IMPACT Magazine - Issue 7, Fall 2016

ISSUE 7 | SEPTEMBER 2016

IMPACT MAGAZINE Our mission is to cultivate a culture of student involvement in social change and to bring awareness to the social impact activities of students, alumni, faculty, and organizations in our immediate and global community.

CO-PRESIDENTS Svanika Balasubramanian Armaan Chandra Yousra Kandri

MANAGING EDITOR Naomi Pohl

ONLINE EDITOR Corey Loftus DESIGN EDITOR Tamara Prabhakar PHOTOGRAHY EDITOR Connor Boyle

EVENTS DIRECTOR Gabriela Rodriguez FINANCE DIRECTOR David Huerta POA DIRECTOR Chelsea Alexander-Taylor

WRITERS

Shelby Lynne Barlow, Vivian Dai, Samantha Friedlander, Tiffany Huang, Muriel Leung, Abby McGuckin, Becca Richardson, Rebecca Tan Hui Shan, Kyra Schulman, Emma Shenton, Nina Spitofsky, Jackie Uy

BLOGGERS

Anna Balfanz, Diane Bayeux, Mariya Bershad, Carol Chen, Emily Chen, Adri Dropulic, Analiese Fernandes, Priyanka Hongal, Celine Jo, Chris Molaro, Narelli Narciso, Andreas Nolan, Lisa Shmulyan, Tiffany Sim, Morgan Snyder, Qingyi Yuan

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Belden Carlson Alex Fisher, Johanna MattNavarro, Angela Schwartz, Abbie Starker, Lucy Wu

EVENTS TEAM

Shelley Sim, Melinda Wang

FINANCE TEAM Iris Kim

MARKETING TEAM

Matthew Cartwright, Karen Her, Jillian Sprong, Kathleen Zhou

SPONSORS & AFFILIATIONS The Povich Fund for Journalism Programs at the Kelly Writers House Student Sustainability at Penn Student Activities Council

LETTER FROM THE TEAM It has been a little over three years since two Penn undergraduates conceived the idea of IMPACT and released our first issue. In the time that has since passed, we have expanded our reach and solidified our footing as one of the university’s largest organizations focused on social impact. Through the years, however, our guiding mission has never wavered. We are here to engage the student body in meaningful conversations about social justice and provide opportunities to create tangible change in our community.

To this end, IMPACT is proud to present Issue 7 as a testament to our ongoing dedication to fulfilling our mission. In this semester’s powerful cover story, we explore the lives of low-income college students at Penn in an attempt to bring to the forefront an often overlooked topic. Featuring interviews from various members of Penn First, a support network for first-generation students, the article calls into question the economic diversity among the student population. Candid expositions highlight culturally ingrained discriminatory practices and a pervasive lack of awareness about income inequality. The reader is encouraged to reflect on the consequences of their own actions and the part they play, even unwittingly, in perpetuating a culture that favors the socio-economic elite.

Where do we draw the line between political correctness and freedom of speech?

How much power should genetic modification technology have in changing our ecosystems? What is the extent of displacement occurring due to gentrification? This issue of the magazine tackles tough questions from across the social and geographic spectrum in the hopes of igniting healthy dialogue about some of today’s most pressing affairs.

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Stranger Than Fiction 21st Century European School History Curriculums

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Kyra Schulman

Humanizing Teaching Why So Many New Teachers Leave and What We Can Do

Nothing Sacred Controversy in Comedy

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Muriel Leung

Vivian Dai

The Land Before Suburbs Evalutating Urban Sprawl at Home and Abroad

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Abigail McGuckin

Corporate and Corrupt The Need for Change in the Pharmaceutical Industry

A Different Quaker Life |

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Becca Richardson

Rebecca Tan

Recent Alumni in Social Impact | Sam Friedlander The Liberal Arts The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

Does the Thought Really Count? |

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Nina Spitofsky

Emma Shenton

Gentrification in Philadelphia Displacement or Reinvigoration? | Jackie Uy Poverty, Hunger, and Education | Playing with Nature |

Tiffany Huang

Shelby Barlow

STRANGER THAN FICTION 21ST CENTURY EUROPEAN SCHOOL HISTORY CURRICULUMS Written By Kyra Schulman

WRITING HISTORY

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inston Churchill famously predicted that, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” Churchill was a prodigious writer, even winning the Nobel Prize in part for his six-volume work on World War II. Churchill understood the importance of putting forth one’s view of history in the marketplace of competing views of events.

However, the writers of government-sanctioned history curriculums currently taught in many European countries have taken Churchill’s admonition one step too far in their World War II historiographies .Rather than providing students with objective views of Nazi collaboration, resistance, and complicity, government-approved history curriculums in some countries burnish monolithic accounts that ignore any meaningful Nazi activity or responsibility.

Churchill never intended this form of “statist” history to be the sole source of history. This article documents the tendency of state-sanctioned history curriculums in many European countries to gloss over or ignore Nazi collaboration through interviews with international Penn undergraduates. In many cases, the government-approved historical “facts,” while politically expedient, are stranger than fiction.

WHAT IS WORLD WAR II COLLABORATION? The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines “collaboration” on its website as the product of “anti-Semitism, nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, and opportunism induc[ing] citizens of nations Germany occupied to collaborate with the Nazi regime in the annihilation of the European Jews and with other Nazi racial policies.” The website further states that such collaboration allowed the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’ to occur.

Certain countries’ recent decisions to develop revisionist histories that ignore Nazi collaboration represent a disturbing new trend in history writing.

Since the end of World II, the topic of Nazi collaboration in many European countries has remained taboo. Even in the United States, collaboration is rarely featured in high school history curricula. It is, therefore, not altogether surprising that many European countries would omit meaningful reviews of collaboration in state-sanctioned history curricula. However, certain countries’ recent decisions to develop revisionist histories that ignore Nazi collaboration represent a disturbing new trend in history writing This article features conversations with several European students who studied in different parts of the continent in an attempt to better understand the subjective portrayals of World War II.

FRENCH STUDENT WHO ATTENDED SCHOOL IN FRANCE In France, the history curriculum has been revised many times. At the beginning of the 20th century, history education was intended to bolster a sense of national pride: “it was our ancestry… It was very patriotic,” says the student. Today, the curriculum strives to take a more objective approach.

Regarding French collaboration, the student explains that, “we had the resistance in France, but we also had the ‘Collabos’ [collaborators]. So, now they teach [about collaboration]. Not in depth because it’s still a touchy subject.” Emphasis on the resistance was bolstered through documentaries and class activities.

Maréchal Pétain was head of the Vichy government from 1940-1944; this government collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces. When asked about this important historical figure, the student laughs and says, “We don’t talk about Pétain in France…” She adds that she didn’t learn much about French politics between 1940 and 1945. “I don’t even know who the Prime Minister was… [or] how [the country] functioned.”

The student also notes that her school taught more about Charles de Gaulle, who was a major resistance leader, than Pétain, but she is quick to add, “ I don’t want to say that we are biased or something.”

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. 6 \ IMPACT MAGAZINE

FRENCH STUDENT WHO ATTENDED SCHOOL IN SPAIN This student attended a school for the children of European civil servants. She described this school as a having a panEuropean curriculum.

As for World War II education, the student felt that the curriculum differed greatly from what is taught in the French system. She had a British teacher for history, and says, “that was really different from the French program because in France they love saying that there was a Resistance and that it was important.” Her teacher, by contrast, gave a more balanced perspective. The student was taught that France, “had a resistance, but in one week [was] already collaborating with the enemy.” She says that in France, both teachers and the curriculum still try to emphasize the resistance. At her Spanish school, with a British history teacher’s point of view, she hardly learned about French resistance.

When asked why she believes there was relatively little focus on collaboration in French schools, the student explains that it is not a subject people like to discuss. “In France, we like saying that we had resistance because we just don’t like saying that we collaborated [with] this enemy… French history doesn’t really like to get deep into this.”

GERMAN STUDENT WHO ATTENDED SCHOOL IN GERMANY The student explains that the German history program for World War II is largely futuristic, meaning there is an emphasis on ensuring that students understand this history cannot happen again. The student explains, “The Germans are very, very careful with that topic because they still feel guilty.”

When asked about collaboration in other countries, the student says he was taught that other countries often did not object to Nazi invasion and policies. The student notes, “You would think if a country goes out against Jews…other countries would speak up, [but] most countries didn’t.” When taught about collaboration, there was a focus on France where, “there was huge anti-Semitism… Many people in France were becoming Nazis.”

The German program emphasizes the “de-Nazification” process Germany went through after the war and how other countries—including France—did not have similar processes.

The student explains that, “France, to this day, is pretty against Jews just because they never had to criticize themselves for it.” This “de-Nazification” process, which is continued today in Germany via World War II education, is credited for the relatively low German support of far right parties. The student concludes that, “If you look at how the Nazis came to power,

The German program emphasizes the “deNazification” process Germany went through after the war and how other countries— including France—did not have similar processes.

Hitler meets Petain in Montoire, France

you can find similarities to how the right wing parties behave today… it’s exactly the same thing.”

GERMAN STUDENT WHO ATTENDED A GERMAN SCHOOL IN GREECE This student’s school did an exchange with Greek students from one of the villages where Germans in World War II committed massacres. From this experience, the student learned that most Greeks believe that Germans do not recognize these crimes and have not paid significant compensation for them. Since the war, every successive Greek generation has been fighting for reparations. The student further emphasizes that this part of history is not taught in the German system.

This student says of German World War II education, “History can repeat itself. And you see it now, especially with the rise of the Nazi party in many countries in Europe.” She explains that, “If you talk with the right wing party, which gained more power recently [in Germany], about anti-Semitism, they say they talk too much about this in school. They say they are tired of this. They should move on.” She cites an example in which several students from her German school went through phases of radical nationalism—they used Hitler signs to represent their views. The student concludes that such views reappear because of gaps in the education system.

AUSTRIAN STUDENT WHO ATTENDED SCHOOL IN AUSTRIA In Austria, the history curriculum focuses heavily on World War II. Despite this emphasis, the student explains, “Austria is still at the point where it is kind of neglecting the role it played in history—it portrays itself as a victim.” She insists that historical events covered in the curriculum were fairly represented, “Though history education undermines the actual guilt that [Austria] had from this war…it ‘rosies’ it up a little bit.” The student believes that the Austrian education system is obligated to teach what Austria actually did, since the majority of the country was not in the resistance during the war.

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She explains that one of the challenges the Austrian education system faces is combatting neo-Nazi views remaining from the war. “Austria has done a lot to clean up its act,” the student clarified, but there is still neo-Nazism. One of the troubles, she points out, is that, “if your culture tells you something and your teacher tells you something else, you tend to go with what you were taught at home.”

The student describes an experience in which a Hungarian exchange student came to her high school. The Hungarian student was in Austria during one of the school years where the system focuses heavily on World War II. She recalls that the exchange student “had never heard any of the content before.” By the end of the year, the Hungarian student lamented that the classes in her country did not teach this version of history.

HUNGARIAN STUDENT WHO ATTENDED SCHOOL IN HUNGARY In 2010, a new government was elected in Hungary, led

by Viktor Orbán and his right wing Fidesz party. The student explains that the Fidesz have a majority in the government and thus have the power to change laws. The government began making reforms to the education system and publishing their own textbooks to be used in schools. New classes, such as

There is a movement in Hungary, she explains, to distance Hungary from the Holocaust. People “don’t want to deal with it anymore.” ethics courses, were made mandatory. The student explains that a textbook for the ethics class, “says homosexuality is something that God frowns upon [and] could also be punishable by death.”

When asked how the new government is dealing with the teaching of Hungarian history during World War II, the student asserts, “The Hungarian government right now is very bad at dealing with the history of occupation.” She describes a statue built in Budapest that is, “very controversial because it basically denies that Hungary collaborated with the Nazis.” The statue shows an eagle (representing Nazi Germany) attacking the Archangel Gabriel (representing Hungary as a victim in the 1944 Nazi invasion). The statue has been criticized as ignoring the complicity of the Hungarian regime in the Holocaust. The student believes that the situation in Hungary is going to get much worse. With no organized opposition, “there is nothing that anyone can do once the government decides they want to publish a textbook or teach history like this.”

