Penn Carey Law professor Amy Wax was suspended after years of discriminatory comments — becoming the rst tenured professor in decades to face sanctions
The University’s historic sanctioning of University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Amy Wax this week has invited a wave of reactions on campus and nationwide — with many applauding a long-awaited response to Wax’s controversial comments, and others apprehensive about the decision’s implications for free speech.
Wax’s sanctions are wide-ranging, including a one-year suspension at half pay that goes into effect next fall, and the removal of her named chair, which is now reflected on her faculty website. Penn also eliminated her summer pay
and instituted a requirement that Wax note in public appearances that she is not speaking on behalf of nor as a member of Penn Carey Law.
The rare decision to punish a tenured faculty member — the first such occurrence under Faculty Senate processes in at least 20 years — has invited commentary among students, faculty, and administrators.
“Faculty, not administrators, acting through their selected bodies and procedures, are best positioned to ensure that institutional censure of faculty respects the bounds of academic freedom,” Lee wrote. “These findings are now
final, following a determination by the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility that the proper process was followed,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Wax’s history of discriminatory statements has included her claiming that Black students never graduate at the top of the Penn Carey Law class and that “non-Western groups” are resentful towards “Western people.”
The sanctions mark the first time in recent
See WAX , page 3
Former Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice and President Joe Biden said in an interview on Wednesday that he “want[s]” to resume his involvement in the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after leaving the White House.
Biden used the Penn-affiliated global think tank as his main office in Washington after he departed his vice presidency under former President Barack Obama in 2017. In a conversation with The View on Wednesday, Biden said he planned to build upon his work as president through the two academic centers named after him — the other being the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware’s Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.
“I’m less concerned about what my legacy is … because there’s so many other things I want to do in terms of the Biden Institute at Penn on foreign policy and the Biden Institute in Delaware on domestic policy, to keep the things going that we started,” Biden said.
A University spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Penn Biden Center’s fate and activity has long been unclear after Biden’s campaign and eventual victory in the 2020 presidential election. Biden took a leave of absence from the University in April 2019 — just over one year
BIDEN, page 3
Former Penn professor and President Joe Biden said he will return to the Penn Biden Center after leaving office.
Deshmukh as vice president of external affairs, College first year Leo Ding as vice president of internal affairs, and College first year Megan Chan as vice president of finance.
In addition to class board, Kayabas ran for the role of student representative in the Undergraduate Assembly, in which there were nine open seats to fill. With 370 votes, he received the most votes out of any student running. However, Kayabas told the DP he withdrew from that race after winning class president.
The Wharton School’s most recent annual donor roll is significantly shorter than previous years and lacks statistics which have been present in past editions. The Donor Honor Roll, which is primarily comprised of a list of donor names and their affiliation to Penn, is released annually and recognizes all individuals who have made gifts, pledges, or pledge payments during the University’s fiscal year. The shortened nature of the 2024 Donor Honor Roll, which is 161 pages — 23 less than its 2023 counterpart — indicates a reduction in Wharton donors over the past 12 months.
The 2024 roll consists of donors from July 1, 2023 through June 30 — thereby comprising the entire period of donor backlash against Penn amid concerns of an insufficient respond to antisemitism on campus. The backlash — which was led by Wharton Board
See WHARTON, page 4
Penn Student Government announced the results of the Class Board 2028 and Undergraduate Assembly elections on Monday morning.
College first year Mert Kayabas was elected Class of 2028 president with 456 votes — more than twice as many votes as runner-up and Wharton first year Joel Wang, who received 218 votes. College first year Eddie Mukalazi was elected executive vice
president of the class with 370 votes.
Kayabas, who is also a former staffer for The Daily Pennsylvanian, said he is “excited” and “ready” to take on his new role.
“I think the people — my peers — trusted me to do a job, and … I’m going to execute [it],”
Kayabas said. The Class of 2028 elected College first year Chinmay
“I think it’s the right thing to do for somebody else to have [the] opportunity to serve in student government, and also to devote all of my time to my role as president, instead of taking out a large chunk of my weekends to get my duties done as new student representative,” Kayabas said. “So I just thought somebody else could have done better at the role right now and put more time into it.” College first years Eddie Mukalazi, Leo Ding, Khushi Patil, Megan Chan, Tanvi Deshmukh, Chinmay Deshmukh, Taya Allardice, and Aidan Shaughnessy — who is also a DP staffer — were elected as new student representatives on the UA. College first year Julia Axler, who had received 10th place in the election, received the position after Kayabas withdrew. College first years Annabel Shic and Alejandra Picon were elected as the College class chairs, and Engineering first year Daniel Ranaudo was elected as the Engineering class chair. Running unopposed, Wharton first year Andreas Petropoulos was elected as Wharton class chair, and Nursing first year Jeongmi Ahn was elected as Nursing class chair.
College senior and Nominations and Elections Committee Chair Vincent Lepani highlighted the energy of this year’s candidates and emphasized the importance of encouraging as many Penn undergraduates to vote as possible.
“It was really great to see all the candidates campaigning, really involved, and spreading their platforms,” Lepani said.
Kayabas said that he looks forward to working with the people in the vice president positions and finding “a community [where] we work together to make other people happy.”
“I feel like that’s going to be super rewarding,” Kayabas said.
JESSE ZHANG | DP FILE PHOTO
The Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility publicized its decision on sanctioning Wax on Sept. 24.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MERT KAYABAS
College first year Mert Kayabas was elected Class of 2028 president on Sept. 23.
SON NGUYEN | DP FILE PHOTO
See
ELEA CASTIGLIONE AND ETHAN YOUNG Senior Reporter and Staff Reporter
The Wharton Fund’s 2024 Donor Honor Roll shows a decrease in overall contributions after donor backlash due to the University’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
WHARTON, from FRONT PAGE
of Advisors Chair Marc Rowan — ultimately led to former Penn President Liz Magill’s resignation.
Several Wharton spokespeople did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The changes on this year’s report include its brevity and an omission of statistics summarizing total donors and donation figures. The 2023 edition included the total number of donors to Wharton and several loyalty societies, as well as their percentage change from the previous year — figures which are not present in the most recent roll.
Specifically, in 2023, Wharton listed the total amount of Benjamin Franklin Society Members — donors who have made a gift of $2,500 or more in the recent year — and Wharton Fund Loyalty Society Members, comprising individuals who have supported the fund for three or more consecutive fiscal years.
The 2023 Donor Honor Roll listed 10,530 donors, including 2,002 Benjamin Franklin Society Members and 5,516 Loyalty Society Members. The 2022 edition similarly noted contributions from 10,247 donors, including 2,063 Benjamin Franklin Society Members and 5,281 Loyalty Society Members, totaling $19,802,500 in donations.
Nonetheless, the 2024 report opened with a message of gratitude from Wharton External Affairs Chief Advancement Officer Bill Bole.
“As chief advancement officer, I am deeply grateful for your investment in the Wharton School, and it is my privilege to acknowledge your generosity,” Bole wrote. “Your support went to work immediately, sustaining the programs and resources that are keeping Wharton at the forefront of business education.”
Throughout the fall 2023 semester, many prominent Wharton donors — including Rowan, the Huntsman family, and Daniel Lowy — publicly announced that they would stop donating to the University due to its response to the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and related concerns of antisemitism on campus. In October 2023, Rowan, who led much of the criticism of Magill and former University Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok, called for donors to limit their donations to $1 until the two resign.
