Month: March 2020

GET-UP Position Statement on Delayed Payments at the University of Pennsylvania

Posted on by penngetup 
March 19, 2020

The University of Pennsylvania expects its graduate student workers to bear unreasonable financial costs that become obstacles to our education. This problem manifests across the graduate schools as delays or gaps in students’ payments. Most pressingly, many who receive a stipend do not receive their first payment until the last day of September—even though the semester begins at the end of August and most graduate students have to sign leases starting as early as August 1st. The problem of delayed payment is only one of the financial burdens graduate students face as members of their department. We frequently front departmental costs like dinners for speakers or research-related travel and wait months before reimbursement. Further, at some point during their time at Penn most graduate students are expected to go entire summers without pay, despite continuing to teach, research, and publish. The unfairness of this system is obvious: it privileges wealthy students and forces those who are not to fall into debt. As graduate workers at UPenn we oppose in the strongest terms all unreasonable gaps in payment. In this petition we call for an immediate end to start-of-semester delayed payment.

Delayed payment presents an unequal obstacle to graduate education for many grad workers. Low-income students may not have the savings to relocate and work for a month without pay; international students have much higher costs associated with moving to the university; and students who are disabled or parenting may face greater expenses than average due to healthcare and childcare. While it is possible to request a stipend advance from the university, this fact is poorly advertised, overly bureaucratic, and treats delayed payment as an individual matter rather than a university-wide issue. We do not believe a student who cannot afford to go over a month without pay after moving to a new city should be treated as an exception. As a first step towards addressing this issue, we demand that all graduate students receive their first payment before their program begins. This demand should be met in Fall of 2020 by moving the first stipend payment of the academic year to the end of August at the latest. We invite the Dean of Graduate Studies to discuss this with us in order to come to a fair solution. Ultimately, however, addressing the problem of payment will require larger changes, such as guaranteed summer funding for all graduate students in a 12-month stipend—as is already the case in the Biomedical Graduate Studies PhD Program.

In GET-UP, we understand delayed payment as representative of the larger culture of a university that assumes wealth and poverty as an unfortunate or temporary anomaly. The expenses involved in starting graduate school—from exorbitant fees for applications and the GRE, to the cost of moving across the country or globe, to having to secure a residence, purchase class materials, and cover one’s cost of living for well over a month—are immense. If the university feels that a majority of its student body is able to front these costs without issue, it is clear who they think that student body is and should be. Many students accumulate years of debt to cover these costs. Many more, whom we will never know, choose not to apply to or attend a university that treats them as exceptions to the rule of wealth. If we wish for Penn to embrace students of different backgrounds and means, delayed payment must end now!

Petition to Protect Students and Workers at Penn Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on by penngetup

Please click on this link and fill out the Google Form to add your signature to this petition. All are welcome to sign — you do not need to be formally affiliated with Penn to show your support. The form also includes an option to share a testimonial about your experiences or thoughts about the crisis. 

March 19, 2020

To President Gutmann and the University of Pennsylvania Administration,

We are writing on behalf of university students, faculty, workers, and community members to express our deep concern with recent measures that the University of Pennsylvania has taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We demand the administration to provide a more robust set of protections for ensuring the immediate and long-term economic and psychological safety of the Penn community.

During a moment of global crisis, Penn suddenly forced hundreds of students living in university housing to leave campus on extremely short notice. Many were left with insufficient accommodations and many requests for alternative housing arrangements were flatly denied by the university. Alarmingly, in a March 15th email to undergraduate students’ parents, the university indicated that they contacted landlords to pressure students to vacate those on off-campus housing. This potentially violates the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law that protects the privacy of student records. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, university-wide policy to “depopulate” the campus takes a serious economic, personal, and psychological toll on many students, their families, workers, staff, and community members of Penn.

These are not reasonable responses to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Indeed, City Councilmember Helen Gym specifically criticized Penn’s decision to immediately remove students from university housing, claiming it contradicts the Philadelphia-wide policy for halting all evictions to stem the outbreak.

The university’s manner of making decisions and communicating them puts us at great unease. We receive intimidating dictates to suddenly evacuate university housing on and off-campus; we see students given no choice but to travel during a pandemic, which, according to the CDC, places them at greater exposure risk to the virus; further, a March 13th email signed by the Provost threatened students on and off-campus with the use of police intervention and academic probation to enforce a social distancing policy, which confusingly contradicted previous messages ensuring that “internal meetings” fewer than 25 people were permissible.

These are objectionable precedents for handling unprecedented crises. They are premised on an unsettling readiness to punish, intimidate, and displace the university’s own students and workers. We cannot allow knee-jerk responses practiced during a moment of crisis to become naturalized into new, routine and unfair procedures.

The University of Pennsylvania still has an opportunity to better care for its students and workers. Many of us–tenured and untenured faculty, adjunct instructors, post-doctoral researchers and instructors, service and maintenance workers, international and domestic undergraduate and graduate students, members of the Penn community–still have many unmet needs.

