Taking Your Feedback to Heart

I want to start by thanking the more than 600 of you who responded to our reader survey from the Fall/Winter 2023 issue, providing us with your opinions about Omnia and thoughts for our future coverage. We’ve taken the feedback to heart, contemplating ways we can incorporate into our storytelling what you’ve told us you want to read. 

Behind the Cover

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We asked illustrator Maggie Chiang to come up with a way to visually capture the idea of sound, the subject of Laura Dattaro’s cover story for this issue. “My creative journey began with unique challenges,” Chiang said. “The experience of perceiving the world through sound is inherently non-visual. Thus, I crafted this piece to offer viewers a glimpse into the auditory world, using visual elements that mirror the essence of sound.” —Drew Nealis, Graphic Designer

One request we could tackle immediately was for more pieces about Penn Arts & Sciences alums: In this issue, you’ll see a full Movers & Quakers section, which combines existing features with some new content. It starts with our Penn at Work profile of Sharon Kim, C’05, of the Mount Airy Community Development Corporation. We also showcase several of the events that took place since the fall and include a photo essay highlighting student life in the College of Liberal Arts for Women, which merged with what is today’s School of Arts & Sciences 50 years ago. Beyond that, we have a feature, “Guardians of the Gallery”, about three alums in the art auction world. They are using their platforms to champion underrepresented artists, start conversations about art and antiquities reparations, and enrich the narrative around objects. 

Other features in this issue include our cover story, “Sound Solutions”, about researchers turning to sound to answer questions on subjects like birdsong or the benefits of music exposure; “Seizing the Moment”, which shines a light on Africana studies at Penn and its emergence as a leader in the field; “Addressing Tough Topics” about the Living the Hard Promise series, the chance for frank conversation about subjects like free speech on campuses and the role of universities; and “Just Right,” about the certificate program from the College of Liberal & Professional Studies, which has awarded 468 certificates since it began in 2018. Today, 556 students are taking courses in more than a dozen programs. Plus, in “Catalysts for Basic Science” we look back at the contributions of P. Roy Vagelos, C’50, PAR’90, HON’99, and Diana Vagelos, PAR’90, who recently gave Penn Arts & Sciences $83.9 million to fund science initiatives—the largest single gift ever made to the School.  

There’s much to digest in other sections of Omnia, too. “Omnia 101” looks into what polling can actually tell us in this 2024 Presidential election year. We’ve added a Faculty Bookshelf and a Research Roundup, and our Student Spotlight section, which covers a Ph.D. student studying violinmaking and an undergraduate using linguistic models to analyze conversations, plus the winners of the Penn Grad Talks. And for the first time, we brought our long-running digital series, “Origin Stories” into the pages of the magazine, focusing on the path Ayako Kano, a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, took from a childhood in Japan—by way of Germany and New York—to Penn. 

We’d always love to hear what you think, no reader survey required.

– Michele W. Berger, Editor

(Image) Top right: On June 20, 1934, the College of Liberal Arts for Women graduated its inaugural 11 students. Five came from Philadelphia, with the farthest—one Mary Ann Fees—hailing from some 300 miles away in Kane, Pennsylvania.