Thank you to our alumni community for their generosity! We were able to raise over $6000 for donation matching, doubling the impact of those who contributed to organizations fighting police brutality, systemic racism, and injustice. Our money will be going to 25 organizations across the nation and in the Philadelphia area. Local organizations include Black Lives Matter Philly, the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative, Project HOME, Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project, Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project, and Juntos.
Silence is complicity. The members of Friars Senior Society stand with those fighting to end police brutality and systemic racism. Thanks to the generosity of our alumni community, we will be matching donations to our maximum financial ability. Submit your receipts here: forms.gle/ntVykPcCaHG1t1QR6 We also recognize there is a lot of work to be done within our communities and ourselves, whether or not you have the means to donate. This requires active and constant reflection on the biases and assumptions that we and our communities have grown up with. We urge everyone to take the time to educate themselves and those around them (see link in second picture).
With love and solidarity,
Friars Classes of 2020 and 2021
In case you missed the news...bears repeating. Congrats Brandon Copeland. Not surprised at all.
After summer Friar events in NYC, Philly, L.A., San Fran and DC, Boston Friars get ready for a fun gathering Sept. 26th!
Friar Power hits the Thouron Award! We proudly have not one, but TWO of the 9 Penn Thouron Awards going to very accomplished 2019 Penn Friars! Congratulations to Ryan Leone who is now in England starting his masters in War & Psychiatry at King's College in London....and to Nick Joyner who is getting a masters in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London! Way to go or Cheerio to Friar Thouron Scholars for 2019!!!
Dear Friar Friends -- as you may know, our Friars community experienced a great loss last month, with the passing of our dear friend and Friar Sharree R. Walls.
Sharree was known by her warm, bright smile, her infectious laugh, and her incredible intellect and passion. All of these characteristics were apparent through Sharree’s leadership in every community she was a part of (at Penn and beyond), her compassion as a friend and confidante, and her unbelievable love for her family.
Sharree had an immense impact at Penn – both in the breadth of the groups she touched, as well as in the depth of personal connections she made.
Please join some Penn community members in person on Penn’s Campus for a celebration of Sharree on Saturday, April 27 from 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM in the Fireside Lounge of The ARCH (located at 3601 Locust Walk). Please note that this event is taking place during the Penn Relays weekend.
If you plan on attending, please email Kirby Dixon at kdixon215@gmail.com for headcount purposes.
If you have pictures with Sharree you'd like to share at this event, or if you'd like to find a way to contribute through donations to honor Sharree's presence and legacy on campus, please directly message me (Ari Cohen) for more information.
Warmly xx
Congratulations to Friar Brendan Taliaferro, who is the recipient of a 2019 President's Engagement Prize!
Class of 2019 President’s Engagement and Innovation Prize winners announced at Penn | Penn Today
penntoday.upenn.edu
The President’s Engagement Prize and President’s Innovation Prize empower Penn students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world.Better late than never! On March 28th, the 2019 Friars attended their annual lunch at President Gutmann's house. Here's the whole squad doing the #friarflash on her grand staircase!
Two of this year's eight Thouron Award winners are Friars! Congratulations to Ryan Leone and Nick Joyner, both of whom will be using the scholarship to get master's degrees in London next year!
Penn announces eight 2019 Thouron Award winners | Penn Today
penntoday.upenn.edu
Seven University of Pennsylvania seniors and a 2018 graduate have each won a Thouron Award to pursue graduate studies in the United Kingdom.And how could we forget Calvary Rogers? Cal competed at the Ivy Heps this past Sunday, breaking the meet record and becoming the only sprinter in league history to win three consecutive 200m indoor titles!
Nora Magid Mentorship Prize Awarded to Rebecca Tan ‘19The 16th annual Nora Magid Mentorship Prize has been awarded to Rebecca Tan.
A Penn senior, majoring in English/Creative Writing with minors in History and Fine Arts, Tan is currently a freelance reporter for the Washington Post, and a reporter at the Daily Pennsylvanian. Beginning in June, she will be a reporter/intern for the Washington Post metro desk.