Because the University of Pennsylvania has the resources, and the professional and moral obligation to meet our needs, we make the following immediate demands:

  • Guarantee housing security for all students who require it. The university must approve all on-campus housing requests. Of the hundreds of students who requested housing, a great many of them were denied. They were also informed that they could not appeal the decision. Some of those students remain in Philadelphia in insecure housing situations. The university must guarantee on-campus housing and/or off-campus housing security for all students who need it.
  • Provide housing for GAs (Graduate Associates). The GA contracts guaranteed secure and safe housing until June 1, 2020; the university must stay true to the contract by providing housing, utilities, including internet paid for by the university, and all other necessary amenities necessary to survive quarantine in the state of a global emergency. GAs must also be offered testing for COVID-19, as they were working during the undergraduate move-out and potentially exposed themselves to contagions from students returning from travel.
  • Cease pressuring landlords to evict students from off-campus housing. Emails from the Provost have stated that Penn is encouraging off-campus landlords to pressure student tenants to leave their homes and depopulate the area. This practice increases the number of students facing housing insecurity and their risk of transmitting or contracting COVID-19. Penn’s protocol contradicts the Philadelphia municipal courts’ decision to put a moratorium on all evictions, as well as the resolution proposed by City Councilmember Helen Gym.
  • Guarantee that hourly workers will not face loss of pay because of suspension of university operations. This includes undergraduate students who rely on work-study and will lose hours this semester. While Penn has stated that “At this time, no University paid employee will be put in an unpaid status,” this policy does not clearly protect workers from loss of wages nor does it prevent the university from laying off workers at a later date as the crisis continues. All campus workers, regardless of work status and contract status, should continue receiving full payment by the University. In cases where workers are employed through third-party contractors, the University must demand that the contractors also provide the same benefits, and maintain that our continued association with the contracting agency be contingent on this. We support the Student Labor Action Project’s petition to support Penn Dining Workers.
  • Guarantee that salaried and stipended workers, including graduate student workers and post-doctoral researchers, will not lose pay because of extenuating circumstances created by the pandemic. 
  • Guarantee that all workers on campus have unlimited paid sick and personal leave. In accordance with safety policies recommended by the CDC and other organizations, Penn workers need to be free to take all of the personal time they need without consequence. Considering that Philadelphia schools are closed, Penn workers are facing unprecedented care-taking demands. Additionally, the recovery time from COVID-19 infection is still unknown, and Penn workers must be able to take the necessary time to recover completely.
  • Place an immediate moratorium on rent collection for all Penn-owned properties. This includes both properties that are rented by small businesses, such as People’s Books and Culture, as well as the off-campus apartments owned by Penn through University City Associates.
  • Guarantee that all workers, students, faculty, and staff on campus are provided with the appropriate protective equipment, including but not limited to: gloves, facemasks, and hand sanitizer.
  • Fully cover the costs of COVID-19 testing, treatment, and vaccination. We understand that Penn has stated that all of their insurance plans will cover testing and waive payment sharing for tests, but the current policy for covering treatment is vague and incomprehensive. All payment and access to care should be 100% covered for all university affiliates, regardless of Aetna’s policies and of whether services are provided by an in- or out-of-network provider. The university must also ensure that university health center employees are fully aware that that care will be fully covered for those with insurance through the university or elsewhere.
  • Publicly and forcefully denounce opportunistic manipulation of the pandemic to promote racism, especially against Asians and Asian-Americans. 
  • Guarantee that the Penn Police will never be used nor threatened to be used against students, workers, and community members to enforce COVID-19 policies. 
  • Reimburse all costs incurred by all university affiliates who leave campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including but not limited to: transportation costs; storage costs; rent for those displaced from university housing; and food and living expenses for students who lose access to meal plans.
  • Ensure that any students on F-1 and J-1 visas are able to maintain their visa status as needed to lessen the risk of contracting or transmitting the virus. We understand that universities nationwide are still waiting on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidelines. But we demand that Penn negotiate and advocate for universal visa extensions on behalf of its students and workers.
  • Give all students the option to receive a pass/fail grade in any course this semester, and ensure that all grades account for the extreme circumstances that students have faced this semester. In addition, no student’s enrollment status or academic standing should be affected by the events of this semester.
  • Offer all graduate students at least a one-semester extension on program progress milestones. This includes, but is not limited to, qualifying masters or doctoral exams and dissertation progress checkpoints.

