine distribution.

Penn students must stop treating Philadelphia and other domestic and foreign destinations with

disadvantaged communities as a playground and seriously consider their active role in perpetuating the spread of COVID-19 to communities that do not have access to the same medical resources that most students do. Furthermore, they must stop stealing resources such as vaccines from communities which desperately need them; although many people want to be vaccinated, the average Penn student does not need a COVID-19 vaccine as desperately or urgently as the average Black West Philadelphian or West Philadelphian of color does, especially considering that many of the same students being wrongfully vaccinated are also the ones willing to engage in risky behavior.

By not caring for public health guidelines and wrongfully taking resources from the surrounding community, Penn students have further perpetuated the University’s already rampant gentrification, both in West Philadelphia and now abroad. At the very least, students who made the decision to travel should now abide by the University’s ten day quarantine period so as not to endanger their peers or West Philadelphian neighbors. Penn students must take into consideration the dire consequences of their actions on surrounding communities and stop misusing their privilege for superficial purposes.

The pandemic is not over Wanna Be a Baller | The pandemic has brought structural issues with our society to the forefront; we can no longer ignore them

T

he truth is, the pandemic has illuminated the fact that only some Americans are granted the privilege of being careless. Simply put, many poor people are not. Last week, I got an unexpected email from an economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He congratulated me for a recent award and shared two contradicting quotes about history that were prompted by my recent column.

One quote was from George Santayana and the other was from Anne Michaels. The latter keenly highlighted America’s naivete surrounding our racist history as performative. The professor’s insightful email cued me to examine two very different interpretations of history and the space in which I view them.

Mary Bassett, François-Xavier Bagnoud professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, recently spoke about the pandemic and championed the need for reparations by stating, “There is a strong positive correlation between socioeconomic status or income and health outcomes, including mortality.” People should not die because they are poor. However, many health experts, Bassett included, continue to highlight

correlations between poverty, health care deficiencies, and mortality. We know that poverty kills. This reality is unacceptable.

The conversation surrounding reparations is not new. Penn historian (and treasure) Mary Frances Berry dedicated an entire book, “My Face is Black is True,” to the life and work of Callie House, a woman born into slavery that ultimately led one of the first organized efforts for reparations in the United States. The campaign for reparations began in the last quarter of the 19th century. Jump forward a couple of centuries to now, and we are still combating the irrational denial towards the palpable need for reparations. Authentic prosperity and progress for descendants of enslaved people is contingent on reparations. House Resolution 40 should be successfully taken through markup and passed on the House and Senate floors. There is nothing dull about reparations. We should acknowledge that a debt is owed and have a federal commission look into the benefits reparations would provide to our society. They are a necessary component of American equity. We must start somewhere.

Notably, parents, especially working mothers, have also jumped to the frontline of individuals

harshly impacted by the pandemic. As a Penn Family Center fellow and Student Parent Advisory Board member, I have routinely witnessed the ways parents in the Penn community have endured the pandemic. Being a parent right now is nothing less than a multi-layered challenge. Over the last year, we have been exposed to persistent disorder. However, my grand takeaway from the pandemic won’t be the blurred bedtime routines or toddler-dictated dinners, but rather the long walks around our neighborhood waiting for the moon to appear and endless dinosaur impressions.

To counteract some of the stress Penn parents continue to face, the Penn Family Center and the Women’s Center have collaborated to host both a Black Parent Check In and a Parent Check In in the upcoming weeks. Essentially, parents need this space. We need to vent about the roller coaster we have been on for a year. We need to feel a sense of collective understanding.

We may never recall all we found to be normal prior to the beginning of the pandemic, but we should not get caught up in the importance of trying to regain that sense of normalcy. The pandemic has changed our sense of normal, forever. We should

SUKHMANI KAUR

use where we are now as a starting point for change.

Currently, we have the capability to embrace a turning point. Let’s begin to address and dismantle the many systems of oppression in America that have come to surface during the pandemic.

JESSICA GOODING is a College senior studying history and English from Philadelphia. Her email is jgooding@sas.upenn.edu.

12 SPORTS

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN | THEDP.COM

Penn men’s lacrosse addresses Ivy League presidents in letter two days before spring cancellations SPORTS | The letter pushed for a modified, COVID-19 safe season similar to other Division I conferences.

CAROLINE DOUGLAS Sports Reporter

of the COVID-19 virus is nearly impossible. The second section argued that the Ivy League conference has made a commitment to follow science, and prohibiting spring competition was not aligned with this commitment.

Lastly, the team ended the letter by making clear that canceling the season will affect both the players’ mental health and safety from the virus off the field.