At the 2016 Oscars, a Hungarian film, Son of Saul, won best foreign language film. The film is about a Hungarian Jewish man in the Sonderkommando (work units) at Auschwitz who is looking for a rabbi to help him bury a child. The student said that the film’s nomination has caused a huge debate in Hungary. “There are people who are so happy and so proud that a Hungarian movie won... But then, there is this other

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contingent that is like, why are we still talking about the Holocaust? Why are we talking about the Jews? I thought we were done.” There is a movement in Hungary, she explains, to distance Hungary from the Holocaust. People “don’t want to deal with it anymore.”

FACT VS. FICTION While these reflections from European Penn students on their pre-university educations may not perfectly encapsulate their respective countries’ history curricula, they indicate deep-seated, worrisome subjectivities.

There are many reasons, including politically-motivated ones, why countries that have experienced genocide seek to avoid detailed historical accounts regarding collaboration and resistance. In France’s case, late statesman Charles de Gaulle strongly believed that French post-war reconstruction could be improved by emphasizing stories of French resistance and would be harmed by attention to French collaboration. In Hungary, new right-wing movements seek to burnish national pride by ignoring Nazi collaboration, instead emphasizing resistance and victimization. However, this historical ignorance comes at a cost. The most dangerous consequence is that it may portend the rise of less progressive leaders who will have never learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Germany’s history curriculum presents a more balanced—if painful—picture of World War II, designed to avoid repeating history. This may explain the relative absence of extremist politics in Germany.

Not too long ago, my grandmother—a French Holocaust survivor—sent me a letter. She wrote, “I choose to believe that the collabos were few” in France. She went on to explain how she must choose to believe this in order to maintain a semblance of pride for her home country that she loves dearly.

However, Churchill also famously said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” Today’s historians need to ensure that when they stumble across the truth, they include it in history books. It is less dangerous than turning fiction into fact.

HUMANIZING TEACHING

WHY SO MANY NEW TEACHERS LEAVE AND WHAT WE CAN DO Written By Muriel Leung ISSUE 7 / 9

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hen Thales of Miletus was born in Greek Ionia around 620 BCE, the Pyramids of Giza had existed for over 2000 years—yet their heights were unknown. Ancient people in this area of the world did not know enough about geometry to perform these relatively complex calculations. By the time Thales, a philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, visited Giza, he had already used geometry to calculate the distances of ships at sea and had theorized extensively about triangular relationships.

So, one sunny day in Egypt, Thales stood near the pyramids and observed his shadow. He waited until the exact time that his shadow was the same length as his height and recorded this length. He then set up a proportion to determine the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza—455 feet tall, if you’re curious.

This mathematical breakthrough prompted more research into triangle similarity, ratios, and proportionality.

I was in grade school when I first heard this story about the beautiful real-world applications of mathematics. At the time, I only knew that the principles Thales of Miletus developed were related to trigonometry. But I was hungry to learn more.

I entered high school excited and prepared to take a trigonometry course. Yet my new school, which specialized in math, science, and engineering, ironically did not have enough math teachers. Just one taught trigonometry, and although many freshman were ready for the course, only four were allowed in. The rest, including myself, had to retake algebra.

These kinds of problems are not unique to my former high school; districts across the nation face chronic teacher shortages. These shortages are due largely to attrition—a lack of professional support and administrative recognition is causing teachers to leave the profession long before retirement. High attrition also costs schools billions of dollars, lowers teaching quality, and creates classroom instability—all

ultimately harming academic achievement. However, there are specific, achievable reforms that schools can adopt to ameliorate the situation and encourage teachers to keep teaching.

THE TEACHER DRAIN From the 1990s onwards, the United States has kept an annual list, ordered state-by-state, of geographic regions and subject areas with teacher shortages. Tracing it through time, one can see that many states have declining portions of teachers in key subjects. In the early 90s, California listed statewide teacher shortages in Bilingual Education (Grades K-12) and Life Sciences (Grades 7-12) only. In 2015, Bilingual Education was not listed as having a shortage, but English, History, Mathematics, Science and three other areas were. In the early 2000s, Arizona high schools only had shortages in three areas; this year, they had shortages in twelve.

The “teacher drought” has commonly been attributed to a growing student population and a teacher workforce that can’t keep up. According to an Education Week article by Richard Ingersoll, a Penn professor and prominent education researcher, total K-12 student enrollment rose by 19% from the late 1980s to 2008. However, in that same time frame, the teacher workforce increased by 48%. Clearly, there is a different reason why schools are struggling to staff classrooms.

In 2001, Dr. Ingersoll published a study showing that teacher turnover, especially due to new teachers leaving the profession early, is a serious national phenomenon. His study found that almost 50 percent of new teachers voluntarily left the profession within their first five years; a more recent study in 2015 by prominent think-tank Center for American Progress

The consequences of high attrition extend beyond having enough “bodies” to teach course material.

According to Ingersoll, school employee recruitment costs our nation upwards of $2.2 billion a year.

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New teachers entering the field full of enthusiasm and good intentions are often overwhelmed by the responsibilities they face and the lack of guidance. found that 30 percent do so.

The consequences of high attrition extend beyond having enough “bodies” to teach course material. According to Ingersoll, school employee recruitment costs our nation upwards of $2.2 billion a year. Additionally, since teachers quit so early in their careers, the country faces a deficit of experienced teachers. Pam Grossman, the Dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education, has found that it takes around five to ten years to develop adequate teaching expertise through a gradual process of trial and error that involves working with colleagues, getting feedback on one’s practice, and engaging in inquiry in one’s classroom. Many teachers leave before this process is completed. Moreover, since skilled teachers are needed to mentor new teachers, the quality of teaching suffers via a vicious cycle.

Attrition also destabilizes a school’s social cohesion; a phenomenon that in turn has been linked to declining academic achievement. A 2003 study of 400 Chicago elementary schools

by University of Chicago professors Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider found that students at schools with poor relational trust among teachers, parents, and school teachers worsened in reading and plateaued in mathematical abilities over a five year period. High-trust schools, by contrast, improved 8 percent on average in reading and 20 percent in mathematics.

REDEEMING THE PROFESSION What drives new teachers away, and what can be done to keep them (and to keep them happy)?

Although increased financial compensation is an intuitive response to the problem, research indicates that this might not always be the case. While an increase in salary has indeed been correlated to higher teacher retention rates, according to research by both Ingersoll and Cassandra Guarino of RAND Corporation (a nonprofit global policy think tank), strong support structures play a much more important role in teachers’ decisions to stay in a particular school or the profession in general.

New teachers entering the field full of enthusiasm and good intentions are often overwhelmed by the responsibilities they face and the lack of guidance. As former teacher Claudia Graznio explains in an article for Edutopia, “New teachers are expected to assume a full schedule of classes, create their own lesson plans, and develop teaching techniques and classroommanagement strategies in relative isolation…[as well as] to learn quickly the administrative ins and outs of the job.”

Induction, or mentorship, programs may help keep new teachers around. Ingersoll found that teachers who participate in induction programs are twice as likely to remain in teaching than those who don’t. Teachers involved in induction programs have also been shown to improve student performance.

If teachers are to remain at a school, they also need to feel respected and empowered. According to both Ingersoll’s

and Guarino’s studies, teachers’ voices in decision-making are strongly related to retention rates. Ingersoll, who himself once taught high school students, reflected that in general a teacher “[is] not treated as a professional”. He expresses further concerns on a lack of individual teacher representation in management and cited it as one of the main reasons he left the profession.

Teachers should also be given a degree of autonomy in the classroom, or freedom in what they teach. Many math teachers in particular, according to Graznio, often feel frustrated by how rigidly curriculums are tailored towards standardized testing requirements.

Administrative reforms may be of help in this situation.

Grossman, who has researched the relationship between administration quality and teacher retention, has found that the two are strongly connected. School leaders, she believes, “need to ask teachers what they need. They also need to be instructional leaders, to help teachers figure out what’s gone awry when they’re struggling.” She points to our neighboring K-8 Penn Alexander School, a Penn Partnership School, as an example; Penn Alexander places special emphasis on educator professional growth, and also has very low attrition rates.

TEACHING FOR THE FUTURE

The country’s educational system needs to make daily life in the classroom—not just the training and the abstract concept of teaching—more inspiring. It needs to create work environments that support new teachers and encourage them to stay.

There has been recent progress towards this ideal state.

According to Ingersoll’s article in Education Week, the percentage of beginning teachers who report participating in some form of induction program has significantly increased over the past several decades—from about 50% in 1990 to 91% by 2008. But not all induction programs are created equal.

While many states require first-year teachers to participate in some type of induction program, not all states fund these projects. Furthermore, induction can range in definition from “big sib/ little sib” –type arrangements, in which veteran teachers look out for newcomers, to weekly supportive conversations between new teachers and administrators.

Our nation is also slowly recognizing the importance of school leadership. Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion federallysponsored educational reform funding program, lists “recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principles” as a main requirement for states seeking funding. However, recognition and funding are just half of the battle; consistent nationwide administrative reforms are still yet to be realized.

Whatever the specific method, our education system needs to ensure that teachers, especially new and more vulnerable ones, have access to support. They have a right to some degree of mentorship, administrative voice, and creative freedom. New teachers are full of energy and ready to change the world, but they are at a risk of soon becoming demoralized.

When the enthusiasm that brings educators into the field is nurtured, rather than exhausted, it will reflect in the morale and performance of their students.

While most students today (hopefully) know how to calculate the height of a pyramid—a 6th century BCE problem— teachers’ enthusiasm can encourage students to tackle the pressing problems of the 21st century.

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NOTHING SACRED CONTROVERSY IN COMEDY Written By Vivian Dai “There is no worse life available to a human than being a caught child molester. And yet they still do it! [From which] you can only really surmise, it must be really good,” said comedian Louis C.K. at SNL’s fortieth season finale. The audience chorused an “Oooo” of shock. Likely predicting their reaction, C.K. quickly added, “I mean—from their point of view! Not ours, from their point of view.”

If you think this joke is offensive, you are not alone. I conducted a poll earlier in the semester by posting a survey to each of the four undergraduate classes’ Facebook pages, and of the 277 students who responded, thirty-two percent thought the joke crossed the line. On the flip side, with twenty-five percent of undergraduates voting “LOL,” this joke was rated the funniest out of the three polled. Evidently, controversial comedy can also be good comedy.

The question is, where do you draw the line?

LOL Meh, just not funny Woah...NOT funny Joke 1: There’s nothing wrong with driving gas-guzzling cars, there’s just too many people doing it. We got to find out a way to like, thin out the herd and...no, these are some hard decisions that are gonna have to be made! You know what I would do? I would randomly sink cruise ships. Because you’d get, like, 2500 to 3000 people a whack, right?…I think it’s a good mix of people to get rid of.

Joke 2: There is no worse life available to a human than being a caught child molester. And yet they still do it! Which, from ...You can only really surmise, it must be really good... I mean—from their point of view! Not ours, from their point of view.

Joke 3: No one chooses to be homosexual...Unless they offer me 85 bucks.

There exists a sentiment in comedy that nothing is sacred— you can, and should, joke about anything and anyone. But recently, it appears that more and more topics are becoming sensitive areas of discussion. People’s cultures are sacred; their religions are sacred; their sexualities are sacred; their identities are sacred. We are becoming afraid to laugh at controversial comedy, or are ourselves offended by controversy. However, in a world where the most dire problems are often the most controversial, confronting and discussing inflammatory topics will help solve these issues.

“Controversial” does not always correlate with “offensive.”

This is particularly true from a comedian’s perspective. “I don’t think controversial and offensive are necessarily synonyms,” says Penn senior Teddy Lavon, head writer of musical comedy troupe Mask and Wig. “A controversial joke [is] anything that someone else expresses an issue with. A joke is actually offensive when there’s either a lack of compassion or a lack of understanding on the part of the person making it.” But instead of attacking the person who made the joke, Lavon believes that the offended party should instead use the occasion as a “springboard for discussion.” This type of discussion is exactly what today’s society needs. Talking about sensitive topics like mental health and sexual assault in a non-confrontational way could help ameliorate these very problems.

Talking about sensitive topics like mental health and sexual assault in a non-confrontational way could help ameliorate these very problems Unfortunately, it is hard to talk about “taboo” topics.

