THE PENNSYLVANIA MAY|JUN21 GAZETTE Shelter from the Storm: The Case for Guaranteed Income The Long Road to mRNA Vaccines Memoirs for All Ages Virtual Healthcare Gets Real DIGITAL + IPAD The Pennsylvania Gazette DIGITAL EDITION is an exact replica of the print copy in electronic form. Readers can download the magazine as a PDF or view it on an Internet browser from their desktop computer or laptop. And now the Digital Gazette is available through an iPad app, too. THEPENNGAZETTE.COM/DIGIGAZ Digigaz_FullPage.indd 4 12/22/20 11:52 AM THE PENNSYLVANIA Features GAZETTE MAY|JUN21 Fighting Poverty The Vaccine Trenches with Cash Key breakthroughs leading to the Several decades since the last powerful mRNA vaccines against big income experiment was 42 COVID-19 were forged at Penn. 34 conducted in the US, School of That triumph was almost 50 years in the Social Policy & Practice assistant making, longer on obstacles than professor Amy Castro Baker has helped celebration, and the COVID-19 vaccines deliver promising data out of Stockton, may only be the beginning of its impact on California, about the effects of giving 21st-century medicine. By Matthew De George people no-strings-attached money every month. Now boosted by a new research center at Penn that she’ll colead, more Webside Manner cities are jumping on board to see if Virtual healthcare by smartphone guaranteed income can lift their residents or computer helps physicians out of poverty. Will it work? And will 50 consult with and diagnose patients policymakers listen? much more quickly, while offering them By Dave Zeitlin convenience and fl exibility. The potential to save lives and improve effi ciencies is tremendous. But can uncertain regulations and reimbursements, equity and access disparities, and shaky internet connections be surmounted? By JoAnn Greco Writing Lives Middle school memories. Meditations on motherhood. 56 A prismatic accounting of the self. A long life well and furiously lived: on new memoirs by Jordan Sonnenblick C’91, Courtney Zoffness C’00, Beth Kephart C’82, and Nick Lyons W’53. COVER Illustration by Ryan Peltier Vol.119, No.5 ©2021 The Pennsylvania Gazette Published by Benjamin Franklin from 1729 to 1748. THEPENNGAZETTE.COM More Sports More Arts & Culture More Letters Latest News THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Departments VOL. 119, NO. 5 ––––––––––– EDITOR John Prendergast C’80 3 From the Editor | Saving lives, and seeing them. SENIOR EDITOR Trey Popp ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Zeitlin C’03 4 From College Hall | A new generation’s “rendezvous with destiny.” ASSISTANT EDITOR Nicole Perry Letters ART DIRECTOR Catherine Gontarek 6 | Historical arguments, and more. PUBLISHER F. Hoopes Wampler GrEd’13 215-898-7811 [email protected] Views ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR Linda Caiazzo 12 Notes From the Undergrad | Home is where? 215-898-6811 [email protected] ––––––––––– 14 Alumni Voices | Pandemic connections that will last. EDITORIAL OFFICES Elsewhere The Pennsylvania Gazette 16 | “We’d entered without a map.” 3910 Chestnut Street 18 Expert Opinion | The roots of vaccine hesitancy among Blacks. Philadelphia, PA 19104-3111 PHONE 215-898-5555 FAX 215-573-4812 Gazetteer EMAIL [email protected] WEB thepenngazette.com 20 Campus | In-person Commencement, fall reopening, views to remember. ––––––––––– 24 Education Costs | Tuition and fi nancial aid for 2021–22 announced. ALUMNI RELATIONS 215-898-7811 24 Finance | Student-run credit union provides pandemic help and more. EMAIL [email protected] WEB www.alumni.upenn.edu 25 Heard on Campus | PEGOT John Legend C’99. ––––––––––– 26 Animal Health | Penn Vet takes care on the road with mobile unit. UNIVERSITY SWITCHBOARD 215-898-5000 27 Medicine | Orphan Disease Center looks to a new era of advances. ––––––––––– NATIONAL ADVERTISING 29 Environmental Justice | Water Center focuses on equity. IVY LEAGUE MAGAZINE NETWORK Heather Wedlake 30 Leadership | Bowdoin’s Whitney Soule to head admissions. EMAIL [email protected] PHONE 617-319-0995 31 Community Health | Lipman Family Prize goes to EarthEnable. WEB www.ivymags.com 32 Sports | Local games allowed; AD Grace Calhoun headed to Brown. CHANGE OF ADDRESS? Go to MyPenn, Penn’s Online Community, at mypenn.upenn.edu to access and update Arts your own information. Or contact Alumni Records, University of Pennsylvania, Suite 300, 2929 Walnut 65 Calendar Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-5099; [email protected]. upenn.edu; Phone: 215-898-8136; Fax: 215-573-5118. 66 Painting | Smithsonian exhibit “remember[s] the ladies.” THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE (ISSN 1520-4650) is published Architecture bimonthly in September, November, January, March, 68 | Brick and mortar marketing in Building Brands. May, and July by Penn Alumni, E. Craig Sweeten Alumni Book Review House, 3533 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6226. 