Tan is the first international student to win the Nora Prize, and is a native speaker of English and Mandarin Chinese . She grew up in Singapore, where her high school did not have a newspaper so she worked for the nation’s main newspaper, The Straits Times, as a lifestyle and arts reporter. But most of her journalistic training came at the Daily Pennsylvanian, where she started as a second-semester freshman as a general assignment reporter. She then worked as a beat reporter covering under-represented communities, exploring gender and diversity issues, and the challenges of First Generation Low Income (FGLI) students, and students with mental illness.
After the election of Donald Trump, she was the senior reporter of the enterprise team exploring Trump’s time at Penn (including the viral story Was Trump really a top student at Wharton? His classmates say not so much.)
She went on to become a senior news editor of the DP and then executive editor. She also oversaw a specialized investigative unit covering faculty sexual misconduct, mistreatment of students in the Athletic department, allegations of University negligence in association to student deaths, and violent crime on campus.
Tan was the DP reporter of the year in 2016, and that year also won a DP Donald Neiman Scholarship which paid for her to work that summer at Vox.com, where she covered international stories including the challenges of migrant workers from Southeast Asia in the Middle East. Under her leadership, the DP won Pacemaker Awards from the National Scholastic Press Association in 2017 and 2018.
In the summer of 2018, Tan worked as an intern at the Washington Post, assigned to the foreign desk. Among the forty stories she did that summer were explorations of the Ethiopian community in DC and the breakthrough of Iranian women finally being allowed to watch the World Cup in the same stadium as men. She has done freelance assignments for the Post since then, and the paper has already hired her as a paid intern on the Metro desk when she graduates. Her hope is to become a full reporter and one day to be sent abroad as a foreign correspondent—ideally to Southeast Asia to be closer to her family there.
Tan has the ambition and drive, as well as the pathos and humor that Nora Magid so admired in young nonfiction writers. She also has led and inspired large staffs of journalists already as an undergraduate, and once established will surely become an excellent mentor to the next generation of Penn graduates interested in nonfiction and media. Nora always adored journalists who cared about other people doing good work, as well doing as their own.
Tan was recommended to the Nora Magid Prize committee by Dick Polman, the WHYY national political columnist and “Writer in Residence” in Penn’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing.
The other finalists for the Nora Prize this year were Sharon Christner, Naomi Elegant (both nominated by Buzz Bissinger), Sabrina Qiao (nominated by Paul Hendrickson) and Cole Jacobsen(nominated by Jamie-Lee Josselyn.)
About the prize: THE NORA MAGID MENTORSHIP PRIZE is given each year to a senior at the University of Pennsylvania who shows exceptional ability and promise in writing/reporting/editing, and who would benefit most from combined mentorship of Nora's network of former students and their colleagues in traditional and new media. The prize is $3000 to be used however the student chooses for their professional development—including being used as a stipend for post-grad internships that require one. The winner also receives unparalleled access to a constantly growing network of Penn alumni—including Nora's former students and over a decade of Nora Prize-winners—as well as their extensive web of colleagues who can assist in the student’s career. The prize is open to all seniors at Penn, although preference is given to those who expect to attempt to make careers in some form of media.
The Nora Prize is given in partnership with the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Kelly Writers House.