On Dec. 9, 2023, Magill resigned from her position as Penn’s president. Minutes later, Bok also announced his departure.
2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby and other Penn
in December.
Penn cites new religious inclusion o
ce
in antisemitism lawsuit — just days after announcing it
The University is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging it insuf ciently handled antisemitism on campus
VIVI SANKAR Staff Reporter
Penn cited the formation of the new Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion as evidence in the ongoing lawsuit against the University alleging an insufficient response to antisemitism, just days after the office was formed.
In the motion — which was filed on Sept. 9 — Penn cites the newly created office as proof that the University “has taken significant additional steps to combat antisemitism.” The motion is the latest in the University’s ongoing effort to dismiss the case filed by students in December of last year.
A University spokesperson declined to comment.
Interim Penn President Larry Jameson announced the new office, which aims to ensure Penn is fulfilling its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, on Sept. 5 — four days before citing it in the lawsuit. The motion also points to the Temporary Standards and Procedures for Campus Events and Demonstrations as steps taken to address antisemitism.
The plaintiffs — 2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby, College sophomore Jordan Davis, and Wharton and Engineering senior Noah Rubin — filed a response to the University’s motion on Sept. 23, arguing that their allegations from the initial case still stand, despite recent University actions.
In their filing, the plaintiffs refer to Penn’s announcement of the Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion as “just that: an announcement.” They add that other antisemitism lawsuits at the University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that their claims are “ripe” and that there is “no reason, and the notice offers none, to depart from these well-reasoned, directly on-point decisions.”
“Whether the office, if and when it is implemented, will ameliorate the antisemitic hostile educational environment at Penn is anyone’s
New York Times correspondent highlights Russia-China partnership in foreign policy lecture
In his lecture, David Sanger focused on the implications of the 2024 presidential election for U.S. foreign policy.
ALEX DASH Contributing Reporter
David Sanger, the White House and National Security correspondent for The New York Times, cited Russia and China as the focal points that will shape American foreign policy over the coming decades at the annual Rena & Angelius Anspach Lecture on Monday night.
partnership. He said that the focus has mainly been on short-term, “right-in-front-of-yourface” issues and that discussions of “long-range American power” are absent from campaigntrail conversations.
guess,” the response read. “No one judging by Penn’s past performance—and Plaintiffs’ allegations—should be optimistic.”
In a statement to the DP, Yakoby described the office’s establishment as “an ineffective band aid on the crisis” and called on the University to “enforce their existing policies.”
Yakoby also criticized the University for failing to take action against the group Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine for an Instagram story earlier this month memorializing the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel as a “day of resistance.”
“Why is it that no faculty were sanctioned for their role in the Penn encampment? President Jameson said that the encampment violated Title VI, maybe the university can start there,” Yakoby said.
Davis and Rubin did not respond to the DP’s request for comment.
In the plaintiffs’ initial document requests — which were sent on July 18 — they requested several types of documents and communications, including those “concerning Penn faculty members” and their “opinions expressed outside the confines of Penn’s campus and on social media.” They also requested all documents and communications sent to the United States Congress.
On July 31, Penn also filed a motion alerting the court of a ruling in a similar case at a peer institution as grounds to dismiss. The University had already filed two motions this year to dismiss the case, arguing plaintiffs’ claims are “premature” and citing their inability “to meet the standards of controlling precedent.”
The three Penn students first filed the lawsuit on Dec. 5, 2023. The University has since filed multiple motions to dismiss it, in addition to a stay of discovery to stop the gathering of evidence on Sept. 9.
The lecture, held in Houston Hall’s Hall of Flags, focused on the implications of the 2024 presidential election for United States foreign policy. Sanger frequently referred to his book “New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West,” which was published this year, to explain how the partnership between Russia and China will become the defining force behind American foreign policy for the foreseeable future.
The Anspach Lecture brings notable speakers to Penn to discuss current topics in international relations, according to Browne Center administrative coordinator and lecture organizer Anne Kalbach.
Sanger, one of The Times’ longest-serving correspondents, has won three Pulitzer Prizes over 40 years spent covering national security and politics.
“It’s difficult to imagine someone better suited to comment on this crucially important issue,” Browne Center director Edward Mansfield said during his introduction, adding that Sanger has covered foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation, and Asian affairs across his career.
In his lecture, Sanger highlighted his belief that the election will be a turning point in how American foreign policy against Russia and China is established. He said that the growing partnership between Russia and China “is now likely to be the situation for the next 30 or 40 years.”
“We are seeing a new Iron Curtain drop,” Sanger said. “It’s become a platitude now to say that this is one of the most important elections in American history, but this time, I actually think they’re right.”
He added that the election will also define future American foreign policy on a larger scale than just toward Russia and China, including “the way we view America’s role in the world.”
According to Sanger, the 2024 election cycle has not put enough focus on the long-term issue of the growing power of the Russia-China
“We’re back to some of the same debates we had in the early days of the Cold War, which is, what’s the right strategy with a country that has fundamentally declared that it’s your adversary?” Sanger told The Daily Pennsylvanian after the event.
He added that even if the discussion of the “New Cold War” successfully enters the political mainstream, the next steps for policy will be hard to determine.
Sanger’s lecture received praise from members of the crowd of nearly 150 undergraduate students gathered in Houston Hall, many of whom scribbled down notes as Sanger spoke. College first year Paul Beblav ý said that he enjoyed the lecture, especially Sanger’s nonpartisan approach to its topics.
“[Sanger] tried to make an objective analysis of what each candidate would do, which I really like, because it’s pretty hard to understand the current foreign policy trajectory of the U.S.,” he said.
The Monday lecture marked the second Anspach lecture Sanger has given at Penn. His first lecture, given in October 2016, analyzed the 2016 presidential election’s implications and criticized a “sea of contradictions” within the foreign policy plans of 1968 Wharton graduate and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. College first year Eden Liu said that Sanger’s lecture had particular importance to him as an international student.
“As a person from Taiwan, foreign policy is literally the difference between whether my state survives or not, so this is a very near and dear issue,” he said. When asked what Penn students should take away from the election, Sanger commented on how lucky Penn students are to be living “in just the right place, just the right state, at just the right moment.”
“You know, the next four or five weeks are going to be emblazoned in your minds for the rest of your lives,” he said. “For good or ill, we don’t know yet, but I can’t remember an election this interesting when I was going to college.”
LILIANN ZOU | DP FILE PHOTO
students filed a lawsuit against the University
CHASE SUTTON | DP FILE PHOTO AND ROGER GE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
David Sanger, the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, delivered a lecture on Sept. 23 at Houston Hall.
ABHIRAM JUVVADI | PHOTO EDITOR
CHENYAO LIU | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
A number of Penn students received a class action settlement email on Sept. 17.
Students eligible for compensation in lawsuit alleging collusion to limit financial aid
An email states that students who attended Penn and received need-based nancial aid are eligible for compensation from settlements totaling $284 million
NAIJA AGARWAL Staff Reporter
Penn cited the formation of the new Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion as evidence in the ongoing lawsuit against the University alleging an insufficient response to antisemitism, just days after the office was formed.
