Penn GSE Spring 2023

SPRING 2023

MAGA ZINE

The Legacy of Dean Grossman 11

Our Next Leader 21

Educating for a Sustainable Future 22

MAGA ZINE THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Board of Advisors Douglas R. Korn, W’84, Chair Jeffrey S. McKibben, W’93, Vice Chair Deborah L. Ancona, C’76, GED’77 Olumoroti G. Balogun, GRD’20 Brett H. Barth, W’93 Allison J. Blitzer, C’91 Harlan B. Cherniak, W’01 Jolley Bruce Christman, GED’71, GR’87 Samara E. Cohen, C’93, W’93 Beth S. Ertel, W’88, WG’92 Evan S. Feinberg, W’09 Jeffrey L. Goldberg, W’83, WG’89 Patricia Grant, GED’01, GRD’04 Joel M. Greenblatt, W’79, WG’80 John Henry Andrew H. Jacobson, WG’93 Gustave K. Lipman, W’94 Gregory A. Milken, C’95 Andrea J. Pollack, C’83, L’87, GED’17 David N. Roberts, W’84 Francisco J. Rodriguez, W’93 Molly P. Rouse-Terlevich, C’90, GED’00 Michael J. Sorrell, GRD’15 Navin M. Valrani, W’93, GED’18, GED’22, GRD’23 Steven M. Wagshal, W’94 The Penn GSE Magazine is produced by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, 3440 Market Street, Suite 560, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Reproduction of these articles requires written permission from Penn GSE. ©2023 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. Please contact Penn GSE at 215-898-9704 for references. Please contact alumni@gse.upenn.edu to update your address.

Photo credit:Stuart Goldenberg, Penn GSE

Pam Grossman Dean Laura Tepper Publisher Rebecca Raber Editor Editorial Board: Sylvia Davis, C’20 Jane L. Lindahl, GED’18 Jennifer Moore Kat Stein Xuan Wang Designed by Bold Type Creative UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA NONDISCRIMINATION STATEMENT The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected class status in the administration of its admissions, financial aid, educational or athletic programs, or other University-administered programs or in its employment practices. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be directed to the Executive Director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs, Franklin Building, Suite 421, 3451 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6205; or 215-898-6993 (Voice).

Cover Photo: Stuart Goldenberg for Penn GSE

Editor’s note: This issue of The Penn GSE Magazine went to print on June 5, 2023.

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C O N T E N TS 2

Letter from the Dean

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Faculty Bookshelf & Faculty Awards News Briefs Policy Corner Gift Announcement

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Our Alums in Their Spaces Principal Nimet Eren, GED’09, GRD’20, in her office at

Kensington Health Sciences Academy.

/ F E AT U R ES / A Legacy of Leadership 11

Dean Pam Grossman has guided Penn GSE through a capital campaign, a global pandemic, a historic building expansion, and unprecedented growth with ambition and compassion.

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Faces of Philanthropy 20

Samara Cohen, C’93, W’93, is inspired to support others on a journey of lifelong learning.

New Dean Announced 21

Katharine O. Strunk will be Penn GSE’s next leader.

22 Educating for a Sustainable Future

Penn GSE alumni work in film, finance, communications, and classrooms to fight climate change.

Photo credit: University Communications

26 Studying the Academy from Within

A Q&A with Assistant Professor Damani White-Lewis about his research exploring why university faculty still lack racial diversity.

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28 Alumni Notes / R EC ESS / Photo credit: Stuart Goldenberg, Penn GSE

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Tips from the Educator’s Playbook

Incorporating ChatGPT into the classroom.

Letter from the Dean

Photo credit: Krista Patton Photography

Dear Alumni and Friends, It feels surreal to be here, at the end of a journey that started almost nine years ago when my husband and I sat at our kitchen counter in Palo Alto, California, listening to Mark Knopfler’s “Sailing to Philadelphia,” as we pressed send on our emails to accept our respective positions at Penn: his in the Office of General Counsel and mine as dean of the Graduate School of Education.

With that keystroke, everything changed. I went from suburban to urban, West Coast to East Coast, professor to administrator.

But there was something about the potential of Penn GSE to become the kind of professional school I believed in that drew me here. And I’m so glad we made that leap. I’ve found wonderful colleagues at both Penn GSE and the University, inspiring students and alumni, an incredible board, and a new city that I loved learning about and exploring.

As a lifelong educator—I began as a teaching assistant when I was 16 and haven’t left the classroom since—I was worried that I would miss teaching when I became dean. Little did I know that I would find similar joy and satisfaction from working with our community to build a stronger Penn GSE. Together, we’ve expanded the work of the School, both in Philadelphia and across the world. We’ve created a more cohesive community, and transformed our physical footprint by building a building that matches our grand ambitions.

As the end of my deanship has approached, I’ve been asked the same two questions repeatedly: “How are you feeling as you face this transition?” And “What will you miss most?” The answer to the second question is easy—it’s the people. From the staff and the faculty to the students and the alumni, the people at Penn GSE are very special to me, and I will miss my daily interactions with them. The answer to the first question is more complicated. I’m feeling so many feelings. But the primary one is an overwhelming sense of gratitude for having had the opportunity to serve as dean.

This is definitely the hardest job I’ve ever had. I could not have known when I pressed send on that job acceptance email that I would be leading the school through a global pandemic, enormous political polarization, and an ongoing reckoning over racial injustice. But outside of teaching high school, this has definitely been the most rewarding job I’ve had as well. We’ve navigated these turbulent times together, and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped keep us on course.

I’m also feeling excitement because I know Penn GSE’s best days are still ahead. So many seeds that we’ve planted are just now starting to bloom. I’m looking forward to coming back to campus and seeing students using the innovative new spaces in the building expansion and experiencing the new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership in action. I can’t wait to see what else is next.

Thank you for welcoming me into the Penn GSE community, and thank you for making it so hard to say goodbye.

All my best,

Dean, Penn Graduate School of Education George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education

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FACULTY BOOKSHELF Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy

Research Methods for Understanding Child Second Language Development

By Yuko Goto Butler and Becky H. Huang Published September 2022 Routledge

By Sigal R. Ben-Porath Published January 2023 University of Chicago Press

Leadership Mindsets for Adaptive Change: The Flux 5

By Sharon Ravitch and Liza Herzog, foreword by Raghu Krishnamoorthy Publishing August 2023 Routledge

Studying Language in Interaction: A Practical Research Guide to Communicative Repertoire and Sociolinguistic Diversity

By Betsy Rymes Published October 2022 Routledge

FACULTY AWARDS & HONORS Sade Bonilla received two grants. A $360,537 award from Arnold Ventures supports her and Columbia University Teachers College’s Veronica Minaya-Lazarte’s randomized controlled trial to evaluate a cost-of-living grant for low-income community college students. A $2,299,746 award from the Institute of Education Sciences—shared with co-PIs Nicole Edgecombe, Maria Cormier, and Catherine Finnegan from Columbia University—funds a project examining the Virginia Community College System’s central pandemic workforce recovery strategy. \ The Heising-Simons Foundation awarded Caroline Brayer Ebby and her co-PI Karina G. Diaz $399,854 for a mixed-methods study examining the efficacy of aligned formative assessment and professional learning on preK–3 teacher and student outcomes in a network of public elementary schools in Philadelphia. \ Gerald Campano, María Paula Ghiso of Columbia University Teacher's College, and members of the Communities Advancing Research in Education (CARE) initiative were awarded the 2023 Henry T. Trueba Award for Research Leading to the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education from the American Educational Research Association. \ María Cioè-Peña was selected for a 2023 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship for her project “B is for Bilingual, Black, or Broken: Erasure and pathologization through school-based ethnic, linguistic, and disability classifications.” Additionally, her book, (M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers (Multilingual Matters, 2021), won the First Book Award from the American Association of Applied Linguistics. \ Amalia Daché received two grants with collaborator Juan Garibay from the University of Virginia. A $496,840 award from the Spencer Foundation will support their project “The Afterlife of Slavery on Campus: Black Student Experiences with University Histories of Slavery and their Views on Higher Education Reparations.” And $50,000 from the Russell Sage Foundation will support their project “Student Racial Justice Activism and Higher Education Reparations at Universities Founded Pre-Civil War.” \ Vivian L. Gadsden was honored with the David N. Dinkins Social Justice Award from the “I Have a Dream" Foundation.” \ Zachary Herrmann and Taylor Hausburg were awarded both a Penn Global Engagement Fund grant and a Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative Research Community grant. The former will support their work with the Project-Based Leaning for Global Climate Justice certificate program, and the latter will support them coordinating with scholars across Penn to develop programming and conduct research on this topic. Herrmann was also named a faculty fellow with the Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative and was selected for the Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum program, which helps Penn faculty introduce environmental sustainability into their courses. \ Nancy Hornberger received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, recognizing her internationally known career in bilingualism and biliteracy, ethnography and language policy, and Indigenous

language revitalization. \ Yumi Matsumoto received a $49,774 grant from the Spencer Foundation for her project “International Students’ Communicative Practice in US University Classrooms: Multimodal Analyses of Multilinguals’ Communicative Repertoires,” which will be funded through 2024. \ Nicole Mittenfelner Carl was awarded a $95,603 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education as part of the Aspiring to Educate STEM-CS grant program, which aims to diversify the pipeline of STEM and computer science teachers. Her project focuses on recruiting and supporting first-generation, low-income undergraduate students into the teaching profession in partnership with the Center for Black Educator Development, the School District of Philadelphia, Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships, the Responsive Math Teaching project, and undergraduate student groups. \ Jennifer Morton was recently awarded a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. She is one of three fellows in the category of philosophy this year. Morton was also named winner of the 2023 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education for her ideas published in Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility (Princeton University Press, 2019). \ Michael Nakkula and Andy Danilchick earned a $488,201 grant to expand their Consortium for Mental Health and Optimal Development across Chester County. In collaboration with the Chester County Intermediate Unit, the consortium works to support mental health initiatives that foster optimal development for students and staff in 16 county school districts and organizations, serving over 165 participants this year. It builds off a similar consortium Nakkula and Danilchick have run at Penn since 2019 with regional school districts. \ Laura Perna received the AEFP-CUE Higher Education Award at the March meeting of the Association for Education Finance and Policy. The award celebrates scholars who are engaged in exemplary applied research in higher education and in broad dissemination of results and policy implications. \ Diane Waff was honored with the Helen O. Dickens Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women of Color at Penn. The award recognizes outstanding leadership, service, community impact, and commitment to improving the quality of life for and/or serving as a role model to women of color. \ Ericka Weathers was awarded a Russell Sage Foundation Presidential Grant for a project examining the effects of school-based policing in Pennsylvania. She was also selected as a 2022 outstanding reviewer for the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. \ Sharon Wolf was selected for a LEAP Research Fellowship. A joint program of the Jacobs Foundation and MIT Solve, Leveraging Evidence for Action to Promote Change (LEAP) is a global initiative that brings together researchers, social entrepreneurs, and education ventures to advance evidence-based learning solutions that help children thrive. \ Jonathan Zimmerman received a $43,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation to support archival research for his book on the history of schools and universities during epidemics and pandemics.

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NEWS BRIEFS McGraw Center Welcomes Inaugural Leader

Two New Grads Awarded Early Career Honors

Cheryl Logan, GRD’17, is returning to Penn GSE, where she will oversee the launch of the new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership as its first executive director. A former chief academic officer at the School District of Philadelphia, Logan was most recently the superintendent of Omaha Public Schools, where she led the district through a groundbreaking COVID-19 testing pilot study with the University of Nebraska Medical Center that enabled Omaha to be one of the first large, urban school districts in the nation to return to inperson learning in 2020. That leadership was one of the defining factors cited when she won the McGraw Prize for K–12 Education in 2022.

Two recent graduates of the Independent School Teaching Residency (ISTR) program received significant teaching awards as early career teachers.

“With her wealth of experience and expertise in Photo: Courtesy of Cheryl Logan the field of education, Dr. Logan is poised to play an instrumental role in the development of the next generation of education leaders,” said Dean Pam Grossman. “We believe that her innovative and visionary approach will help shape the direction of our Center and ensure that the Center becomes a driving force for positive change in the field of education.”