Year by year, we feel increasingly uncomfortable discussing, or even being exposed to, anything outside PC (politically correct) limits. Penn sophomore Kevin “Dgotze” Quimbo has noticed from his own experience as a member of comedy a capella group Penn Six-5000 that over the past few years, “People are becoming more and more easily offended.” His group performed the same songs and the same content three semesters ago, but “the reactions have [now] changed.” The reasons for this shift in reception are unclear, but Quimbo believes that current civil rights proceedings like the fight for gay marriage, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Yale/ Mizzou conflicts have heightened tensions between opposing parties involved, and therefore have made these topics more sensitive.

This is not to say that being PC is detrimental to society.

Certainly, we should all be kind and sensitive towards other people’s feelings. Even in the “nothing sacred” realm of comedy, there are lines that simply cannot be crossed. Penn senior Reilly Martin, head writer of all-female musical and sketch comedy troupe Bloomers, was unpleasantly surprised at the Oddball Comedy Fest when a local comedian called women heartless twats, garbage, and assholes. Martin reflects, “I’m not even an easily offended person, but they were just insults thinly veiled as jokes.” When the joke is reduced to name-calling and fails to be funny, it should be labeled as offensive. Otherwise, “you can get away with pretty much anything if it’s funny,” she says.

The question of intent is another dividing line in comedy.

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Vanessa Pano

According to Lavon, writing material starts with a certain mindset. He says, “Nothing comes from malicious intent, and no one person or group of people is ever being targeted.”

Quimbo thinks a joke is offensive when it “isn’t told to make people laugh, but [rather] to make people feel bad.” However, offending people in comedy is as much about the audience as it is about the comedian. Just as harassment and bullying are defined by the victim’s perception of the deed, the audience’s perception of a joke ultimately trumps the comedian’s intent, even if the intent is not malicious. “It’s not really my place to tell people what makes them feel upset, even if I think a joke is fine,” notes Martin.

Just as harassment and bullying are defined by the victim’s perception of the deed, the audience’s perception of a joke ultimately trumps the comedian’s intent, even if the intent is not malicious

Russell Peters joke about how Chinese and Indian people cannot do business together, and the punch line was delivered in a Chinese accent. Since I am Chinese, my white friend looked to me—as if for approval—before laughing. I told her there was no need for approval. Funny is funny, and no one should ever feel restricted in laughter. In fact, Peters’ Chinese sketch, which stereotypes my own ethnicity, is one of my favorites; it is relatable, well-executed, and hilarious.

After watching Peters’ show, my friend and I talked about why Chinese merchants always want to get every last cent out of their customers and why they use ridiculous bargaining tactics. She was willing to ask me questions about my culture, and I was willing to answer them. We should not be afraid to ask each other questions so that we can understand each other better. After all, if we understood people’s backgrounds, cultures, and identities, wouldn’t we be less likely to offend them?

Controversy in comedy has revealed that we are becoming more PC and less willing to joke about hotly contested issues such as race, religion, and sexuality. But if there were more discussion about these topics, they might not be “inflammatory” at all. These discussions need to happen in order to solve some of today’s most pressing concerns, for the most controversial issues also tend to cause the most societal issues.

Handling controversial topics is certainly more challenging than ever before for today’s comedians. Martin, however, has a hopeful outlook. “There’s this myth that political correctness is ruining comedy, but in my opinion it’s making it better,” she says. “Yeah, getting away with jokes is harder, but that just means the jokes have to be that much better.”

So, to comedy consumers and connoisseurs: Don’t be afraid to laugh at good content, and try to maintain an open mind toward topics of contention. In this way, we might just be able to sanctify comedy’s sacred space.

Quimbo has learned the importance of audience perception the hard way. His group was invited to perform at Bryn Mawr College last October. They sang the same “Hallelujah” cover that they performed at Penn’s Freshmen Performing Arts Night—during which they had received a huge round of applause—and Bryn Mawr’s audience seemed to enjoy it.

“But then there were three people in the front who were in charge who got really offended and they invited us off stage.

We’re never getting invited back”, Quimbo remembers. After a similar experience at the Kelly Writers House, during which a few audience members walked out on their performance, Penn Six has “changed [their] strategy. We now just try to perform in front of people who won’t get offended,” he concludes.

Personally, I have found that maintaining an open mind and not being defensive allows for a much more enjoyable experience while watching comedy, and generally while navigating life. I was once watching Indian-Canadian comedian Bloomers Spring 2016 show 14 \ IMPACT MAGAZINE

THE LAND

BEFORE

SUBURBS EVALUATING URBAN SPRAWL

AT HOME AND ABROAD Written by Abigail McGuckin

A

summer country home for Philadelphian Thomas Mott was constructed fifteen miles from Old City in 1888. This stretch separated Mott’s urban and rural lives. He rode by horse to his estate, passing through dense forest and lazy rivers on his way. Today, if Mott were to traverse that same distance from Philadelphia to the city limits, he would land in a highly developed and commercialized suburb that extends yet another fifteen miles. Throughout the expanse,

strip malls, boulevards, schools, and offices appear on vast networks of streets. Cars are the sole way to navigate these suburbs because all amenities are spread over the township. The landscape that Mott once rode past would be unrecognizable to him today. In the past 125 years, urban sprawl has filled the distance between Philadelphia and the ‘countryside.’

CONSERVATIVE DEVELOPMENT The mention of suburbia renders images of monotony— sterile sidewalks, generic McMansions, and neighborhoods that look the same. The controlled and safe character of the suburbs that is parodied in movies like American Beauty veils a fatal reality of their insidious environmental toll. Suburbs create a dependence on cars and destroy woodlands for development. America has been notorious for urban sprawl since the 1950s, when highways expanded to accommodate the car culture, while commercialization and conformity resulted in a demand for single-family, isolated dwellings just outside urban centers. Owning a plot of land outside of the city became a key component of the American Dream; this mentality has propagated suburbia.

Though in the US suburbs are already expansive, innovative urban design and planning techniques provide hope of taming—or preemptively thwarting—urban sprawl. Grassroots organizations outside of metro areas are conserving what little open land remains, a practice that is being emulated internationally in cities like Stockholm and Copenhagen.

DEFINING SPRAWL AND ITS EFFECTS American suburbs are the result of urban sprawl. Suburbs have always existed close to cities, but their exponential expansion has only recently become an environmental hazard. As Robert Bruegmann points out in his 2005 book Sprawl: A Compact History, there has always been a region between the country and the city where the rich retreat from the ills—both literal and metaphorical—that fester downtown. Even in ancient Rome, patricians had villas outside the city limits to escape disease and riots that occurred in the city’s center. These ancient Roman getaways were precursors to the extensive suburbs of today.

More than half of the American population currently lives in suburban areas. According to FiveThirtyEight, a New York Times award-winning blog, 26 percent of Americans

American Residental Locations

Rural 16 \ IMPACT MAGAZINE

Suburban

Urban

America has been notorious for urban sprawl since the 1950s, when highways expanded to accommodate the car culture, while commercialization and conformity resulted in a demand for single-family, isolated dwellings just outside urban centers. describe where they live as urban, 53 percent say suburban and 21 percent say rural. The majority of these Americans who choose to live in the suburbs are responsible for urban sprawl and its subsequent environmental effects.

The development between Philadelphia and Mott’s once-rural residence can best be described as low density, and substantially separated from the town center where restaurants and stores stand. Suburbs not only reduce open land, but also hurt the urban cities they encase. According to Sprawl: The Dark Side of the American Dream sprawl, a book published by the respected grassroots environmental organization the Sierra Club, suburban expansion negatively affects cities. For instance, the middle class exodus to the suburbs from the city erodes their taxes base. People with financial mobility move to the suburbs and reduce downtown commerce from locally owned stores because they mainly purchase goods from suburban retailers. As a result of reduced business, there are fewer jobs, which contributes to unemployment and the concentration of poverty in urban centers. People in the inner-city who are jobless generally live in the same area and undercut property value. Homes and abandoned factories that remain in these regions are often old and decaying, which tarnishes the character of cities.

LOOKING LOCAL The suburbs of Philadelphia are no exception to city sprawl. After the Sierra Club published The Dark Side of the American Dream in 1998, exposing the striking issues of urban sprawl in cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., philly.com published an article about the expanse of suburbia surrounding the City of Brotherly Love. According to this article, 1 million acres of farmland have been transformed in buildings new schools, roads, sewers, and water line to match those already existing in more densely populated areas. From 1970 to 1990, by one estimate, the geographic area of Greater Philadelphia grew by 32 percent, yet the population dropped 3 percent. These figures translate into low-density expansion.

The creation of new infrastructure to cater to the middle classes’ desire of suburban life is not sustainable, practical, or fair. America’s population will continue to grow, and it is selfish of our generation to pillage land for our suburbs knowing well the momentous consequences of such actions.

However the harmful environmental and economic effects of urban sprawl do not seem to be deterring development of suburban regions. This resistance to change arises from legitimate justifications of the need for suburban expansion. People enjoy the uniformity and social precedence of planned neighborhoods. As College freshman and suburban Atlanta native Brendan Taliaferro states, “What is attractive about the suburbs is the safety and consistency that it offers in comparison to urban areas.

The suburbs are a way to have all benefits of having access to a city— the food, the entertainment, the jobs— without having to deal with the stress of the reality of urban living.

The suburbs give you a place to collect with a group whose members have socioeconomic statuses that are comfortably comparable to your own.” While this easily-defined nature of suburbs makes them understandably appealing, other countries have found sustainable solutions to counter the detrimental repercussions of urban sprawl.

IDEAL SOLUTIONS: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN Preventative measures have been taken across the world by entire cities—notably in Stockholm, Sweden.

The country’s commitment commitment to environmental sustainability is at the forefront of the Swedish mindset and is a source of national pride. As Penn Professor Simon Richter notes, “Sweden is ambitious. They want to be emission free by 2050. The Swedes rely on a diverse and increasing mix of renewables, but also on nuclear.”

In addition to clean energy production, Sweden has taken the initiative in preventing urban sprawl through the adoption of “community planning.” Through conscious organization, Stockholm has achieved the ideal balance of preserved open spaces and practical development. For example, new buildings are placed in natural depressions of the land that have radial metro systems to connect peripheral neighborhoods and suburban towns. This reduces residents’ dependence on cars, which is noted as a primary source of pollution. Additionally, it leaves green “wedges” between urban regions that create a series of parks and green spaces that are linked by pedestrian pathways. These innovative practices have resulted in the city’s land being one-third urban, one-third water, and onethird green space over its 14 islands.

Stockholm has witnessed the most successful and dynamic partnerships for sustainable urban planning through transparent plans between city governance and private developers. This relationship is a marker of “community planning,” a system that focuses on enhancing or altering the production and consumption of society that is normally left up to the market to determine. The city

The creation of new infrastructure to cater to the middle classes’ desire of suburban life is not sustainable, practical, or fair. America’s population will continue to grow, and it is selfish of our generation to pillage land for our suburbs knowing well the momentous consequences of such actions. produced comprehensive plans that proposed solutions for all new construction projects withinin its city limits. Although the plan was non-binding, all private organizations, public agencies, and citizens followed it because it was developed through a consensus-based process that maintained the best interests of the city’s people and land.

HOME GROWN FIXES: PROMISE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND PENN While Stockholm exemplifies the ideal equilibrium between urban development and sustainability, similar dynamic solutions to urban sprawl and land preservation can also be found domestically. Hope can be found in work done by organizations like the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) in Northern Virginia. The Council works on a variety of projects, ranging from Transportation Solutions to Working Farms and Land. Their practices attempt to remedy the ills of urban sprawl through regional governance, local development and implementation of regulations and practices, open space preservation, and regional equity planning. One of the many accomplishments of PEC includes the protection of 180,000 acres of farmland and 140,000 acres of forests with the help of a private, and voluntary conservation initiative. This major feat was negotiated using economic stimulants such as tax cuts and related incentives

LOOKING FORWARD Thomas Mott could not have imagined the extent of development present today. Philadelphia’s city limits once broke into endless fields.

Today, thinning city blocks blur into dense suburbs for miles on end. The realities of urban sprawl and its subsequent environmental tolls have led to innovative, aggressive, and preventative measures from progressive countries like Sweden. Yet, countries like the US that are slow to react will experience further sprawl while they procrastinate.

Although suburbs seem permanent, resignation to their existence is ultimately passive participation in their expansion.

Aerial view illustrating green ‘wedges’ of Stockholm, Sweden ISSUE 7 / 17

CORPORATE

AND CORRUPT

THE NEED FOR CHANGE IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY Written By Becca Richardson

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eople are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a bottle of wine, but expect water to be free. The reason? Necessities should be easily attainable while luxury goods command a premium. Unfortunately, today in the US, medicine is a necessity treated like fine wine, not like water.

