A resource center dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Pennsylvania with a particular focus on those of African descent. Services include advocacy, counseling, information & referral, workshops and informational sessions, and many advertised events throughout the year. Contained with the African-American Resource Center are:
- Men of Color at Penn – The purpose of the monthly meetings is to provide men support in relationship to surviving and thriving at the University of Pennsylvania as staff, faculty, and students. Men of Color at Penn also discuss methods/strategies of dealing with racism, social-emotional indignities and best practices of addressing abuses of power within the university and community at large.
- Women of Color at Penn - A community of remarkable volunteers who come together to celebrate and promote causes that impact women. Whether by lecture series, current research, health and finance leadership, the Queen’s Tea, or daylong celebrations and conferences, the WOCAP group has supported womankind for 33 years.
The BAS "Honoring Legends" Fund supports several key campus-based institutions/initiatives which positively impact the ongoing presence and experience of African-American students, faculty, administrators, and staff at the University. The fund supports each of the following: institutions/initiatives: W.E.B. Du Bois College House, MAKUU Black Cultural Center, African American Resource Center, Center for Africana Studies.
The University of Pennsylvania Asian Alumni Network United Future Fund will support UPAAN's mission through supporting the academic and career development of Asian and Pacific Islander students.
Arts & Sciences | Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration
Socially conscious scholarship responds to vital questions about contemporary life. At Penn Arts & Sciences, the Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Immigration (CSERI) addresses one of the most pressing concerns worldwide: the intersection of narratives surrounding ethnicity, race, and immigration. CSERI, the first center of its kind to address this intersection, supports collaboration and the formation of research networks at Penn and beyond— both nationally and internationally—and positions Penn as a leader in the progressive study of immigration and race.
Contact: Deb Rhebergen, Associate Vice Dean for Advancement, at
drheberg@sas.upenn.edu.
The Center for Africana Studies at Penn Arts & Sciences takes a multidisciplinary approach to studying race and the history, arts, cultures, and contemporary lives of people in Africa and of African descent around the world. Faculty and staff come together with students, activists, scholars, political leaders, writers, and artists to engage the University and surrounding communities in debate, discussion, learning, and understanding of the complex perspectives and experiences that affect people of African ancestry, wherever they are found.
Arts & Sciences | Center for Africana Studies Summer Precollege Institute
The Summer Institute is a vital opportunity for incoming students to become acquainted with academic life at Penn generally, as well as with the intellectual resources of Africana studies. The mentoring relationships forged during the Institute endure throughout the students’ Penn careers, creating a collegial, supportive community. Seventy to 80 students enroll each summer and earn half of an academic credit for their participation.
Contact Deb Rhebergen, Associate Vice Dean for Advancement, at
drheberg@sas.upenn.edu.
Arts & Sciences | Making a Difference in Diverse Communities
The Making a Difference in Diverse Communities initiative encourages faculty to work with students, explore innovative ways of applying their expertise, and address broad societal challenges. Making a Difference draws on the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to improve our understanding of the causes, character, and consequences of diversity and inequality in a global context. These projects use coursework, research, and service to address inequities in areas as wide-ranging as education, gender, socioeconomic mobility, health care, and political representation, as well as the grand challenges of climate change, migration, and immigration.
Contact Deb Rhebergen, Associate Vice Dean for Advancement, at
drheberg@sas.upenn.edu.
Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Penn is comprised of two separate but related entities—the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women, and the Penn Program on Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies—each with distinct but complementary projects. The Center and Program encompass faculty from more than 20 departments and schools at Penn, and provide vital opportunities and resources for research, learning, and practice in the areas of gender and sexuality.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated local and global inequalities and environmental injustices. Now more than ever, PPEH is dedicated to co-laboring with and in environmental justice communities. Initiatives like the covidXclimate work offer but one example, building on PPEH's ongoing experiments to make work Between Critique and Action, featured in the cover story in the current issue of OMNIA, the magazine for Penn Arts & Sciences, and in the accompanying 7-minute documentary video.