Because the duration of the pandemic is unknown and its ramifications for the future are indefinite, we believe students and workers will remain compromised on a long-term basis. We thus demand the following longer-term protections from Penn:

  • Affirm that the sudden transition to remote teaching is a temporary response to an immediate public health crisis. We demand a letter from Provost promising that remote learning platforms will not remain a permanent standard for the higher education curriculum at Penn. We believe that maintaining a residential setting for faculty and students to create knowledge and interact in classrooms, laboratories, libraries, museums, performative spaces and studios, and other university spaces, is crucial to the intellectual integrity of this institution.
  • Guarantee that all incoming graduate students for the Fall 2020 semester will receive their stipend payments in advance, as well as a guaranteed grant to fund their move and travel to Philadelphia. This should apply to all future incoming students henceforth. See GET-UP’s position on the crisis of delayed stipend payment at Penn here.
  • Provide all current ABD (All But Dissertation) PhD candidates facing immediate structural gaps in their funding packages with summer funding. Transform all current university fellowships on a 9-month or 10-month stipend disbursement plan into a 12-month stipend that guarantees payment over the summer. This includes, but is not limited to, graduate students on the Benjamin Franklin Fellowship.

Please click on this link and fill out the Google Form to add your signature to this petition! All are welcome to sign — you do not need to be formally affiliated with Penn to show your support!

Read and share testimonials from the Penn Community here!

Group Endorsements

  • GET-UP (Graduate Employees Together at the University of Pennsylvania)
  • SOUL (Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation at the University of Pennsylvania)
    SLAP (Student Labor Action Project)
  • Summit City Mutual Aid and Defense
  • Graduate Workers of Columbia
  • Princeton Graduate Students United (PGSU)
  • Drexel Socialists
  • SP2 Government
  • Penn Buddhism Club
  • UAW 2192

Signatures

[Last Updated: 10:50 AM EST April 3, 2020]