From the rising price of medicine to failing government legislation, millions of people in the United States are

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increasingly unable to pay for necessary healthcare. Now is the time to act on this issue, as it is finally beginning to receive the publicity it deserves with coverage of the Martin Schkreli scandal. We must look at ethical companies and other government legislation to find an adequate way to prevent the spread of this crisis.

THE ISSUE Prior to being arrested on fraud charges, Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Schkreli received a great deal of backlash for changing the price of Daraprim, a drug that treats life threatening parasitic infections, from $13.50 to $750 overnight . Motivated by the thought of greater profit and the possibility of gaining funding for future products, he made this decision without considering the millions of lives he would be affecting.

His actions have sparked a great deal of controversy about what is ethical in pharmaceutical pricing and has caused people to question the role of these corporations in society.

A recent Bloomberg study shows that over seventy-three branded drugs have had price increases of over 75% in the past seven years, despite the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the price of medicine has continued to rise. The ten American drug companies in the Fortune 500 list ranked far above all other American industries in terms of average net return . Why are these companies so profitable? Consumers must question these corporations’ true motives: profit or protecting people?

The financial burden that the high price of medicine creates expands far beyond the patient. If a patient has health insurance, it creates a great financial liability for the insurance company that is transferred into increased costs for policyholders. If this health insurance is through the government, it creates an increase in costs for taxpayers. Worst of all, if the patient does not have insurance, the high price of medicine becomes a burden for his caretakers, as they must not only work to take care of the patient, but also to afford the expense of medical bills.

Although it is obvious that the price of medicine creates a great number of issues in society, there are several factors that complicate this problem. As Dr. Richard Spinello of Boston College explains, it “is quite difficult to assess […] what constitutes an unethical price or an unreasonable profit”. This difficulty combined with government failure proceeding the Affordable Care Act has made solving this pricing crisis almost impossible.

As a Junior in the Penn nursing school explained, “as medical professionals we are trained to come up with the best possible care plan for a patient…if a patient were unable to obtain this treatment due to insufficient insurance it would be extremely upsetting as would mean they might not get the best possible outcome”

HELPING PEOPLE AND PROFITING In stark contrast to the Schkreli scandal, some pharmaceutical companies act ethically for the benefit of society. One example is Merck’s work with river blindness, a case frequently studied by business ethicists. In the late 1970s, Merck’s researchers discovered a potential cure for river blindness, a fatal disease in many parts of the global south that causes irritation, and eventual blindness.

At the time, the cure was a pill used for veterinary purposes, and needed to undergo millions of dollars’ worth of research before being used on humans. The issue for Merck was that the majority of those needing the drug would be unable to pay for it, and the company was unsure whether NGOs would cooperate by assisting with the distribution costs of this project. Merck would have to pay out of pocket for the research and distribution of this drug. They eventually decided to go ahead and produce the drug, Mectizan. A single annual dose of Meztican would kill both the parasites in the body and the flies that carry the parasite if they make future contact with the patient. Since 1987, Merck has

Consumers must question these corporations’ true motives: profit or protecting people? distributed over 700 million of these tablets for free .

Upon initial inspection, it seems as if Merck has gained nothing from this project. They spent a great deal of money without a direct return on investment. However, they were able to gain greater employee loyalty, since those who choose to work in the pharmaceutical industry normally do so with the intention of helping others. Employees felt satisfaction that they were able to help others by producing this drug and wanted to continue to do similar work with Merck in the future. The company also received brand publicity and lost the stigma of profitability over people associated with big pharma at the time. They were finally able to fulfill their core values including “Our business is preserving and improving human life” and have continued to do so with similar work. Merck’s work to cure river blindness should be a model for the rest of the pharmaceutical industry: it is still possible to generate revenue while “doing good” and helping people.

Companies are encouraged to work based on a stakeholder theory as opposed to the old shareholder theory of past eras.

This means that corporations must create value for everyone the company engages with- employees, consumers, communities, and shareholders- as opposed to simply focusing on turning a profit for investors. When Merck distributed Meztican for free, they created value for communities- by curing the fatal disease, shareholders- through increased brand awareness, and employees- through increased work place satisfaction.

THE FUTURE So, what needs to change in this industry? Obviously it would be nice if all projects worked out like Merck with Mectizan, but this is impossible. At the end of the day, companies must make profit. There needs to be greater governmental legislation that creates limitations on the profit margins that these corporations can attain. However, in order to make that happen consumers need to demand change. Without consumer action, nothing will happen. In the meantime, executives must take responsibility for their decisions and avoid committing ethical injustices like those of Martin Schkreli. To prevent unjust exploitation, there should be an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath for the pharmaceutical industry, in which companies are sworn to the responsibility of protecting patients. Without this drastic step of enforcing corporate responsibility, inequality and inaccessibility of treatment will cause significant societal harm. This oath would ensure that pharmaceutical professionals, like Martin Schkreli, are obligated to help people and not prioritize profits.

Many critics cite the healthcare program in Australia as one of the best in the world. With a combination of public and private hospitals and care, there is always sufficient treatment for everyone. The private healthcare programs simply provide additional support for those who can afford it, but there is adequate basic healthcare across the board. Although no system is perfect, the United States needs to look to other countries, including Australia, as a model of how the industry can improve.

Until the government intervenes, there is nothing preventing pharmaceutical corporations like Turing Pharmaceuticals from exploiting patients.

ISSUE 7 / 19

A DIFFERENT QUAKER LIFE

Written By Rebecca Tan

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’15 graduate Megan Russo once took a class on food security at Penn. One day, the professor showed a video of families in West Philly struggling to feed themselves. It was a gripping image that prompted the student next to her to raise her hand and say, “I wish I could meet someone who was going through all of this—not someone from the video, but someone I know in real life.” Russo sat in her seat, her heart beating faster in disbelief, thinking how it was possible that her classmate didn’t know a single person who had experienced poverty. “I’m sitting right next to her,” remembered Russo, “and I had lived that experience for so long. How does she not know that these things exist on our campus?

This isn’t something we’re removed from; it’s happening right here.”

Russo is right. Income inequality doesn’t begin at 41st street. It’s a reality within the Penn community and it’s disconcerting how rarely this is acknowledged.

12 percent of Penn’s undergraduate population are first generation; in 2015 alone, 278 incoming freshman identified as the first in their family to attend college. This is a sizable percentage, but Penn’s culture is such that it rarely considers, let alone accommodates, the needs of these students. Just strolling down Locust Walk, it’s not difficult to see why they might feel alienated: students stream by in jackets from Canada Goose or Montclair which retail at $600 to $1500 apiece.

Otherwise, they loiter outside Huntsman hall in preppy gear or scurry to class with a Starbucks Frappuccino in one hand and take-out from Honeygrow in the other.

Earlier this year, Russo wrote a compelling article for the Civic House blog exposing the “silence” surrounding the experiences of first generation, low-income students at Penn. Her post spoke to masses of alienated Quakers and has since been shared over a thousand times on social media.

A first generation student herself, Russo dedicated her final sociology thesis to investigating the experiences of low-income students at Penn. What she found consistent across twelve low-income students whom she interviewed was a discomfort in talking about their backgrounds, even though they really wanted to. The environment at Penn didn’t seem receptive or sensitive to the issues they wanted to raise, so they chose instead to keep quiet.

Penn First, a support network for first generation students, was founded in fall 2015 to address this silence. At the group’s second General Community Meeting (GCM) earlier this year, a member recounted his experience with a student from Brown who didn’t even know what the term “first generation” meant.

For the record, Penn First defines the term: • • • •

One or neither of your parents/guardians went to college.

One or both of your parents/guardians started college but did not finish.

You are the first in your family to attend college in the US, or You are the first in your family to take significant steps in changing your socioeconomic status

A PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION News agencies from the New York Times, to the Atlantic and the Boston Globe have noted an unwillingness across elite universities to talk about the socio-economic inequality that exists on their campuses. A reason for this reticence is the sheer underrepresentation of low-income students at these institutions. Russo points out that the stigma of being low-income is especially strong at a place like Penn, where many students are not just middle-class, but exceedingly wealthy. Tandra Mitchell, a freshman in the College said that she experienced a huge culture shock when she came to Penn last fall. “At my high school, everybody was low-income. A hundred percent of students were on the free lunch program and only a few of my friends’ parents had gone to college.”

Coming to Penn, she reflected, was the first time she had arrived at a place with this much privilege.

Penn may pride itself on its diversity, but for many lowincome students, this model of diversity is not all-inclusive.

“When you apply, you hear that you’re going to meet people from all over the world and receive an education through your peers,” said Russo. “But if you really look at the profile of students, most of them come from the same prep schools and the same economic strata. Culturally, students at Penn may be diverse, but in terms of access to resources, they really aren’t.”

Russo’s observations are not unfounded; Dr William G. Bowen, former president of Princeton University, noted in his studies

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on affirmative action that 86 percent of African Americans at elite colleges come from middle- or upper-class backgrounds.

It should be acknowledged that Penn is making efforts to change the situation. In the fiscal year of 2016, the University dedicated $206 million to undergraduate financial aid–the largest amount in our University’s history. Last year, President Amy Gutmann announced that she hoped to raise this amount to $350 million by the year 2020. These are steps in the right direction, but we cannot celebrate them while denying the ongoing reality that this school is still, in many ways, a “rich kids club.”

Low-income students who do gain admission to Penn can often feel like they don’t belong. Most of them come to the University as the only students from their school and often, from their entire area. The last thing they want is to be singled out, or worse, patronized for their backgrounds, which is why time and time again, they choose to keep quiet about this aspect of their identities.

That being said, the roots of this silence do go deeper than representation. More often than not, low-income students feel that they do not have the right to talk about their struggles.

“On one hand, you recognize that you have this amazing opportunity to go to an Ivy-league university and you want to be thankful for that, but on the other hand, you’re being thrown into this totally new environment that doesn’t seem friendly to you at all,” said Russo. This internal struggle, this feeling of having to self-police, to invalidate their complaints on the belief that their place at this University is a gift, is just part of what it makes it so difficult to be a first generation student at Penn.

INSTITUTIONAL ALIENATION Even more troubling than Penn’s lack of hospitality to first generation students is the fact that this is an institutional problem. The issue we face is not just a collection of discrete anecdotes, but rather entire policies and traditions that systematically alienate students from low-income backgrounds.

Russo raised the example of the “BYO” culture at Penn, referencing how frequently students pay to eat at restaurants that allow them to bring their own alcohol. This tradition factors into a larger image of Penn as the “party” Ivy, home to students who study as hard as they drink. However, this model of socializing isn’t one that is accessible to all. College freshman Tandra Mitchell says, “The way that groups interact at Penn is that they’ll go out to eat at restaurants or go to clubs. I just can’t afford that.”

College junior David Huerta agrees, explaining that “the feeling you get if you’re not going out to a party or a BYO is that you’re just at home, doing nothing over the weekend.” If these restaurant dinners or champagne parties (recently covered by a Philly Mag article) are where Penn students go to make friends and mark the best nights of their college lives, what happens to the students who cannot afford to go?

Another key example is Greek life. More than 25 percent of the undergraduate student population at Penn is involved in Greek life. Further, this 25 percent tends to comprise the most visible students on campus – on social media and beyond, they epitomize what it means to be well-connected, while

“The way that groups interact at Penn is that they’ll go out to eat at restaurants or go to clubs. I just can’t afford that.” their fraternities and sororities embody collegiate fellowship.

Yet, as with the party scene, Greek life is prohibitively expensive. In 2015, the Daily Pennsylvanian (DP) reported that the cost of joining a sorority for freshmen not living in-house ranged from $550 to $917 per semester.

Russo said that she interviewed a female student who had considered rushing for sororities but eventually chose not to because she didn’t think it was financially feasible. “She knew that she couldn’t afford Greek life and she knew that that the sisters would know that she couldn’t afford it, so what was the point? She might have hated it or loved it, but the point is that she felt that couldn’t even try it.”

Most of the students interviewed for this article expressed no interest in Greek life, with the exception of College junior David Huerta who remembered feeling a lot of pressure in his hall during freshman year to join a fraternity. He attended a few rush events, but quickly stopped because he realized that his high school experiences didn’t prepare him for how to behave in these social events, and more importantly, that he just could not afford to go Greek.