writing.upenn.edu/awards/nora_prize.php
Where our winners are now:
Dani Blum, 2018: assistant editor, Forbes; former editorial fellow, Pitchfork
Jacob Gardenswartz, 2018: anchor producer, MSNBC, for “The Beat with Ari Melber”; former policy intern, Vox.com, assistant news and polling analyst, NBC News
Luis Ferre-Sadurni, 2017: reporter, New York Times, former James Reston Reporting Fellow, New York Times, intern at Philadelphia Inquirer, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Jill Castellano, 2016: investigative data reporter, INEWSOURCE, former investigations editor, Palm Springs Desert Sun, Dow Jones data journalism fellow at Salt Lake Tribune, intern at Philadelphia Inquirer, Forbes and New York Daily News
Sarah Smith, 2015: investigative reporter, Houston Chronicle, former reporter, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, reporting fellow, ProPublica; fellow at National Journal/Atlantic, intern at POLITICO, Philadelphia Inquirer
Seth Zweifler, 2014: assistant to the president and chief of staff, University of Pennsylvania; former reporting fellow POLITICO, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chronicle of Higher Education
Joe Pinsker, 2013: staff writer, The Atlantic, former assistant editor, atlantic.com, editorial fellow at The Atlantic
Jessica Goodman, 2012: Senior Editor, Cosmopolitan, former entertainment editor, Entertainment Weekly, former entertainment editor, Huffington Post, 2013 grad Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, former intern, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone
Matt Flegenheimer, 2011: national political reporter, New York Times, former Times metro and transportation reporter, former James Reston Reporting Fellow New York Times, intern, Philadelphia Inquirer
Jamie France, 2010: former executive assistant to NBC's President of Entertainment and Digital Networks/Integrated Media, executive assistant to Today Show executive producer, intern at The New Yorker
Gabe Oppenheim, 2009: screenwriter, author, freelance writer; former intern at Washington Post, Esquire
Jessica Sidman, 2008: food editor, Washingtonian Magazine, former food editor, Washington City Paper, reporter at Bisnow Media, intern at Washingtonian and Dallas Morning News
Jason Schwartz, 2007; senior editor for investigations and enterprise, Sports Illustrated, former media reporter, POLITCO, senior editor, ESPN magazine, senior staff writer, Boston Magazine
Melody Joy Kramer, 2006: leads audience growth and development, Wikimedia, columnist, Poynter Institute, former digital strategy adviser, 18F, Visiting Nieman Fellow, Harvard University, associate editor/digital strategy, NPR, associate producer, "Fresh Air", producer at "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me," Kroc Fellow at NPR
Ashley Parker, 2005: White House reporter, Washington Post, former Washington political reporter, New York Times, assistant to columnist Maureen Dowd
Rebecca Klein, 2004: freelancer Everyday with Rachel Ray and young adult librarian, Somerset County library; former associate editor, Quick & Simple
Dan Kaplan, 2004: market designer and host, Moonshot, former product marking consultant for Twilio, Asana and Salesforce
Please join the Nora Prize FB Group
The Nora Magid Mentorship Prize Scholarship Advisory Committee is:
Stephen Fried, author, adjunct professor, Columbia School of Journalism, lecturer, University of Pennsylvania, 215-592-1662, stephenfried@comcast.net; Eliot Kaplan, career coach, former vice president, talent acquisition, Hearst Magazines, editor Philadelphia Magazine, managing editor GQ ejaykaplan@gmail.com Miriam Arond, brand strategy consultant, director of communications, WJCS, former director Good Housekeeping Institute; Barri Bernstein, executive director, Tennessee Bar Foundation; David Borgenicht, owner and CEO, Quirk Books, author; Sandee Brawarsky, author, book columnist, The Jewish Week; Jean Chatzky, author, cofounder HerMoney.com and host of HerMoney podcast, Today Show financial correspondent, AARP magazine columnist; Lisa DePaulo, freelance writer, former contributing writer GQ, Elle, New York Magazine, George; Stefan Fatsis, author, sports commentator, Slate, NPR; Loren Feldman, chief content officer, Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs, former senior editor, entrepreneurship, Forbes; Lisa Green, author, managing director, Sard Verbinnen & Co, NBC News legal analyst; Randall Lane, editor-in-chief , Forbes magazine, author; John Prendergast, editor-in-chief, Pennsylvania Gazette; Joel Siegel, managing editor, NY1 News; and former winners Melody Joy Kramer and Jessica Goodman
To make a tax-deductible donation to the prize fund, go to www.philafound.org, click on "give now," choose to donate to a "specific fund" and type in "Nora Magid Mentorship Prize"
It's been a big week for Friars! Congratulations to Reeham S. Sedky for receiving the 2019 Betty Richey Award from the College Squash Association, the most prestigious honor for a women's college squash player!
Ya think Friars are all just relaxing and taking it easy this summer after another year of crushing it at Penn?
Think again! Check out what Friars Class of 2019’s Ryan Leone is up to this summer in this featured article from Penn News Today.
Serving those who serve | Penn Today
upenn.us5.list-manage.com
In preparation for a career as a physician with the Military Health System, Ryan Leone is spending his summer in Falls Church, Va., interning with the Defense Health Agency.The class of 2018 Friars are officially Penn alumni!! This amazing class is onto new adventures! #2018fhmf 🍟❤️💙
Look at those Friars rep! Congrats to Kayvon Asemani, Lo-Lo Lomax, Allie Rubin, and Nick Silverio for their Ivy Day Awards and to all of the rest of our graduating Friars!