Total: 512 signatures

    1. Nick Millman, PhD Candidate in the Department of English
    2. Isaac Rabbani, PhD Candidate in Economics
    3. Audrey Jaquiss, PhD Student in Political Science
    4. Aylin Malcolm, PhD Candidate
    5. Rovel Sequiera, Graduate Student in English
    6. Anonymous
    7. Anonymous
    8. Rebecca Fishman, PhD Student in Physics
    9. Ania Loomba, Professor, English Department
    10. Jamie Song, MPH Student and Graduate Assistant
    11. Ais Oshilaja
    12. Eli Sills, undergraduate student
    13. Sam Samore, PhD Student in English
    14. Miranda Sklaroff, PhD Student in Political Science
    15. Noah Cote, concerned Drexel Student
    16. Concerned Drexel student
    17. Knar Gavin, PhD in English
    18. Alexandra Montgomery, PhD candidate in History
  1. Brendan O’Kane, PhD candidate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations
  2. Hrishikesh Somayaji, PhD candidate in Chemistry at Princeton University
  3. Ivanna Berrios, undergraduate in Comparative Literature
  4. Jennifer Phuong, PhD Candidate in Educational Linguistics
  5. Marta Bruce, PhD, RN, Nurse at Penn Medicine
  6. Devin William Daniels, Ph.D Candidate in English
  7. Michael Shea, PhD Student in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory
  8. Sharon Jacobs, PhD Candidate in Anthropology
  9. Kristina Lewis, PhD candidate in Educational Linguistics
  10. Faye Chevalier
  11. Chris Taylor, Associate Professor of English, University of Chicago; Penn PhD (English) 2012
  12. Hannah LeClair, PhD Student in Comparative Literature
  13. Kimberly White, PhD Student in History
  14. Kofi Biney, concerned citizen
  15. Liz Polcha, Postdoc, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
  16. Philip Friedrich, PhD Candidate in South Asia Studies
  17. Dr. Orchid Tierney (Penn alum, grad. 2019)
  18. Bethany Swann, PhD Student in English
  19. Samuel Ewing, community member
  20. Katelyn Hearfield, PhD Candidate in Music
  21. Christopher Rogers, Ph.D Student in PennGSE
  22. Apurva Bamezai, PhD student in Political Science
  23. Sarah Roberts, GSE staff
  24. Jax Lastinger
  25. Thomas Greene, Assistant Professor of History
  26. Josh Millhouse
  27. Gasira Timir, concerned community member
  28. Jeff Nagle, PhD candidate, Hist. & Soc. of Sci.
  29. Aaron Bartels-Swindells, PhD Candidate in English
  30. Tabitha Ahnert
  31. Jonah Greebel, PhD Student in English
  32. jess lamar reece holler — concerned community member
  33. Sarah Leonard
  34. Kay Gabriel, Postgradate Research Associate, Princeton University
  35. Nathaniel Stevens, Clinical Research Assistant and LPS student
  36. Chloe Kannan, EdD Candidate in Reading/Writing/Literacy
  37. Emma Troisi, Research Specialist at Penn
  38. Joy Lai, concerned fellow human being
  39. Raekwon Burton, Masters Student in Social Work
  40. Riley Simmons-Edler, PhD Candidate in CS, Princeton University
  41. Eugene Evans, PhD student in Plasma Physics; Princeton University
  42. Joe PIETTE, member NALC 157
  43. Nancy Roane
  44. John Santoro, Law ’21
  45. Jeremy Gallion, PhD Student in English
  46. Andrew J. Smyth, PhD student in English
  47. Projit Bihari Mukharji, Associate Professor, Hist. & Soc. of Sci., UPenn
  48. Tommy Benfey, PhD Student in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University
  49. Concerned Hispanic studies phd grad student
  50. Daniella Sánchez Russo, PhD Hispanic Studies, University of Pennsylvania
  51. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University
  52. Ari Fromm, Undergraduate in the College
  53. Enrique Sherwood Caballero, Undergraduate Student in Political Science
  54. Katie Sirianni
  55. Thomas Conners, PhD Student in Hispanic Studies
  56. Elizabeth M. Lee, Sociology PhD 2014 and Philadelphia resident
  57. Miranda Weinberg, PhD GSE/SAS ‘17
  58. Elaine Fitz Gibbon; alumna
  59. Nicholas Turner
  60. Heather Jaber, PhD Student in Communications
  61. Isabella Schlact, Penn undergraduate student
  62. Akhil P. Veetil, PhD Student in South Asia Studies and Comparative Literature
  63. Uday Jain, PhD Candidate, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
  64. Myka Fromm, my sister goes to Penn
  65. Anna Yu Wang, PhD Candidate in Music Theory
  66. Jared Scruggs, PhD Student in Management
  67. Karen Schifter, parent of current student
  68. Anonymous
  69. Michael Stenovec, PhD Student in Political Science, UCLA
  70. Anonymous
  71. Carmen Torre Perez, PhD Student in Romance Languages
  72. Kalianie Velez, concerned community member
  73. Naveed Mansoori, Visiting Scholar at SFSU
  74. Marianne Millman, Parent
  75. Anonymous
  76. Samuelle Voltaire, MSW, MPH Student in PSOM, BGWA Chair and FGLIQ Graduate Representative
  77. Gabriel Winant, Assistant Professor of History, University of Chicago
  78. Nathan Millman; Concerned brother