The Interfraternity Council (for male students) does not have a centralized financial assistance scheme. The Panhellenic Council (for female students) does provide scholarships for sorority members, but these seem to be of a limited assistance – in 2014, the DP reported that Panhel scholarships covered only a quarter of membership dues for 12 awardees. Further, these grants did not account for the heavy concessionary costs involved in Greek life such as purchasing spirit apparel and spending on big-little week. Students told the DP in 2015 that some sorority girls spend up to $1000 pampering their new littles with gifts during the weeklong celebration.

Greek life is just one example that illustrates the lack of institutional support for low-income students. Russo, along with others, conceded that Penn is one of the most progressive institutions in the Ivy League in terms of granting admission to low-income students. However, she also noted that students of her background are generally recruited through external partners like Quest Bridge, an organization dedicated to providing high-achieving, low-income students with access to higher education. What this means is that once these students are admitted to Penn, there are few internal systems in place to support them while they are here.

“What it felt like for me was that I was just left to figure things out on my own,” said Russo. She emphasized that she highly valued her position at Penn but believed that support for first generation students cannot simply end at admission. If Penn wants to be as inclusive as they purport, then they ought to make the school environment equally accessible to the range of students who are accepted.

A simple example would be to address the lack of dining options during school breaks. Low-income students who cannot always afford to fly home or take expensive holidays struggle to find affordable food options during breaks because

most of the dining halls are closed.

Another much thornier issue is financial aid. Perspectives regarding financial aid packages varied among students interviewed, but what seemed to emerge as the more prevailing issue was the lack of sensitivity in the manner in which Student Financial Services (SFS) manages their relationships with students.

“I get that funds are limited and students aren’t always going to get the money that they need, but there has to be a minimum level of sensitivity with how that situation is handled,” said Russo. She drew an example from her own experience: during her senior year at Penn, Russo’s financial aid policy was changed because her mother had gotten a small promotion.

Most of this money was used to pay for a medical surgery that her mother needed, as well as to return long-standing loans that her family had taken. As such, she was left at a loss when SFS informed her that she would have to start paying more for school. Russo eventually got the assistance that she needed, but recounted that the way those initial policy changes had been communicated to her made her feel powerless.

“It just seemed like there was no knowledge of what it was like to be in my situation,” she said.

Tandra Mitchell, a freshman in the College, joked that she was practically living in the SFS office last semester. In truth, she was living at WEB Dubois college house, which cost her more than what she was allocated for housing under her financial aid package. In the middle of the semester, Mitchell was told that she owed over $5000 to the University. Like Russo, she was left at a loss.

“It’s not like I can just call up my mum and ask for money.

She’s a single parent, and I have two other siblings that she has to take care of.”

With no alternative, Mitchell could only keep returning to SFS to explain that she had no means of coming up with ISSUE 7 / 23

$5000, even if she were to take out a loan.

“I spent so much time just trying to get them to understand.

It was hard to get an appointment with my financial aid officer because he’s really busy, so I found myself doing walk-ins, which meant that I got a different person every time. I had to keep explaining my situation over and over again, only to get a different response every time. That was really frustrating.”

Fortunately, there came a point when Mitchell met with a SFS advisor who assured her that the expenses for her accommodation would be covered. From Mitchell to Russo to various members at the Penn First GCM, it seems like the consensus on SFS is: “it all depends on who you get when you go in.”

Rogelio Caro, a member of the Penn First executive board, said that addressing this inconsistency, increasing financial aid transparency and instituting sensitivity training for all SFS advisors are some of Penn First’s most important short-term plans. Other goals include improving support for low-income students planning for internships and post-graduate studies.

Jordi Rivera Prince, a senior in the College, believes that Penn’s advising for graduate studies assumes a lot of prior knowledge to which low-income students are unlikely to have had access. She also noted that the very process of applying to grad school is expensive, but that most advisors simply assume that students have the resources to pay for it.

Penn used to offer the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program which provides mentorship for high-achieving, low-income and minority students looking towards graduate studies. This nationwide federal program offers guidance on the application process and covers the expenses of applying to graduate school. However, according to documents from the U.S. Department of Education, this program was terminated at Penn after 2011.

Going forward, Rogelio Caro said that Penn First is also looking to learn from the action that has been taken by other Ivy institutions. “Brown recently announced that they’re opening a centre for first-gen students. Other colleges, like Columbia, have created apps where students can donate meal swipes to students who can’t afford to buy food. Harvard has a mentorship program between first-gen students and firstgen alumni. These campuses have all set great examples for us and make us feel valid when we demand more from the administration.”

Tandra Mitchell

TOUGHEST IN THE EVERYDAY Apart from specific policies, students also spoke about their day-to-day interactions at Penn that reflect an overwhelming insensitivity towards their backgrounds. These small interactions, they reflected, were the hardest to endure over time.

Mitchell brought up her recent experiences over Spring Break. “It’s insane, I feel like people compete for who can go to better places. I had a friend complaining to me about not being able to decide whether to go to Dubai or Italy and I just thought, ‘Do you know how ridiculous you sound?’”

Russo had a similar reaction when she heard of FRACKIT, a company launched by two Penn students in 2014 to sell “frat jackets.” Described as “every college student’s must-have,” these jackets are meant to be worn to fraternity parties in the case that they get lost or dirtied – the insinuation being that, at $45 apiece, these jackets are virtually disposable. Russo said that she was shocked when she learned about the company.

“Are you kidding me? I spent $50 on my good jacket, and that was only when it was on sale, and after I had saved up for months.”

Huerta added to the conversation, describing his discomfort with wealthy students calling themselves “broke college students” after spending a night out. “It makes me feel a certain way because they don’t know how hard it is to literally, actually be broke in college,” said Huerta, who works 15 hours a week at his work-study job in Van Pelt library. Unsurprisingly, all the students interviewed for this article had jobs. Russo used to work at the Civic House; Mitchell works at MAKUU and Rivera Prince spends 20 hours a week working as an assistant curator at the Penn Museum. She is also a residential advisor and tutors Spanish and Math. When students of privilege throw around tropes like the “broke college student,” they invalidate what low-income students actually have to deal with: staying up two hours later to finish school work, scrimping and saving on food and rushing from job to job to provide for themselves as well as for families back home.

Prince does not expect students on the higher end of the socio-economic scale to understand what it is really like to be $27,000 in debt even before leaving school. Neither does she expect them to feel guilty about their privileges or to give

David Huerta

6

Jordi Rivera Prince

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Penn First GCM

them up. What she wants, and very reasonably so, is just for them to be cognizant of the entitlements that they have been given.

“There are inherent advantages that people have even before they came to University, and they should acknowledge that,” she said. Rivera Prince went to a public high school in Michigan which only offered two AP classes. In her earlier years at Penn, she felt much less prepared academically than some of her peers. Similarly, when it came to job-hunting, she often felt that she was not starting off at the same point that other Penn students were.

“How am I supposed to compete with someone who interned in their dad’s legal office when I literally waited tables at Pizza Hut in the summer before coming to Penn?”

Rivera Prince explained that she’s not looking for sympathy, but awareness. The Anthropology major is now a vocal advocate for students of her background, but said that it took her years to cultivate this confidence. There is something to be said of this self-possession – that despite the lack of attention paid towards their experiences, first generation students like Rivera Prince have found it in themselves to examine their positions at Penn thoughtfully and critically.

Russo made a similar observation during her research. “The most surprising thing I noticed [about her interviewees] was the intentionality with which they gave their answers. I thought that the fact that they were thinking so meaningfully about their experience was really powerful.”

MORE THAN ONE STORY There are several moments during the Penn First GCM where the room erupts in snaps (the polite, Quaker alternative to applause.) Stories about obnoxious classmates, a joke about BYOs, a quip about Canada Goose – these are the shared markers of what it means to be first-generation at Penn.

Yet this room of students is also highly self-aware and they balk at the suggestion that they are a homogenous community.

Russo raised the issue of intersectionality. Most low-income students choose to keep quiet about their backgrounds, but

the implications of race mean that silence doesn’t always work. “There are white students who can just shut their mouth, and people won’t know, and nonwhite student who, even if they shut their mouth, people will still assume that identity onto them,” said Russo.

In addition, not all students who come from low-income backgrounds feel that Penn has been alienating. College freshman JaHyun Yang said that she has managed to find an open-minded group of friends after just one semester at the University.

She has little interest in the party scene or Greek life and has yet to meet insensitive students or faculty.

However, when she heard of the experiences that other students had gone through, she invariably understood why they felt offended. As with any minority group, low-income students do not have a single, uniform story. They are internally diverse and nuanced, which is why there is a need for deeper conversations on their experiences–Penn First is a critical step in that direction.

When students step into a Penn First meeting, they know that they are in a place of understanding. Huerta describes his first time meeting the group as “immediately comfortable.” He concludes, “I felt like I finally didn’t need to put up a front.”

Mitchell soundly agreed. Mitchell had spent most of freshman fall alone in her room, feeling like she didn’t have anybody to turn to. Near the end of the semester, she thought seriously about taking a leave of absence and broke down in her academic advisor’s office. Fortunately, since starting her job at MAKUU and joining clubs like Penn First, her life at school has picked up significantly.

“Now I have more people who I can talk to just to let out those everyday struggles. It’s good because now these things don’t build up so like they did last semester,” she said.

Penn First also provides a platform for first generation, low-income students to form their own mentorship network.

College senior Rivera Prince explained that the group allows students to ask for help without feeling like they are a burden, “We all want to help not because we feel obliged to, but because, you know, we get it.”

At the Penn First GCM, this sense of mentorship was clear. When the conversation got a little heavy over career opportunities, one of the seniors in the group piped up, saying to younger members, “Yes, there are people who are going to misjudge you, but trust me, there are also corporations and businesses out there that see your background as an asset.”

She smiled encouragingly and added, “I was interviewing for McKinsey and my interviewer told me, ‘you have a perspective that is one in a hundred.’ That’s absolutely true.”

Penn First has a large, dedicated team who is ready to push for what its community needs. They listen carefully to what their members have to tell them, and all they ask is that we start listening too.

Listen when first generation students speak up about their experiences because our school doesn’t make it easy for them to do so. Listen and try to imagine what it is like to spend 20 hours a week on work only to go to class and have your peers say that “affirmative action favours the lazy.” Just for a few moments, try to imagine how much more it takes to be a firstgeneration student at Penn. This conversation can finally start to happen only if we start to listen.

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RECENT ALUMNI IN SOCIAL IMPACT JORDAN HUYNH

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s Penn students, we constantly hear terms like “high-intensity” and “competitive” thrown around in descriptions of our school—some days, I think I hear the word “pre-professional” more than my own name. This stressful atmosphere can pressure students into career paths they think will justify the expense or effort that it takes to graduate from an Ivy League school. Still, many students are able to use their Penn experiences to facilitate careers with a positive social impact in mind. We interviewed four students about their postgraduate career and fellowship plans that focus on human rights, civic engagement, and the common good.

SOFIA DUQUE

Majors/minors: Urban Studies/Urban Education Relevant Penn activities: CSSP Community School Student Partnerships), Penn GSE research assistant, Riepe Mentors Residential Program, IMPACT Magazine Relevant Penn classes: URBS 202 (Urban Education), URBS 250 (Urban Public Policy), URBS 326 (Tutoring in Urban Public Schools), EDUC 545 (Curriculum & Pedagogy for Social Justice), EDUC 548 (American Education Reform: History, Policy, and Practice) Post-grad experiences: I work for Generation Teach, an education nonprofit organization in Denver and Boston. Through our Summer Academy, we reverse “summer slide” for middle school students and introduce diverse college students to the challenging work of teaching. As Generation Teach’s Nonprofit Fellow, I prepare for the summer program by recruiting teacher coaches, undergraduate teaching fellows, and middle school students; connecting with local community and school leaders; and supporting the development of program curricula.

Hopes for making an IMPACT: I aim to provide educationally underserved students with a fun, supportive, academic summer experience while also developing college students to become inspiring, social justice-oriented career teachers. In doing so, I hope to better understand the landscape of American education.

How Penn helped prepare you for this experience: As cliché as it sounds, going to Penn, and particularly being an Urban Studies major and Urban Ed minor, really opened my eyes to inequalities in education. The work I did teaching and learning about the importance of quality teaching pushed me to pursue jobs promoting equal access to excellent education.