In the motion — which was filed on Sept. 9 — Penn cites the newly created office as proof that the University “has taken significant additional steps to combat antisemitism.” The motion is the latest in the University’s ongoing effort to dismiss the case filed by students in December of last year.
A University spokesperson declined to comment.
On Sept. 5 — four days before citing it in the lawsuit — Interim Penn President Larry Jameson announced the new office, which aims to ensure Penn is fulfilling its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. An accompanying declaration by David Gringer, the attorney representing Penn, also points to the Temporary Standards and Procedures for Campus Events and Demonstrations as steps taken to address antisemitism.
The plaintiffs — 2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby, College sophomore Jordan Davis, and Wharton and Engineering senior Noah Rubin — filed a response to the University’s motion on Sept. 23, arguing that their allegations from the initial case still stand, despite recent University actions.
In their filing, the plaintiffs refer to Penn’s announcement of the Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion as “just that: an announcement.” They add that other antisemitism lawsuits at the University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that their claims are “ripe” and that there is “no reason, and the notice offers none, to depart from these well-reasoned, directly on-point decisions.”
“Whether the office, if and when it is implemented, will ameliorate the antisemitic hostile
educational environment at Penn is anyone’s guess,” the response read. “No one judging by Penn’s past performance—and Plaintiffs’ allegations—should be optimistic.”
In a statement to the DP, Yakoby described the office’s establishment as “an ineffective Band-Aid on the crisis” and called on the University to “enforce their existing policies.”
Yakoby also criticized the University for failing to take action against the group Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine for an Instagram story earlier this month memorializing the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel as a “day of resistance.”
“Why is it that no faculty were sanctioned for their role in the Penn encampment? President Jameson said that the encampment violated Title VI; maybe the University can start there,” Yakoby said.
Davis and Rubin did not respond to The Daily Pennsylvanian’s request for comment.
In the plaintiffs’ initial document requests — which were sent on July 18 — they requested several types of documents and communications, including those “concerning Penn faculty members” and their “opinions expressed outside the confines of Penn’s campus and on social media.” They also requested all documents and communications sent to the United States Congress.
On July 31, Penn also filed a motion alerting the court of a ruling in a similar case at a peer institution as grounds to dismiss. The University had already filed two motions this year to dismiss the case, arguing plaintiffs’ claims are “premature” and citing their inability “to meet the standards of controlling precedent.”
Yakoby and Davis first filed the lawsuit on Dec. 5, 2023, and Rubin joined as a plaintiff in March 2024. The University has since filed multiple motions to dismiss it, in addition to a stay of discovery to stop the gathering of evidence on Sept. 9.
BIDEN, from FRONT PAGE
after the official launch of the center — to run for president.
Several staffers at the center eventually joined Biden’s administration, with some in high-profile roles including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who served as the Penn Biden Center’s managing director from 2017 to 2019. Steven Ricchetti, who preceded Blinken as the Penn Biden Center’s managing director, later chaired Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and helped coordinate Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election. The center has also faced allegations of foreign influence and controversy over housing classified documents in recent years. In November 2022, classified documents were found in
the Penn Biden Center, prompting a probe and congressional hearing, which ultimately did not result in charges against Biden.
In January 2023, the United States House Oversight and Accountability Committee wrote a letter to former Penn President Liz Magill, requesting documents and records about the Penn Biden Center’s employees, visitors, and donors.
In June, the University announced the creation of Penn Washington, a program that aims to “enrich the connection between federal and global policy makers and Penn faculty, students, and staff.” Under this initiative, the center will be a part of Penn Washington, and the program’s physical address is set where the Penn Biden Center is currently located.
WAX, from FRONT PAGE
history that a tenured University professor has been sanctioned through Faculty Senate procedures. Neither Wax nor her lawyer responded to requests for comment.
Penn Carey Law Dean Sophia Lee addressed the outcome of the years-long disciplinary proceedings in an email on Tuesday, after the sanctions became public. She called the sanctions process, which was observed by academic freedom advocates, “thorough, deliberative, and faculty driven.”
“Faculty, not administrators, acting through their selected bodies and procedures, are best positioned to ensure that institutional censure of faculty respects the bounds of academic freedom,” Lee wrote.
But — in a sign of the University’s longstanding reluctance to discuss the Wax case publicly — Lee also cited Penn’s recent move to limit statements on local and world events. Eric Feldman, a professor of law and chair of the Faculty Senate, told the DP that the sanctions arose as the outcome of a “faculty driven process” and required “a significant amount of faculty time and thought.”
Feldman did not serve on the hearing committee that examined Wax’s case.
Third–year law student and Penn Carey Law Council of Student Representatives President Alexander Diwan, who clarified that he was speaking on behalf of himself and not the Council, described Wax’s suspension as a “step in the right direction.”
He wrote that academic institutions need to “approach any decision to censure a faculty member for their speech in a deliberative and rigorous manner,” which he believes the University did through its hearing and appeals process.
“Professor Wax’s racist comments threw her ability to fairly assess her students into question and undermined core values that should be dear to any educational institution: namely, the inclusion and acceptance of all students regardless of their identity,” Diwan wrote.
Others echoed that assessment, including members of Penn’s Black Law Students Association, which called the sanctions an “overdue step” but “far from sufficient.” The group called on the administration to fire Wax and ban white nationalist Jared Taylor — who has spoken in Wax’s classes multiple times, and plans to visit Penn this fall — from campus.
“For years, Wax has used her tenured position, as well as her Conservative (and Political Legal) Thought seminar to push a racist, white supremacist agenda in a higher academia setting, creating a hostile environment detrimental to minority students’ academic experience at this institution,” the group wrote.
Lauren O’Garro Moore, a 2012 Penn Carey Law graduate who testified to a panel of faculty in May 2023 on her experiences with Wax, wrote to the DP that she was “relieved” to learn of the sanctions. In her testimony, Moore — who is Black — alleged that the controversial professor told her that she only has two Ivy League degrees “because of affirmative action.”
“Testifying was tough business; reliving our initial interaction was not easy and, frankly, downright painful at times,” O’Garro Moore wrote. “Sitting at
the same table as the person who clearly thought so little of me and those who look like me was unpleasant — but I’d do it all over again if I had to.”
Joe Cohn, a former policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, condemned the decision to sanction Wax. He said that the decision will have “national implications” and may create a chilling effect on free speech among Penn faculty.
Cohn, a 2004 graduate of Penn Carey Law School and the Fels Institute of Government, wrote that thfaculty’s ability to “research, teach and make the political arguments that they want” is key to upholding academic freedom. He criticized Penn Carey Law for failing to uphold these principles, adding that the school “should be training their students to argue against ideas that they find uncompelling.”
“[T]he message has been sent that they need to shut their mouths or they can be involved in two years of fighting for their careers,” Cohn said. Harun Küçük, a Penn professor and former director of the Middle East Center, told the DP that the sanctioning of Wax may create “certain room for maneuver that might be scary for some faculty members, and some students.”
“If you can sanction somebody, that means you can also sanction somebody else,” Küçük added. “I don’t think it’s the case that they will just use this as a precedent to go after other people, but there is now less reason than ever not to go after other people.” Graduate School of Education professor Jonathan Zimmerman said he was concerned by the hearing board’s reference to “statements inside and outside the classroom” in its decision.