“The ultimate goal was to convince them to let us play a modified, COVID-safe season, just like ever y single other con ference i n Division I,” Miniter said. “The decision to cancel seems to neglect the Ivy League’s commitment to make decisions with safety and wellbeing in mind.”

For many of the Quakers, this 2021 season would have contained their final goals and last celebrations on Franklin Field.

Senior attacker Adam Goldner from Allentown, Pa. described how it feels to have his final NICOLE FRIDLING season wearing the Red and Sophomore Quint Minter spearheaded the efforts to address the Ivy League presidents about a Blue taken away. potential season two days prior to its cancellation.

“I’ve brought it up a few times to the team since the news broke wo days prior to the Ivy League’s Feb. 18 on Feb. 18 that while I will not decision to cancel all conference compe- be here next year, nearly everyone else can be, tition for 2021 spring sports, Penn men’s and the precedent they set now will stick with the lacrosse addressed a letter to Ivy League team for years to come,” Goldner said. “As somepresidents and athletic directors conveying why one who is now closer to being an alumnus than they believed that the cancellation of spring com- a player, and worked tirelessly over the last five petition would prove to be extremely detrimental years to be proud of the brand I helped create, I to student-athletes. plan on continuing to do whatever I can until late Leading the charge in crafting the letter was May to maintain that.”

Quint Miniter, a sophomore attacker from New In the letter, the team highlights the findYork. ings of medical professionals who examined the “I had read a ton of information on the topic and leagues and conferences that have successfully felt strongly about it, and we wanted to present put on seasons during the pandemic. The Quakers the information in case some of our points had not put particular emphasis on the fact that lacrosse been expressed to them,” Miniter said. “We also specifically has very minimal total time of close thought it would help our cause if we publicized contact. a clear message on behalf of our team that alumni “We would estimate — and we are happy to help and other athletes and teams could read.” figure out an exact number of minutes if needed The Quakers outlined their evidence in three — that in normal times, individual players spend a different sections. The letter opened by present- maximum of five to eight minutes within six feet ing scientific research that on-field transmission of defenders,” the letter states. “With masks on, The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation

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we struggle to find any scientific backing for canceling competition.”

The Quakers repeatedly acknowledge how scientific studies have deemed outdoor activities and gatherings safe while claiming indoor happenings unsafe. With most Ivy League institutions allowing for on-campus housing and dorm life this semester, the lacrosse team argues that a season of competition would be just as safe as “universityendorsed dorm living.”

Sam Handley, a junior midfielder from Portland, Ore., is on the long list of players who are both shocked and frustrated with the Ivy League’s decision to cancel its season. Handley received countless recognitions as a freshman in 2019, including unanimous selections as Ivy League Rookie of the Year and first team All-Ivy. “I think if someone in the administration had talked to us and had seen the strain, stress, and mental toll keeping us in the dark for so long had taken on us, maybe their decision would have changed,” Handley said. “Still, the guys on the team will continue to be resilient, and be ready to play whenever that time comes, because we love what we do and the people we do it with.”

The final section of the letter posits that not having a spring season would likely result in student-athletes being less conscious of COVID-19.

“In an attempt to be as transparent and honest as possible, we think it is undeniable that, despite the ethical issues, s​ tudent-athletes will be significantly less conscious of COVID-19 if there is no season​,” the letter states. “​I n our eyes, the very small risk of having an in-game transmission is heavily outweighed by the misguided risks that would inevitably be taken by the average studentathlete if there is no season.​ We know that, of course, this is not a reason to have a season, but w ​ e strongly hold that it would be naive to think that canceling the season would be more COVID-safe than having a season.”

In addition, Miniter and his teammates stress the negative effects a cancellation will have on the mental health of student-athletes, given the vast amount of time and effort each athlete has put into their sport in hopes of earning a spot in the lineup each season.

Although the Ivy League will not be holding conference competition or league championships this spring, the Feb. 18 decision allowed for in-person practices to continue and left open the possibility for local competition if public health conditions improve.

Whenever the time comes, the Red and Blue will be ready to take care of business as usual on Franklin Field.

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SPORTS 13

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021

SENIOR ATHLETES REACT TO THE IVY LEAGUE’S GRADUATE STUDENT ELIGIBILITY RULE CHANGE SPORTS | Most priority deadlines for graduate school applications have already passed ARUSHI SRIVASTAVA Sports Reporter

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Many senior athletes say the extra year of eligibility came too late in the process of decision-making and now will not benefit them after graduation.