  79. Richard Riddick, PhD candidate in French, Yale University
  80. Andrew Wagner, West Philadelphia community member
  81. Yvette Chen, master’s student
  82. Yajna Sanguhan, PhD Student in Political Science
  83. Billy Fleming, Wilks Family Director, McHarg Center
  84. Anonymous
  85. Thomas McGlone, PhD student in Philosophy at Villanova
  86. Avni Sejpal, MA student in English at Villanova University
  87. Tausif Noor, Spiegel-Wilks Curatorial Fellow, Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
  88. Janay Garrett, PhD student
  89. Amanda Winters, concerned citizen
  90. RJ Bergmann, PhD candidate in Comparative Literature
  91. Pooja Nayak
  92. Jessica Bergman, SAS ‘14
  93. Molly Des Jardin, Penn staff and concerned Philadelphian
  94. Thomas Hercules Davies, PhD Candidate, Princeton University
  95. Eyob Tsegaye, Undergraduate Student, Stanford University
  96. Julia Quintavalle, concerned community member
  97. A.L. McCullough, MLA II Candidate Dept. of Landscape Architecture
  98. Nora Reikosky, PhD student Penn GSE
  99. Erica Yudelman, MLA student
  100. Rebecca Dean, MSW student at SP2 and Graduate Associate in Stouffer College House
  101. Amber Mackey, PhD student in Political Science
  102. Chris Feinman, MA in Landscape Architecture + City Planning
  103. Rebecca Dean, MSW Student and GA in Stouffer College House
  104. Xiong Her, Master Student at GSE
  105. Isaac Gabriel Salgado, PhD candidate in Political Science
  106. Jennifer Delgado, MSW Student
  107. Matthew Millman
  108. Anonymous
  109. Wichinpong Sinchaisri, PhD Student in Operations, Information, and Decisions
  110. Rafael Khachaturian, Lecturer, Critical Writing Program
  111. Brandon Lee, In-house Spouse of Housing Graduate Assistant
  112. Erin Lee, graduate associate at Penn
  113. Kalyan Nadiminti, Assistant Professor of English, Gettysburg College; Penn Ph.D. (2017)
  114. Tianyu Yao, UW-Madison Graduate, concerned community member
  115. Diana Olivos-Stewart, SAS ‘12
  116. Aisha Chughtai Grad Student Anthro
  117. Bakirathi Mani
  118. Yara M. Damaj, PhD in Political Science
  119. David Kazanjian, Professor, English and Comparative Literature
  120. Rachel Hulvey, PhD Student in Political Science
  121. Sebastián Figueroa, Spanish
  122. Jake Haut, Researcher
  123. Kye Barker, Lecturer, UCLA
  124. Melissa Bradley, concerned PhD student at Villanova University
  125. Abraham Moussako, JD student
  126. Ana Almeyda-Cohen, PhD Student in Hispanic Studies
  127. Anne Norton, Stacey and Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science
  128. Victoria Xie
  129. Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Yale University ‘21, Ethnicity, Race & Migration major
  130. Mercedes Mayna, PhD Student in Hispanic Studies
  131. Tyanna Slobe
  132. Haley Cao, Columbia College undergraduate 2023
  133. Zachary Mankoff, MD Candidate
  134. Quiya Harris, concerned Columbia student
  135. Daniel Aldana Cohen, Asst Professor Sociology, UPenn
  136. Dean Gao, concerned UCLA graduate student
  137. Pavel Andrade, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Studies
  138. Rebecca Naegele, MFA Student, UPenn
  139. Lenin Lozano Guzmán, PhD Student in Spanish
  140. Raka Sen
  141. Matt Crager, Yoga Teacher & Tarot Reader
  142. Dawn Hailey, concerned member of humanity
  143. Jalylah Burrell, Postdoctoral Fellow, Rice University
  144. Pilar Gonalon-Pons, Assistant Professor in Sociology
  145. Ji Yoon Rhee, MFA
  146. Shobhna Iyer, PhD student, Stanford University
  147. Allison Dunatchik, PhD student in Sociology
  148. Nina Didkovsky, UC Berkeley Undergrad
  149. Valentina Soto, Upenn MFA candidate 2020
  150. Kyuri Jeon, MFA Student, UPenn
  151. Jane Fentress, MFA student
  152. Charitie Ropati, Undergraduate Student at Columbia University
  153. Cole Cahill, Columbia University student
  154. Bhumika Chauhan, NYU
  155. Ellis Hernandez, MA student, Purdue University Fort Wayne
  156. Julia Gladstone
  157. Rebecca M. Sibinga
  158. Cameron Cook, Northwestern University
  159. Lex Brown, Harvard College ‘20
  160. Rebecca Winkler
  161. Cecilia Innis, NYU student
  162. James Billingsley, MLA/M.Arch, School of Design
  163. Brooke Harris, Yale College Student
  164. Jax
  165. Irina Sandoval, Undergraduate Student at Dartmouth College
  166. Molly Davidson concerned community member
  167. Joshua Joel Anthony, MFA Student
  168. Erin Kong
  169. Charlie A. Scott, Brown University ‘17
  170. Byron R. Núñez, PhD Student in Political Science
  171. Brook Jaffe, Cornell University undergraduate
  172. Sam Love, PhD student in Sociology
  173. Anonymous
  174. Kellie Ramdeen, Penn ‘18
  175. Giovani Rocha, Joint PhD Student in Political Science and Africana Studies
  176. Michael Paarlberg, PhD, assistant professor of political science, Virginia Commonwealth University