“I don’t believe she has the right to say anything she wants inside the classroom, because there she has a duty as a teacher,” Zimmerman said. “But outside the classroom, she does, and we shouldn’t be restricting what she says outside the classroom in any way.”
If the statements Wax allegedly made in the classroom were reported correctly, Zimmerman said “they do deserve a sanction,” but he was confident they deserve a year of suspension with no pay. In a statement to the DP, the Penn Alumni Free Speech Alliance wrote “the sanctioning of Professor Amy Wax privileges the psychological comfort of campus community members above academic freedom.” It described a “failure to articulate a clear standard” for disciplining Wax.
In a blog post Wednesday, FIRE Vice President of Advocacy Alex Morey wrote that the decision to sanction Wax “calls tenure protections at private universities into question.”
“Penn’s dubious procedural efforts — which stripped Wax of many of the due process protections tenure affords — paid off,” Morey wrote. “If that’s all it takes to sidestep tenure, the rights of even the most protected private college faculty are tenuous at best.”
Wax told The New York Sun that she will remain at Penn despite the sanctions. She told the Sun that she will continue to strive to offer students “opinions and viewpoints they don’t want to hear.”
Careers in Journalism & New Media
JILL CASTELLANO C’16 is a data reporter at ABC News. She has worked for e Salt Lake Tribune, e Desert Sun, inewsource, Consumer A airs, and USA TODAY, earning a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2018.
MATT FLEGENHEIMER C’11 is a correspondent at the New York Times. His primary focus is long-form pro les of notable gures - in politics and otherwise - for the Times and Times Magazine.
BEATRICE FORMAN C’22 is a reporter with e Philadelphia Inquirer covering how people make meaning on the internet, Taylor Swift, and breaking news. She was previously deputy editor of Billy Penn and a newsletter editor for CNN pundit Michael Smerconish.
JESSICA GOODMAN C’12 is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of young adult thrillers ey Wish ey Were Us, ey’ll Never Catch Us, e Counselors, and e Legacies. She is the former op-ed editor at Cosmopolitan magazine and has held editorial positions at Entertainment Weekly and Hu Post.
ASHLEY PARKER C’05 is senior national political correspondent for the Washington Post, and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Most recently, she served as the White House bureau chief, covering the rst two years of the Biden presidency, as well as the entirety of the Trump presidency. SARAH SMITH C’15 is a senior enterprise reporter with the Houston Chronicle focused on immersive narrative storytelling. Past lives have found her at ProPublica, e Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Associated Press. She’s written everything from investigations into church sexual abuse, the failures of public housing oversight, and Mississippi’s struggles to provide mental health.
ursday, September 26 • 5:30
CHENYAO LIU | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER Biden spoke at the 2024 National HBCU Week Conference.
‘Don’t go past 40th Street’
In my first week at Penn, I was involved in PennCorp, a pre-orientation program run by Civic House dedicated to “introducing students to the Philadelphia community through volunteer community engagement, interactive social justice workshops, and thoughtful dialogue and reflection about the social issues affecting the Philadelphia community.”
During this program, us “Corpies” would spend the day learning about the impact Penn has had on West Philadelphia and doing site visits to different social action and civic engagement organizations around the area.
From my time in PennCorp, I gained knowledge integral for any first year to understand about Penn, Philadelphia, and the relationship between the two. We spoke about things such as Philadelphia’s Black Bottom, the University City Townhomes, over-policing, and the broader effects of the University’s overreach into West Philadelphia. At the conclusion of the five-day program, I felt as if I had a better understanding of where I was, what my role was as a Penn student, and how my
presence in West Philadelphia had an impact.
This being my first interaction with the Penn community, I felt optimistic that many students would feel similarly about the obvious issues that existed between Penn and West Philadelphia. My optimism was quickly dashed as I realized by my very first New Student Orientation event that I was sorely mistaken. During this first Peers Helping Integrate New Students tour, I began to hear the widespread, negative stereotypes that many Penn students believe and repeat about Philadelphia. Yet, these perceptions largely came from the racialization of crime and homelessness or prevailing ideas passed down from older Penn students. Interestingly, it seemed as if these fears preceded anyone even stepping foot on campus. My response was visceral. I immediately found myself sharing the information I had learned while in PennCorp with those in my group. As a group, we were supposed to follow a tour map with important spots around campus that provide context on the community we
all agreed to join. While I was excited about this introduction to my new surroundings, my PHINS group leader was less enthusiastic, to say the least. She was hesitant to take us to 40th Street to see some of the murals, and this hesitancy was clear through her body language and the ways she spoke about Philadelphia in other parts of the tour. I encouraged our group to keep going anyway and see these important parts of the community we are, indeed, living in. Yet, that was not even the worst part of it all. The cherry on top was that, once we arrived, it was almost as if we had walked all the way to 40th Street for no reason. Our guide quickly said we had arrived and pointed across the busy street at the mural. For a brief moment, I sensed that a few eyes had joined mine in looking at the intricate loops and faded colors, but I soon felt them return back to the conversations they believed were more important. In that moment, I stepped in and shared my limited knowledge on what the Black Bottom is and was and the relationship to Penn, and therefore
us. I didn’t want that moment to be wasted. What I am hoping to convey here is this:
The average Penn student shows up with a preconceived notion of what West Philadelphia is.
Without any lived experiences in Philadelphia, many judge the city without ever giving it a chance. “Don’t go past 40th Street,” a phrase I’ve heard repeated numerous times, stokes a fear of what exists beyond the Penn bubble.
Regardless of the intent behind that statement, the words themselves cause harm by “othering” those past 40th Street and by ignoring the systemic issues that exist in West Philadelphia because of powers like Penn. In fact, when mapping crime statistics in the area, there are no hotspots before 52nd Street, likely due to the heavy Penn police presence.
While fears or thoughts about the unknown are natural, when your only representation of West Philadelphia is based on negative stories you’ve heard, sensationalist images from the media, or safety apps with real-time alerts, you should consider how your perspective might be unfairly biased. While it’s important we have these alerts for our safety, it is equally as important that we remember they aren’t representative of West Philadelphia — or even Philadelphia as a whole.
When you arrive and begin living at Penn, you must realize you have entered a place with real people and lives that existed before you. As a Penn student, you have agreed to cultivate responsible citizenship, and by extension, respect for others, by recognizing the dignity and humanity of your new neighbors. Tread lightly. While caution is best practice in any city, fear and judgment only produce negative stereotypes and prevent you from fully engaging. Regardless of what you think about Philadelphia and your safety here, you can do your part in destigmatizing the city and those who are native to it.
Go on a walk, take the SEPTA, and challenge the narrative. This is the time to get to know the history and culture of a new city, and that education can’t be exclusionary. And, remember that the way you speak about a place and its people has an impact.
MARIE DILLARD is a College first year studying history and urban studies from Englewood, N.J. Her email is mdilla@sas.upenn.edu.
The beauty of not knowing what to do with your life
LET’S BE FRANC | Why I love the gift of uncertainty
Picture your hand holding a pill revealing, with certainty, what your life will look like in five years. Would you take it? It may sound like a gift or at least a temptation. We tactically spend our Penn years acquiring safety net upon safety net: take the easy class (but seven course units per semester), join the “right” organization (but dozens just in case), recruit for the safe jobs (but sooner rather than later). We never taste the pleasures of risk. When we do, we act like the financiers we are and downsize. In other words, we desperately crave definitiveness. What if instead, the gift lies in obscurity? What if there was value in uncertainty?