Arts & Sciences | The Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative
The Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, aims to deepen understanding of the intersection of social, health, and environmental inequalities in the built environment, with an eye to public engagement and informing policy. By focusing on questions of both carbon and well-being, they use big data to link social inequalities with the causes and effects of climate change in a single framework. (SC)2’s first research project is Whole Community Climate Mapping, a collective, interdisciplinary project to create, analyze, and share with the public a household carbon footprint database and climate vulnerability index for the United States of unprecedented spatial resolution, along with a wide range of other social, health, and environmental indicators—all at the neighborhood level.
Contact Deb Rhebergen, Associate Vice Dean for Advancement, at
drheberg@sas.upenn.edu.
Kelly Writer’s House
The Writers House hosts on-site creative writing projects, organizes book drives, and works hard to connect with Philadelphia communities through writing. Current projects include transcribez, a monthly creative writing group for trans and gender non-conforming youth (ages 14–22), which is facilitated by trans and gender non-conforming writers from Philadelphia and beyond. Contact Andrew Beal, Writer’s House Associate Director of Development and Finance, at
abeal@writing.upenn.edu.
Support the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and underrepresented communities at Penn Engineering. Dr. Laura Stubbs, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, was inspired by the Penn Engineering Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s Founder, Cora Ingrum, to continue the important work of supporting diversity in STEM education — helping to establish the Cora Ingrum Fund in 2003. Dr. Stubbs has chosen to build on the remarkable foundation of her predecessor and mentor and ensure Penn’s multicultural programs remain strong long into the future.”
Penn Engineering Office of Diversity & Inclusion
Annual gifts to this area primarily support The Toll Public Interest Center (TPIC) which is the hub of public service at the Law School. TPIC oversees the Law School’s pro bono program, facilitating a wide array of pro bono and public service opportunities that focus on impactful service, personal enrichment, and professional skill development. In addition to administering the70-hour pro bono graduation requirement, TPIC is home to all of the Law School’s public interest programming, and educates students about the many ways to be a public interest lawyer by connecting students to practitioners, including alumni, at public interest organizations around the country. The Center has developed a national network of public interest organizations that ask for Penn Law students to provide pro bono legal services. It also supports more than 20 student-led pro bono projects with a wide range of services, from providing public benefits advice for indigent clients to teaching legal rights to high school children. Online giving link:
The Fund for Penn Law - Public Interest
This area of the Fund supports students in Penn Law’s Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies where they learn valuable practical legal skills that put theory into practice, allowing them to serve a broad client base in need of representation. These tangible experiences for students have real outcomes for clients. As an example, the Criminal Defense Clinic, in partnership with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, combines hands on trial experience with an educational seminar component tailored to developing litigation skills. Students are assigned to represent defendants in different cases, under close supervision. Students are given the opportunity to interact with their clients, members of the judiciary, District Attorneys, witnesses and complainants. In addition, students also attend periodic seminar sessions to discuss selected facets of defense work, lawyering skills and the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. They also thoughtfully examine the relationship between race, poverty and the criminal justice system. Online giving link:
The Fund for Penn Law - Clinical & Experiential Learning
The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is a nonpartisan, national research and policy hub producing and disseminating research designed to prevent errors in the criminal justice system. The Quattrone Center takes an interdisciplinary, data-driven approach to identifying and analyzing the most crucial problems in the justice system and proposing solutions that improve its fairness for the benefit of society. Its research and programs are independent and unbiased, engaging all parties required to effect substantial change for the better — academia, the judiciary, law enforcement, defense and prosecution, legislators, forensic and social scientists, victims’ rights advocates, the media, and others. Its findings offer recommendations on the best ways to address systematic issues that lead to criminal justice errors on a wide- range of subjects, from stop-and frisk to racial disparities in sentencing. Online giving link:
The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice
The Penn Libraries Social Equity and Community Fund supports collection acquisition, digital projects, partnerships, fellowships, and programming against racism. This fund would make possible initiatives like open educational resources for students and communities of color, stewardship of audiovisual and oral histories of Black Philadelphia, and digital scholarship grants focusing on racial injustice in Philadelphia.
The Office of Inclusion and Diversity at Penn Medicine strengthens the quality of education and produces innovative research and models of health care delivery by fostering a vibrant and inclusive environment and fully embracing diversity. The Office supports both the Perelman School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Health System through diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, including recruiting outstanding talent; retaining a diverse community of faculty, staff, and students; and reaffirming the benefits of inclusion.
This fund supports the Penn Access Summer Scholars (PASS) Program in the Program for Diversity and Inclusion at the Perelman School of Medicine. Designed for students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, PASS provides two summers of research for students enrolled at Haverford College, Princeton University, or the University of Pennsylvania, with the goal of helping students matriculate into medical school. Contact Kobie Smith, Senior Director of Development,
kobies@upenn.edu.
Nursing | The Penn Nursing Diversity & Inclusion Fund
The Penn Nursing Diversity & Inclusion Fund is a general operations fund for diversity, inclusion and equity efforts at Nursing. These include, but are not limited to student support e.g. living stipends, as well as lectures, community engagement activities, faculty and staff trainings, and more. Contact Nadina Deigh at
deighn@nursing.upenn.edu.
The Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships is Penn’s primary vehicle for bringing to bear the broad range of human knowledge needed to solve the complex, comprehensive, and interconnected problems of the American city so that West Philadelphia (Penn’s local geographic community), Philadelphia, the University itself, and society benefit.
Serves as a hub for civic dialogue in undergraduate education at Penn. In collaboration with other Penn programs and organizations, SNF Paideia provides opportunities for students to develop the knowledge, skills, ethical frameworks, and experiences necessary to be informed, engaged, and effective community members and leaders
The Center for Carceral Communities at the School of Social Policy & Practice works collaboratively with neighborhoods in West Philadelphia to help people with a history of incarceration re-engage with the community. The Center provides free, evidence-based psychosocial services that address the mental health, educational, housing, advocacy and primary care challenges confronting those returning to the community. The Center seeks to reverse the community-to-prison pipeline by helping participants harness their strengths and become leaders in the community. Contact: Bart Miltenberger, SP2 Institutional Advancement Associate Director – miltenbe@upenn.edu
Housed at the School of Social Policy & Practice, the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice and Research brings together the resources of the multiple Penn schools and CHOP to enhance and assure the well-being of abused and neglected children and those at risk of maltreatment. By moving beyond traditional approaches, the Field Center utilizes an interdisciplinary model to integrate clinical care, research and education, inform local and national policy, and prepare the nation’s future leaders, for the benefit of children and their families. Contact: Hannah Rawdin, Field Center Director of Development – hrawdin@upenn.edu
Specifically the projects: XX Factor – Women and Girls; and Community-Based Approaches to Health
The Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP) is a trusted source of knowledge and education to help donors around the world do more good. Founded in 2006 as a collaboration between the School of Social Policy & Practice and alumni of the Wharton School, CHIP is the premier university-based center focused on philanthropy for social impact. CHIP’s multidisciplinary team’s work is characterized by a focus on social impact, an approach that leverages the best available information, and a commitment to making our guidance available and actionable for a wide-range of impact-focused funders. Bart Miltenberger, SP2 Institutional Advancement Associate Director – miltenbe@upenn.edu
Founded in 2000 to center the experience, concerns, and possibilities of students of the African Diaspora, Makuu: The Black Cultural Center is affectionately regarded as "home". Makuu's staff work daily to provide academic, cultural, and social support to students and groups, connecting them to additional resources and opportunities.
Penn Civic Scholars is a unique program providing undergraduates with a sustained four-year experience in civic engagement and scholarship. The program culminates in certification upon graduation and designation as a Civic Scholar on the student's transcript.
La Casa Latina promotes greater awareness of Latinx issues, culture, and identity at Penn. La Casa Latina works closely with the Penn community to offer a supportive environment where all students are welcomed and engaged in programs, events, and dialogues that address important issues affecting Latinxs/Hispanics locally, nationally, and internationally.
PAACH is a community center that develops and implements innovative programs for leadership development and community service in close collaboration with Asian American student and community groups.
The Albert M. Greenfield Intercultural Center is Penn's resource for enhancing student's intercultural knowledge, competency, and leadership through our programs, advising, and advocacy.
The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center's mission is to enrich the experiences and foster the success of Penn's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. The Center assists faculty, staff, and alumni, particularly in their efforts to serve students. The Center increases the Penn community's general awareness, understanding, and acceptance of its sexual and gender minority members.
For over 40 years, the center has been active in promoting the rights of women on campus and beyond. We strive to include voices of gender, sexual, and racial minorities, acknowledging that feminism has historically been white and cis-centered.