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Major: Health and Societies Relevant Penn activities: United Community Clinic, being an RA Relevant Penn classes: HSOC 010 (Health and Societies), HCMG 101 (Healthcare Systems), BIOL 203 (Essentials of Biochemistry) Post-grad experiences: The primary study I’m leading is trying to validate the London Measure of Unintended Pregnancy for the reproductive context in Botswana. We’re using a 6-question questionnaire that asks different questions related to pregnancy intention, and we’re seeing how effective it is in gauging women’s thoughts/feelings on their pregnancy. We plan to use the results to determine what kind of clinical support they need. Our goal is to make this a protocol step nationally, so that’s really exciting.

Hopes for making an IMPACT: I really hope [our protocol] becomes enforced nationally. Botswana has a great and very resourceful healthcare system, but it could improve in a lot of ways. Many young women get pregnant here, and many of them don’t have partners. These women need support and guidance.

How Penn helped prepare you for this experience: I didn’t want to be involved in a banking or finance job because driving profit for business companies (a lot of times at the expense of communities and certain individuals) doesn’t inspire me or motivate me at all. I figured out at Penn that what motivates me is supporting people and seeing that people, especially women, feel empowered and educated to make choices.

MARISA BRUNO

Majors/Minor: International Studies, Business/Comparative Literature Relevant Penn activities: Member and Think Tank co-chair in PennSEM (Penn Social Entrepreneurship Movement), Turner Social Impact Society Relevant Penn classes: Independent Study with Professor Ian MacMillan, applying his book Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook to a local Philly social enterprise called Rebel Ventures Post-grad experiences: After graduation, I’ll be joining Venture for America, which aims to revitalize American cities through entrepreneurship. The fellowship program says its main goal is to empower “recent grads who want to learn how to build a business while making an impact.”

Hopes for making an IMPACT: The job placement process hasn’t begun yet, but I hope to join a small impact-oriented company, ideally in the green energy or environmental space, as these are where my interests lie.

How Penn helped prepare you for this experience: My sophomore summer, I spent nine weeks teaching outside of Kathmandu through the International Internship Program, and it really helped me to see a world outside of Penn. I met many people doing incredibly inspiring things for no reason other than that that’s what they wanted to be doing. It allowed me see past my self-imposed limits and encouraged me to think about the life that I wanted to lead.

TIFFANY HUANG

These students have found ways to incorporate their Penn experiences into postgraduate plans that benefit the communities in which they live. Wherever you choose to work after graduation, make sure the organization’s mission aligns with your personal views and goals for social change and impact!

For more information, check out Career Services’ Careers for the Common Good resource page (http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/ careerservices/careerfields/commongoodcareersmain.php), look through job lists provided by Idealist Careers (idealistcareers.org) or ReliefWeb (http://reliefweb.int/jobs), or consider a career with a socially minded business suggested by B Lab (http://www.bcorporation.net)!

- Sam Friedlander

Majors/minors: Political Science (made a concentration called “Politics of International Education”)/Korean Studies, Urban Studies Relevant Penn activities: Undergraduate Assembly, Fellowship for Building Intercultural Communities, United Minorities Council Relevant Penn classes: URBS 178 (Urban-University Community Relations: Faculty-Student Collaborative Action Seminar), EDUC 566 (Cross Cultural Awareness), EDUC 514 (Education in Developing Countries) Post-grad experiences: I’m a Fulbright research fellow in South Korea. My research falls into two strands: 1) the political resocialization process for young North Korean defectors, and 2) using design research principles to create informal educational program for young North Korean defector youth. For the latter part of my research I’m working with an NGO called Liberty in North Korea (LiNK).

Hopes for making an IMPACT: It’s very important that my research doesn’t stay in the ivory tower and has tangible impact.

As a result, I hope that my research helps North Korean defectors (policy-wise and through program development at LiNK). I want be an academic whose research can be applied, so this is a great opportunity to get a taste of what my future professional goals can look like.

How Penn helped prepare you for this experience: I learned so many things at Penn that have helped me do my work now. This includes student government—I was really involved in student government during my time at Penn, which has helped me with project management and working with different kinds of people.

Additionally, I was a research assistant under Professor Rand Quinn at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. I first learned about research skills and potential impacts of research there.

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THE LIBERAL

ARTS THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS Written by Nina Spitofsky

T

hroughout middle and high school, my backpack contained five one-inch binders. Each was covered in a different color plastic with a label affixed to its spine: science, math, French, English, history. Prior to my sophomore year of high school, I viewed the academic material I learned in class much like I viewed the school supplies in which I stored my notes – as discrete, separate entities. However, my tenth grade Western Civilization class challenged me to view learning in a new way.

As my teacher led us through the religious turmoil of the Middle Ages and into the humanistic ideology of the Renaissance era, I was able to see how religious and societal reorganization led to a rebirth of the intellectual fervor that was first established by ancient Greeks and Romans. I was taught to be an active learner and draw connections between social and economic changes that drove advancements in medicine, technology, and the sciences. I was fascinated by the power inherent in shifting public sentiment. I was inspired by art and literature that captured the onset of revolution, connecting past to present and cause to effect. Everything I had learned in school no longer seemed disparate, but rather intricately connected.

I recognized that the conglomeration of knowledge I would accrue throughout the rest of my schooling would push me to grasp a concept more powerful than Newtonian mechanics or Transcendentalist philosophy could each afford me on their own. The varied curriculum of a liberal arts education guides learners in understanding the enormity of human achievement and reveals the (sometimes unexpected) crossroads that link various fields of study. Finding those links — connecting the dots between disciplines – soon became my favorite part of learning.

In recent years, America has questioned the practicality of liberal arts degrees. Some doubt its potential to lead to fruitful career opportunities and question how post-liberal

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arts education opportunities compare with those offered to students who elect to pursue pre-professional courses of study. Meanwhile, others advocate its potential to broaden, rather than limit, students’ options for the future.

Because of the overlap between fields of study, students today must pursue varied undergraduate curricula. At some point in the undergraduate experience, we each choose a major and narrow our courses of study. However, in order to gain comprehensive understandings of our chosen majors, we must seek foundational knowledge in a variety of other disciplines. We must not disregard the links between academic areas of study.

Rafael Campo is a practicing physician at Beth IsraelDeaconess Medical Center and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also, surprisingly, a poet. His work melds the scientific and the human elements of medicine and embodies the notion that engaging in a diverse course of study will deepen our understanding of what we learn. “To be a healer in the most meaningful sense […] one must be able to synthesize all those important facts and perform all those technical competencies but at the same time, be able to warm the hand of the patient dying in the [Intensive Care Unit] despite all the IVs and ventilator settings, or share the stories of a life well-lived at the hospice bedside when one more round of chemo isn’t going to help,” Campo explains in an interview with nurse practitioner and fellow poet, Cortney Davis. “I don’t want to live in a world where these two pursuits are pushed further and further apart.”

Rafel Campo

Many graduate and medical schools, such as the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, are creating new programs and making changes in their curricula to embrace the school of thought that drives Rafael Campo’s writing – that our world needs medical practitioners who are educated in both the humanities and the sciences. This supports the notion that liberal arts curriculums enhance, rather than limit, students’ abilities to succeed in their future careers.

In addition to broadening students’ future opportunities,

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The varied curriculum of a liberal arts education guides learners in understanding the enormity of human achievement and reveals the (sometimes unexpected) crossroads that link various fields of study. Finding those links — connecting the dots between disciplines – soon became my favorite part of learning.

a liberal arts education expands intellectual and creative capacities. Our ability to create is greater when we are able to consider the world from a myriad of perspectives. A varied curriculum pushes students to think about global issues from different points of view. It not only prepares students for future careers, but it also prepares them for life and the challenges that go along with being human.

This idea of fusing the power of disciplines for the purpose of advancing society is exemplified by Corps Perdu, an artistic and literary collaboration by artist Pablo Picasso and writer Aimé Césaire. The two artists collaborated to create surrealist pieces that condemn the racism and hatred associated with the African diaspora and Western colonization. Throughout their lives, both men produced artistic and written commentaries about prominent political issues, using art and writing to forward their beliefs and better society. The mixture of mediums – text and painting – made Corps Perdu an innovative voice in the political and artistic worlds.

Aside from the positive implications a liberal arts education has for students’ futures and the advancement of society as a whole, pursing an education that combines the worlds of the sciences and the humanities is an intellectually fulfilling experience. My trigonometry teacher had an Albert Einstein quote pinned to the classroom wall that read, “Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” In one line, Einstein encapsulates why I chose to pursue a liberal arts education. This past semester when I found the concept of entropy buried in the pages of my English book, Martin Amis’ Times Arrow, I was able to “look and understand” on a level that would not have been possible if I had not been familiar with the scientific concept of entropy. I gleaned more from this novel because of the knowledge I had acquired from my other classes.

Since my tenth grade history class, I knew that I wanted to go to a university that would allow me to see these interdisciplinary relationships, and Penn’s College has allowed me to do so.

For those who have already decided upon a major, the sector and foundational requirements that characterize the College’s curriculum may seem a nuisance. But if taken advantage of, they can provide us with intellectual experiences that transform the way we process the world.

Although I still use a separate notebook for each class, I have learned to view knowledge as an expansive network of interconnected ideas. As recipients of liberal arts educations, we are encouraged and inspired to comprehend this web of ideas. In seeking to identify the links between art, history, literature, science, and medicine, we acquire the capacity to innovate and fuel the advancement of our society.

DOES THE THOUGHT REALLY COUNT? Written by Emma Shenton

J

aipur, India: The cool morning breeze pierces my t-shirt as I briskly walk through the front gate. I cut across the deserted school yard, and I climb the steps one by one as a nervous jitter reverberates through my body. Eyes glistening with curiosity peer out at me from the two doorways that I walk past. I am a foreigner in their land, an enigma. I finally walk through the doorway of my classroom. I am boxed in by the washed out, gray, concrete walls, floor, and ceiling. Four rows, each composed of one long desk, stretch toward the back wall of the classroom. The desks vary in color, and they are chipped and scuffed; they have taken a clear beating from time.

As my teaching partner and I walk into the room, twenty students stand in imperfect unison. Grins come to life across their faces as they greet us with, “Good morning Jasmine ma’am. Good morning Emma ma’am. How are you today?”

This greeting has clearly been rehearsed, as the students do not have concrete grasps of the meaning of these English words. Yet every day, without fail, they greet us in the same way.

Our mornings in India were spent teaching these students English. We usually did not have specific lessons planned out because we wanted to teach them what they wanted to learn.

We chose to consult with the students. Sometimes we wrote on the blackboard during grammar lessons. Sometimes we

played games. Sometimes we sang songs, and sometimes we sat in a circle on the ground and practiced conversation skills. Each day, during the mid-morning break, students from classrooms all over the school crowded around us with overwhelming enthusiasm. They struggled past their classmates in attempts to give us a handshake or to converse with us in the little English that they knew.

I enjoyed being with these students each day, but I had a perpetual ball of guilt in my stomach. I felt guilty because I thought that I was not what they needed. I felt like I was stealing their learning time away from a more experienced teacher—a teacher who could, at the very least, speak their language. The students were curious and enthusiastic, but blank stares greeted us from every angle when we spoke. The English translator was in the classroom infrequently, so we had to learn to adapt. We picked up some Hindi phrases, we pointed to objects, and we acted things out. I still felt guilty that they were able to view me as their authority figure with such ease. I was also concerned that they lacked stability in their educational experiences, as I was such a fleeting presence in their classroom. I did not enter this experience with the intention to detract from their learning time, and yet I feel that I did just that. My intentions were not malicious, but I cannot help thinking that my presence there was more

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detrimental than helpful.

The phrase, “it is the thought that counts” is thrown around, but does this phrase hold any weight? Does the thought really count? When talking about something trivial, such as a birthday gift, thought does hold some weight. If you do not like the gift, it is clear the gift giver does not really know you as a person; however, it might be comforting to know that you were on the giver’s mind. Thought holds much less weight when dealing with human lives. There can be an obvious disconnect between intentions and impact. This disconnect pervades throughout the sphere of social impact and social justice. It exists internationally, the domestically, and in our day to day lives. Making a positive impact is possible, but it is important to be aware of the reality of what takes place when attempting to help others.