Pre-med friends, I know we are designed to tackle uncertainty (thank you, frontal lobe), and evolution, and blah blah blah. Yet frankly, I am sick of hearing first years and seniors grumble because “everyone knows what they are doing with their lives, but I have no idea.” Raise your hand if you have a friend who says that, and if not, you might very well be that friend.
Let me be explicit: Who exactly put the perverse thought in your head that you must know what your future holds?
I want to apologize on their behalf. Do not get me wrong: structure, coherence, and planning all matter. Being strategic and responsible is preferable to random incautiousness that may ruin your future. But who said that resolution is a requirement for a meaningful life? Why do we resist uncertainty and fail to accept an inevitable fact of life: the unknown?
Our friends in the humanities are onto something when they talk about the beauty of aporias, “those interstitial encounters arising out of puzzlement … temporal elements in which people exist in a state of befuddlement.” On the other hand, more grounded psychologists like Meg Jay dedicate entire careers to studying the uncertainty that “twentysomethings” feel. Plot twist: It is normal!
Yet we seem to fail to realize that, as college students, we have the best luxury in the world: time. Time to read, consume, intellectualize, and to figure “it” out — all of which will be gone in the day of nine-to-fives and mortgages. Ask anyone who graduated recently. They know that the safety net tactic does not save you from the ditch once you graduate. So, what should you do exactly?
The right question is not, “What should I do with my life?” but the harder one: “How should I live my life?” Even
worse: “What do I truly like? What activities do I love and find so motivating that they capture me at the depth of my being?” Knowledge is plentiful, but motivation is scarce. Penn is information-rich but meaning-poor. Spend your Penn years exploring these questions — not how I dictated them, but in your own way. Stop this pragmatic craving for so much definitiveness, concreteness, and conclusions in order to keep the existential anxiety about “what to do with your life” carefully suppressed underneath consciousness. I hate being the one to break it to you, but I truly must: This sense of safety to which you are holding on so tightly simply does not exist. Chasing certainty is painfully frustrating and utterly useless. The first realization for a meaningful life is precisely that we are never certain. Never. We are, well, just … alive. I recognize that you cannot eradicate your desire for certainty. This human need is a plant whose roots are deeply ingrained in the ground and cannot be ripped out. But you are the gardener of your life and, in fact, have agency to
stop watering it. Stoics like Epictetus believed that unhappiness comes from an error of classification of what we can control. I can control my thoughts and impulses, but I cannot control my future. If I fool myself into thinking I can control my future, I will be miserable. As for my insignificant life, I apply a principle known in neuroscience as survival of the busiest. Essentially, we become what we hear, see, and do every day and do not become what we do not hear, see, and do. By being intentional in the present, I avoid worrying about the future. My emotions are my compass. They guide me by assigning value to things and telling me what is worth wanting. Writing energizes me; finance drains me. Unsurprisingly, I do more and more of writing and less and less of finance.
So I beg you, stop trying to find what your life and future should be about and start wondering about how you should live now instead. We have everything we may need to be happy, and yet it is still not enough. We want more. We play God and demand the impossible: to know the future. I looked around and realized
the only certainty is uncertainty. So I thought, why not start from there? Your “not knowing” is not an abject aberration. Your future as a college student is inevitably wobbly, inscrutable even. But that’s exactly the value of uncertainty: It is scary. The desire to eliminate uncertainty eliminates life. What happens when you halt this unbridled, pathological need for resolution is that you start to see that uncertainty is indeed invigorating — and dare I say it … liberating. The French figured it out before us: “Lâcher prise!” Literally, let your hands go. If you let go of holding on so tightly to the sense of certainty, not only will the muscles in your hands immediately relax, but you will also be able to use your hands for things that actually matter. And you will see, trust me, you will see that this obscurity you are experiencing is not a constraint. It is a gift.
FRANCESCO SALAMONE is a Wharton junior studying decision processes from Palermo, Italy. His email address is frasala@wharton.upenn.edu.
DESIGN BY INSIA HAQUE
SYDNEY CURRAN | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Columnist Marie Dillard examines how the social boundary at 40th street perpetuates biases against the West Philadelphia community.
“A picture-perfect night” is the best way to describe the Class of 2028’s evening gala at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a beloved NSO tradition. The foyer was lit up in Penn’s red and blue as students snapped selfies of themselves munching on baba ganoush and dancing to songs like “Carnival” by Ye. Such a scene just screamed: Welcome to the Ivy League! It was also the perfect backdrop for another Penn tradition: the problematic tendency of SABSing, seeing and being seen. I first discovered this term while reading “28 Penn phrases the Class of 2028 should know” in my newly decorated Hill dorm. But until the gala, I didn’t understand why SABS deserved recognition as part of the Penn student lingo.
As my new friends and I frolicked around the impressionist gallery, we stumbled upon a group of our classmates posing in front of some Monet. The designated photographer for the group directed them to “tilt their heads to the right” and “smile with less teeth.” I suddenly felt like an intruder, sneaking up on an artist at work before their painting was complete. Their photos popped up on my Instagram the next day. In them, they seemed so effortlessly fun and sophisticated. But, I was there when that moment was constructed rather than captured. I’d seen the posing and bickering. One of my new friends scoffed that they hadn’t even looked once at the world-renowned paintings in front of which they were posing. Not once.
At this point, you may be thinking I’m such a hater, that I’m ridiculing my classmates for their apparent obsession with their image. I don’t intend to. After all, I’m just like them.
Moments after I saw their posts, I received my friend group’s pictures from the gala. In it were hundreds of photos of us staring into the sunset, oh-so-oblivious to the museum and people that surrounded us. I suddenly
became conscious of my own tendency to SABS. I, too, was the poster girl for a student body — but even more than that, a generation — obsessed with seeming rather than being. I, too, was smiling for the camera, not because of the moment.
Since then, it has become clear that seeing and being seen, as it manifests uniquely online, is a college student’s unconscious pastime. From frat parties to late-night study sessions, we experience quintessential college moments through the vision of tomorrow’s Instagram page, TikTok video, or LinkedIn update. After all, did the moment really happen if there isn’t an audience corroborating your experience, observing it, judging it?
In our digital world, there is a built-in attention incentive to SABS. Social media is social currency. Rush chairs examine your Instagram before deciding to accept you, potential girlfriends and boyfriends look at your Snapchat before deciding to date you, and new classmates ask for your LinkedIn before deciding to like you. To be meaningful, you must be worthy of being visible. However, I fear that our obsession with being seen, with performing online, costs us our freedom and authenticity. The pressure to constantly build your personal brand and reaffirm yourself as worthy of attention has enabled social media to become the lens through which we understand ourselves. We even derive pleasure from doing so. A
positive comment on a post and boom, dopamine rush. In the process, we become servants to our audience, because who are we without them?
As W.H. Auden once said, “Human beings never become something without pretending to be it first.” Would you truly be who you are now if you weren’t always pretending? The question itself might indicate why so many college students eventually face an identity crisis. Simply put, our curated persona robs us of the opportunity to simply be, to explore our authentic selves, which supposedly college is all about.