Jamiah Bennett, GED’23, was honored with the Class of 1959 Fund for a Career in the Classroom award from Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. The award recognizes excellence in teaching by a faculty member in the first years of their teaching career. In addition to being a humanities teacher, Bennett has worked in the Miss Porter’s summer programs, run the Serious Fitness program, coached the volleyball team, and is now the advisor to an affinity group.

Sabrina de Brito, C’21, GED’23, works as an upper school humanities teacher at St. Anne’sBelfield School in Charlottesville, Virginia.

She was recently awarded the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching for the 2022–2023 school year, a prize whose winners represent less than two percent of all teachers in public and private schools in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia. She was also recently selected for a prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Thailand, which begins this summer after her current fellowship ends.

“Receiving the Fulbright news was so surreal, I still can’t believe that it’s actually happening,” she said. “I feel incredibly grateful for the immense support that I’ve received both at St. Anne’s-Belfield School and through the ISTR program at Penn. I really am so very lucky.”

The McGraw Center was announced last fall as part of a recordsetting gift by the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation, and its focus will be on creating next-level education leaders across all sectors of learning.

“As someone who is passionate about education and puts 110 percent into my career as an educator, it was rewarding to receive such recognition of that work early in my career,” said Bennett, who became a full-time faculty member at Miss Porter's after her fellowship there ended.

Eight Penn GSE Professors Noted for Public Influence Eight Penn GSE professors made Education Week’s 2023 Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings list. This annual list recognizes universitybased scholars whose voices shape educational policies and practices.

Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology with a secondary appointment at Penn GSE, ranked second on the list, which also included GSE faculty members Vivian L. Gadsden, Roberto G. Gonzales, Dean Pam Grossman, Richard M. Ingersoll, Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty Laura W. Perna, Howard C. Stevenson, and Jonathan Zimmerman.

Featured in list order left to right. Photo credits: Ryan Collerd, Stuart Goldenberg, Kielinski Photography, Mary Levin, Darryl W. Moran, Eric Sucar

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Jacobs Fellowship Launches Penn GSE launched a new partnership with the Jacobs Foundation last year to support and empower the next generation of education entrepreneurs. A cornerstone of this collaboration is the Jacobs Education Impact Prize, which awards a selected cohort of Penn GSE Education Entrepreneurship master’s students practical and financial support to develop and launch their own education social impact venture. Over a year, these fellows receive $10,000 to $20,000 in funding for their venture, coaching from industry experts, professional development opportunities, and access to the global network of Jacobs Fellows who are also working to transform learning through social entrepreneurship.

The first six recipients of the Jacobs Education Impact Prize are (pictured below from left) Aqeela Allahyari, Sidra Alvi, Psacoya Guinn, Neha Gupta, Heidi Mitchell, and Natalia Rodriguez. (All are set to earn their master’s degrees in the coming months.) Their projects differ in geographic and educational focuses but share the collective goal of addressing individual learning needs to fully support education.

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Allahyari is working on a bilingual, instructional-level-based educational model in Saudi Arabia instead of the traditional grade-level-based one. Alvi’s venture forms partnerships with Islamic preK–12 schools in the US to provide accommodations in faith-based learning environments for children with disabilities.

Through tutoring, mentoring, and intergenerational drama therapy, the nonprofit that Guinn created helps K–5 students experiencing homelessness combat chronic absenteeism and enhance learning and development. Gupta brings her tutoring and consulting experience to equip second-generation students with future-ready skills. Hearth and Home Education, created by Mitchell, mentors families in their transition to homeschooling. Rodriguez is the founder of FAM Academy, which helps girls and women in Colombia access critical knowledge about their bodies, sexuality, and relationships. Learn more at penng.se/jacobs1.

Dissertation Winner Announced Gordon Divine “Dee” Asaah, GR’21, a Reading/Writing/Literacy (RWL) doctorate, won the 2023 Jolley Bruce Christman and Steven S. Goldberg Award for Best Dissertation in Urban Education for his qualitative practitioner research study on the learning experiences of Black African and Caribbean immigrant and refugee youth.

The award celebrates research with a commitment to social justice in education and takes into consideration both the methodological and substantive aspects of the honoree’s dissertation. Asaah’s groundbreaking work explores community cultural wealth, transnational knowledge, and systematic challenges for Black immigrant and refugee youth, examining the role community-based organizations play in mediating students’ transnational literacy practices and the potential partnerships they can forge with schools.

To lay a solid research base and build trust with a historically underexamined population, Asaah spent years studying extant literature and languages and working in community-based organizations and nonprofits. “For two years, I immersed myself as a student and teacher in social justice work alongside multilingual, multiethnic Black immigrant and refugee youth and their families in Philadelphia,” he said.

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POLICY CORNER Penn GSE experts on the educational headlines of the moment

by Rebecca Raber

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THE HEADLINE

Commonwealth Court Rules Pennsylvania’s School Funding System Unconstitutional \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

A lawsuit was filed in 2014 by six school districts, four parents and their children, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP-Pennsylvania State Conference claiming that the state wasn’t investing enough in its public education system, particularly in its lower-wealth districts, and, therefore, was not meeting its constitutional duty.

This past February, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer agreed, ruling that the petitioners had demonstrated “manifest deficiencies between low-wealth districts . . . and their more affluent counterparts.” To comply with its state constitution, she said, Pennsylvania must ensure “that every student receives a meaningful opportunity to succeed academically, socially, and civically, which requires that all students have access to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education.”

That currently is not happening because Pennsylvania public schools only receive about a third of their funding from the Commonwealth, while the majority of a district’s funding comes from local property taxes. This creates fundamental inequality based on the wealth of a local community.

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THE EXPERT

Ericka Weathers, assistant professor in Penn GSE's Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems division, studies the causes and consequences of inequality in K–12 education and the effects of K–12 policies on student and school outcomes.

HER TAKE

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THE STORY

“Pennsylvania had a funding formula that was insufficiently funding schools, but in 2016 the state implemented the Fair Funding Formula, which was designed to more equitably distribute state aid to school districts,” said Weathers. “It was an attempt to be more ‘fair,’ but it came with a 'hold-harmless' [or grandfather] provision that made sure that every school district would receive at least the same amount of state aid prior to the implementation of the Fair Funding Formula, regardless of the current student or district needs. . . That resulted in less than 10 percent of the new state aid going to this new funding formula, which kept the system inequitable, and the school districts that were negatively impacted by the provision were disproportionately Black and Latinx.”

For example, according to a table by independent newsroom Spotlight PA based on House Appropriations Committee analysis of 2018–2019 data, if all money went through the Fair Funding Formula, the School District of Philadelphia’s funding would increase by 31 percent and Central York School District’s would increase by a whopping 108 percent.

“Resources matter,” said Weathers. “And the reason why this court case matters is because it's saying now that the state of Pennsylvania is on the hook for providing more sufficient resources in an equitable way, particularly for students and districts who need it most.”

Specifically, it is the state legislature and new governor, Josh Shapiro, who must come up with this new equitable funding formula for Pennsylvania’s school districts. What form this will take—and how long it will take to be implemented—remains to be seen.

Weathers, for her part, would advocate for a new formula that weights for factors such as poverty, district size, and proportion of students who need support services such as special education and English language learning. She also noted that her research has found a relationship between school segregation and school funding—“it's not saying that segregation causes funding disparities, but it says that segregation is related to these funding disparities”—and she would like to see budgetary attention paid to the issue.

“Compensatory funding for poverty is not enough to make sure that Black students and Latinx students are getting what they need to thrive,” she said. “My argument would be a consideration of a racial segregation funding weight . . . Let's not ignore race.

The literature tells us that racism and discrimination are dynamic and regenerative. And I think we need to account for that when we're thinking about policies to address racial inequality.”

Pictured: Ericka Weathers; Photo credit: Joe McFetridge for Penn GSE

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New Support for Early Childhood Education A $5 million gift from the Suzanne McGraw Foundation will create a new graduate concentration in early childhood education and scholarships for students who pursue it.

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he Suzanne McGraw Foundation has made a $5 million commitment, one of the largest ever to the School, to build on Penn GSE’s strengths in early childhood education and family studies. The funding will support student scholarships, a cross-university graduate concentration, and cross-disciplinary programming aimed at cultivating a new generation of highly skilled educators, leaders, researchers, and policymakers who are optimally positioned to serve our youngest children and those who care for them.

“Suzanne McGraw’s unwavering commitment to education is an inspiration,” said Penn President Liz Magill. “This important gift will allow our students to become early childhood educators without the burden of overwhelming debt and will capitalize on Penn’s interdisciplinary strengths to enhance early childhood development and management. We are most grateful for Suzanne’s generosity and her dedication to GSE’s mission.”

“The need for more highly skilled early childhood education professionals has never been greater,” said Suzanne McGraw, an educator and philanthropist. “I’m delighted to partner with Penn GSE to create an innovative curriculum in early childhood and family studies and to provide scholarships that will encourage students to enter the field. Hopefully, this gift will help educators, policymakers, counselors, and others learn best practices and work effectively with young children and their families to create the foundation necessary for future success.”

The commitment provides funding for two key initiatives focused on early childhood education: the Suzanne McGraw Scholars and a new cross-disciplinary concentration.

Half of the gift will endow scholarships for Penn GSE master’s students who are passionate about early childhood education.

The endowment will be used to recruit outstanding students from across the country and world to become leaders in the field.

The other half of the funding will be dedicated to seed funding and an endowment for ongoing early childhood program development and management, creating both a university-wide graduate concentration and new opportunities for students interested in early childhood. The new Early Childhood

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Pictured: Suzanne McGraw, outside of Penn GSE's Walnut Street entrance.

Photo credit: Krista Patton for Penn GSE

Education and Family Studies concentration will be open to graduate students from across Penn to provide preparation for a holistic approach to early childhood education.

“Suzanne McGraw is a passionate advocate for our youngest children and understands the impact that strong early childhood education has on a child’s future,” said Pam Grossman, dean of Penn GSE and George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education. “We are tremendously grateful for her lifelong dedication to the field. Her gift helps us create bold solutions that build on our legacy of providing well-prepared early childhood experts focused on creating transformational opportunities for children with a lasting impact.”

The gift from Suzanne McGraw follows the landmark $16.25 million commitment to Penn GSE from the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation, of which Suzanne is an officer, to fund the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education and launch the McGraw Center for Educational Leadership.

The Suzanne McGraw Foundation supports organizations that advance educational opportunities, self-sufficiency, and health and wellness, especially for the most vulnerable communities. The Foundation also supports organizations that promote environmental conservation and the delicate balance between nature and its species.

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Nimet Eren is the award-winning principal at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, a Philadelphia community school with career programs focused on the medical field. (Students can major in health-related technology, dental assisting, sports medicine, or global leadership.)

“The most important lesson I learned at GSE is that school should be the model democracy, the model community,” Eren said, thinking back on her time at Penn GSE, where she earned her master’s in urban education and doctorate in educational leadership. “I think here at Kensington Health, we try very hard to develop a school that puts its constituents first, gives our students a voice, and teaches them that they have the ability to shape the community they live in and the world we hope to achieve one day.”

Located in North Philadelphia’s East Kensington neighborhood, the school is housed in a small, 25-year-old building.

Eren often shares her office with anyone who needs the space—from teachers holding meetings to students eating lunch. “Even though I have a lot of my things here, this is everybody’s space,” she said.

The office's closet is filled with books and props from her years as a high school English teacher at nearby Olney High School—including the pool noodles her students used to act out Shakespearean sword fights. The minifridge is stocked with red cans of Coke. And the shelves are full of photos and mementos of her students and community. She shared a few with us.

1 ) Dental mold “We have a dental

program here at Kensington Health, and it’s taken some time to find the right dental teacher. Last year, the stars aligned, and we have the most incredible dental teacher, and she’s doing the most innovative things in our dental lab, including having the students make molds of their teeth and learn to give examinations. . . . These are not my teeth, but our dental teacher just started a really cool fundraiser where the kids make molds of teeth and create whitening kits for them, so this is real-world stuff that is happening at the school.”