  177. Stephen Perrotti, MBDS Student
  178. Julian Zeidler MFA PennDesign
  179. Alexandra Lillehei
  180. Emilio Martínez Poppe, MFA Student, UPenn
  181. Hannah Kass, Master of Environmental Studies Candidate at Penn
  182. Hannah Carlan, PhD Candidate, Anthropology, UCLA
  183. Razan Idris, PhD Student in History
  184. Kim Fernandes, PhD student in Education and Anthropology
  185. Tomeka Frieson, Yale College ‘21
  186. Gabriela Montes de Oca, Undergraduate Student in Health and Societies
  187. Ava Kim PhD Candidate in English
  188. Juan Zazueta, student from UVA in solidarity
  189. Edelweiss Cardenas, partner of Penn PhD Student
  190. Francesca Fiore
  191. Abasenia Asuquo, University of Virginia ’20
  192. Karen Rile, Lecturer, UPenn English
  193. Sarah Lynch, Undergraduate at Harvard College
  194. Jack Sanders, concerned partner of SP2 Student Rebecca Dean
  195. Amber Rose Johnson, PhD in English and Africana Studies
  196. Jocelyne Waller, Administrative Coordinator UPenn, PSOM, Path & Lab Medicine
  197. Hannah Kass, Master of Environmental Studies Candidate at Penn
  198. Eehwa Ung, Ph.D, concerned community member
  199. Morgan McDonald, MSW Student at SP2
  200. Hector Kilgoe, Alumnus, PhD Student in Religious Studies, and Graduate Associate in Riepe College House
  201. Ashleigh Cartwright
  202. Nancy Bentley, Professor of English, Upenn
  203. James Sadler, CAS ’13, GSE ’15
  204. Amelia Hetherington, concerned community member
  205. Alba Disla, C ‘19
  206. Irteza Binte-Farid, PhD student in GSE and Anthropology
  207. Samira Junaid, PhD (Dept of South Asia Studies, Penn)
  208. Thomas Collins, PhD Student in English
  209. Valerie Leibold
  210. Euiyoung Kim, Yale ’21
  211. Yulia Kim, PhD student at Columbia University
  212. Carlos PRice-Sanchez, GA Lauder College House, MA International Education and Development Program
  213. Michael J. Ernst, Penn Alumnus, Ph.D. Student at Temple University
  214. Paola Pérez Moreno, Master of Social Work Candidate
  215. Jason Zhang, Concerned friend of GA
  216. Iggy Cortez, Mellon Assistant Professor in Cinema and Media Arts, Vanderbilt University, Penn PhD 2018
  217. Nolan Bensen, Columbia GSAS, EALAC PhD
  218. Ajay Kumar Batra, PhD candidate, English
  219. Tim Barker, PhD Candidate in History, Harvard
  220. Ann Rea, MFA/MSW, 2021
  221. Carolina Vela
  222. Aditya Bhattacharjee, PhD Student in Religious Studies
  223. Samantha Pious, PhD in Comparative Literature
  224. Naiya Speight-Leggett, concerned community member
  225. Austin Kronig, M.Arch UMichigan
  226. Tobi Haslett
  227. Marissa Wirick, concerned academic student employee
  228. Arely Pena, MFA student in Penn School of Design
  229. TJ Ghose
  230. Jordan Williams, Penn student
  231. Julio Arias
  232. Daniel Lapinski, MA Student in South Asia Studies
  233. S. Patel
  234. Katharine Hartmann, first year Penn student
  235. Karen Aquino, CAS ‘12, GSE ‘14
  236. Hamza Qaiser, Penn Grad 2015
  237. Natasha Bailey, PhD Student, University of Leicester, UK
  238. Anonymous
  239. Kalob Morris, MArch 2020
  240. Anonymous
  241. Anonymous
  242. Malika Kadyrova, alumna
  243. Jolyon B. Thomas, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
  244. William Udell, Sculpture Technician and Adjunct Instructor, School of Design.
  245. Sebastián Gil-Riaño, Assistant Professor, History and Sociology of Science
  246. Elizabeth L Bynum
  247. Gabriel Raeburn, PhD Candidate in Religious Studies and History, University of Pennsylvania
  248. Angus Macdonald,  venue manager at the Rotunda
  249. Katie Pak, GSE Postdoc
  250. Chad Frazier
  251. Olivia Harding, PhD candidate, Cell & Molecular Biology
  252. Zachary Smith, PhD Candidate in Political Science
  253. Danielle Taschereau Mamers
  254. JS Wu, PhD Student in English
  255. Won cha
  256. Cynthia Gao, NYU
  257. Bruno Saconi, PhD Student in Nursing
  258. Tyree Holmes, concerned community member
  259. Victoria Price, MS Social Policy candidate
  260. Regina Baker, Assistant Professor of Sociology
  261. Santiago Cunial, PhD Candidate in Political Science, UPenn
  262. Katie Levesque, researcher at the school of design, alumna SAS and PennDesign
  263. Alexis Rider, PhD candidate in Hist & Soc of Science
  264. Isaac Yearwood, Undergrad; Yale College
  265. Shelley Zhang, PhD Student in Music
  266. Dr. Nilay Özen, physician and concerned parent
  267. Paul Saint-Amour, Professor and Chair of English
  268. Tunga Tuzer
  269. Nuri Dagdeviren
  270. Anonymous
  271. Suvir Kaul, Professor of English, Univ of Pennsylvania
  272. Gillian Maris Jones, PhD student in Anthropology and Africana Studies
  273. Kirby Sokolow, PhD Student in RELS
  274. Joseph Painter, MFA 2020
  275. Kay Lee, MFA, UPenn
  276. Wesley Neal, Undergraduate
  277. Nat Rivkin, PhD Student in English