Absolute freedom from society’s obsession with the performative self, with SABSing, is impossible. But, we can lessen its power over our experience of the world by becoming conscious of it.
The next time you find yourself itching to take a photo, ask yourself why. Consider for whom you want to capture this moment. Pull up your Instagram right now. For each post, what were you trying to prove? To be clear, I’m not saying never take or post another photo. Nor am I undermining the fact that how you’re perceived on social media can have real-world consequences.
What I am saying is that we must be the agents of our own self understanding. It is this consciousness that gives us back our power, our freedom, our ability — as inscribed on the windows of Rodin College House — “to be rather than to seem.” We don’t have to be “picture perfect.” We can be more like Monet — bright, wild, and indecipherable to anyone but the artist, anyone but ourselves.
SOLEMEI SCAMARONI is a College first year studying philosophy, politics, and economics from Houston. Her email is solemei@sas. upenn.edu.
Eat the rich (or so they say). It’s a thought we’ve all had once or twice, probably as we scrolled through our classmates’ Instagram posts during spring break or heard about their daring summer escapades as we returned this fall. The wealth gap within Ivy League universities is notoriously large, and Penn is no exception to this rule. With a ridiculous number of students hailing from the top 10% and endowments large enough to power entire countries, we would expect to see great amounts of financial assistance go towards its middle and working-class students. However, unless you qualify as Highly Aided, you might find yourself out of luck. Imagine being a student who doesn’t belong to either side of the monetary extreme. Your parents don’t make exceedingly high amounts of money, but they don’t make such small amounts that you would qualify for Highly Aided status. While other students are worrying about summer internships, you’re still waiting for your financial aid to come back and deliberate over how much you’ll owe the upcoming school year. For the first time in your
life, you’re too rich.
The simple truth is that for an Ivy, Penn isn’t as generous as it would claim itself to be. In order to reap the full benefits of its altruism and qualify as Highly Aided, your family has to be contributing less than $2,000 per year, meaning a “household of 4 has to be making less than $75,000 a year (with typical assets).” Not such a bad figure until you realize that Penn has one of the most expensive tuitions in the country and yet, some of the lowest percentages of its student body on financial aid. Compare Penn’s package to schools like Princeton and Stanford where households making less than $100,000 receive full financial aid, and you’ll realize we’re being shortchanged. There is no argument that the students with Highly Aided status not only require, but deserve the full financial backing of this institution. As a Highly Aided student myself, the problem is not that students like me are receiving too much help; the problem is that other students aren’t receiving enough. All it takes is one quick scroll on the Highly Aided page to see everything that you’re
missing.
Not only do Highly Aided students get full tuition,
including room and board, they’re also entitled to other financial benefits like refunds at the start of semesters and full healthcare coverage. During summer breaks, Penn will pay for up to two college classes, and tuition is covered if they want to study abroad. Most students are probably unaware of the sheer amount of help they could obtain if their families made slightly less.
Obviously, no system is perfect; at a university where business education dominates and money talks, no financial assistance was ever going to arrive without its own set of drawbacks and loopholes. For one, Penn may pay for Highly Aided students’ summer tuition, but it certainly won’t pay for their living expenses during that time. Students are expected to find a way to pay for their expensive on-campus housing or look for apartments off-campus. Besides, even if Highly Aided students receive refunds at the start of the semester, they have to properly allocate for classes now that Penn has revoked free access codes
to course materials. The point is, these students receive some of the most help Penn can offer, and they still have to confront financial precarity on top of academic pressure. If Highly Aided students continue to struggle in the face of this assistance, who can claim that students who fall in the middle fare any better?
We know that middle-class students are underrepresented in the Ivy League, but at Penn, they seem to be abandoned completely. Not only do the Highly Aided policies divide the student body by class even further, but they leave behind the students who seem to be in most need of them. Nobody is claiming that families making over $200,000 yearly need any more financial breaks than they already receive. But it would do good to remember: The saying is eat the rich, not the slightly less poor.
LINDSAY MUNETON is a College sophomore studying sociology from Bergenfield, N.J. Her email address is lmuneton@sas.upenn.edu.
ABHIRAM JUVVADI | PHOTO EDITOR
Students at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
FOOTBALL
, from BACK PAGE
It’s a lot of mental preparation for our guys,” Priore said. “[Colgate is] a very good opponent. They’re physical. They’re very similar to ourselves: old school, lunch-pail mentality. They’ll fight you for all four quarters, and we know we’ll be in for such a fight this weekend.”
On Penn’s end, the game plan for offensive success will be simple: Help the stars stay hot. Against Delaware, the Red and Blue’s skill position stars found major success, with sophomore running back Malachi Hosley rushing for 176 yards and junior wide receiver Jared Richardson catching five passes for 98
STAS, from BACK PAGE
a win over Princeton when the Quakers stormed the field and celebrated in each other’s arms, an emotional moment that Korzeniowski said “showed how much it meant to [them].”
After starting all 18 matches as a sophomore, Korzeniowski was named second team All-American, Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year, and first team All-Ivy — a barrage of awards that only signaled the further success to come.
The summer before his junior year, Korzeniowski made a name for himself in the semi-professional league United Soccer League
Two. While playing for Ballard FC in Seattle, he scored 19 goals in 16 games and — along with Penn soccer seniors Leo Burney and Charlie Gaffney — won the national championship for the summer league.
“That also helped me get some good exposure,” Korzeniowksi said of the experience. “I started to build a brand for myself, started to build an image and I think that had quite an impression that stirred up some interest amongst these professional teams.”
He was right: Halfway through his junior year, Korzeniowski was drafted as the No. 53 overall pick in the MLS SuperDraft to the Philadelphia Union.
“Being drafted showed me there is some potential for me in this career path,” Korzeniowski said. “I was like ‘yeah, this is something I really want, and I’m very hungry for.’”
yards and a score.
The team’s primary area for improvement is similarly straightforward. Turnovers and miscues plagued Penn last season, with the Red and Blue committing 14 turnovers over the course of their four losses.
Last week’s loss was a similar story, with a pair of giveaways — including one on Penn’s final drive — ultimately deciding the outcome.
But as they look ahead to Colgate and beyond, the Quakers remain confident that their best is yet to come.
“Coach [Priore] always tells us the biggest jump for a team is between Week 1 and Week 2,” Means said. “So right now, I feel the team’s headspace is good. We’re not down or slouching or anything like that. We still have a goal in mind, we just have to take it one day at a time.”
Although he didn’t reach some of his personal goals during his junior year due to a wrist injury that left him in a hard cast for the whole season, Korzeniowski still praised the year Penn men’s soccer had: not only winning the Ivy League regular season title, but also the continued improvement in team culture that kept growing and becoming “really connected as a family.”
Despite the injury, he received a list of accolades last year, including being named to the second team All-Ivy. But when he looks back on his career, it’s the change in Penn’s culture that Korzeniowski feels proudest of.
“I’ve been a part of the process where I’ve seen it at its worst, but I’ve also seen it at its best,” Korzeniowski said. “That’s just been an incredibly rewarding thing to witness firsthand: to know the change that we’ve implemented, to know that we’ve affected the legacy of this program and hoping that it carries the change forward moving forward.”