2018 Ivy Day ceremony | Penn Today
penntoday.upenn.edu
In a 145-year old tradition, 28 seniors were honored, as well as one junior, a sophomore, and two class of 2017 alumni.Congratulations to Penn Women’s Track and our own Taylor McCorkle!!They Did It Again!
Women’s Penn Track & Field and Cross Country Are Outdoor Ivy Champions!
They Complete The Indoor/Outdoor Double!
Another week, another Friars EOTW!
The 34th Street Magazine superstar herself is getting some well deserved recognition! Check out this interview with Class of 2018's Scribe Orly Greenberg!
Ego Of The Week: Orly Greenberg
www.34st.com
Street's last boss woman comes back to chat about what she's learned, how she's changed, and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody."Once pinned by the Friars, forever truly Penn."
We were absolutely honored to welcome University President Amy Gutmann and former Vice President and Benjamin Franklin Professor of Practice at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, Joe Biden, as honorary members of the Friars Class of 2018.
Please help us welcome the Class of 2019 Spring Friars class!!
Mark Andrew - 2-year Captain, All-American; Penn Swimming and Diving
Julius Barriteau - 2-year President; Penny Loafers
Allysha Davis - Wharton Chair; Class Board 2019 & PennTrackXC
Tommy Dennis - Penn Football
Erin Farrell -Editor-in-Chief; HerCampus & Penn Democrats
Audrey Goldberg - 2-year Head; Wharton Women Allies
Josh Kahn - President; Off The Beat
Rob Irvin - Vice President; St. Anthony Hall & Nexo Productions
Nick Joyner - Editor-in-Chief; 34th Street Magazine
Becca Lambright - Band Director; Bloomers
Ryan Leone -President; Wharton Neuroscience Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania & Kite & Key
Chirag Manyapu - Business Manager; Penn Dhamaka
Katie Marshall - Assistant Director; Bloomers
Shiv Nadkarni - Musical Director; Penn Counterparts
Cami Nwokedi - 2-year Captain; Penn Women's Soccer
Sam Philippi - Penn Football
Haley Pisciotta - Chair; DAC & Chair; Arts House Dance Company
Arantza Rodriguez - Chair; Strictly Funk
Calvary Rogers - Co-Chair; UMOJA & Record Holder; PennTrackXC
Max Rothschild - 2-year Captain; Penn Basketball
Jessy Sandoval - Director; Jazz & Grooves
Reeham Sedky - 3x All-American, National Champion; Penn Squash
Matt Simon - President; Penn International Affairs Association
William Snow - Senior Sports Editor; The Daily Pennsylvanian
Antía Vásquez - President; Wharton Latino
Check out the website in a few weeks for more information about this incredible class!
Way to go Penn Track & Field and Cross Country & one of their fearless leaders Taylor McCorkle!! They've surely got a great rest of the season ahead!
Women's Track and Field Ranked First in Mid-Atlantic Region - University of Pennsylvania
www.pennathletics.com
PHILADELPHIA - Following a fiery start to the season, the University of Pennsylvania women's track and field team has rocketed up to No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region in the first regional rankings of ...HUGE congratulations are in order for our very own Kayvon Asemani!! Kayvon was selected as one of Forbes’ 2018 Most Outstanding Business School Graduates!
The Most Outstanding Business School Grads Of 2018
www.forbes.com
Best & brightest business majors to graduate this year"Our team is better for Matt MacDonald, and, as he moves on with his life after graduation, the world will be better for Matt MacDonald."
Covering everything from our favorite experiences at Penn to her experience meeting Bradley Cooper, we had a lovely time at our lunch today with President Gutmann!
#IvyMadnesss has ended, and for the first time since 2007, Penn Men's Basketball has earned a spot in the NCAA tournament!! Congratulations to the whole team and especially Captain (and Friar!) Matt MacDonald on this incredible achievement!
The Quakers will take on #1 Kansas this Thursday in Wichita, be sure to tune in!
GONE DANCING! Men's Basketball Downs Harvard for Ivy Tournament Title - University of Pennsylvania
www.pennathletics.com
When the #IvyMadness dust settled, there was only one team remaining. And for the first time since 2007, the second-seeded University of Pennsylvania (24-8, 12-2 Ivy) men's basketball team secured a s...