2 ) Phillies announcer DVD “This is

really special to me because, while I miss having my own classroom of students every day, I do have my own group of students because I [supervise] the students who do announcements. We call it Broadcasting Club. The kids love to do the announcements and share all the school news. My second year as principal, the Phillies announcer, Dan Baker, came and did our announcements for us. I recorded it. It was awesome to hear his voice over the loudspeaker.”

3 ) Letter on board “This is a letter

6 ) Ticket “The most recent addition to

from Mayor Nutter from April 2008. My first year of teaching, my students wrote letters to Mayor Nutter condemning gun violence and calling for action, and he wrote back. I made copies for all my students.”

my wall is this ticket, because this was for Kensington Health Sciences’ first dance at school. We had a winter wonderland dance in December. We were going to have one last year, but COVID-19 [Omicron] happened. So, it was super exciting to have one. The kids were so excited to be at their school, dressed up, at night. In fact, they were so excited that we just had a Valentine’s Day dance. We are a dancing school now.”

4 ) Small Italy painting “This was a

gift from two of our teachers who took a group of students to Florence, Italy, as part of a sistercity exchange program through the Mayor’s Office of Education.

Our students— sophomores— went to Italy and students from Italy came to Kensington.”

5 ) “This Coke bottle [with my name on it] was a gift from our previous community school coordinator. The one thing people know about me is, usually around 1 p.m., I have a Coca-Cola, and it’s not diet—straight sugar. It pushes me through to the end of the day. It’s a bit of a running joke. It’s so unhealthy, but the real Coke, you can’t beat it.”

(On opposing wall) Framed poem

“This [handwritten poster of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’] was my grandfather’s. It used to hang in my classroom. I used to always teach this poem my first month with the kids. It’s a great poem to always refer back to when we have to make choices in the classroom. I think ‘The Road Not Taken’ is very symbolic of life and the choices you could make versus the choices everybody is making. I was very proud to be at Olney for eight years, and I hope to be at Kensington Health even longer. And in many ways, that’s the road not taken, because I like to stay and make roots.”

Photo credit: HKB Photo for Penn GSE

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A View from Campus NEW BEGINNINGS On May 13, Penn GSE celebrated roughly 730 master’s and doctoral students with their families at Commencement. “It is up to all of us, including those of you graduating today in your roles as educational leaders, to help address the complex challenges facing public education in this country,” said Dean Grossman in her remarks.

Photo credit: Krista Patton Photography

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION This year’s Commencement speaker was Emmy-, SAG Award-, and Golden Globe-winning writer, actor, executive producer, and creator of the hit sitcom Abbott Elementary, Quinta Brunson, a West Philadelphia native.

She spoke about the importance of teachers, including one of her own, who, she said, “gave me a future.” “We need you, and even though it may not always feel like it, you have the most important job in the world,” she told the graduating educators. “Yes, even more important than doctors.

Sorry, doctors, you save lives . . . but somebody had to teach you. So by the transitive property, teachers win!”

Photo credit: Joe McFetridge for Penn GSE

WINNERS’ CIRCLE This year’s Celebration of Educators, Penn GSE’s annual event honoring the impact of its outstanding alumni, included a ceremony at which Dean Grossman (center) presented Education Alumni Awards to (from left): Qian (Sylvia) He, GED’20; Noah D. Drezner, GED’04, GR’08; Lourdes M. DelRosso, GED’16; Joy Anderson Davis, C’96, GRD’17; Felecia E. Commodore, GR’15; Daniel Rice, GED’20; and Lawrence Ward, GRD’11 (not pictured). Learn more about these and other awards presented to honorees: penng.se/coe23program.

Photo credit: HKB Photo

IN CONVERSATION The centerpiece of the Celebration of Educators was a panel discussion featuring (from left): Associate Professor Abby Reisman; board member Patricia Grant, GED’01, GRD’04; current Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program student Tamir Harper; and Dean Grossman. In their lively and wide-ranging conversation, they covered why they chose to come to Penn GSE, technology in the classroom, teachers’ professional development, the current state of education, and much more.

Photo credit: HKB Photo

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A Legacy of Leadership Dean Pam Grossman has guided Penn GSE through a capital campaign, a global pandemic, a historic building expansion, and unprecedented growth with ambition and compassion.

By Rebecca Raber

Photo credit: Stuart Goldenberg for Penn GSE

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ine years ago, on September 19, 2014, the Penn GSE community came together to celebrate the School’s Centennial, reflecting on how far it had come from its initial 97 students, three faculty members, and nine courses. The kickoff for what would be a yearlong 100th birthday party featured the requisite cake, balloons, and music. But it also included one very important attendee: Pam Grossman, a scholar of teacher education from Stanford University’s School of Education who was soon to become Penn GSE’s newest dean.

Grossman, who began her career as a high school English teacher, had never planned to be a dean—in fact, she had previously turned down other offers so she could continue teaching and advising doctoral students at Stanford. But she felt a pull to lead Penn GSE, compelled by its unique partnerships with the School District of Philadelphia and the potential to make a real, tangible impact.

“It was a big leap for us, particularly because I’m from the Bay Area and had never spent time in Philadelphia, so there was a lot of learning to be done,” Dean Grossman said. “But if you care about urban education, which I do, it really helps to be in a city.”

She officially became dean in January 2015, leading the School into its second century. During the busy years that followed, change was the only constant. Some of it was actively pursued—such as the fundraising and groundbreaking for a new building expansion. And some of which—namely the COVID-19 pandemic—could never have been foreseen. But Dean Grossman steered the School through it all with a steady hand, aspiring to create an inclusive community devoted to academic excellence, innovation, local engagement, and international impact.

“As a global leader in the field of education, Pam, not surprisingly, has a passion for improving our educational systems at every level. Through her leadership, GSE has cemented its place among the top schools of education,” said Wendell Pritchett, GR’97, who served as provost and interim president of the University during her tenure as dean. “Pam has also been a crucial collaborator in our University efforts to create an even more meaningful educational experience for our students.”

The breadth of all she has accomplished came into sharp relief when she announced the bittersweet news that she would be stepping down this summer.

“Dean Grossman is leaving the school in exceptionally good shape,” said Penn GSE’s Chair of the Board of Advisors Doug Korn, W’84. “We have tremendous momentum programmatically, academically, organizationally, and reputationally. By the end of Pam’s term as dean, the School’s physical plant—its learning spaces and public areas—will have been expanded and completely updated to contemporary standards. The School is objectively bigger, better, stronger, and more financially sound than ever.”

“Pam Grossman is an admired teacher, scholar, and leader with an exceptional track record at the helm of Penn’s worldrenowned Graduate School of Education,” said University President Liz Magill. “She has made an indelible mark on Penn GSE, shepherding a significant expansion and renovation project, leading an ambitious fundraising campaign, growing student enrollment, and supporting a strong and committed community that values education to the highest degree. In too many ways to name, her mark will be felt for years to come.”

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Pam Grossman joins Penn GSE as dean.

2015

Newly minted Dean Pam Grossman takes a selfie with students, 2015.

Catalyst @ Penn GSE, the center for global innovation, launches.

Its virtual accelerator, Catapult, welcomes its inaugural cohort in spring 2022.

Penn GSE hires the first chief people officer at the University.

2018

The 46 participants in the inaugural class of the Project-Based Learning certificate program embarks on the 13-month curriculum for experienced educators wanting to learn authentic, student-centered inquiry.

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2016

The Office of School and Community Engagement is created, becoming a national model for a partnership between a university and its surrounding urban school district.

2017

Penn GSE launches new Education Entrepreneurship master’s dual degree program with Wharton.

Dean Grossman convenes new standing Committee on Race, Equity, and Inclusion, which leads to the 2018 climate survey of faculty, staff, and students, and the 2021 hiring of the first assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Penn GSE announces the Collaboratory for Teacher Education, bringing together its three teacherpreparation programs, ongoing teacher professional development opportunities, and the study of experimental approaches to teacher education.

Urban Teaching Apprentice Nora Boles makes storybooks from construction paper with kids at Walnut Street West Library.

Penn GSE starts the Hub for Equity, Anti-Oppression, Research, and Development (HEARD), a new Schoolwide center dedicated to equity and anti-oppression scholarship.

BY THE NUMBERS In some ways, it is hard to quantify all that Dean Grossman has done for Penn GSE over the past eight-and-a-half years. All of the mentoring, supporting, recruiting, listening, and collaborating has changed the School’s culture and community—but the numbers do tell a story of her priorities for Penn GSE and its growth in size, reputation, and capacity.

Both applications to the School and its enrollment have skyrocketed during her tenure. Since 2015, applications to the master’s programs have grown more than 115 percent, and overall enrollment is up more than 20 percent. Thanks to Penn GSE’s expanded global impact, international students now represent close to 40 percent of current degree students, up from approximately 21 percent in 2015, and this year’s applicants came from more than 80 countries around the world.

With this growth, Dean Grossman prioritized the need for robust financial aid—and more of it. She introduced need-based aid during her tenure, and in 2022, 73.5 percent of admitted master’s students were awarded some type of aid. The average award is now more than 50 percent greater than it was in 2015.

Another priority was diversifying Penn GSE’s faculty and student body to be more reflective of the world outside its doors. Dean Grossman hired 19 of the now 40 standing faculty members, with 48 percent of the current overall faculty identifying as a person of color. That faculty now teaches a student body in which 47 percent of domestic degree students identify as people of color.

Under her leadership, she launched new offices and initiatives dedicated to key areas at the School: partnerships with the School District of Philadelphia (the Office of School and Community Engagement), educational innovation (Catalyst), teacher preparation and professional development (the Collaboratory for Teacher Education, the Center for Professional Learning), and antiracism and equity priorities (HEARD: The Hub for Equity, Anti-Oppression Research, and Development; the Committee on Race, Equity, and Inclusion).

Even before this progress, Penn GSE had outgrown its modest campus footprint. With offices and classrooms spread across University City, the School did not have the space to house all its new students, faculty members, and offices in one building. Keen to foster a close-knit community, Dean Grossman unveiled her vision for “One Penn GSE” and set out to fundraise more than $13 million in capital contributions for an expansion that will bring most of the School under one roof later this year.

“I wanted to build a ‘One Penn GSE,’ where there’s room for our students and our faculty and our staff to work together, to collaborate,” she said. “I think it represents the future of the School and a vision for the School of how we can bring people together in a way that we have not been able to do, and that’s what I'm most proud of. It’s not just the physical building, it’s the community that it represents.”

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2019

FUNDING HER VISION But big ideas need big backing. Dean Grossman oversaw the largest capital campaign in Penn GSE history, which surpassed its $75 million dollar goal by almost 30 percent.

“We raised close to $100 million for GSE to transform the School,” said Korn, the campaign chair. “The name of the campaign was Extraordinary Impact, and when I think back, that’s the way I would describe Pam’s impact on GSE—it was truly an extraordinary impact.”

Dean Grossman also received the largest single gift in the School’s history—a $16.25 million commitment from the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation—which created the new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership and expanded existing support for the Harold McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education that has been housed at the School since 2020.

“Our family has been honored to work with Pam Grossman to support and advance the mission of Penn GSE,” said Harold McGraw III, WG’76, the former chairman, CEO, and president of the McGraw Hill Companies. “Her intellect, dedication, and spirit of innovation has left an indelible mark on Penn GSE and the broader education community. The new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership is one of many examples of her commitment to developing future generations of outstanding leaders spanning all types of education.”

GLOBAL REACH, LOCAL IMPACT A primary focus for Dean Grossman—from day one—was to grow and formalize the connections between Penn GSE, Philadelphia schools, and the neighboring community.

“What Pam did was she put school and community engagement at the center of our mission at GSE. Creating a formal office to facilitate [these relationships] was a sign of the School’s commitment to that mission,” said Caroline Watts, director of the Office of School and Community Engagement (OSCE).

OSCE, founded in 2016, is a national model of a university–school district partnership. It launched the Responsive Math Teaching project, which is building capacity in mathematics instruction in all K–8 schools in West Philadelphia. The office, in partnership with Penn's Netter Center, started a summer program in 2021 to rebuild students’ connection to and preparation for school amid pandemic-disrupted learning. (That program has already served nearly 500 students in grades 1–8.) OSCE also just developed an intensive tutoring program, launched the Alliance for Interprofessional Education to support educators, and is the locus of support for the Penn partnership schools: Penn Alexander School and Henry C. Lea School.