“The care, the kindness, the thoughtfulness, the generosity, the work ethic … I love that balance of having great quality relationships with them but then also taking care of business on the field going to war.”
So far this season, Penn men’s soccer is 5-1-1 and sits at No. 20 in the national poll. With the experience and leadership he’s gained from the past three years, Korzeniowski is ready to make his last year in the Red and Blue count.
“I want to go out with a bang senior year and to leave it all out there,” Korzeniowski said. “No regrets, to feel fulfilled, to know that I gave it my best and helped this program during the time I was here — leave a legacy.”
individual game, as Temple’s midfielders struggled to pass the ball off to their forwards. On the other hand, the Quakers were able to fire a series of solid passes and assists for the full 90 minutes. In particular, the Quaker’s defense brought an aggressive game that helped keep the ball upfield.
Later in the first half, Capdevila continued to dominate the field, sneaking a shot into the goal with an assist from White and freshman defensive midfielder Isabella Zulli. Post goal, Capdevila was switched out, a pattern that was present for much of the game.
The matchup was filled with rotations, suggesting that the Quakers are still trying to find their starting lineup. This is to be expected when over half of the roster is composed of underclassmen.
“I think our depth is a strength of ours,” Turner said. “We played 26 players today, but going into Ivy play, there’s probably not going to be that many rotations.”
27 minutes into the second half, sophomore midfielder Avery Chapel made the Quakers’ third goal after finding the back of the net off a ball that was deflected by the goalie. Chapel played a dominant game throughout with two attempts on goal. With two minutes left on the clock, the Quakers went up 4-0 with sophomore forward Abbey Cook finding a close range shot that hit the top of the net and bounced into the goal. She was assisted by senior forward Megan Lusher.
“We’ve been working a lot on ball movement,” Chapel said. “Also we’ve been looking to find the higher player and then build support underneath.” Penn’s win is coming in at the perfect time, right before the start of the Ivy season. Previously 0-5-3, the Quakers struggled to find their footing.
“We have a shorter preseason than other teams because of Ivy rules,” Chapel said. “Now we’ve been able to come together and work on some of the holes in our game.”
The Quakers will be looking to carry this momentum forward next week when Penn takes on Columbia on Sept. 28 in the first Ivy matchup of the season. Catch the Quakers at home on Rhodes Field or on ESPN+.
ANNIE LIU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Junior forward Clare Robke kicks the ball away from Temple on Sept. 22.
UMA MUKHOPADHYAY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Sophomore midfielder Leah Finkelman dribbles the ball against Temple on Sept. 22.
Football falls in season opener to Delaware in close game
An interception late in the fourth quarter from senior quarterback Aidan Sayin ultimately sealed the deal
NEWARK, DEL. — New year, new team, but it was more of the same old, same old for Penn football as the team found itself, once again, on the wrong end of a one-score game. In its season opener, the Quakers fell 29-22.
“There is no victory in that,” coach Ray Priore said. “[But] it shows you the standard of play we are capable of. … We gotta get better. The emotion was right there. We made some key plays. They were focused. We just got to take off a little bit of rust, and we’ll be okay.”
Penn (0-1) started off the game as crisply as the all-white uniforms the players were wearing. After Delaware (3-0) won the coin toss and elected to defer the kick, the Quakers offense picked up where it left off. As expected, reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year sophomore running back Malachi Hosley was the first to touch the ball.
For his first completed pass of the season, senior quarterback Aidan Sayin moved the chains with an 11-yard strike to junior wide receiver Bisi Owens. For his second pass attempt, Sayin was able to connect with junior wide receiver Jared Richardson for the first of many passes.
Against a unit that hadn’t given up an offensive touchdown in its previous outing, the Red and Blue moved down the field with ease. The drive culminated with Sayin finding none other than Richardson on a fade route to put up the team’s first points of the season after initially missing on a similar throw just a few plays prior.
One of Delaware’s strengths in its first two games was the ability of the receiving corps to generate yards after a catch. Blue Hens wide receiver Max Patterson continued this trend as he made several Penn defenders miss on a 26-yard catch to give his team life. Ultimately, the Quakers caught a lucky break when Patterson couldn’t haul in the toss from quarterback Ryan O’Connor on fourth and one. Hosley came in ready to prove that his rookie year wasn’t a fluke, and with his first run of the second quarter, he announced his presence with a 43-yard rip. Hosley would go on to finish the game with 176 yards.
“We might have lost the game, but I think we won the test,” Hosley said. “[This game] was good for us and building momentum going into the Ivy League. I know it’s a lot of pressure with me coming off a great year. I just wanted to build off of that.” Delaware was finally able to work things out on
offense with O’Connor connecting with wide receiver Phil Lutz on fourth and long for Lutz’s first touchdown of the night. Penn responded with an efficient two-minute drill that ended with Owens climbing the ladder to give the Quakers a 10-point lead heading into the halftime break.
Having blown out the teams in its previous two games, it wasn’t a question of if Delaware would explode offensively, it was when. It didn’t take long for O’Connor to connect with Lutz on a 39-yard feed to bring the Blue Hens within one score of Penn. And while Delaware found its groove, the Red and Blue’s offense stalled.
The Quakers closed out the third quarter without scoring any points. While the Blue Hens made a field goal to bring them within one, Penn missed one of its own at the other end of the field after a false start call on junior kicker Sam Smith pushed the attempt back by five yards.
Delaware wasn’t going to wait around for Penn to figure things out. Less than three minutes into the fourth quarter, wide receiver Jake Thaw caught his first career touchdown to give Delaware the lead.
Despite Sayin’s newfound struggles with hitting his open receivers, a blocked punt by junior defensive back Francesco Barone set the offense up with a short field. A sliding catch from senior wide receiver Julien “Juice” Stokes at the one-yard line set Sayin up to run it in for the score.
With just under two minutes to go, Delaware running back Jo’Nathan Silver ran untouched into the end zone to put the Blue Hens up by seven. On the first play after the kickoff, Richardson came up clutch with a 55-yard catch and run, but it was ultimately for nought as Sayin recorded his second interception of the night to seal the loss.
“Bad ball,” Sayin said. “That’s all on me. And, you know, crazy stuff happens in football.”
Once again, Penn found itself at the wrong end of a one-score game. But the game proved that Penn can keep up with programs that — on paper — appear much stronger.
“We had a lot of first-game mistakes there,” Priore said. “But you make your greatest improvement as a football team between week one and week two. We’re really expecting that to happen this week.”
The team will be looking to build on this momentum heading into its second game against Colgate on Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. The game will also be the Red and Blue’s first this season at Franklin Field.
Four Quakers brought home honors for their performance over the weekend WALKER CARNATHAN
In a busy weekend of action for Penn sports, several Quakers earned conference and national recognition for their play. Let’s break down each winner.
Four for Falcon
Many things have gone right for Penn men’s soccer this season, but the backbone behind the No. 11-ranked Quakers’ hot start has been the play of sophomore goalkeeper Phillip Falcon. Falcon has allowed just three goals through six games with a save percentage of 84%, helping the Quakers to a 5-1 record out of the gate.
On Saturday, the Red and Blue needed every bit of Falcon’s excellence, earning a tight 1-0 victory against Manhattan. Falcon recorded four saves en route to a shutout of the Jaspers, and was awarded the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week award for his play, his fourth consecutive week earning the honor.
