MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2018 VOL. CXXXIV NO. 28
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
FOUNDED 1885
Penn considers creating a central diversity office U. will also launch an online bias reporting form NAOMI ELEGANT Staff Reporter
Officials say the prospect of creating a central diversity office is “under consideration” despite previously saying that Penn had no plans to create a physical space for a centralized office.
This comes amid a year-long student campaign led by the Graduate and Professional School Assembly, which introduced the proposal and also put forth another proposal to instate an online bias reporting form, which administrators say should launch by the end of April. “We have not changed the position that this is something that should be considered,” Senior
Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer Joann Mitchell wrote in an emailed statement on March 29. “We have begun a process to determine whether creating a central diversity office or providing enhancing coordination of existing resources is best for Penn.” This, however, seems to diverge from Mitchell’s October 2017 statement to The Daily Pennsylva-
nian when she stated that Penn had no plans to create a physical office. “We said we would create a centralized chief diversity officer, and that’s what we did,” Mitchell said in October, referring to her appointment as inaugural chief diversity officer in March 2017. “It’s not an office.” In contrast, Mitchell’s most recent statement said that the University has already started re-
searching whether or not to create a central diversity office. She did not specify when this process began or when it is expected to reach a conclusion. Graduate students have been pushing for a central diversity office and a bias incident reporting form since February 2017, when GAPSA unanimously voted to establish an office with a full-time staff to help “underrepresented stu-
dents” across Penn. GAPSA’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Leadership Council, which put forth the resolution, has been campaigning for the past year. IDEAL Chair and sociology Ph.D. candidate Haley Pilgrim said that Mitchell’s recent statement was “really exciting.” “Even if vague, a statement of SEE DIVERSITY PAGE 2
How a ban on facultystudent relationships addresses campus issues Survivors identify other students as perpetrators AVNI KATARIA Staff Reporter
ALANA SHUKOVSKY | DESIGN EDITOR
Student Government budget will exceed $2.5 million SPEC will recieve $1 million in funding next year JAMES MEADOWS Staff Reporter
The annual budget for Penn Student Government will exceed $2.5 million for the first time in Penn’s history. The budget for the 20182019 financial year, which was determined by the Undergraduate Assembly, was recently approved. PSG saw an overall budget increase of 3.9 percent – or an approximate $96,000 – for the next year. While this has translated to increases in budget for the Student Activities Council, the Social Planning and Events Committee, MERT, Penn Labs, and Skimmerfest, there are several boards who have seen significant cuts to their funding. The budgets for the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021 both saw cuts, though the sophomore class was more significantly affected with a loss of nearly $3,000 in funding. The board, which requested more than $6,000 for apparel, was allotted $0 for the costs. For the past two years, however, each sophomore class has requested and received over $5,000 for apparel, and now the incoming sophomore class will not be receiving any.
