PARTNERS PROGRESS & Fall/Winter 2016 IMPACT INVESTING DONORS MAKING A DIFFERENCE PARTNERS& PROGRESS Lisa Godfrey TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Find Your Penn Passion 3 Profile: Board of Overseers Chair Andrea Mitchell, CW’67 Find Your Penn Passion 4 Gift Ensures an Expansive Future for Engagement with Recently a 2001 College alumnus told exponentially in just one year. She recently the Humanities me he was grateful that as a student wrote me, “We have a lot of young, he’d been able to sample a wide array talented, and diverse new blood coming 6 Penn Arts and Sciences of subjects until he discovered those he into PWA. I have made this a personal Becoming a Powerhouse in Confronting Climate Change wanted to pursue. I hear similar stories all mission, and it’s so exciting.” the time. With 59 undergraduate majors and four dual-degree programs, Penn Or take , 8 Engaging Alumni Richard Axilrod, WG’85 Arts and Sciences offers something for who volunteers at Waterside School, everyone. These opportunities don’t end a K–5 school in Stamford, Conn., for 10 Ensuring Others Have a Penn Undergraduate Experience with graduation. No matter what you underprivileged students because he care about in this world—environmental believes that education is the key to 11 Why Wait? College Grad issues, poetry, mentoring—Penn Arts and both individual and community success. Challenges Alumni to Give Now Sciences has a way for you to explore and Richard endowed two undergraduate support that passion. scholarships at Penn as another way of making a good education accessible, For example, Michael Price, W’79, quickly “one student at a time.” And he PENN ARTS AND SCIENCES OFFICE OF ADVANCEMENT realized the potential democratization of designated the scholarships for College 3600 MARKET STREET, SUITE 300 learning offered by the digital humanities students because he also believes in an PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-3284 when he was listening to a faculty undergraduate education in the liberal 215-898-5262 presentation. Not only did he and his wife arts. He says meeting the students he has Vikki Price make a gift to establish the helped has been inspirational. Price Lab for the Digital Humanities, but Michael continues to meet with and talk Our alumni and friends give their time Jean-Marie Kneeley, Vice Dean to the faculty and staff responsible for the and money to the school to support what Susan Ahlborn, Editor/Writer development of the lab. They have heard they are passionate about. I’m delighted directly from him that his goal is to allow to thank the men and women who have the worldwide humanities community new found a way to connect their passion to possibilities for access and research. the School’s mission over the past year. You will see them listed in the 2015–2016 Jamie Handwerker, C’83, PAR’19, is Donor Honor Roll, sent along with this the chair of the Penn Arts and Sciences magazine. These Penn partnerships have Professional Women’s Alliance (PWA), a special alchemy that benefits them, the a group we developed to bring together school, and ultimately the world. alumnae who are leaders in their fields and strong advocates of a liberal arts Thank you for working with us to make education. These women come together a difference. to network, mentor young alumnae and undergraduate students, and have some Yours in partnership, fun as well. Thanks to Jamie’s enthusiastic Jean-Marie Kneeley leadership, the group has grown Vice Dean for Advancement 2 PARTNERS& PROGRESS Profile: Board of Overseers Chair Andrea Mitchell, CW’67 Timothy Greenfield–Sanders Her own something unexpected happened and carried out their visions to keep the day she heard classical music while the School at the forefront of liberal arts on her way to a meeting in Houston education in the country and the world.” Hall, and went to find out more. She discovered Penn’s radio station, WXPN, She has served as a University of which was then run by students. “I had Pennsylvania Trustee since 1992 and is always thought of myself as a writer,” currently the vice chair. She was also Mitchell says. “I had never thought about a co-chair of the steering committee broadcasting, but that’s how it all started.” for Making History, the transformative campaign that raised $4.3 billion for the She became the first female program University. director at WXPN. After graduating with a degree in English Literature, she began Mitchell’s own giving is inspired by the her professional broadcasting career in School’s mission and by her lifelong Philadelphia at KYW Newsradio covering passions. She and husband Alan local and national politics. Greenspan, HON’98, have endowed two Andrea Mitchell, CW’67 Penn Integrates Knowledge professorships. Since 1978, Mitchell has been a network The first is held by Robert Ghrist, one of the As a freshman, Andrea Mitchell’s future correspondent for NBC News. Based in world’s