70 | Two views on how to make good. Periodicals postage paid at Philadelphia, PA, and addi- Briefl y Noted tional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes 71 to The Pennsylvania Gazette, Alumni Records, Suite 300, 2929 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-5099. Alumni PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE COMMITTEE: David S. Graff C'79 WG'84 (Chair); Miriam Arond C’77; Jean Chatzky C’86; 72 Gabrielle Glore W’91’s passion made Sylvie’s Love happen. Dr. Alan Filreis, Faculty; Eliot J. Kaplan C'78; Randall Lane C’90; Michael R. Levy W'68; James L. Miller W’97; 74 Amna Nawaz C’01 is a correspondent and anchor at PBS NewsHour. Sameer Mithal WG’95; Steven L. Roth W'66; Robert E. Shepard C'83 G'83; Joel Siegel C’79; Ann Reese CW’74, 76 Henry “Hank” Gutman C’72 has less than a year to help fi x NYC’s DOT. President, Penn Alumni. 81 Events The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse back- 80 Notes grounds. The University of Pennsylvania does not discrimi- nate on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, 88 Obituaries color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or status as a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabled veteran. Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vermont 96 Old Penn | Marking 100 years since a Sadie Alexander fi rst. FROM THE EDITOR go to college, and about the the basic concept of telemed- hate mail she has received in icine has been around for a Promising the course of her work, which while, too. Use had been she attributes to the US history growing before 2020—but of “attaching shame and blame when lockdowns started last to the safety net.” Noting that spring, Penn went from 1,000 News Martin Luther King Jr. was telemedicine visits per month advocating for a guaranteed to 7,500 per day, to cite one income more than 50 years statistic from the piece. been said often that gram initiated in Stockton, ago, she told Dave, “This is not JoAnn spoke with Penn the pandemic has California, to distribute a new idea.” But it’s one whose Medicine physicians and re- exacerbated long- $500 monthly to selected time may be coming. Castro searchers and with alumni It’s standing inequities recipients for two years; re- Baker has “a lot of hope.” involved in the fi eld about in American society, wealth sults for the fi rst (pre-pan- As detailed in “The Vaccine the impact of that explosive inequality very much included. demic) year came out in Trenches,” by Matthew growth, the groundwork that While many in the US are March. They found that the De George, work toward the had been done previously, better off than they were a payments helped recipients new messenger RNA (mRNA) and what may lie ahead in a year ago (building up savings meet expenses and improve vaccines against COVID-19— post-pandemic era—includ- as they worked remotely their overall quality of life— now injecting hope into mil- ing issues of access and eq- while having fewer opportu- and did not, as is often lions of arms daily—goes uity. If those can be resolved, nities to spend), the economic claimed by opponents, create back nearly that long. While the technology could im- burden—in terms both of lost a disincentive to work. the Pfi zer/BioNTech and prove healthcare in rural and employment and having to Moderna vaccines were ap- other underserved areas and stay on the job in unsafe proved for emergency use in lessen time commitment and conditions—has fallen on Guaranteed record time, before that sprint other costs of doctor visits. lower-income households. income the race was more like an Also in this issue, in “Writing Among the policy responses ironman triathlon. Lives,” we highlight recently gaining traction even before payments The article recounts how published memoirs by four the novel coronavirus emerged Katalin Kariko fi rst became alumni writers—all very dif- was the idea of a universal do make a convinced of mRNA’s potential ferent, and well worth seeking basic income (UBI)—which as a young researcher and out. (For this, I was delighted Andrew Yang made a center- significant, eventually found a like-minded to write about Nick Lyons piece of his presidential cam- positive collaborator in Penn colleague W’53, whose relationship paign, for example—and the Drew Weissman. Amid many with the magazine goes back related, but more targeted, difference. setbacks, their work together even before my time here!) concept of a guaranteed in- led to the key breakthroughs Finally, “Gazetteer” opens come. In this issue’s cover While apparently this is the that paved the way for today’s with details on Penn’s sched- story, “Fighting Poverty with fi rst income experiment to be vaccines. But that achievement uled in-person Commencement Cash,” associate editor Dave tried in decades, more pilot may have only scratched the ceremony and planned full Zeitlin C’03 reports on new studies are on the way.