One issue that is particularly subject to the impact/ intention disconnect is the lack of educational stability caused by inexperienced teachers and by high volunteer teacher turnover rates.

Voluntourism—when travelers participate in voluntary work while abroad—is a prime example of something steeped with good intention that may not always accomplish its goal. Many people who participate in voluntourism genuinely want to help others, but their ways of helping can exacerbate problems rather than ameliorate them. One example of Voluntourism is when foreigners travel abroad to teach both children and adults English.

It is easy to find volunteer teaching opportunities abroad with a quick Google search. The organizations’ websites tend to present themselves as “do-gooders” to those who browse through. Many of the photos displayed on the sites show students and volunteers interacting with one another in harmony. This, however, is not necessarily the reality. There are plenty of organizations that allow foreigners to teach English in schools abroad with little to no qualifications. When I was abroad, my group worked with a program called IDEX. It is clear

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One issue that is particularly subject to the impact/intention disconnect is the lack of educational stability caused by inexperienced teachers and by high volunteer teacher turnover rates. by looking at IDEX’s website that a long-term commitment is not necessary. The sample itinerary they provide allows volunteers to stay for even a mere 15 days. When I worked with IDEX, I only stayed for about one month. During this time, I taught in one school three hours a day for four days a week.

Prior to entering the classroom, I had assumed that we would at least receive a crash course on teaching. IDEX instead provided us with a brief overview about creating lesson plans, but it was informal and unhelpful. I was told I would have a day or two to observe current teachers—but I was thrown headfirst into a room full of students who could not understand a word that I was saying. Interestingly enough, the students’ regular teachers were still present in the school area. I was displacing a teacher instead of filling a need for a teacher. This seemed like an ineffective way to ensure that the students were learning.

Many other programs are oriented in similar ways. Foreigners often primarily travel abroad to sight-see; volunteering and teaching can be more of an after-thought—a way to justify the desire to travel. This is not the case for everyone, but it is common.

Problems with teaching volunteerism are not confined to foreign countries; they are present and real domestically as well. Teach for America (TFA) is a nonprofit organization that hires recent graduates from top universities and places them in low-income schools to teach for at least two years. The organization says, “Our mission is to enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation’s most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence.” Reading this statement alone, one would be inclined to believe that this organization is doing positive work for our society. However, critiques of TFA have argued that because of the organization, teachers have been laid off and inexperienced students have taken their places.

The training for TFA is a mere 5 weeks. Students can choose to stay in the teaching positions for a longer timeframe, but two years seems to be the typical norm. A 2015 Mathematica Policy Research study of TFA teachers found that 87 percent of TFA recruits were not planning on lifelong careers as teachers, as compared to 26 percent of non-TFA teachers. This high turnover rate creates instability in schools.

Many studies have proven that teacher turnover affects the level of student performance. Susanna Loeb of Stanford University, Matthew Ronfeldt of the

University of Michigan, and James Wyckoff of the University of Virginia have studied eight years’ worth of data from New York City public schools. Their study included around 850,000 observations of students in the fourth and fifth grades. It was found that students’ math scores dropped 8.2 to 10.2 percent below the standard deviation in years when teacher turnover was 100 percent, as compared to 0 percent teacher turnover. English scores, under the same conditions, dropped 4.9 to 6.0 percent below standard deviation. Clearly, high teacher turnover rates have a significant impact on student performance.

Critiques of TFA are not just empty words; there are plenty of past participants and others involved with TFA who provide compelling reasons as to why it is not always an effective organization. Noam Hassenfield, a Harvard graduate, participated in TFA but chose not to return for a second year.

His placement was in Atlanta, Georgia where more than a hundred teachers had recently been laid off because of school closings. At this point, Atlanta had already signed on to bring in hundreds of TFA recruits. Hassenfield has said this “is strange because these are people with no experience putting out of work people with lots of experience.” He has also said that this model of teaching is “driving home this idea that those who can’t decide what to do [after graduation] teach.

It’s saying that if you don’t have anything you really want to do, you can just be a teacher.”

Mark Naison, Fordham University professor, refuses to allow TFA recruits into his classroom. He says, “The idea of sending talented students into schools in impoverished areas, and then after two years encouraging them to pursue careers in finance, law, and business in the hope that they will then advocate for educational equity really rubs me the wrong way.” However, Naison’s views were not always as negative towards TFA. When the organization first approached him, he encouraged his best students to apply, but was subsequently dismayed to find that none of them had been accepted into the program.

Upon further research, he found that TFA had only accepted 4 out of 100 Fordham applicants that year, yet 44 of 100 applicants from Yale were accepted. He says, “Something was really wrong if an organization which wanted to serve low-income communities rejected nearly every applicant from Fordham, students who came from those very communities, and accepted nearly half of the applicants from an Ivy League school, where very few of the students, even students of color, come from working-class or poor families.”

Many students do enter TFA with the intention to make a positive difference, but clearly beliefs do not always pan

Something was really wrong if an organization which wanted to serve lowincome communities rejected nearly every applicant from Fordham, students who came from those very communities, and accepted nearly half of the applicants from an Ivy League school, where very few of the students, even students of color, come from working-class or poor families.”

out the way we imagine they will. It seems that the impact of TFA is not as positive as its intentions lead us to believe.

TFA may not be the best option to make changes within the realm of education, but its many downfalls should not dissuade individuals from entering the teaching profession or the educational policy profession. These jobs are important; they just cannot be filled by students who only have a few weeks of training. Applicants should consider pursuing a college degree, spending time observing teaching methods in schools, and making an effort to communicate with the students to discover their needs. Effective teaching requires follow through; two years at a school is not enough to build strong relationships with students and administrators.

The same standard holds for teaching abroad. The ineffectiveness of some organizations should not scare off people who want to participate. It is important, however, to receive proper training and especially to take the time to learn about the communities in which one chooses to teach. There is a current disconnect between impact and intentions, but it is possible to lessen this disconnect.

Back in India, I stand at the front of the classroom with a thin layer of chalk dust encapsulating my hands and my jeans. The chalk squeaks across the board as I slowly write the sentence, “the small dog ran quickly.” I underline the word “small,” and I ask the class what part of the sentence this is. Hands snap into the air with enthusiasm. I scan the room momentarily until I call out a student by name. This student stands and proudly states that the word “small” is an adjective. My heart flutters in my chest in a moment of relief as I realize the students may be learning something from me, after all.

However, my guilt is still present. I still do not know if I have made a lasting impact. I still do not know if I have really helped the students in a way that they needed. Most importantly, I am still not certain if I did more good than harm in that classroom.

I entered the classroom with positive intentions, but I did not have a concrete way of measuring my impact.

I am certain of one thing, though; I learned invaluable lessons from these students. I ultimately believe that they helped me more than I helped them. I learned to take the time to learn about the cultures of the communities in which I work.

I learned to be mindful when teaching so as not to impose my worldviews on the students. I learned to collaborate with the students, to listen to their needs and their desires, and to become more conscious of the link between my intentions and my impact.

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GENTRIFICATION IN PHILADELPHIA DISPLACEMENT OR REINVIGORATION? C

ities are special places. It is a destination where multiple types of people converge. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the immigrant and the long-time resident. And yet, what happens when these familiar neighborhoods become unfamiliar?

Change is a natural part of a city. Peeling back the layers of University City, we are faced with a seemingly unrecognizable landscape. During the 1950s, people of Jewish and Italian descents occupied the area around the University of Pennsylvania. A decade later, African Americans began moving in and eventually became the majority in neighborhoods within University City.

But presently, it seems that the trend has reversed as African Americans are being pushed out by a largely white demographic.

As exampled by University City, cities are constantly changing.

Some of these shifts can be defined through the lens of gentrification, the displacement of lower-income communities – often minority groups- by higher income groups. Gentrification is a highly contested issue, especially in the culturally and racially diverse city of Philadelphia. While opponents argue that gentrification leads to the displacement of poor, minority neighborhoods by affluent whites, others insist that cities do not belong to one specific group- rather, ownership of territory naturally changes hands as time passes. Twenty-first century Philadelphia must face the issue head-on as a new generation moves in – and the pros and cons are not always clear cut.

Rather than associating with the negative connotation of gentrification revolving around displacement, gentrification in Philadelphia is a complex issue, with positive and negatives surrounding the issue from multiple sides.

Unlike cities such as New York where there is an intense development pressure and where poorer communities are being displaced by wealthier, usually whiter, residents, Philadelphia is faced with a different situation as painted by Eric Schneider, a professor of Urban Studies at Penn.

“In Philadelphia, we have a city that was built for about 2 million people that now has 15 million people living in it. We have higher income people moving in. This is good for the city at large and will have less of an effect rather than other American cities,” says Schneider.

According to Philly.com, for the last half of the 20th century, many parts of Philadelphia were on a downward spiral as the city

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lost population and business, with the two engaging in a cycle that led to a greater population leaving the city. Today, the city’s population is rising. In a matter of six years, Philadelphia has faced an upward trend, turning into a reinvigorated city. According to The Philadelphia Tribune, the increasing population, most of which are millenials, are changing Philadelphia’s economy by installing small businesses across the city which in turn has a collective output of decreasing the unemployment rate to 6.4%. In addition, a population increase means a larger number of people paying property and wage taxes, which can in turn, support community aid programs and new infrastructure for the city, as Professor Schneider explains.

Philadelphia has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, according to Dennis Culhane, another Penn Urban Studies Professor. Therefore, any significant increase in taxes can lead to more services for the people in this city such as afterschool programs for at-risk students, more funds for homeless shelters, and more programs to reverse the social problems that the city is facing.

“In order for us to afford the services for the people in this city, it is healthy for us to generate tax revenue from the incoming members to support services,” says Culhane.

However, this transformation also comes with a set of negative consequences. Two groups are primarily affected by gentrification: renters and hoemowners.

Renters are immediately affected by gentrification due to the increasing rates of rent. New renters are willing to pay a thousand dollars and above for renovated digs in old brownstones just a few blocks away from trendy shops on Walnut Street. Renters who cannot afford these price tags are forced to move to other low-income areas. On the other hand, for homeowners, the most significant impact of gentrification surrounds property taxes.

While property taxes would increase for all types of residents, regardless of socioeconomic status, low-income and fixedincome residents are hit the hardest because a raise in property taxes for them could mean the difference of staying or having to move out and find a cheaper place to live.

According to Philly.com, while the city’s population is on the rise, homeownership amongst residents below the federal line is declining due to the fact that longtime homeowners living on

Written By Jackie Uy

economic fringes will no longer be able to afford rent.

In response to low-income homeowners no longer being able to afford the homes in which they have lived in for years, the city of Philadelphia is attempting to come up with solutions to protect these same homeowners. It has instituted affordable development projects that depend on federal, state, and city financing as well as several policies that provide property tax relief for long time property owners hit hardest by gentrification.

For example, the Longtime Owner-Occupants program, instituted in 2013, provides tax breaks for homeowners whose property assessments increase by 300% or more in the course of one tax year. According to Philadeliquency.com, a “longtime owner-occupant, is any person who has been living in the same property for at least ten years”. Secondly, the Homestead Exemption reduces the taxable value of qualified owneroccupied homes by $30,000. Due to the institution of programs and policies such as these, longtime Philadelphia residents are protected against the encroachment of newer residents who are able to afford property taxes and higher pay.

Gentrification has had more visible effects on the city as well. Established Philadelphia neighborhoods such as North Philadelphia, Francisville, Northern Liberties, Fishtown, ensington, Fairmount, Center City West, Hawthorne, University City, Point Breeze and Grays Ferry are changing in landscape, with an incoming generation that is younger, wealthier, and whiter. Areas by Center City are seen as destination areas for the new influx of residents.

“You can see new construction and more hipsters hanging around in the neighborhood, older factories that are being converted,” observes Schneider.

While the wealthy can provide the economic resources needed to support social impact services, the influx of new residents can also disrupt established community cultures- communities that were often originally inhabited by poor minorities for generations.

Neighborhood social relations can become disrupted if racial and economic divides cause tension amongst residents. In addition, long-time residents may feel displaced by the newcomers, who are seen as encroaching upon their coveted territory. Familiar places become unfamiliar as the incoming population begins adding new businesses, utilities, and customs. Old restaurants owned by community members are replaced with trendy hipster cafes

frequented by a younger population. Streets that predominantly held majority minority neighborhoods are suddenly seeing whiter faces, opening up the door to diversity but also perhaps for racial tensions.

