People of Penn: Community-Member Spotlights
The Status Quo of Protesting the Status Quo
GEARing UP to Make a Difference
This article was written by guest contributor Blake Jones.
GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a federally funded program aiming to positively impact underserved middle school and high school students. Activities range from tutoring and mentoring to the facilitation of lessons and conversations about financial literacy and college readiness. I’m currently working as a GEAR UP Coach at Ben Franklin High School. This experience has honestly been life changing in some of the most unpredictable ways. I did not have any expectations of walking into the school like someone’s savior, just as a student trying to help others. There’s a certain level of authenticity within the students that one can never fail to appreciate, especially if you communicate that same level of genuineness.
The Aesthetics of Social Impact: Penn Beauty
Most people see the world of cosmetics and efforts to achieve social change as spheres that do not touch. However, Penn students, Via Lim and Chloe Minjoo Kim, prove that the two can thrive when combined. Founders of the newly created club called Penn Beauty, the two freshman have launched their organization with full force, focusing on cosmetics, nail art, hair styling, hygiene, and more.
So far, Lim and Kim have held their first information session and general body meeting, garnering over 20 members, a large amount of interest, and a passionate group of board applicants. After discussion and planning, they’ve organized several proposals for the year that are on par with their mission statement of using beauty as a means to social impact.
To explore the nuances of the Pen Beauty’s mission, I spoke with President, Via Lim, and Vice President, Chloe Minjoo Kim on their project.
Continue reading “The Aesthetics of Social Impact: Penn Beauty”
Shedding Some More Light on Daylight Savings
This past weekend, people were probably having a typical Sunday night: plowing through backlogs of procrastinated work, mourning the loss of yet another weekend and preparing themselves for another dreary Monday. As I was doing just this, I checked my phone for the time: one second it read 2:00 AM and the next it said 1:00 AM. After the initial heart attack and serious debate about whether I had lost my mind, I realized that daylight savings had ended. I thought “Oh, right, this is something we still do.”, and went on to try to remind myself why.
Continue reading “Shedding Some More Light on Daylight Savings”
Why Did Netflix Just Add a Woody Allen Film?
When the iconic red Netflix notification appeared on my phone – New Arrival: To Rome With Love – my memory faltered. I quickly googled the film’s director to confirm that yes, Netflix had just added a film created by a reported pedophile the same week that another male celebrity was, among many other men in Hollywood, accused of sexual assault.
On October 29, Buzzfeed first published allegations by actor Anthony Rapp accusing Kevin Spacey of sexual assault in 1986. In response, Netflix swiftly suspended production of House of Cards with the actor. Three days later, they added the 2012 film To Rome With Love, written and directed by Woody Allen.
Since sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein by many women were published earlier this Fall in the New York Times, Hollywood has reacted quickly against many of those now accused. Weinstein was voted out of the Academy; Louis CK’s film I Love You Daddy was pulled from its November release date; Kevin Spacey was recast in the upcoming film All the Money in the World. Yet Woody Allen has just added a movie to Netflix and is now shooting a new film with A-list stars including Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg, and Jude Law.
Why is action being more directly taken against today’s outed perpetrators while one outed two decades ago enjoys an increasingly successful career?
Continue reading “Why Did Netflix Just Add a Woody Allen Film?”
Spreading Religious Pluralism: Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)
Interfaith Youth Core is a Chicago-based non-profit organization dedicated to interfaith cooperation and religious pluralism.
In a time when the fundamental causes of today’s most pressing conflicts are rooted in misunderstanding and intolerance, the discussion of religious pluralism is needed now more than ever. Although less known to public, an interfaith cooperation movement has been gaining momentum. A former member of President Barack Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships, Eboo Patel, has been leading a national non-profit organization that stresses the importance of religious pluralism, an idea based on the coexistence and diversity of religious beliefs. His organization, the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), seeks to make the idea of religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation more accessible to college students and beyond.
Continue reading “Spreading Religious Pluralism: Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)”
Free Speech in the Age of Social Media
The age of social media is upon us. Everything from news to humor; from advertising to expression and art, is saturated with information and is a forum for an increasingly wide variety of debates and discussions. With the current chaotic sociopolitical climate in the world, people have found that the largest and most accessible way to inform and reach out to people is social media. And what better way to exercise your right to free speech than to use social media?
Rape Culture and Broadchurch: TV’s Warning Against Normalization
They needed girls.
It was such a natural statement, such a normal predicament. And easily solved.
It was the first night of NSO, and as my roommate and I stepped outside the quad, our night’s plans were quickly determined. Guys were sweeping the streets outside the dorms – “Are you bored? We need girls.” – picking up female students to add to their growing masses on the way to the frats. They couldn’t get in without us; it was all about the ratio.
I was intrigued, not by the fact that they needed more girls – what’s a party without heterosexual interaction and the prospect of hooking up? – but by the nonchalance of such a statement. The guys said it, the girls laughed, and the party began.
Continue reading “Rape Culture and Broadchurch: TV’s Warning Against Normalization”
Reflections from the Kakuma Refugee Camp
In spite of efforts to reduce refugees to numbers and statistics, rhetoric that turns refugees into “security threats”, and labels that homogenize, generalize, and foreground their suffering, the refugees I interacted with in Kakuma and Kalobeyei defy many outsiders’ perceptions and expectations.