  278. Aliyah Bixby-Driesen, PhD student, anthropology
  279. Ellen Bryer, PhD student in Sociology
  280. Dana Khromov, PhD candidate in Romance Languages
  281. Tali Rosenman Ziv, UPenn
  282. Anonymous
  283. Aislinn Pentecost-Farren, UPenn Masters Candidate in Fine Art and Historic Preservation
  284. Khyra Lammers
  285. Rebecca Leech, former IT employee at GSE
  286. Ericka Beckman, Associate Professor of Romance Languages
  287. Amrita Stuetzle, MFA Student, UPenn
  288. Jessica Lin, MFA UPenn
  289. Daniel Morales-Armstrong, PhD Student in Africana Studies
  290. Sean Toland, PhD Candidate in History, Princeton
  291. Ted Kelly, Workers World Party
  292. David O’Connell
  293. Juliana Zhou,  Masters Student in Social Policy
  294. Max Johnson Dugan, PhD Student in Religious Studies
  295. Jonathan Feingold, Law ’22
  296. Jordan Rockford, community member and educator
  297. German Pallares. PhD Candidate in Architecture
  298. Diami Virgilio, PhD student, Annenberg School for Communication
  299. Darlene Hodge Rodriguez – Undergraduate Student
  300. Yu-te Chiang, PhD Student in Comparative Literature
  301. Anonymous
  302. Assil Frayha, PhD Student in Communications
  303. Siel Agugliaro, PhD Student in Music History
  304. Julie Rivkin, Professor, Connecticut College, Parent of Penn PhD student
  305. Emily Bunker MLA 2022
  306. Kate McCormick, friend of current students and alumni
  307. Lauren Bridges, PhD Student in Communication
  308. Andrew J Ortiz, Master’s Student in Social Policy
  309. William Mullaney
  310. Illya Mousavijad, MFA student
  311. Jared Jones
  312. Gabriel Udell, Undergraduate at Pomona College
  313. Emmanuela Soria Ruiz, UPenn MFA
  314. Amy Schindelman, Penn GSE alum
  315. Jeremy Steinberg, PhD Student in Religious Studies
  316. Liliana Torpey, friend of Penn students and concerned community member
  317. fields harrington Penn Alumni
  318. Diana Solano-Oropeza, undergraduate physics student at Drexel
  319. Isabel Bartholomew
  320. Chelsea Cohen, PhD student, Anthropology
  321. Taylor Heath, PhD Student in Sociology
  322. Ayesha Sheth, PhD Student in South Asia Studies
  323. Mery Concepcion Yale College ‘20
  324. Chi-ming Yang, Associate Professor of English
  325. Breanna Moore, PhD Student in History
  326. V Goren – concerned citizen
  327. Ertuğrul Karabulut
  328. Rachel Swym, Undergraduate Student
  329. Lauren Davis, Penn Law ’21
  330. Chun Zhang
  331. Lincoln W Daniel, concerned community member
  332. Kimberly Shoemaker, M. Arch
  333. Fred Schmidt-Arenales, Alum
  334. Mallory Rappaport, MSW Student
  335. Sue Pierce, Arcadia University
  336. Narendra Haynes, MFA
  337. Arshdeep Singh Brar, PhD Student in South Asia Studies
  338. Anonymous
  339. Mitch Chisholm, M.Arch candidate
  340. Aashish Gupta, PhD student, Demography and Sociology
  341. Ella Israeli, incoming MSW student
  342. Ethan Plaue, PhD Student in English
  343. Anonymous
  344. Nikil Saval
  345. Jeffrey Price, Parent of student
  346. Claudia Elcock-Price, Parent
  347. On behalf of my grandon, Hector
  348. Sarah Cate, Penn Alumni
  349. Tamara Griego, community member
  350. Stephanie Smalling, concerned member
  351. Aliyah Cunningham, Yale College Undergraduate
  352. Tabitha Mustafa, Wharton PhD Student in Business Ethics
  353. Laura Silverman, PhD Candidate in Political Science
  354. Zain Mian, PhD Student in Comparative Literature
  355. Catherine Valverde
  356. Kirsten Barboza, College Undergrad
  357. Ruth Bucci
  358. Qiyang Zhang. Masters student at Penn GSE
  359. Ming Jiang, UPenn
  360. Catherine Valverde MLA 2020
  361. Muxin Sun, Master’s student at GSE
  362. Shweta CHOPRA, Alum SP2 2019
  363. Wenjing Fang, UPenn
  364. Bhumika Chauhan, NYU
  365. Siqi Xu
  366. John Huemmler
  367. Tyler Lawson
  368. Gloria Rubac
  369. Marco Avilés
  370. David Alff, Assoc Prof of English (SUNY-Buffalo), Penn PhD 2012
  371. Gwen Comings, MFA ‘17
  372. Kaitlin Hoak, friend of Penn GA
  373. Patricia Cuevas, Almunni
  374. Tashauna Bagby
  375. Elijah Gunther, PhD Student in Mathematics
  376. Leniqueca Welcome, PhD student at UPenn
  377. Anonymous, UPenn PhD Student in Political Science
  378. Elliott Branch, Wharton ‘78
  379. Sarah Kim
  380. Taylor Goldberg, Master of Social Work student
  381. Samantha Daniels, MSW, SP2 Class of 2018
  382. Julia Hah, MSW/MPH UPenn
  383. Justin Miller
  384. Sero Toriano Parel, PhD Student in Neuroscience, Princeton University
  385. Julianne Shrieve, concerned community member
  386. Rachel, MSW student
  387. Sitong Liu, MSW’19
  388. Haley Mills, MSW Student
  389. Concerned community member
  390. Paul Eberwine, PhD student in Classics, Princeton University
  391. Audrey Huntington WG ‘21
  392. Jacqueline Robbins
  393. Melissa Pang, Concerned Community Member
  394. Ambika Roos, Wharton MBA ‘18