It is important to note that while gentrification often has a negative connotation- a dismal picture of kicked out minorities and shattered neighborhood traditions- this is not always the case.

Schneider observes that parts of Philadelphia where gentrification is the most obvious are, in fact, working class white areas. “I think that mostly has to do with fear,” he notes. “It seems to gentrifiers to be less threatening to move into a white working class area rather than a traditionally African one.”

In addition to the benefits to the city that gentrification provides, because Philadelphia has had a negative population rate that is now increasing, there is a high vacancy rate within the city. As Culhane explains, the city has space for new residents. It is not overfilled like other parts of the country, namely New York, where high population rates mean greater competition for living spaces.

With the impacts of gentrification on Philadelphia, the city is beginning to develop at a higher rate. The city cannot afford to slow development- instead, it must find ways to encourage growth while protecting long-term homeowners and creating neighborhoods that are economically and racially diverse.

“Gentrification is a mixed blessing. The real issue is one of balance; how can you balance the benefits of increased wealth and population with the negative impacts of existing populations?” concludes Schneider.

Gentrification cannot be understood through a black and white lens. It is a complex issue that involves (social, economic, historical, etc.) analysis. In Philadelphia, gentrification has helped reinvigorated a city previously declining in population. However, this new phase should not discount the fact that established communities are being disrupted. Even though solutions have been implemented to protect established members of communities while still encouraging the arrival of new residents, the issue has a long way to go before it joins together the hands of old residents and new ones, the poor and the rich, and white and minorities in a city that many consider home.

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POVERTY, HUNGER, AND EDUCATION Written by Shelby Barlow

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n Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, members of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Health Initiative teach health education classes to students at three of West Philadelphia’s public schools. Lessons range from nutrition and exercise to sex and puberty— a typical session is filled with a chorus of “ewww” from the kids. As a first generation college student from a low-income family, I was attracted to Penn Health Initiative because of the opportunity to mentor and impact children with backgrounds to which I could relate.

Teaching in a Philly public school has been incredibly enriching and enlightening; however, it has also been troublesome and heart-breaking. The students I teach, like many others in the United States, grow up impoverished and hungry in a school district that is struggling to stay afloat.

The students I teach, like many others in the United States, grow up impoverished and hungry in a school district that is struggling to stay afloat.

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, childhood poverty affects 22 percent of all children across America and around 45 percent of American children overall live in low-income families. Philadelphia in particular is home to some of the poorest children in the nation. In 2014, the U.S. Census reported that Philadelphia has the highest rate of

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deep poverty, or citizens with incomes below half the poverty line, of any of the nation’s ten most populous cities. 60,000 of Philadelphia’s children live in deep poverty, and the overall child poverty rate in the city is a staggering forty percent. At the Samuel B. Huey School, one of Penn Health Initiative’s partner schools, nearly all students live at or below the federal poverty line. At Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia, a twenty-minute car ride from Penn’s central campus, the financial demographic of the student body is similarly unfortunate. A sixth grade teacher at de Burgos, Gale Kantor, says that often times, kids are sent to school without phone numbers at which their parents can be reached because the families cannot afford phones.

The consequences of poverty on a child’s readiness to learn are grave. Studies have shown that childhood poverty is the single greatest threat to a child’s physical, emotional, and educational well-being. In 2012, Julia B. Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, one of Washington’s oldest think tanks, published a study that describes how poverty affects school readiness. Issacs measured school readiness based on health, behavior, and academic skills. According to her findings, by age five, 75 percent of children from families with moderate to high incomes are ready to attend kindergarten, while less than half of children from low-income families are. On average, lowincome children lag behind their wealthier peers in social and academic ability as well as physical health. More privileged children often enter school with larger vocabularies and better social skills than their low-income counterparts. Children from

middle-class backgrounds are more likely to behave and interact well with other students, and form solid bonds with their teachers. Conversely, low-income children are more likely to accumulate school absences due to illness and are more likely to struggle to complete homework due to insufficient parental involvement.

There are two basic theories as to why poorer children have comparatively worse outcomes. One theory focuses on economic disparity and argues that the negative outcomes are a direct result of a lack of financial resources. For example, a low-income family is less likely to have access to nutritious meals, quality health care, and academic enrichment materials such as books and educational toys. The low-income family is more likely to live in a high crime area with noise and air pollution that can lead to high rates of stress and anxiety.

These factors often have negative impacts on the physical and emotional development of a child.

The related second theory focuses on parental behaviors associated with poverty and their consequent effects on a child’s mental, emotional, and physical development. As Isaacs notes, key influences on a child’s readiness for schooling are parental behavior, parental education, and maternal depression. Mothers living in poverty are often single parents who are insufficiently educated themselves and, thus, are more likely to suffer from depression and poor health. These conditions make it challenging for low-income mothers to provide safe, comfortable living environments and nutritional meals, which are crucial to a child’s growth. Research published in Developmental Science by Stanford psychologists found that poor mothers are less likely to read to and communicate with their babies, and thus the language skills of their children can be up to two years behind those of a child from a wealthier family.

In Philadelphia, food insecurity among the poor has proven to be one of the toughest challenges in early education. At Samuel B. Huey School and Julia de Burgos Elementary,

nearly 100 percent of the student body qualifies for free lunch as a result of its impoverished demographic. According to the Coalition Against Hunger, 22 percent of Philadelphia is food insecure. Food insecurity is a household-level economic condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.

Philadelphia’s rate is the highest in the state of Pennsylvania.

Mariana Chilton, director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, believes that “children who are food insecure do not perform as well on math and language arts tests.” Chilton goes on to describe how studies have shown that chronic hunger results in behavioral and health issues that undoubtedly impact a child’s performance in the classroom. “The whole state of Pennsylvania should be ashamed of what is happening in Philadelphia today,” she says.

“Children who are food insecure do not perform as well on math and language arts tests” Childhood poverty poses nearly insurmountable challenges to many of America’s children. Fortunately, there are ways that an individual person can combat its effects. The University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center offers a variety of volunteer and paid programs that give Penn students opportunities to get involved in the local community throughout the year.

Personally, through Big Brothers Big Sister of America and Penn Health Initiative, I have been able to make my own small impact in West Philadelphia. Through my experiences, I have learned that living at Penn is one thing—living in Philly is another entirely. Every Penn student, from every socioeconomic background, is incredibly privileged to be a Penn student, and each of us has something to gain from Philadelphia. More importantly, however, each of us has the opportunity to give back to this City of Brotherly Love.

ISSUE 7 / 37

PLAYING WITH

NATURE Written By Tiffany Huang

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t’s December 2014. A biologist enters a lab at the University of California, San Diego, passing through five sets of fingerprint-locked doors to arrive at the test tubes of flies he works on in his experiments. The winged insects are sealed inside test tubes, which are sealed inside larger tubes, which are sealed inside of a box. The University had required stringent biosafety precautions to prevent the escape of even a single fly, out of fear that its edited genes could propagate throughout the wild.

These flies served as the model organism in an experiment that would later play a crucial role in the development of the gene drive, a revolutionary new genetic technique that could have the unprecedented power to change an entire species’ genome. “I believe it’s going to transform the world of genetics,” says UC San Diego biology professor Ethan Bier, “because it’s going to allow researchers to bypass the rules of genetics in many different spheres of activity.”

Gene drive systems have the ability to spread a gene of interest throughout a population. Biologists can genetically engineer a gene in an organism, and with the gene drive, propagate the mutated gene throughout the population using a technique called CRIPSR-Cas9, a DNA editing technology that allows scientists to cut DNA at any site they choose. Thus, all the progeny of the organism would inherit the gene with virtually 100 percent efficiency, allowing the edited gene to spread throughout a wild population in as little as a single season.

Gene drives have the potential to permanently eliminate insect-borne epidemics such as malaria and dengue fever that affect millions of people worldwide. The gene drive’s potential to eliminate mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus is also hotly debated, since a gene drive to stop Zika is likely to become available sooner than a vaccine, as reported by MIT Technology Review. Using this method, mosquitos could be engineered to pass on a lethal or disease-resistant gene to their offspring, causing the offspring to die in early stages of development or to stop transmitting disease. Such a faculty could have enormous potential in the field of global health, as well as in controlling the spread of invasive species, managing ecosystems, and reducing crop pests.

Gene drives have the potential to permanently eliminate insect-borne epidemics such as malaria and dengue fever that affect millions of people worldwide The enormous potential social impact of this technology could transform global health forever. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Of all disease-transmitting insects, the mosquito is the greatest menace, spreading malaria, dengue and yellow fever, which together are responsible for several million deaths and hundreds of millions of cases every year.” WHO states that malaria alone contributes to poverty and stunted social and economic development in 91 countries. This technology has the ability to significantly change the world economy’s allocation of manpower and finance, and save millions of future disease victims. Moreover, the resources that go into prevention, treatment, and social ISSUE 7 / 39

work of mosquito-borne diseases today could be put towards other pressing global health issues.

The applications of gene drives extend far beyond the realm of disease and health. Biologically engineering away crop pests would provide the agricultural industry a much-needed boost.

The current global population, and consequently, demand for produce, are both growing at unprecedented rates. “I think that in agriculture we’re going to see the use of gene drives,” says Dr. Jonathan Moreno, the David and Lyn Silfen University professor at Penn, where he teaches medical ethics and health policy. “I don’t think there’s any question. There’s going to be a big need for food.” Gene drive technology would be a powerful tool in ecosystem management, reducing the spread of invasive species and serving as a biological pesticide in the agricultural sector. The sheer potential of this new discovery borders on the unbelievable. Could this be the panacea to so many of our twenty-first century ills?

While a knee-jerk reaction might tell you “yes,” there are caveats associated with gene drives. This technology is exciting and can be advantageous in health, agriculture, and ecology.

Yet, at the same time, it also raises some serious questions on the ethicality of altering an entire population’s genome. Can we control both the intended and non-intended consequences of changing the gene pool? The gene could possibly jump to other insects and affect species other than the target population.

How could conceivable adverse side effects be controlled for? Ecosystems are tightly interconnected, balanced systems, in which all the components are interdependent on one another. Therefore, taking out even one part of the equation could throw the entire ecosystem into confusion. As Dr. Peter Groffman of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies notes, “Given enough disturbance, systems can cross an ecological threshold that is difficult to reverse.”

This biological power could come with enormous consequences—possible elimination of entire species, loss of control of the mechanism, and ecosystems’ damage beyond repair. Are the risks too large to consider real-world applications of the technology? Should humans wield this power in the first

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This biological power could come with enormous consequences—possible elimination of entire species, loss of control of the mechanism, and ecosystems’ damage beyond repair. place? Such are the central questions that bioethicists have been struggling to answer since the development of gene drives.

Further, gene drives have been criticized for “playing god,” or, as Dr. Jonathan Pugh, research fellow at University of Oxford puts it, a “sort of hubristic attitude of mastery over nature.”

Mosquitos tend to lack a relative moral status—humans do not regard them as having intrinsic value. To a certain degree, humans would benefit if mosquitos were eliminated altogether.

But is there something inherently, subjectively valuable in the existence of mosquitos as a species?

Thus goes the plot of many movies—humans, with their advanced technology, accelerate their own destruction with their exaggerated arrogance. Such arguments, however, may no longer be persuasive since so much of the world has already changed due to human interference. “Agriculture started thousands of years ago and it’s a type of modification,” says Moreno. “The step from agriculture to the laboratory looks like a big qualitative change, but it’s really a quantitative change.”

However, this does point out that human beings do not possess god-like, all-encompassing powers that can predict all consequences of altering a species’ genome.

This technology lies in an ethical, social, and legal gray area, complicating the simple yes/no answer to the million-dollar question: “is it worth it?” So far, nobody seems to have an answer. “I think it’s really a matter of deciding how badly we want to confront something like Zika,” says Moreno, “There is one main reason to object to it: we shouldn’t mess around with Mother Nature.

We don’t know what the downstream results could be for the environment, simply because everything is so tightly connected in the ecosystem.”

In the end, the FDA and other global government agencies will have the final say regarding the introduction of the gene drive technology into the wild. According to Moreno, the gene drive technology will likely not be sophisticated enough for use in eliminating diseases for several years to come. However, it is our responsibility to be aware of the ethical questions, benefits, and challenges surrounding gene drives so that when a decision is eventually made, the benefits for all of the world’s people—and organisms— will outweigh the risks.

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