The current senior class of student-athletes at Ivy League institutions will be allowed to compete for their respective schools next year as full-time graduate students after losing their seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Feb. 11 decision is a reversal of the Ivy League’s earlier announcement in April 2020, which had affirmed the league’s commitment to its rule barring graduate students from athletic competition.

This has come with mixed feelings from current seniors. For some, the new exception changes little, especially for those who didn’t have any plans to go to graduate school or play another season.

However, for others, it was a decision that came at an inconvenient time and impacted plans for next year.

“I think the decision is a nice gesture, but I would be surprised if many people use it,” senior rower Anna Polise said.

The exception to the longstanding rule only applies to current seniors, and not to underclassmen athletes who missed the same amount of time in their sport. However, this decision came at an inopportune time for current seniors. It was announced late in the graduate school application process, as

most priority deadlines were due on Dec. 15.

“One particular frustration a lot of athletes and I share is that the announcement came after the due dates for most graduate program applications,” Thomas Vasquez, a senior on the men’s heavyweight rowing team, said. “I was not thinking about applying [to grad school] because until only a few weeks ago I didn’t realize I would have the opportunity to compete.”

“Personally, I wish they had announced the waiver earlier, so that I could have made an informed decision when applying to graduate schools,” Polise said.

Some perceive the temporary rule change as inconsistent, since last year’s seniors, particularly those on spring teams, were not given the same opportunity.

“As I understand it, the decision to give our particular class a year of eligibility was that we were deprived of the senior capstone experience, but I can’t say I agree with that line of reasoning,” Vasquez said. “Students are still doing senior designs and theses, and they didn’t extend the same opportunity to the Class of 2020, so all around it strikes me as too little too late and not at all consistent.”

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THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021 VOL. CXXXVII NO. 8

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

‘MY PERCEPTION OF THE IVY LEAGUE HAS CHANGED’: PENN RECRUITS REACT TO LEAGUE NOT PLAYING SPORTS

With no spring sports this season for the Ivy League, high school recruits have a tougher choice and a new perception of the Ivy League conference and its schools.

League sports.

“I would say that my perception of the Ivy League has changed,” Kade Frew, a high school

SPORTS | The Ivy League is the only Division I conference to cancel its spring 2021 season CARTER LYNN Sports Reporter

It boils down to how much they want you.

You can labor over your campus visits, examine the system you’ll be playing in, and weigh the importance of academics in your college-tobe. But when it comes down to finally reviewing all those athletic scholarship offers, there’s simply one thing on your mind: how much they want you.

In a normal year, highly sought-after high school recruits have numerous opportunities to consider their options. They can go on official school visits, speak in person with coaches and other players, and truly get a feel for the athletic programs.

However, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the operation of athletics, it has been hard for high school recruits to get a feel for their prospective schools. With the Ivy League being the only Division I conference to cancel their 2021 spring sport season, this makes the decision of where to commit even tougher for its recruits.

It’s not just that prospective student-athletes aren’t able to learn about athletic programs first hand; for some, the Ivy League’s season cancellation has created a new perception of Ivy

“I already knew that the Ivy League might not be as heavy on sports as the [other divisions] and that was something that has already come to my mind. I’ve always known that academics come first in the Ivy League and sports come second.”

- Elic Ayomanor junior running back from Jacksonville, Fla. who has received an offer to play at Penn. “It seems like the Ivy League is not prioritizing their sports.”

Frew has also received offers from Air Force, Navy, and Memphis, among others.

The Ivy League has always been known for its academics — and while the Ancient Eight

SPORTS | Former Penn ace Christian Scafidi holds a 1.50 ERA through two starts with Notre Dame CHARLIE MA & JOEY PIATT Sports Associates

CHECKING IN WITH FORMER PENN ATHLETES WHO TRANSFERRED SCHOOLS FOR THEIR FINAL YEAR OF ELIGIBILITY

After the Ivy League canceled its sports season last year, a number of Penn athletes transferred to new schools for their final year of eligibility

SEND STORY IDEAS TO DPSPORTS@THEDP.COM

Gabby Rosenzweig — Duke women’s lacrosse Arguably the greatest women’s lacrosse player in Penn history, Gabby Rosenzweig holds both the single-season and all-time records for points and assists. She accumulated 247 career points to pass former teammate and best friend Erin Barry, before her senior season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Rosenzweig hoped to stay at Penn and play, she ultimately opted to play out her eligibility at Duke in the ACC. “That was the hardest choice, deciding to transfer,” Rosenzweig said.

Down in Durham, N.C., Rosenzweig has notched 11 goals, 11 assists, and 22 points through seven games. Her new team currently sits at 5-2, good for fifth in the ACC. Duke will need to capture more conference victories to move up in the standings, as they are currently 0-2 in the conference.

certainly has a rich athletic history, today, it’s the former that stands out.