leading applied mathematicians, was changed by a side trip down a Penn Washington, D.C., her assignments have in an appointment shared between Penn hallway. The 1967 College for Women included White House Correspondent Arts and Sciences and Penn Engineering. graduate has been following leads—and during the Reagan and Clinton Beth Simmons, a world-renowned making a difference at Penn Arts and administrations, Chief Congressional authority on international relations and Sciences—ever since. Correspondent, and, since 1994, Chief human rights, is the second Andrea Foreign Affairs Correspondent. She reports Mitchell University Professor, with joint Mitchell, who today is the Chief Foreign on evolving political, foreign policy, and faculty appointments in Penn Arts and Affairs Correspondent for NBC and national security issues in the U.S. and Sciences and the Law School. Mitchell chair of the Penn Arts and Sciences abroad, and presidential campaigns, also supports the Kelly Writers House and Board of Overseers, grew up in a home most recently as the lead NBC News The Music Department Performance Fund. overflowing with political discussions Correspondent covering Hillary Clinton’s and music. She almost went to Julliard or campaign for the White House. Mitchell This long history drew her back in January another music school, but decided she hosts a daily program on MSNBC, Andrea to serve as the chair of the School’s wanted a broader viewpoint. Mitchell Reports, and published her Board of Overseers. “I feel like it took memoir, “Talking Back,” in 2006. time to understand why Penn Arts and “When I chose Penn—or Penn chose Sciences is so important,” says Mitchell. me—it was a big decision for me,” she Mitchell stayed engaged with Penn Arts “My involvement over more than two says. “But I wanted to get a liberal arts and Sciences as an alumna, and in 1989 decades, along with the way my own education because it would open all of she was invited to join the School’s Board liberal arts education makes a difference the doors for me. I think you really need of Overseers. “This was before [Deans] in my life, has made me realize how those years to explore, to develop, to do Sam Preston, Rebecca Bushnell, and now special and unique the School is. It’s at something unusual, unexpected—and Steve Fluharty made Arts and Sciences the center of the University, and the core then, when you have a whole menu of what it is today,” she says. “I’ve been of everything I discovered here when I choices, decide where your heart leads.” able to participate as they each designed came in 1963.” 3 PARTNERS& PROGRESS GIFT ENSURES AN EXPANSIVE FUTURE FOR ENGAGEMENT WITH THE HUMANITIES The Penn Humanities Forum (PHF) is The vibrant public program of thematically linked lectures, enjoying wide new horizons thanks conferences, performances, exhibitions, and film series—which to a gift from Noelle and Dick Wolf, last year attracted more than 2,500 people to campus and venues C’69, PAR’15. The gift will endow and throughout Philadelphia—will expand as well. make permanent the PHF, enabling the The Wolf Humanities Center will pursue additional avenues for already renowned program to continue innovative humanistic inquiry and scholarship. “Our Humanities to bring the humanities into conversation At Large (HAL) program, which consists of collaborative events with a diverse and expanding array of disciplines and with people from Penn and the Philadelphia community. Courtesy of Dick Wolf “It is often said that the humanities are shrinking,” said James English, John Welsh Centennial Professor of English and PHF director. “But today, exactly the opposite is true: They are expanding, becoming ever more vital participants in many fields, from sustainability studies to the health sciences.” “We are delighted to support Penn’s thriving humanities center and help it extend its reach across disciplines and communities,” said Dick Wolf. In honor of this gift, the program will be renamed the Wolf Humanities Center. The endowment will provide a perpetual source of funding for the PHF, a major part of whose programming was previously supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This will bolster the distinguished fellowship program that has been a core endeavor of the PHF, drawing undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, Penn faculty, and regional faculty together to investigate an annual theme through their individual research and collaborative weekly seminars. Dick, C’69, PAR’15, and Noelle Wolf 4 PARTNERS& PROGRESS unrelated to our annual theme, enables us to put together some terrific events on fairly short notice when ideas and opportunities pop up during the year,” says English. “The HAL program has been a success since we launched it several years ago, but its funding has been very limited.” The endowment may also allow THE CONVERSATION for expanded programming in the performing arts, which he says CONTINUES….