Sam Shea, Wharton senior and UA treasurer, said the UA Budget Committee believed that the sophomore class was reselling the apparel for a profit, thereby breaking UA budget policy. “There was essentially a fight and an argument on the floor of the UA when we were discussing this during the actual budgeting process,” Shea said. According to Wharton and Engineering sophomore Karim El Sewedy, president of the 2020 Class Board who was just reelected to serve another term, the money was used to buy class apparel which would be resold to fundraise for future events, with some of the money being used to subsidize the costs for low-income students. According to Shea, money used to fundraise should come out of a class’s event budget, rather than having its own separate item for event apparel. As such, while the $5,100 for apparel was cut, the class was given $2,075 more than requested for their event budget to account for apparel costs. Wharton sophomore Jack Stinger, the vice president of finances of the 2020 Class Board, did not respond to request for comment. Other committees that saw an
overall budget cut include the UA, the Nominations & Elections Committee, and the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. SCUE saw a dramatic cut in costs from almost $24,000 this past year to $8,130 for the coming year. According to Shea, the committee will no longer be responsible for directly funding the school preceptorial training programs and that the $15,700 cut from SCUE’s budget will be awarded to the New Student Orientation committee instead. “In recent years, there was a preceptorial committee created and essentially SCUE was just used as the account that they would draw the money from,” Shea said. The UA, which had an operating budget of $6,085 for 20172018, cut its own budget to $4,850 for the 2018-2019 year. One of the largest cuts was made to the UA mentoring program which saw a decrease from $900 to $300 in funds. One of the only committees to see a significant increase in funding was SPEC, which was allocated $1 million, marking a $70,000 increase in budget from this past year. This is the first time that the SEE BUDGET PAGE 7
OPINION | Penn has a drinking problem
“Don’t get me wrong, drinking on college campuses is a difficult issue to navigate. No alcohol policy is perfect, but Penn’s doesn’t even try to be.” — Isabella Simonetti PAGE 5
SPORTS | End of Year Awards
Looking back on an eventful 2017-18, DP Sports honors Penn’s Athletes of the Year, the season’s best moments, matches, and more. BACKPAGE FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ONLINE AT THEDP.COM
NEWS Survey highlights disparities in computer science PAGE 6
Penn recently joined a growing number of universities to completely ban sexual relations between undergraduates and faculty. While Provost Wendell Pritchett said at the time that this decision was made in an effort “to sustain a campus free of sexual violence, sexual harassment, and all other forms of sexual misconduct,” Penn students have questioned whether the policy change meaningfully addresses the issues around sexual misconduct on campus. Programming Chair of Penn Association of Gender Equality and College sophomore Tanya Jain said that while faculty-student relationships can contribute to the problem due to certain “power dynamic[s]” in such interactions, she thinks the larger issue around sexual misconduct remains unaddressed. “I think that [the rule banning faculty-student relationships is] definitely a way to deter, to some extent, the sexual assault, but I do think that the majority of sexual assault cases are student to student,” she said. The 2015 Association of American Universities Campus Climate Survey found that
a majority of undergraduate students who had experienced sexual assault or harassment identified another student as the perpetrator. Close to 97 percent of female undergraduate respondents and 96 percent of male undergraduate respondents indicated that their offender was another student. These rates were different for graduate students. Close to 23 percent of female graduate students identified faculty members, rather than students, as their offenders. Earlier this year, a public survey with over 2,300 responses revealed that five allegations of sexual harassment may have been perpetrated by members of the Penn community, specifically among faculty members. College junior Erica Rego said she is pleased that the conversation has begun around sexual misconduct policies at Penn, but that she still hopes to see greater change beyond the ban against student-faculty relations. “I don’t really think there’s been much of a change yet,” Rego said. “I think [the changes are] the right idea and starting to get a conversation going about it, but I don’t think it’s anything to commend until I see an actual change.” In March, Pritchett and Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli sent an email to students soliciting suggestions on
ways the University can improve policies around sexual harassment on campus. This latest policy change is presumably one of the efforts that the University is taking under this new initiative. “I personally think that sexual violence between students is a lot more common,” she added. “It’s the right idea, but I don’t know if they’re actually on target yet.” Jain agreed, adding that the University should continue to address the issues around sexual misconduct on campus with a specific focus on making it easier for victims to report instances of sexual assault. “I think that Penn does need to improve on making them, one, less complicated and, two, making students feels like they’ll be listened to,” she said. Wharton sophomore Shaunak Kulkarni expressed different concerns over Penn’s recent steps against sexual harassment at Penn. Kulkarni specifically noted issues with potentially making the reporting processes for sexual harassment at Penn easier and expressed concern over the prospect of Penn changing any methods. He said it could “open the gates to false accusations which is an equally large problem.” SEE SEXUAL ASSAULT PAGE 7
MONA LEE | NEWS PHOTO EDITOR
Majority of the female and male undergraduate respondents who experienced sexual assault or harrassment indicated that their offender was another student. These rates were different for Penn’s graduate students.
NEWS Read about this year’s Wharton Passion Projects PAGE 7
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