“I think with the season canceled completely, the idea that [the Ivy League] isn’t as committed to it’s athletes as other D-I schools are, [becomes more evident],” said quarterback Aidan Sayin, a high school senior from Carlsbad, Calif. who has committed to Penn. “I think that in the long run, the perception will recover.”

To other recruits, it has been clear that the Ivy League emphasizes academics over athletics, and the recent stoppage in play due to COVID-19 didn’t alter their perceptions of the universities.

“I already knew that the Ivy League might not be as heavy on sports as the [other divisions] and that was something that has already come to my mind,” Elic Ayomanor, a wide receiver who has received an offer to play at Penn, said. “I’ve always known that academics come first in the Ivy League and sports come second.”

As he reviews his offers from universities such as Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth, to name a few, Ayomanor doesn’t believe that the pandemic will affect his decision on where to commit. Ayomanor has also received offers from more athletically competitive schools including Arizona and Iowa, who will compete with the Ivy League for his commitment.

“With the Ivy League, you’re getting that education; it’s definitely known for the education,” Frew added.

While Frew believes the Ivy League prioritizes academics over athletics, other recruits

SUKHMANI KAUR

began to believe otherwise after learning more about the programs.

“Among my peers, I think a lot of people didn’t originally see the Ivy League as really committed to sports,” Sayin said. “Unless you look into the programs, you won’t see that all the schools are actually competing and doing as much as other Division I schools are.”

Penn football commit Nick Ostlund and high school senior shared a similar sentiment. To him, the cancellation of athletic seasons set the Ivy League apart from all other college athletic

“I have found that the Ivy League is a special conference with circumstances different than any other conference in Division I.”

- Nick Ostlund

programs.

“I have found that the Ivy League is a special conference with circumstances different than any other conference in Division I,” Ostlund said. “Because of the emphasis on academics, the Ivy League has to stand out and cannot make decisions based on what the rest of Division I is doing.”

Ryan Betley — University of California, Berkeley men’s basketball

Kyle Gallagher — Notre Dame men’s lacrosse

During his four years at Penn, Ryan Betley finished 10th all-time in career three-pointers made for the Red and Blue, despite missing an entire season due to injury. The former Quaker averaged 12.8 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 43.5 percent from the field during his career at Penn, scoring 944 career points and making 70 starts in 74 total appearances.

During his freshman season, Betley was named to the Ivy League Tournament All-Tournament Team and followed that by earning All-Ivy Second Team and All-Big 5 Second Team his sophomore season.

After transferring to Cal this past season, Betley started in 23 of the 29 games he played in, averaging 8.5 points per game. Betley was a part of a Golden Bears team that finished last in the Pac-12 standings with a 9-20 record.

After transferring to Penn from Hofstra after his sophomore year, Kyle Gallagher made an instant impact during his limited time playing for the Red and Blue. During his only full season with the Quakers, the face-off specialist finished the 2019 season with 169 ground balls and won 270 of 432 face-offs, earning him spots on the All-Ivy Second Team, USILA All-American Third-Team, and Inside Lacrosse AllAmerican Third-Team. As a result of his success, Gallagher entered the Penn record books ranked No. 1 in single-season face-offs taken, No. 1 in single-season face-offs won, and No. 2 in single-season ground balls.

In two games with Notre Dame this season, the former Quaker has recorded two assists, 16 ground balls, and has won 22 of 26 face-offs.

Christian Scafidi — Notre Dame baseball

Kyle Thornton — Notre Dame men’s lacrosse

Christian Scafidi, the 2019 Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, originally planned on completing his baseball career at Penn. However, factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ivy League’s original ruling that athletes who lost a year of eligibility could not return following graduation altered the former Penn ace’s path.

Scafidi drew the attention of Notre Dame, an Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse. Through the Fighting Irish’s first nine games, Scafidi holds a 1.50 ERA in two starts. Scafidi has also held opponents to a .190 batting average.

Kyle Thornton, who was one of the Red and Blue’s best defenders, totaled 59 ground balls and 37 forced turnovers in his Penn career.

Thornton was even an All-Ivy Honorable Mention in 2019. Like others that transferred from Penn, Thornton’s original hope was to finish his career with the Quakers while working on his master’s at Penn. However, Thornton wasn’t alone in his ultimate decision to play for the Fighting Irish, as former Penn teammate Kyle Gallagher also made the transition. So far in the 2021 season, Notre Dame has played two games, winning both. Thornton has played a part in those victories with a total of five ground balls accrued already on the young season.

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