Dean Grossman was instrumental in spearheading a new landmark partnership with the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to formalize support for the Lea School in 2022.

“Pam not only helped facilitate connections and collaboration between Penn GSE and the School District of Philadelphia, but her thoughtful and considerate approach to the partnership helped both Penn and the district think about the various needs throughout our system and how Penn could support those needs,” said Michael Farrell, chief learning officer for the district, current doctoral student, and adjunct instructor at Penn GSE. “Through Pam’s leadership, GSE has dramatically accelerated its connections to the School District of Philadelphia and schools in the region,” said Pritchett. “GSE is connected to schools across the city and at every level. We are training leaders. We are training teachers. We are supporting after-school programs, and we are in the schools. We are supporting the curriculum enhancements during the day. I’m just very proud of all of the work that we, as the University, are doing, particularly the work that GSE is doing.”

Those collaborations have reach beyond Philly’s borders. The dean’s goal, said Director of Development and Alumni Relations Jane Lindahl, GED’18, is for Penn GSE’s work throughout Philadelphia to inspire innovative solutions that prepare students everywhere to thrive in an increasingly interconnected and changing global community.

“We will always have a commitment to the city of Philadelphia,” said Lindahl, “but we can also take what we learn as an institution and share it broadly to help communities globally.”

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The Center for Professional Learning, Penn GSE’s home for professional learning opportunities for educators, leaders, policymakers, and entrepreneurs, launches.

The third of three recent James S. McDonnell Foundation grants is awarded to Penn GSE professors (Amy Stornaiuolo, Abby Reisman, and Sarah Schneider Kavanagh) supporting research into how teachers learn.

2021 Penn GSE is ranked number one in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Education Schools for the first time.

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BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY

2020

In the face of uncertainty and the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn GSE is at the forefront of transitioning the community to online learning and teaching. Ongoing online resources are made available to the public, including two funded resources on mental health and leadership to best equip schools and K–12 educators and leaders, benefitting more than 14 million students and 100,000 educators nationally.

Roberto Gonzales is appointed as the first Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor from Penn GSE.

Penn GSE surpasses $75 million goal by almost 30 percent, raising over $98.3 million for the Extraordinary Impact Campaign.

The The campaign campaign kicked kicked off off April April 19, 19, 2018, 2018, with with an an event Lady Jill Biden and eventfeaturing featuringFirst Maryland Governor WesMaryland Moore, Governor Moore. and First Lady Jill Biden.

Dean PamWes Grossman, (Pictured above with Dean Grossman)

Dean Grossman is elected vice president of the National Academy of Education.

Dean Grossman also cares deeply about the community inside the School. Fostering a supportive and inclusive culture at Penn GSE has been a cornerstone of her tenure.

“After 2020, post-George Floyd protests, she really put effort into rebuilding community and addressing issues of racial justice, and she put resources into that,” said Associate Professor Amalia Daché. “She led us in making affinity groups across the GSE. And that takes vision.”

“She did a lot of community-building work,” said Deputy Dean, Professor, and Board of Advisors Chair of Education Matt Hartley. “She brought us together, had conversations about what was important to us, who do we want to be as a community? What difference do we want to make in the world? And I think that’s been one of Pam’s most important contributions to the School—engaging the whole community, faculty, staff, and students, in these conversations around purpose.”

One way she professionalized this work was by creating roles to manage it.

“Under Dean Grossman’s leadership, there were two new and important positions that were introduced to Penn GSE: the [assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion] and the chief people officer,” said Miriam Harris, financial administrator and member of the Committee on Race, Equity, and Inclusion. “Prior to Dean Grossman, there was no dedicated HR executive to address the needs of the staff.

Now, Penn GSE has staff career development and training devoted to [building this culture]. . . and improved collegial relationships.”

“Pam’s lasting impact will be the positive work culture she has helped create and sustain,” said Emma Grigore, LPS’16, ML’20, Penn GSE’s inaugural chief people officer. “Her commitment to peoplecentric policies and procedures has paved the way for continued growth and engagement at the School.”

Dean Grossman instituted regular staff meetings, and many faculty members noted that she transformed how they met, collaborated, and connected.

“The way she structured the faculty meetings, the faculty retreats, different committees—she’s really tried to make community and connection central,” said Associate Professor Sharon Wolf, C’06. “It has really shifted the atmosphere. I definitely enjoy faculty meetings more because I just think they’re more productive, less contentious than they used to be.”

“I think Pam really puts us in positions to work together to try to work across groups, to try to work across disciplines and to work together as a larger faculty,” said Watts. “That's not easy.”

She also sought to create community among students, many of whom are at Penn GSE for a short time or may feel siloed in their programs. She supported the creation of—and later co-taught—a new course for first-year doctoral students because she noticed a lack of a shared cohort experience.

“For a lot of us, our departmental PhD cohort is one to two people each year, so meeting other first-year [doctoral students] from across GSE was critical to finding community here,” said Elizabeth Dunens, GR’23. “With the pandemic beginning the following semester [after I had the class], having this core group of friend-colleagues was a big part of getting through this very challenging time for me, as I had just moved to Philly. This community wouldn't have existed without this course.”

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2022

CARE THROUGH CRISIS

Certainly, when Dean Grossman decided to lead Penn GSE, she could not have foreseen the global pandemic that would shut down in-person instruction Expanding on Penn’s more than 50for over a year. She, along with her senior leadership team, had to make year connection with the Henry C. Lea decisions and communicate clearly in the face of overwhelming uncertainty Elementary School, the University and Penn GSE spearhead a new landmark and fear. Many students and faculty said that she was a model of leadership in partnership with the district and the that precarious time.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to “I have gotten to observe and learn from Dean Grossman’s leadership of GSE formalize support for the school. during the pandemic,” said Dunens, who studies higher education leadership, governance, and decision-making. “COVID-19 was the kind of crisis that no one had a playbook for, with very limited and rapidly changing information, especially in spring 2020. Although leaders often were in a holding pattern with decisions . . . it meant a lot to hear regularly from the dean, and with messaging that was clear a lot of care went into.”

Penn GSE found hotel rooms for students who couldn’t go home—either because borders had closed or for personal reasons—and paid for them. The School offered pass-fail options that first spring and let students know about Lea School Principal Aaron Gerwer in the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund grants for those with exceptional school auditorium during the welcome. financial need. At every turn, communication was prioritized.

“As a student, adjunct, and partner of GSE over Pam's tenure, I saw Pam's leadership impact GSE’s responsiveness to community need in a humanistic approach that centered people first before attending to the underlying issue,” said Her teacher-at-heart mentality was Farrell. “I saw this on a large scale during always present in her leadership. dramatic shifts in response to COVID and the approach to handling one-off situations.

—Michael Farrell chief learning officer Her teacher-at-heart mentality was always the school district of philadelphia present in her leadership.”

Not only did Dean Grossman have to figure out a way to keep her students, staff, and faculty safe while still delivering the promised excellent education and inclusive community, but as the leader of a top graduate school of education, educators were looking to her for guidance on how to transition to online learning. Penn GSE made ongoing online resources available to the public—including two on mental health and leadership—which benefitted more than 14 million students and 100,000 educators nationally.

THE PEOPLE MAKE THE PLACE Her compassionate response to a public health crisis is just one way that Dean Grossman’s people-centered approach has benefited the Penn GSE community. Colleagues repeatedly described her as a listener who leads by consensus, a connector who brings people together, a high achiever with lofty expectations for everyone (including herself), and a teacher above all else.

Doris Juarez, GED’23, a first-generation student with dreams of becoming a college president, was surprised by the time that Dean Grossman dedicated to discussing the School’s higher education program with her when she was considering Penn GSE’s offer of admission. So, she was doubly surprised when she arrived on campus and was personally greeted by the dean with a hug and a request to take a selfie. Since then, the dean has introduced Juarez to alumni who are higher education leaders and helped her network to help make her dream a reality.

“I’m just very grateful that, even though she’s not my professor and I've never taken a class with her, she’s been putting my name into different situations that allow for my professional development,” said Juarez. “It’s also really cool to have someone that says, ‘OK, I see your vision right here … and I’m going to try to help.’”

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Dean Pam Grossman, Harold McGraw III, WG’76, and Penn President Liz Magill at the Morgan Library.

The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation donates a landmark $16.25 million gift to Penn GSE—the largest in the School’s history—to create a new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership and expand existing support for the Harold McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education that has been housed at the School since 2020.

Timeline includes photography from the following sources: Joe Mac Creative, Jay Gorodetzer, Penn GSE Communications, Lora Reehling Photography, Ryan Collerd, Brooke Slezak Photography, Krista Patton Photography, Eric Sucar for University Communications, Steve Belkowitz

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Former Provost Wendell Pritchett and Dean Pam Grossman at the groundbreaking.

Penn GSE breaks ground on its historic building expansion, fulfilling Dean Grossman’s vision for “One Penn GSE.” The building is slated to open in fall 2023.

2023 More than a million dollars—and counting—raised in celebration of Dean Grossman and her deanship will endow a new scholarship and name a classroom in the building expansion in her honor.

Tamir Harper met Dean Grossman when he was a high school student at nearby Science Leadership Academy and told her his dream was to earn a PhD from Penn GSE. She offered him words of encouragement that continue to fuel him to this day. Since then, Harper earned his BA from American University, kept in touch with the dean, and returned to his hometown to join the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program at Penn GSE, where he is working towards his master’s while teaching at Henry C. Lea School.

“Why do I do this work? Why do I come to school every day? Why do I put my best self forward in front of my [classroom] every day?” Harper said. “Because Dean Grossman took time out of her day to say that one day I can become a Penn graduate, and she believed in me. So, my students deserve that same respect, opportunity, and encouragement that she gave me as a young student.”

She sees the faculty and staff of Penn GSE as whole people, not just as their job descriptions, and she encourages them to have rich lives and families outside of Penn and to bring their authentic selves to their work.

“I speak Spanish, so sometimes my emails will be kind of in Spanish and English,” said Daché. “And I know she’ll respond in Spanish . . . It’s nice because it allows me to bring my culture and my language into a professional context, and I know that Pam appreciates that and supports that.”

“She is so supportive of family life,” said Wolf. “She always talks about how she had children in graduate school and how she navigated that and encourages students to build their personal lives alongside their professional lives—and that’s not the advice everybody gets in academia.”

Numerous professors mentioned the lasagnas and baked goods that showed up on their doorsteps handmade by their boss after they had a child or experienced another significant life event. (And those baked goods are excellent. “She’s a really good baker,” confided Professor Sigal Ben-Porath. “She has the most amazing cardamom cake recipe.”)

All that Dean Grossman has managed to achieve for and with Penn GSE during her tenure—the growth and the partnerships and the funds raised and the new building—has all been in service of its people. And it is those people and that community that she said she is going to miss the most.

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT “I think Pam’s legacy is going to be that she really brought us together as an academic community and that she really was able to achieve that ‘One GSE’ vision,” said Hartley. “It’s manifested physically in the building, but I think, more importantly, it’s manifested in how we all work together now, the ways that we talk about problems as an academic community, and the ways that we try and move forward—not always agreeing, but at least being committed to a process where everyone can weigh in and everyone can speak their mind.”

“The fact that she led us through some really challenging years while also managing to expand and develop GSE in a number of ways is very impressive to me,” said Dunens. “To do that kind of crisis management while also making progress on longer-term strategic goals for a school is really remarkable.”

As the dean looks to the future, which will be filled with time with family, work on her next book, and a research project in Thailand, she is proud of her contributions to the School and excited for its outlook.

The former English teacher often themed her School-wide communications around a favorite poem, and the one that comes to mind as she thinks about her hopes for Penn GSE going forward is Marge Piercy’s “To Be of Use.” “I hope [Penn GSE] continues to build the future of education, where we continue to be the thought leaders, but also the do-ers,” she said. “One thing I really love about Penn GSE is that people are passionate about their work. As Marge Piercy [writes]: I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest, and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

That’s Penn GSE.” And that’s also Dean Pam Grossman. ■

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“Dean Grossman has been invested in thinking carefully about issues of culture, community, and climate at GSE. I believe that that will continue to be important for the School and its next dean as they build upon Grossman's efforts”

“Pam really helped to nurture the environment where I was able to discover my life's work.”

Wendy McCulley, WG’91, GED’16 Alumni Leadership Board Member

John L. Jackson Jr.

Dean, Annenberg School of Communications Incoming University Provost

“Pam is a giant in her field. She's not only a dean of a graduate school of education, she's also, hands down, one of the leading scholars of teacher education in not just the United States but the world. … It's probably not an accident that her research has informed her leadership. We are all people who are preparing and supporting educators, and she is leading us in figuring out how we are going to do that work. And she knows a lot about it because it is actually the center of her research.”

IN THEIR OWN

WORDS

—The Grossman Legacy— “Dean Grossman, thank you for showing us what a great leader looks like—a changemaker whose impact extends beyond the professional realm. Through your confidence in me, I've been inspired to find my voice and to support growth, change, and leadership for myself and those I serve.”

Associate Professor Sarah Schneider Kavanagh

Miriam Harris

“Working with Pam has been one of the most enriching experiences of my career, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had her as a mentor and thought partner. Her leadership and vision have transformed the culture at GSE, and she has created a workplace where staff feel valued, heard, and respected.

Her emphasis on valuing people and their experiences has inspired me, and I have incorporated this approach into my work.”

Financial Administrator and Member of the Committee on Race, Equity, and Inclusion

“Pam’s overall contributions to Penn GSE—and the University, as a whole—cannot be emphasized enough. It would be hard to isolate just one change that she’s made that has had the most impact. I believe the cumulative effect of her leadership and strategic decisions have moved the School into a very different echelon than where we were in 2015.”

Emma Grigore, LPS’16, ML’20 First Chief People Officer of Penn GSE

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Leslie Levin, C’97 Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid

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“I feel so grateful to have started my faculty career under Pam. I learned from her both as a mentor but also as a model of leadership.

I'm very inspired by her in terms of both her kindness and encouragement, but also her very high standards and her belief that you really can meet those standards and still have a balanced, full life.”

“It’s just apparent that she's made an enormous mark on GSE, in both qualitative and quantitative ways. And she has done it with just an enormous amount of grace. She has elevated the organization both from a place-to-work perspective, as well as from a market perspective.”

Eric Kaplan, GRD’10 Chief of Staff

Associate Professor Sharon Wolf, C’06

“Just as I saw in class when teaching with her, she is a very good listener. She tries to figure out where every person stands, whether it ’s the students or the various stakeholders she works with as dean. She listens. She is responsive. She tries to incorporate people’s perspectives into her decision-making. She is very committed to a leadership that is collaborative.”

“Pam always focuses us on our mission as a school, and the educators, students, and communities we serve.”

Zachary Herrmann Executive Director of the Center for Professional Learning

Professor Sigal Ben-Porath

“I think if I could ever share one thing with Dean Grossman, it would be, on behalf of every Penn GSE student and every student that has had the opportunity to interact with GSE, a simple thank you.

Because she steps up and she serves and she ensures that we, as GSE students, as a city, put our best foot forward every day under her leadership. So, she will be dearly missed, but her legacy will live forever.”

Tamir Harper

Current Master’s Student

“Pam believes schools of education have an obligation to serve and to lead. And I think we can see that vision guiding almost all of the decisions and initiatives that she spearheaded—this commitment to serve the community as a leader for educational equity and innovation. … It’s easy for faculty to just get bogged down in our work and research, but I think Pam has been really effective in linking our work to that broader mission of the School.”

Associate Professor Abby Reisman

“The way Pam supports my research in Cuba really showed me that she not only cares about Philly, but she cares about human rights and democracy and other countries—she cares about me as a faculty member and cares about what I care about.”

“It’s hard to overstate the influence Dean Grossman has had on my work. … [Her] presence at Penn and, relatedly, the institution’s clear commitment to teacher education, drew me to Penn GSE. It’s been a real privilege to have Dean Grossman on my dissertation committee. Her mentorship has pushed my thinking about what it would take to uplift the status of K–12 teaching as a profession in the US—just as she’s pushed the entire field to value the work of teachers.”

Associate Professor Amalia Daché

Maya Kaul Current PhD Candidate

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of Philanthropy Samara Cohen, C’93, W’93

By Rebecca Raber

Following a mantra of “progress and purpose,” Penn GSE’s newest board member is inspired to support others on a journey of lifelong learning.

T

FROM THE STAGE TO THE TRADING FLOOR

eachers have shaped Samara Cohen’s life in profound ways. Educators run in her family: both her sister and aunt are teachers. An “incredible” high school calculus teacher nurtured her love of math. And a Tufts economics professor introduced her to the discipline that put her on her path to a career in finance.

“I think a constant thread in my life has been the transformative power of great teachers,” said Cohen, who transferred to Penn her sophomore year and graduated with a dual degree in theater and economics from the College and Wharton. “When students ask me what they should study in college, I always tell them to find the best teachers first.”

Though obvious lines can be drawn from her Wharton classrooms to her work as chief investment officer of the exchange-traded funds (ETF) and index investments at BlackRock, she is quick to emphasize how much her liberal arts education in theater serves her as well.

“So many of those lessons that I learned in theater apply to leadership in many ways,” she said. “I talk to people about how casting is 95 percent of directing, and now I apply that to putting the right person in the right job, which is a lot of what I do running the business that I run.”

In fact, it was the parallels that she drew between the trading floor and the stage that led her to her career in the first place.

“Working in the markets calls on a lot of the things I loved about theater,” she said. “Being on a trading floor is like production week of a show. You have to multitask, but it’s very collaborative, very high energy. It’s an environment that I thrive in. As soon as I walked onto the trading floor. . . I felt like I belonged. There were so few women at the time, but it didn’t bother me at all because the energy, the feeling of it, was comfortable to me.”

PROGRESS AND PURPOSE—AND LEADERSHIP That’s why Cohen, a senior managing director at BlackRock, wanted to join Penn GSE’s board of advisors, which she did earlier this year—to offer her leadership expertise in service of a School that educates the next generation of educators.

“I hope to be a part of progressing the mission of GSE,” she said. “Progress and purpose are my dual mantras, and GSE very much has a story of creating a culture [of both].”

In order to encourage that progress and purpose, Cohen recently made a gift that serves three key areas of Penn GSE—financial aid, the new McGraw Center for Educational Leadership, and the Penn GSE Annual Fund—as well as contributes to the fund celebrating Pam Grossman’s deanship with an endowed scholarship and a named classroom in the School’s newly expanded building.

“I wanted the support to be broad and impactful,” said Cohen. “I felt a real connection with Pam when I met her, so I wanted to celebrate her and her leadership and deanship. I also [wanted to] make the biggest difference. I have two teen kids. . . and the teaching of teens feels very personal to me. My kids were super lucky to have access to excellent educators, but the most scaled way I could bring that to other children was by supporting other people who wanted to become educators.”

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SETTING NEW GOALS AT GSE Cohen also used her performing arts experience as the guest host of BlackRock’s investment podcast The Bid for a four-part miniseries during Women’s History Month in March. One episode was devoted to a conversation on “the power of purpose” with Penn GSE faculty member Annie McKee. Cohen was introduced to McKee during a meeting at the School, after which she immediately bought McKee's book, How to Be Happy at Work: The Power of Purpose, Hope, and Friendship (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017). It was an inspiration.

“I’ve always known and felt the importance of purpose in work,” said Cohen. “But the importance of hope— especially coming off a year like the last one—and friendships really resonated with me. That sense of optimism about being able to better the world is really important in being able to face every day. We need to believe that how we choose to spend that day can make a difference.”

Cohen is now looking forward to expanding her purpose and making a difference at Penn GSE. “I hope to be a lifelong learner,” she said, “and I’m excited to learn more about what GSE does and to contribute to its culture of continuous learning.” ■

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\ ANNOUNCEMENT \

Katharine O. Strunk Named Dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education

Photo credit: Eric Sucar, University Communications

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enn GSE will welcome Katharine O. Strunk as its new dean on July 1, 2023. Strunk, an award-winning mixed methods scholar, holds the Clifford E. Erickson Distinguished Chair in Education at Michigan State University, where she is a professor of education policy and economics. She is the inaugural director of Michigan State’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC), the strategic research partner to the Michigan Department of Education. She is an expert on teacher labor markets, school and district improvement and accountability policies, and efforts to boost student achievement.

“Katharine Strunk’s career has been built around the concept of ‘research with consequence.’” said President Liz Magill. “She has a long and distinguished track record and an exciting vision for the role of educators and education schools in research universities and society. Her mission-driven leadership is an ideal match for Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Penn, GSE, and Philadelphia are extremely fortunate to have her.”

Strunk is the past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP). Prior to joining Michigan State, she served from 2009 to 2017 on the faculty of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education and Sol Price School of Public Policy. She began her career at the University of California at Davis School of Education from 2007 to 2009.

Strunk is nationally renowned for her partner-driven research and leadership, which has brought multi-method, collaborative scholarship to bear on pressing questions facing education and educators across the lifespan.

“I could not be more excited about this opportunity to work with the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of Penn’s Graduate School of Education,” said Strunk. “Penn GSE is known as a leader for its collaborative and evidence-based efforts to improve policy and practice. This approach and commitment to real-world impact

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has never been more important than today. I look forward to working together with our partners in Philadelphia, nationally, and around the world in service of GSE’s mission to expand educational access, especially for those underserved by society.”

Strunk has collaborated extensively with district and state policymakers, including working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the California and Michigan Departments of Education, to help decision-makers formulate, design, and revise policy. As part of her work with EPIC, Strunk served as the only researcher on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Student Recovery Advisory Council, which informed COVID-19 recovery efforts in schools statewide. She has also advised on numerous major school funding and governance reforms.

Her work has been supported by state and federal contracts and grants as well as by philanthropic partners. She has raised more than $21 million in extramural funding over the course of her career. Her research has been published in leading peerreviewed journals as well as through numerous policy reports written in service of improving policy and practice. She is a co-author of Challenging the One Best System (Harvard Education Press, 2020), which offers a comparative analysis of the set of urban education governance reforms collectively known as the “portfolio management model.”

Strunk’s work focuses on the ways that policies and programs impact the most traditionally underserved communities.

“Underlying all of Katharine’s work is a deeply and sincerely held commitment to equity,” said Provost-designate John L. Jackson Jr., the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication who chaired the Consultative Committee for the search. “From her successful partnerships with L.A. Unified and the state of Michigan to her advocacy for evidence-based policies and practices at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Katharine has long been a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all forms.”

DEI is also at the center of Strunk’s leadership and service.

As president of AEFP, she established the organization’s first standing board of directors committee dedicated to these values. She and her leadership team developed programming to support AEFP’s members of color as well as those who are firstgeneration college students and researchers, who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and who are from and conduct research in international contexts. She has a long and successful track record of enhancing diversity in faculty hiring and retention.

Strunk received her PhD in educational administration and policy analysis and her MA in economics from Stanford University, and her BA in public policy from Princeton University.

She will be joined in Philadelphia by her husband, Ryan, and their 11-year-old twin sons. ■

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Educating for a Sustainable Future

By Lini S. Kadaba

Penn GSE alumni work in film, finance, communications, and classrooms to fight climate change—a fight that becomes more urgent as earth heads toward a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade.

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s part of her master’s in higher education studies at Penn GSE, Thammika Songkaeo, GED’14, researched why—or if—faculty get siloed in how they teach about sustainability. Her findings?

What gets results in academia may not be what gets solutions in “the real world.”

“The professors said, ‘You only get tenure if you specialize,’” said the Singapore resident of her independent research conducted with Penn GSE Professor and Board of Advisors Chair of Education Matt Hartley.

“That answer made me realize how deep-rooted a lot of the hurdles were,” Songkaeo said. “It gave me that sense of rebellion. If this is the system, whatever I do in the future is going to make sure it cracks down on silos.”

Goal accomplished. Songkaeo is founder and director of the production company Two Glasses, which she started in 2021 to tackle climate change in broad, multidisciplinary ways. At its heart is education—a “critical agent,” as the United Nations noted at last year’s Transforming Education Summit, to sway attitudes, change behaviors, and help the public make more informed decisions.

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THE TRUE COST OF FASHION greenhouse gas emissions. Fashion is one of the world's most polluting industries, according to a 2018 Quantis report.

While these textiles may be trendy on the rack, they’re also quickly adding microplastics to oceans and waste to landfills.

In fact, an estimated 66 percent of discarded clothing in the United States ends up in landfills, contributing to greenhouse gases such as methane as it decomposes, according to Boston University’s School of Public Health.

“Changing Room begins to peel away the layers,” Songkaeo said, “and you realize how climate change is enabled by very personal matters, even while industries are most directly responsible.”

She is not alone in applying her Penn GSE education to advance sustainability. Other alumni are working in finance, communications and, of course, schools to fight climate change—a fight that becomes more urgent as earth heads toward a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade. This troubling timeline is according to a recent report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This September, Changing Room, the short film that Songkaeo co-produced, will debut in Singapore. It examines climate change through the lens of fast fashion—cheaply made clothing intended to be worn only a few times—and its connection to body image from the viewpoint of three dancers. Screenings will include movement therapy, so that audiences can examine their own relationships with their bodies and fashion consumption.

To measure the impact of the film, audience members will receive a “wear counter” to track the clothes they buy and how often they wear them. From dance to psychology, a suite of disciplines has been integrated into this project.

“Everything is connected to the environment,” said Songkaeo, who received funding for the project from the National Geographic Society and Singapore’s Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment. “How we feel about our bodies enables us to buy and buy. We think clothes will become the solution to whatever is the void deep, deep inside us.”

Overconsuming rapidly produced clothing, with production processes and disposal methods that harm the environment, fuels an industry that contributes about eight percent of

A GREEN BANK THAT’S BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE “To me, sustainability has a natural home at the Graduate School of Education,” said Curtis Probst, GRD’22, CEO of the nonprofit New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC) and adjunct faculty member teaching clean energy finance at Columbia University and Dartmouth College. That’s because “education,” he continued, quoting Nelson Mandela, “is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

NYCEEC provides loans to advance energy efficiency and clean energy projects in disadvantaged communities in the city and region. Working with contractors, building owners, and project developers, it is considered the first local green bank in the country and has made loans to fund sustainable projects since 2011.

Those projects have included the installation of rooftop solar panels at an affordable housing project, energy efficiency measures at homeless shelters and assisted living facilities, and energy storage for low- to moderate-income communities. All help to lower energy costs for residents and building owners— and improve air quality and environmental conditions in the city, Probst said.

According to NYCEEC’s website, projects funded over the last dozen years have eliminated 1.01 million metric tons of carbon

dioxide and saved 25.9 million MMBtu of energy—enough energy to power more than 417,000 American households for a year. The bank also has helped green 15,300 affordable housing units and create 4,780 jobs, the website said.

Probst noted that 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City stem from buildings. “Any effort to address climate change within New York City, within the region, has to focus on buildings,” he said. “That’s why we do what we do.”

Probst, who worked on Wall Street for 24 years, said he decided to shift to sustainability out of a sense of urgency over concerns for the environment. In 2014, he joined the Rocky Mountain Institute, a global clean energy think tank, and then NYCEEC in 2018. His executive doctorate in higher education management was an opportunity, Probst said, to dive deep into sustainability and develop skills as a researcher and academic.

In his dissertation, he examined 326 sustainability partnerships between more than 130 universities and local communities. He identified best practices to increase the positive impact of the projects on the environment, support the local community, and enhance university operations, teaching, and research.

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“Education is at the heart of all our sustainability efforts,” he said, noting NYCEEC’s webinars on sustainability for community partners and collaborations with NGOs and private sector partners on white papers and research that explore not only successes but also challenges. “We’re educating building owners, educating communities, educating private sector lenders, educating government officials on programs that are working or not.”

In his dissertation, titled “Epistemic Thinking's Role in Collaborating on a Wicked Problem,” Ellis argued that as the world faces increasingly complex (or “wicked,” to use his term) problems, such as climate change, political instability, technology, and rising inequality, the necessity to collaborate on solutions only grows. But, he found, stakeholders often make unconscious assumptions that can inhibit cooperation. Ellis proposed a framework that helps individuals transform their thinking, thereby allowing them to better work together on solutions.

“The more awareness that you can gain over these unconscious identities, what’s called ‘systems of knowing,’ the more conscious control you can exert in how they play out in collaboration to unlock the creativity needed to address wicked problems,” Ellis said. “That’s the transformation part.”

TAKING ACTION ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Action is the watchword for these educatorenvironmentalists. For Phillip Ellis, GED’21, GRD’22, a longtime communications professional, that means working as director of campaigns for the Washington, D.C.- based nonprofit Combined Defense Project, which coordinates rapid response and federal advocacy campaigns for environmental groups and allies.

Started in 2016, the CDP supports creative solutions to pressing environmental concerns. It brings together grassroots organizers, policy experts, community leaders, and politicians to develop strategies, impact federal policies, and target decision-makers with effective messaging.

Ellis joined CDP in 2017, after working as an organizer for the grassroots environmental organization the Sierra Club and as senior press secretary for the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, where he was the lead communicator in their representation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit over the Dakota Access Pipeline.

During the Trump administration, Ellis said environmentalists like himself watched the rollback and weakening of environmental regulations, protections he and others had fought hard to get in place. “I’ve been doing this work for a long time, over 20 years,” he said, “and the work I had done began to unravel overnight. We were shell-shocked in our community.”

As a result, the CDP began to focus on coordinating national environmental groups and its allies around rapid response efforts, such as organizing campaigns, unifying messaging, and sharing intel, said Ellis. At the same time, he decided to join Penn GSE’s executive doctoral Chief Learning Officer program to hone his skills to better facilitate collaboration among groups addressing environmental issues and other complex problems.

“I began to explore the concept of transformation,” Ellis said of a key theme of the Penn program, which preached that “you can’t have great professional transformation without personal transformation.”

My Penn experience inspired me to learn how to cultivate a network of authentic multicultural, transdisciplinary partnerships and help them to collaborate more effectively.

We’re helping to grow a community of people to tackle society’s most pressing problems more effectively.

— Phillip Ellis, GED’21, GRD’22

Ellis’ doctoral studies also have expanded his work to campaigns related to voter suppression and threats to democratic institutions and their intersection with environmental causes. He leads one campaign at CDP that supports the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as critical to the environmental community’s goals.

Ellis also is continuing his doctoral research as an inaugural fellow for the Penn GSE/Netter Center Alumni Fellowship in Democratic Civic Engagement, which allows him to develop a community-centered approach to collaboration and research.

“My Penn experience inspired me to learn how to cultivate a network of authentic multicultural, transdisciplinary partnerships and help them to collaborate more effectively,” he said. “We’re helping to grow a community of people to tackle society’s most pressing problems more effectively.”

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THE ROOTS OF CHANGE ARE IN THE CLASSROOM

Making the world a better place begins in the classroom for Nicholas WhitefeatherManning, GED’20. He teaches ecology to ninth graders at Kensington High School in Philadelphia, helping them understand how their individual choices can impact climate change and the quality of their lives.

To do so, WhitefeatherManning, who studied biology at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, uses realworld, hands-on experiences to motivate his students to care about and understand environmental issues.

“Start with what they know,” he said, echoing a lesson he learned at Penn GSE, where he was a member of the inaugural Weiss Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellows in the Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program.

That means, WhitefeatherManning added, looking at what grows, or doesn’t, in his students’ backyards.

Or asking them to look right outside the classroom window at the litter-strewn streets and sidewalks. Then discussing and researching litter’s impact on water and air quality and the food chain—not only locally but throughout other biomes.

“Those are [curriculum] choices I am making to relate to my student’s lives,” said WhitefeatherManning.

In addition, he has his students grow plants (mustard, for instance) and then conduct experiments to assess the effect on plant growth when exposed to sunlight or shade, more or less water, and even toxic substances such as bleach. The students then graph results, relating their findings to plants in gardens or window boxes at home. The class also dissects owl pellets, investigates the food chain, and explores renewable and non-renewable resources.

“My Penn education talked about trying to be authentic, keeping it real for students but also real for yourself,” he said. That means, said WhitefeatherManning, choosing topics that he not only enjoys teaching but that his students see as having an impact on their world.

“It’s all connected to their lives,” he says. “The more we think about it, hopefully the more we do about it.

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Climate Curriculum Taylor Hausburg and Zachary Herrmann at the UN.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called the climate crisis “a battle for our lives.” In 2022, a UN report called education one of the most important weapons in that fight. And at Penn GSE, the Center for Professional Learning has enlisted in the battle with its new Project-Based Learning for Global Climate Justice program.

“It's not enough for teachers just to teach students about climate change, they need to get students involved and starting to make a real impact in their communities, in their classrooms,” said Taylor Hausburg, GRD’22, teacher program lead for Center for Professional Learning.

“And we know how to do that through project-based learning. That’s one pedagogy that gets students starting to do things, having real impacts on real audiences in real ways.”

Launched last fall, the inaugural cohort of more than 100 educators from over 20 countries were able to attend free of charge thanks to funding from the Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative and Penn’s South Asia Center. This interdisciplinary virtual professional development program brought them together to design and implement climate justice-related projects for their classrooms.

The semester-long program was broken into three parts. First, the participants asynchronously explored resources gathered and created by the Center’s team to better understand climate justice issues. They then came together to start imagining authentic questions their students might explore and begin sketching out projects that could answer those questions. And finally, they returned to their classrooms to implement those projects with students in their local contexts with ongoing support from a small team of fellow educators from the program.

Project-Based Learning for Global Climate Justice leverages Penn GSE’s expertise in project-based learning with University-wide expertise in the scientific and economic issues related to climate change.

Participating teachers undertook projects with their students—many of which are still ongoing—exploring everything from local agriculture and food assistance during natural disasters to the effects of climate change on local plants. (The latter of which was the project of one of the local Philadelphia participants: Nicholas WhitefeatherManning.)

“We're supporting educators to pursue ambitious and authentic approaches to teaching and learning,” says Zachary Herrmann, executive director of the Center for Professional Learning. “A program like this can help teachers align their values and goals as educators with their actual practice and connects them with similarly passionate educators across the globe, since we have participants across five continents so far. These teachers are forming powerful networks and communities that can be used to share resources, give and receive coaching and feedback, and learn alongside each other as they implement their projects.”

Hausburg and Herrmann were excited by the results of the program’s first year and were accepted to share it last December at the International Conference on Inclusive Education and Project-Based Learning for Peace and Development at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Their presentation was well-received, and now the Center for Professional Learning team is parsing the data from last year’s participants in preparation for a new cohort of the program this fall. The team continues to forge new domestic and international partnerships to build their growing community of educators committed to bringing global climate justice into classrooms—and out into the world.

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Studying the Academy from Within

By Rebecca Raber

Assistant Professor Damani White-Lewis’ research investigates why university faculty still lack racial diversity and seeks pathways towards equity in higher education.

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amani White-Lewis, who joined the Penn GSE faculty last summer, studies racial inequality in academic careers. He focuses his research on higher education, examining hiring, retention, and tenure for faculty of color and asking questions about why the sector, which claims to want racial diversity in its professoriate, has been so slow to change.

His dissertation, “The Facade of Fit and Preponderance of Power in Faculty Search Processes: Facilitators and Inhibitors of Diversity,” was showered with honors from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the American Educational Research Association, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education.

His current research includes a National Science Foundation–supported study on how tenure reviewers weigh candidates’ diversity, equity, and inclusion work, as well as a series of studies that uses data from Harvard’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education to interrogate trends in faculty retention.

White-Lewis spoke with us about this work, why university faculties are still so white, and how hopeful he is that it can change.

Photo credit: Stuart Goldenberg for Penn GSE

\ Q & A \

You have said that calibrating hiring rubrics with equity considerations is one possible way to mitigate bias in the hiring process. What does that look like, practically?

How did you come to this work?

When I was in grad school, the faculty diversity discourse looked incredibly intimidating [to me]. I was familiar with a lot of the typical excuses, but because I was a graduate student, I wasn't confident that I could break past the noise and insert my voice. I would hear things like, “It's the pool; there aren't enough graduate students of color.” Even when there were graduate students of color, I would then hear, “Well, they probably want to go into better-paying industry jobs versus academia.” And even when candidates of color were clear they wanted to go into academia, I would hear that “only the best institutions can get them.”

Calibration is just an acknowledgement that we're all starting from a different playing field (e.g., graduate training, disciplinary norms), and that when we review applications, if we fail to acknowledge those different playing fields and find a way to identify a baseline starting value, then [someone’s research] that I may consider rigorous, somebody else may also not consider rigorous. And the reason why that's important is because we all have different levels of access to power—institutional and departmental power. [Things like] whether somebody's been in the department for some time or identity characteristics, like being white and male, increase our power.

Thinking about this systemically, these are excuses we've erected at every point pre-hire that failed to implicate the institutions doing the actual hiring. So we painted more of a supply-and-demand concern, rather than an equity, selection, and evaluation concern—not to say that demand and supply don't have anything to do with it, but it's an incomplete picture.

So it's not just that we have different assessments, it’s that there is power behind those differential assessments that impact who gets equitably evaluated and selected. What calibration does is it helps us get all on the same page, so that if somebody has 10 publications, we say, “That meets our benchmark. That's an important thing that relates to our organizational goal.” It helps us bypass our idiosyncratic preferences. And it helps ensure that no one powerful person's criteria are overweighed or overvalued relative to somebody else's.

Later in grad school I did a paper for a course, and it was really interesting. I applied a “fit theory” to understand whether or not search committee members were actually evaluating for fit, which is now the paper I’m essentially most known for that appeared in The Journal of Higher Education . . . I made that initial graduate school paper my dissertation.

It kind of blew up, and then I never really looked back.

“Calibration is just an acknowledgement that „we're all starting from a different playing field.

The National Center for Education Statistics found that nearly three-quarters of full-time faculty at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in 2020 were white. So there is a disconnect between how much higher education says it wants to diversify the professoriate versus how white it still is. Why is that?

You began this research in your master's program.

In the years since, have you seen improvement?

Are you hopeful that it can change?

Absolutely. I don't think you can do this work and not feel hopeful because you'd feel defeated. It's an interesting question, though. Yes, I've seen change. But I think what motivates me to keep doing my work is interrogating the rate of change. . . Some people take it real slow, some people are a lot more expedient, and that's based on our perception of progress and racial ideologies.

There’s a number of different complex industries where we have expressed stated goals and more lofty, aspirational goals, and sometimes the ways in which we get at the two conflict, right? That’s what I find in this discourse. I think there are very few uppercase-B “Bad,” nefarious people who are stroking their mustaches, saying they're really going to mess this search up for the department.

There’s actually an interesting concept that comes from political science known as the Overton window, and the basic premise is that there’s a window of acceptable public policy that politicians are willing to endorse. Things that lie outside of the Overton window are seen as unpopular or infeasible, unless there’s a shift in public opinion. For example, we’re now having much different conversations, compared to decades ago, about important topics like redistributive justice.

When I try to take a systems look at it, looking at the entire range of a faculty member’s career, and then try to disaggregate hiring, promotion, and tenure, I start to drill down and see the complexities within a very seemingly mundane but interesting process such as faculty hiring . . . It’s competing priorities, risk aversion, and an inattention to race consciousness.

I think we all—faculty included—have personal Overton windows. I focus on those windows that impact the faculty diversity discourse—ideas about what are acceptable initiatives toward change, and what we’re willing to do to obtain them. So, of course, there has been progress and there have been changes, but I think what my work compels me to do [is ask], “Are we doing enough?”

I think, unfortunately, some of the best ways to increase equity are either not publicly popular, or they may not even be permissible. And so, oftentimes, people have to come up with different ways to try to get something that they say that they want—or may aspire to—but in practice, it just doesn't work out that way.

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Alumni Notes

Find The Penn GSE Magazine Online!

Visit penng.se/GSEmag to find our issue archive.

Penn Affiliations At Penn, all alumni have an affiliation, or series of letters and numbers, following their name to indicate their degree, school, and year of graduation. A master’s degree from Penn GSE is represented as GED and an education doctorate as GRD. A philosophy doctorate from any school at Penn is represented as GR. An undergraduate degree offered by the School of Education until 1961 is represented as ED. The two numbers following the letters represent the year in which that degree was completed.

1970s Gregory Blake, W’76, GED’22, is working on his licensed professional counselor (LPC) certification, and is treating 18 individuals and one couple. He got engaged in February.

David Hill, C’79, GED’14, returned to Taiwan after graduation and joined a university language center jointly managed by the Chinese Culture University and the University of Buffalo (SUNY). He recently began a new position as an English teaching fellow in a program established by the Ministry of Education and the Foundation of Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan) to support university teaching staff in using English as the medium of instruction.

Susan Marcus, CW’71, GED’73, retired from the NYC Department of Education and teaches advanced English part-time to students in Tel Aviv. & Vivian McIver, GED’73, since retiring from the

School District of Philadelphia, works with youth at Mt. Olive Holy Temple and via the Christian Campers summer program. She wrote a children's book, The Story of Ida Robinson, which tells the story of the founder of Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America. After having an experience with cancer, she wrote a poem to encourage others who are dealing with the disease, “Cancer Patient.”

Shelley Wepner, GED’73, GRD’80, coauthored “What Might We Learn from 25 Years of Research on Education Deans?” in the Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies; “Academic Deans’ Perceptions of Factors Contributing to Longevity in their Positions” in the Journal of Higher Education Management; and “Factors Chief Academic Officers Consider in Deciding Whether to Remain in their Positions” in The ACAD Leader. After 19 years as dean of the School of Education at Manhattanville College, she will return to teach in the doctoral program in educational leadership.

1980s Donna James, C’86, GED’90, has been the executive director of Computer CORE since August 2019. To help close the digital divide, CORE teaches adults basic computer skills and gives away free refurbished computers.

Antoinette Nottingham, C’81, GRD’20, leads the award-winning leadership development and DEIB efforts at a leading health and social services nonprofit in the greater Philadelphia area. & Cynthia Weill, GED’87, published her eighth

bilingual children’s book, Vámonos: Mexican Folk Art Transport in English and Spanish (Cinco Puntos Press/Lee & Low Books), in which Mexican folk art animals take different transportation devices to the library. The book received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.

1990s Annette Campbell Anderson, GED’97, GR’06, works at the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools and received the Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award.

Barbara Anne Caruso, GR’92, created a workshop, “Spirituality Across One’s Lifecycle,” which aims to assist participants in focusing on their spiritual well-being through reflection of their lifecycles, up to and including the present stage.

Ron DeFeo, GED’98, is CEO of the Center for Family Guidance, which he was initially connected to during his time at Penn. The company’s mission is to provide care to those most in need, develop services in areas they are lacking, and identify creative alternatives to access to mental health care.

Carol Parlett, GED’78, returned to Philadelphia after 20 years of being a restaurant owner, entrepreneur, and real estate investor in St. Michaels, Maryland. Her work there as a board member of Mid-Shore Council on Family Violence continues, as does recruiting for The League of Women Voters of the Mid-Shore. She spends time with the Cosmopolitan Club, the Philadelphia Ethical Society, Friends in the City, MANNA, and her nine grandkids while finishing her novel.

Susan DePhilippis, GED’91, is professor of ESL and chair of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at Atlantic Cape Community College. This year, she was named one of four finalists for the Faculty of the Year Award of Excellence and was the recipient of one of the 2023 Dale P. Parnell Faculty Distinction Awards from the American Association of Community Colleges.

Diane Waff, C’76, GRD’07, was the recipient of the 2023 Women of Color at Penn (WOCAP) Helen O. Dickens Award.

Carladenise Edwards, C’92, GED’93, was recently appointed as an independent director to the boards of Clover Health, CancerIQ, Mae, and Sound Physicians.

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Michelle Emery, GED’92, was selected to attend the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) Leadership Academy at its annual conference in Québec, and was elected president of the Vermont/Western Massachusetts Chapter of AATF. She has been teaching all levels of French (grades 1–6 and beyond) at Burr and Burton Academy in Vermont for the past 13 years, leading student trips to France, Québec, Morocco, and Martinique. She also established an exchange with a school in Pau, France.

Jennifer Glynn, GED’99, GR’03, works as an independent consultant and was selected to be part of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s National Working Group on Advanced Education tasked with developing a national policy and research agenda to advance high-potential students, especially those from disadvantaged communities.

Gail Foster Lewis, GED’92, GED’95, works for Go Forward Education Foundation, Inc., which is celebrating its 12th anniversary with its inaugural White Tie Ball and Fundraiser for Scholarships on June 30 in Princeton, New Jersey.

John McArdle, G’97, GED’98, GRD’14, associate professor at Salem State University, was awarded a Fulbright grant to go to Kosovo in October, where he assessed academic programs and developed recommendations for program accreditation at University Isa Boletini in Mitrovica.

Shawn McCaney, GED’97, executive director at the William Penn Foundation, was invited to give this spring’s commencement address at the Temple University College of Liberal Arts.

Lisa Morenoff, GED’98, is in her second year as a special education case manager for the lower school at Capital City Public Charter School. She develops high-quality IEPs for students in preK– fourth grade and helps train special education teachers who work directly with students.

Christine Kerlin Nasserghodsi, GED’97, is the founder of education consulting firm Verdant.

She has been asked to serve as the division director for education improvement overseeing school improvement across 250-plus charter and private K–12 and early childhood institutions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Denise Raimondo, CGS’92, GED’94, is a consulting partner at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, working in global medical affairs for oncology.

John Roche, D’92, GED’92, writes: “Always grateful for the opportunity to achieve my master’s at Penn GSE while earning my dental degree. It has been a source of pride and motivation to give back to the academic side of orthodontics.”

Susan O’Malley Stephan, GED’97, teaches AP Spanish and serves as the world language department chair at Oxford Academy, a public school for grades 7–12 in Anaheim Union High School District. This past year, she served as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) chair, guiding the faculty and staff in the self-study accreditation process. She co-

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authored the ethnic studies course, “Spanish III Latinx Studies,” which will be offered at her school next year. She serves as an advisor to the school’s international club, mentor for the school’s robotics team, and coach for the junior high track team.

Laura Zaharakis, GED’92, has been a school counselor in the Allentown School District for almost 20 years, working to create a datadriven program. She led the school to earn the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) designation in 2020. She and her husband created SCUTA, the widely used and comprehensive School Counselor Use of Time Analysis tool. She is earning a Pennsylvania Department of Education certificate in supervision of school guidance services through Millersville University.

2000s Antoinette Brown, GED’05, started a new position as assistant dean of administration and strategic initiatives for the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in February. & Theodore Burnes, GED’01, a professor at

the University of Southern California, recently published Essential Clinical Care for Sex Workers: A Sex-Positive Handbook for Mental Health Practitioners (North Atlantic Press).

Sarah Daly, GED’09, is a senior consultant and visiting scholar at SUNY Oswego. Since earning her PhD in criminal justice from Rutgers University-Newark, she conducted research examining mass violence in the US as well as gender and online communities. She has published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, and Journal of Crime and Justice. Daly is also the co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Mass Violence Research.

& Meredith Newman, GED’02, published her

Mark Teoh, GED’04, joined the Raikes Foundation as a program officer in education. He was previously the vice president of learning, research, and impact at Teach Plus.

debut children’s book, The Lost Umbrellas of Lexington (Ethos Collective), with NYC-based artist Carly Beck.

Megan Penrice, GED’04, teaches in Colonial School District and recently opened a mental health clinic, Ellie Mental Health, in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, which offers outpatient care for all ages with a specialty in creative arts therapies.

2010s Sahar Akhtar, GED’15, is a psychotherapist who has been in practice since 2015. She expanded her private practice from Philadelphia to San Francisco and focuses on serving the needs of Asians in higher education and workplace settings.

Oswald Richards, GR’01, is a retired professor of business and associate dean of faculty at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He led study abroad students to Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, and Spain, where he taught as a visiting professor of business. He also completed a Fulbright assignment in Namibia.