  395. Erin P Boyle
  396. Sarah Finkelstein, concerned Philadelphian
  397. Anonymous
  398. Megan Fletcher, MSW Student
  399. Anonymous
  400. Patricia Thomas, MFA Candidate
  401. Mike Shrieve, Graduate Student at University of Washington
  402. Marissa Nicosia, UPenn PhD 2014, Assistant Professor, The Pennsylvania State University – Abington College
  403. Anonymous
  404. Naomi Waltham-Smith, Penn SAS faculty 2012–18
  405. Shannon K. Supple, Smith College
  406. Alicia Chatterjee, PhD student in Social Welfare
  407. Anirudh Karnick, PhD student, Comparative Literature & South Asia Studies, UPenn
  408. Laura Muresanu, MArch Student at the University of Edinburgh – where international students aren’t forced to leave the campus
  409. Pegah Maleki
  410. Hallie Nell Swanson, PhD student in Religious Studies
  411. Yihao Zhang, Graduate Student in Architecture
  412. Andrew Zhang, WEMBA45, WG2021
  413. Ella Schwalb, GSE UTAP ’18
  414. Danielle Kovalski
  415. Tien Vo, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  416. Rachel Frank
  417. Man Cheung Tsui, PhD Candidate in Mathematics
  418. Matthew Taft, PhD Candidate in English, Duke University
  419. Marina Golden
  420. Professor Janet Montefiore , University of Kent
  421. Elisabeth Durham, MFA Candidate
  422. Jacob H Nussbaum
  423. Stephie Kang, PhD Student at Michigan State University
  424. Kimberly Cardenas, PhD Candidate, Political Science
  425. Anju Parvathy Biju, PhD student
  426. Sonja Dahl, roommate of Penn students
  427. Meerabelle Jesuthasan, College of Arts and Science 2019
  428. Elliot Bullen, MLA 2022
  429. Melissa Sanchez
  430. Isabelle Luzuriaga- Masters of Social Work candidate
  431. Beth Feindt-Scott, UPenn Class of 2019
  432. Casey Kim, Penn MD student
  433. Chidi Nwogbaga
  434. Öykü Potuoglu Cook, MSW student, Penn SP2
  435. Milo Ward, PhD Student Pol Theory; CUNY Graduate Center
  436. Alexander Cowan, community member
  437. Jillian Stinchcomb, RELS PhD Candidate
  438. Sarah Craig, Penn NPL staff
  439. Serrano Legrand, Ed.D Candidate PennGSE
  440. Sam Alberg, concerned community member
  441. Adam Bailey, GSE alumnus
  442. Autumn Ondo, Candidate MSW at SP2 ’20
  443. Rebecca Lipstein, RN, UPenn nursing alumni.
  444. Philip Feibusch, Medical Student
  445. Emily Harrington, Fine Arts Undergraduate and Bryn Mawr Student
  446. Alex Graves, Engineering 2019
  447. Noel Zheng
  448. Michal Schatz
  449. Janel Rabbani, concerned community member
  450. Eugenie Rabbani
  451. Rachel Basaldua EMBA
  452. BRETT GURMAN
  453. Ami Deshpande, MSW/MPH Student
  454. Anonymous
  455. NINA WILLBACH
  456. Stephen Bonett, PhD Student in Nursing
  457. Naomi Zucker
  458. Katie Rader, PhD Candidate in Political Science
  459. Ethan Hill, PhD Student in English at UCLA
  460. Peter Odell Campbell, Assistant Professor in Composition, Literacy, Pedagogy, and Rhetoric, University of Pittsburgh
  461. Daniel Moak, PhD (2016) in Political Science
  462. Mary Kate Matson
  463. Jimil Ataman, PhD Student in Education and Anthropology
  464. Stephanie Ko, M.S.Ed. Counseling and Mental Health Services 2019, M.Phil.Ed. Professional Counseling 2020, University of Pennsylvania
  465. Benjamin Oyler, PhD Music
  466. Erik Broess, PhD Student in Music
  467. Gianni Sievers, PhD Student in South Asia Studies
  468. Geoffrey Durham, PhD Candidate in History
  469. Savita Ananthan, PhD Student in South Asia Studies
  470. Sam Schirvar, PhD Student in History and Sociology of Science
  471. Jessica Dickson, PhD Student at Harvard University
  472. Hector Kilgoe is my grandson (A concerned grandma)
  473. Victoria Sanchez, Penn Law 2022
  474. Katherine Scahill, PhD Student in Music
  475. Aniebiet Abasi
  476. Matthew Kubach, Oberlin College
  477. Sarah J. Jackson, Associate Professor, Annenberg School for Communication
  478. Randall Burson, MD-PhD Student in Anthropology
  479. Davy Knittle, PhD Student in English
  480. E.Ann Matter, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies
  481. Helen Stuhr-Romereim
  482. Kerry McAuliffe, PhD Candidate in English
  483. Sara Meloni, PhD student in History and Sociology of Science
  484. Kathleen Jones, UPENN Alumni 2009
  485. Chenelle Boatswain, EdD student Educational Leadership
  486. Carly Regina
  487. Marshall Schurtz, PhD Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
  488. William Marble, BA 2015 (Penn), PhD Candidate in Political Science (Stanford)
  489. Andrew Lamas, Faculty, Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania
  490. Paige Pendarvis, PhD Student in History
  491. Zoe Cooperband
  492. Lucas de Lima, PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature
  493. Jessica Peng, PhD Candidate in Education and Anthropology
  494. Marc Marin Webb, PhD Student in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations