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View from Campus
Follow the leaders
In January, Penn GSE welcomed back close to 100 alumni from the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management program for the 20th annual Higher Education Leadership Conference. The theme of this year’s three-day event was “The Leadership Moment,” with panels and keynotes addressing significant issues in the field, from the “enrollment cliff” to school mergers and acquisitions to speech freedom. One panel, on the emerging leadership challenge at HBCUs, featured (from left) former Rust College President Ivy Taylor, GRD’20, UNCF’s Edward Smith-Lewis, GRD’25, Mercer Community College Professor Andrea Lynch, GRD’20, and President Emeritus of Huston-Tillotson University Colette Pierce Burnette, GRD’15 (not pictured). For more: penng.se/helc25
DeBalko Photography
Showing their work
The day before Commencement, the Office of Student Success hosted its second annual Student Showcase, highlighting the capstone work of more than 30 Penn GSE master’s students. The impending graduates shared posters and presentations—on topics ranging from education policy in Nigeria to the bilingual reception of Taylor Swift lyrics—with their peers, faculty, staff, and other attendees, demonstrating the depth, rigor, and real-world impact of their student inquiry. See more: penng.se/showcase25
Krista Patton Photography
Ready for the future
On May 17, in the Palestra, Penn GSE welcomed nearly 700 graduates into its alumni community at this year’s Commencement ceremony. Invited speaker Angela Duckworth, Penn’s Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor and a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, not only spoke about her own favorite teacher, Mr. Carr, but wondered about the future of teaching in the age of generative AI. She urged the graduates to help students use these new tools to catalyze, not cannibalize, deeper thinking. “I don’t want you to be techno-skeptics or even techno-idealists,” she said. “I want you to be techno-curious. And AI-literate. And to bring your students along with you.” For a full gallery from Commencement: penng.se/commencementpics25
Krista Patton Photography
Dialogue in Difficult Times
This year’s Alumni Weekend programming included a timely and engaging panel, “Discourse and Democracy: The Classroom as a Catalyst for Bridging Differences,” during which (from left) Dean Katharine Strunk, MRMJJ Presidential Professor Sigal Ben-Porath, and Associate Professor Abby Reisman discussed how educators can facilitate open and constructive classroom conversations during polarizing times. “Cultivating the capacity and the dispositions that are the foundation for a good and productive dialogue, for me, is really the linchpin of the connection between democracy and knowledge,” said Ben-Porath. Enjoy photos from Alumni Weekend: penng.se/alumni25
HKB Photo