Michael Aumann, GRD’13, is CEO of QualCann, which is, he writes, “setting up school farms in Colombia to grow and export the finest hemp and cannabis flower and extracts, transforming an industry known as a contributor of violence into a viable economic activity, and turning darkness into light.”

Rob Sapp, GRD’01, has been named dean of the School of Technology and Engineering for National University following its merger with Northcentral University.

Aaron Barlin, GED’19, started Emergent Change, a DEI consultancy for schools and organizations with Maris Harmon, GED’19, to “make transformative change in the name of belonging for all.” By taking skills, frameworks, and pedagogy from their classroom teaching experiences and applying them to larger, more systemic contexts, they “backward design” the evolutions that their partners envision for their communities.

Karla Silvestre, GED’00, was elected president of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools’ Board of Education. She is serving a second term as an elected member in the 14th largest school system in the country.

& Melanie Bieber, GED’11, GED’12, published her

ALUMNI BOOKSHELF

book, Aaron Daniel Henry Davis: Just Another Day at School, which tells the story of a typical school day through the lens of a child with an ADHD diagnosis. Her hope is that by highlighting the wonderful ways that he thinks and contributes, this message reaches children like Aaron, so they can see themselves in a positive light.

& denotes alumni authors whose latest book is featured below.

Marc Christian, GED’12, GRD’17, founded the research and consulting company IntelliSport Analytics, which specializes in supporting sports leaders by using research to address organizational and team challenges.

6 PRINCIPLES FOR CULTURALLY AFFIRMING LEADERSHIP

AND�EA TERRERO GABBADON

Carlo Cinaglia, GED’16, is a doctoral candidate in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University. He currently works as an editorial assistant for the journal TESOL Quarterly and is part of the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2023 conference planning team.

Pamela Felder-Small, GRD’05, published a book review in Teachers College Record on the experiences of marginalized doctoral students during the pandemic.

Kourtney Grant, GED’07, serves as principal of Imago Dei Neighborhood School in Richmond, Virginia. As an advocate for social justice, she's committed to opening access to first-rate academics for students of all ethnicities and income levels.

Xavier Cole, GRD’13, became the first Black president of Loyola University New Orleans on June 1. He was previously vice president for student affairs at Marquette University.

Heidi Horton, GED’08, is a foreign affairs specialist and country manager for the Department of Defense, managing the training pipelines and training programs for foreign military students. She recently managed the training for Bahrain's F-16 program and is transitioning into a role in the private sector that focuses on research and quality analyses.

Dexter Evans, GED’18, recently accepted admission to the inaugural cohort of the Professional Doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership (PhilD) at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. & Andrea Terrero Gabbadon, GED’14, released her

first book, Support and Retain Educators of Color: 6 Principles for Culturally Affirming Leadership (ASCD), which is grounded in empirical research and voices of educators of color and offers practical strategies for school- and district-based leaders to diversify the racial composition of their workforces.

Rachel Isenberg, GED’09, teaches ESL at Temple University and raises her three-year-old daughter, Madeleine, and her dog, Bernie, with her partner, Adam.

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Tianyu Liu, GED’19, an English instructor at the Affiliated International High School of Shenzhen University, is proud to have her first class of students graduate this summer.

& Christine Galib, GED’13, is senior director of

entrepreneurship and innovation at Ion, Houston's headquarters for innovation, where she has launched new programs to support startups, entrepreneurs, and investors. Her third book, Eternae (book two in The Knights of the Dagger series) came out in June.

Hang Qin, GED’18, successfully organized the TEDxSanya 2023 Standard Event with his team on April 15. More: penng.se/tedxsanya

Azad Godus, GED’17, is head of continuous medical education at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Saudi Arabia.

The hospital recently won the national patient safety award for its interprofessional education training.

Callista Regis, GED’17, is a final-year PhD candidate at Cambridge University, specializing in adolescent literacies. As an education analyst and consultant, she works on teacher training projects funded by organizations including the World Bank, USAID, and UNICEF. With a focus on select regions of Africa and the Caribbean, these projects are designed to drive meaningful change and empower educators to make a profound impact on the lives of young learners.

Toni Gordon, GED’10, transitioned from diversity, equity, and inclusion work into advancement. She is now assistant director of alumni engagement at Bowling Green State University, cultivating relationships with alumni and other constituents.

Melissa Reynolds, GED’15, recently celebrated five years at the Walton Family Foundation.

Aman Goyal, GED’13, LPS’20, was recently promoted to director for alumni relations and Penn traditions in the Development and Alumni Relations division at the University, supporting the experience of recent graduates.

Abbey Sangmeister, GED’10, created and launched coaching programs to help high achievers, professionals, and parents prevent and heal from burnout. She also founded a company, Evolving Whole, that hosts workshops and retreats for the same purpose.

Deanna Handy, GED’12, is a youth services coordinator at the Salvation Army and selfpublished her first wellness journal, Walking into Your Purpose: A Handy Wellness Journal, now available on Amazon. This summer, she will be coordinating a therapeutic summer enrichment program for youth, ages 5–17, in one of Philadelphia’s largest emergency shelters.

Kelsey Schroeder, GRD’18, is joining Georgetown Day School as middle school principal, where she will have the opportunity to work alongside her Penn GSE classmate, Cara Henderson, GRD’18.

Teresa Stebner, GED’13, is teaching classroom guidance and providing online therapy in the evenings on two different platforms.

Sonya Somerville Harrison, GRD’12, will become head of school at the School at Columbia University on July 1. She has spent 30 years as an educator, most recently as assistant superintendent in the School District of Philadelphia.

Mark Heath, GED’16, recently made the pivot from classroom teaching to working as a consultant for the national nonprofit Education Resource Strategies. He supports school and district leaders in organizing their resources to expand equitable access to—and success through—college and career pathways in high schools. He has also contributed to a series of guidebooks for school and district leaders on leveraging Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds for more strategic schedules, staffing, and spending.

Jessica Downes Stuebner, GED’13, started a pandemic educational services company, The Pupil Pod, originally focused on pandemic podding, after spending the better part of a decade as an early elementary school teacher and an adjunct professor of education at both Montgomery County Community College and Cabrini University. The company has now grown to provide other educational services, such as pop-up playschools and aftercare programs. & Susan Thomas, GR’13, published her book,

Stephan Heuer, GED’13, will become dean of students at Frankford Friends School this fall, after years of being a third-grade lead teacher there.

Peter Horn, GRD’14, on his “Point of Learning” podcast, recently interviewed author and educator Jonathan Kozol about Kozol’s forthcoming book, Batter Down the Walls.

Nicole Johnson, GED’16, is the capital campaign director at South Chicago charter school EPIC Academy, working to fund a $22 million transformation of the single-site charter school into an institution that spurs economic and community development.

Xinyi (Cindy) Liang, GED’18, is the assistant to associate vice president at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, coordinating the smooth running of five colleges (soon to be seven) in the rapidly developing university.

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Indebted Mobilities: Indian Youth, Migration, and the Internationalizing University (University of Chicago Press).

Kimberly Truong, GR’10, chief equity officer at MGH Institute of Health Professions, was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. Truong is the second Asian American to be elected to the board in its history.

Daphne Valcin, GED’10, pursued and attained the highest-level credential of International Coaching Federation-certified coaches as a master certified coach (MCC) in late 2022, after attaining over 2,500 coaching hours.

Zora Wolfe, GRD’13, was appointed associate dean of Widener University’s College of Health and Human Services. She is also the director of the K–12 educational leadership and instructional technology programs and an associate professor in the Center for Education.

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2020s Kelly Bird, GRD’22, launched her business, Making Space, LLC, after 28 years working in schools. It provides coaching and strategy for impactful leadership, the building of belonging, and project-based making.

Esther Cho, GED’20, teaches high school English in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, and recently published her research, “Bringing indexical orders to non-arbitrary meaning: The case of pitch and politeness in English and Korean” in Laboratory Phonology, the journal of the Association for Laboratory of Phonology.

Morgan Congdon, GED’22, has been applying the principles learned in Penn GSE's medical education master's program to her new role as director of medical education scholarship for the Division of General Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Matthew Dandola, GED’21, will become the next middle school head of Rocky Hill Country Day School in Rhode Island in July.

Leo Greenberry, GED’20, is chief of staff in the office of Pennsylvania State Representative Nancy Guenst.

Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor, GR’20, is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She was awarded the NORC Diversity, Racial Equity, and Inclusion Fellowship at the University of Chicago and the Institute of Mixture Modeling for Equity-Oriented Researchers, Scholars, and Educators training grant from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the principal investigator of a multi-year grant, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, that aims to promote racial equity in state policies and racial empathy through virtual reality.

Peter Loper, Jr., GED’20, is the new residency director for the Tri-County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Psychiatry Residency Program, a community-based residency program created to educate, train, and increase psychiatric physicians in South Carolina to address inequities in access to mental health services for rural communities in the state.

Shanta Smith, GRD’21, joined the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education as an associate professor of clinical practice and teaches courses for preservice educators in educational equity and applications of math and science.

Mark Spradley, GRD’21, was elected as a public member of the board of the Plastic Surgery Foundation. He is committed to expanding access to reconstruction surgery for wounds, burns, and congenital conditions in several countries, and in that work, has collaborated with Anne Arnold, GRD’20, Smile Train’s senior director, who leads their surgical team.

Submissions have been edited due to space constraints and magazine style guidelines.

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Fill out our Alumni Notes form at penng.se/alumni to tell us your updates and news.

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Tips from the Educator's Playbook

5 Ways

TEACHERS CAN INTEGRATE CHATGPT INTO THE CLASSROOM Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the question on everyone’s mind has been, “How will this change our world?”

C

hatGPT is one of the most advanced machine learning and language processing models. It can read and understand text in context and respond in a human-like way—from writing essays to solving problem sets—leading to the question on everyone’s mind: How will this change education?

But education is about more than just the correct answers or perfect essays, says Betty Chandy, GED’05, GRD’13, director of online learning for Catalyst, Penn GSE’s center for innovation.

Education is acquiring knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. It is the process that matters more than the product. “Calculators did not make math redundant, and the internet did not make schools obsolete,” she said. “AI will create opportunities that were unimaginable a year ago.”

Chandy, who runs the Virtual Online Teaching (VOLT) and the Experiences in Applied Computational Thinking (EXACT) certificate programs at Penn GSE, started her career as a high school teacher and instructional coach, then moved into research exploring the impact of professional development on teachers' pedagogical practices. Her research interests include the design of learning environments, online learning, technology in classrooms, and teacher development. Below are five of Chandy's ideas for integrating ChatGPT into the classroom:

1.

Betty Chandy

Use ChatGPT as a starting point.

Have students generate answers on ChatGPT and then work from there. AIgenerated essays are sometimes surfacelevel analyses and can be boring or redundant. Teachers can use this draft to work with the class to think through how they can improve the essay and build in deeper analysis.

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Tips from the Educator's Playbook continued

2.

Ask ChatGPT to generate articles on topics at your students' reading level.

You can also give it your existing articles and ask it to rephrase them, say, to a second-grade or 12th-grade reading level.

3.

Ask ChatGPT to suggest activities.

The chatbot can generate entire lesson plans if you provide it with the standards and grade level. If you don't like what it gives you, you can prompt it to regenerate another one, this time with games or activities built into it. Go ahead, play with different prompts and have fun with it.

P

4.

Focus on the process instead of the final product.

Using tools like Google Docs that track the development and evolution of the student product can help you be sure that it was not a copy/paste from ChatGPT.

5.

Provide project-based learning scenarios.

These are student-driven scenarios driven by sustained inquiry and anchored in local, authentic, real-world contexts. (e.g., Why does my neighborhood have such high rates of asthma?

Or: What is the most equitable way to elect a government?) Because answers to these sorts of questions don’t already exist, ChatGPT can’t be misused. Students can only use this technology to inform their work, just like they use the internet now, but would need to think through the ideas and extrapolate to their own contexts.

Looking for

MORE ADVICE

from experts?

These tips are adapted from The Educator’s Playbook, a Penn GSE newsletter that distills faculty research into useful advice for educators and parents. Visit penng.se/playbook to sign up.

Where the technology goes, students will follow. How will it change the way we teach and learn? Well, that’s a question we’ll probably need more than a just a machine to answer.

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Photo credit: Krista Patton Photography

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