Moore assists, more wins
Over the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Penn volleyball recorded a combined total of eight wins. This year, the Quakers have already nearly matched that mark with a 6-3 start fueled by the
contributions of rising stars and fresh faces.
One such new contributor is freshman setter Emery Moore, who was critical in the team’s wins over NJIT and Rhode Island. Over the two games, Moore recorded 93 assists, playing a crucial connecting role in the revitalized Quaker offense. She also added nine kills. As a result, Moore was named co-Ivy League Rookie of the Week alongside outside hitter Haley Clark of Cornell.
Dominant debut In its first game of the season, Penn sprint football wasted no time establishing itself as a team to watch in this year’s College Sprint Football League. On Saturday, the Quakers drubbed St. Thomas Aquinas 24-0, with standout performances up and down the roster.
Freshman quarterback Michael Malone found a home in the end zone, scoring three times for the Quakers while pouring in 120 yards passing. Senior kicker/punter/defensive back Adrian Montemayor found similar success on special teams, nailing one field goal and three extra points. Malone brought home CFSL Rookie of the Week, while Montemayor was named CFSL Special Teams Player of the Week.
SAMANTHA TURNER | DP FILE PHOTO
Junior wide receiver Adrian Montemayor of Penn sprint football during a matchup against Mansfield on Oct. 28, 2022.
‘Ticked o ’ Penn football seeks first win in home opener against Colgate
The Quakers have defeated the Raiders in each of the past two
seasons
WALKER CARNATHAN Sports Editor
The best part of a Week 1 loss? Week 2.
That is Penn football’s mindset as it approaches its matchup with Colgate this Saturday — the team’s first game this season at Franklin Field and an attempt to add its first mark in the win column. After a tight 29-22 loss to FCS powerhouse Delaware in the season-opener, the Quakers have plenty to build on, but also plenty of motivation ahead of their tilt against the Raiders.
“I thought the effort that our kids put forth [against Delaware] was commendable,” coach Ray Priore said. “Obviously we came up on the short end. Our kids, at the end of the game, they were really more ticked off at themselves. They were mad. They knew they had it. … And now, I think what they showed to us, our team, is what they’re capable of doing.”
Men’s soccer’s Stas Korzeniowski is all about the team
The senior has enjoyed plenty of individual success, but he hopes to leave an even greater impact
NEEMA BADDAM Sports Reporter
On the evening of Dec. 19, 2023, Penn men’s soccer senior Stas Korzeniowski was standing in his kitchen with his family awaiting the results of the MLS SuperDraft 2024. He refreshed the website, and “Philadelphia Union” came up on the page — followed by his name.
“It was just a surreal feeling,” Korzeniowski recalled. “It’s one of my favorite memories because going professional never felt like a tangible thing that I could reach for.” For Korzeniowski, it was the culmination of years of hard work: He had played soccer ever since his “little body was able to function like that.” Although he grew up playing a variety of sports, including swimming and ice hockey, he ultimately chose soccer because of his natural love for the game. But that love did not always translate to attention from others.
Korzeniowski’s recruiting journey fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, and although he had gotten looks from several Ivy League schools before the pandemic hit and ultimately was able to commit to Penn, college ball wasn’t always in the cards for him. As a freshman in high school, he recalled being “on the shorter side” and not playing as much as he wanted to.
As the Red and Blue turn their attention to this week, they meet an opponent almost as familiar as one of their Ivy League foes. Penn and Colgate have faced off in each of the last two seasons, with the Quakers winning both matchups. In 2023, Penn won a low-scoring 20-6 affair, buoyed by a defense that forced three turnovers and held the Raiders to just six points.
This season’s matchup seems destined to be different, at least in regard to Colgate’s scoring total. Though the Raiders began the season 0-3 against a string of tough opponents, they found their groove last weekend to the tune of a 41-24 blowout win over Cornell, which is coached by former Penn offensive coordinator Dan Swanstrom. During that scoring explosion against the Big Red, Colgate racked up 457
yards of total offense, with wideouts Brady Hutchison and Treyvhon Saunders each hauling in six catches for over 75 receiving yards.
“Colgate has good receivers, a good offense … ” senior defensive back Shiloh Means said. “They’re a good team. They’re better than they were last year, and they’re better than they were the year before, so we’ll have to come ready.”
The Raiders’ offense is powered by a unique threequarterback system — one that shapeshifts to take what the defense gives. In some games, quarterback Michael Brescia — the team’s leading rusher and passer — will play both parts, as he did in a do-it-all performance against Akron. In others, quarterbacks Jake Stearney or Zach Osborne will lead the way: Against Cornell, Stearney passed for 184 yards while
WEINING DING | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Senior forward Stas Korzeniowski poses next to the goalpost on Sept. 17.
“Sophomore year, I kind of burst and started to figure myself out, soccer-wise,” Korzeniowski said. “I started to get bigger and started to figure out how to use my body and how to adapt to my position and got faster and stronger. College became more of a legitimate option for me, and it really helped me and put me in a better position to strongly consider Division I soccer.”
When he arrived at Penn, however, Korzeniowski found the team in “rough” shape. He explained that the culture of the group was not very inviting, especially for an intimidated freshman trying to find his feet.
Over time, however, Korzeniowski and his teammates changed the dynamic — a shift that also resulted in a change on the field.
“During my freshman spring, the group really came together in a really good way that allowed us to start winning games and to really enjoy each other’s company,” Korzeniowski said. “We fostered a really inviting, warm culture that also bred success — tangible success.”
The Quakers were champions of the Ivy League during that 2022 season, culminating in clinching
See STAS, page 6
Brescia and Osborne each attempted just one pass. Colgate is not the only Penn opponent to deploy this unique attack — Dartmouth has notably utilized multiple quarterbacks for years, an approach that has yielded the Big Green three Ivy titles in the last four seasons. Though each team and game is unique, the Quakers have generally fared well against these offenses; over the course of four matchups against Colgate and Dartmouth in the last two seasons, Penn has allowed an average of just 15 points.
Despite this past success, Priore emphasized the cerebral difficulty of stopping such a complex scheme.
“[The three-quarterback system] is a combination.
, page 6
Women’s soccer digs deep for first win of the season
The Quakers found the back of the net four times against Temple with an aggressive defense keeping the Owls at bay
ISHANI MODI Sports Reporter
Penn women’s soccer finally found its stride against Temple with a shutout 4-0 win, marking its first victory of the season.
In a physical matchup against the Owls (2-8), the Quakers (1-5-3) managed to keep the ball upfield as much as possible, resulting in four solid goals. Penn played a connective game with good passes and strong assists, leading to the Quakers’ highest offensive output of the season.
“This is the first game where we’ve scored more than one goal,” coach Krissy Turner said. “From an attacking perspective, there was a lot of great movement and decision making which let us put a few in the back of the net.”
The Quakers’ first goal came from freshman forward Lily White 19 minutes into the game, when White found a pass from sophomore forward Magali Capdevila. White took the assist off the right foot and found the back of the net for her first goal of the season.
The game’s first half saw the Quakers play a physical game, with a questionable call coming midway through when the referee missed a hand ball and a tug down of Temple’s sole striker.
