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INSIDE: PENN RELAYS

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA • FOUNDED 1885

PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2026

VOL. CXLII

NO. 14

Wharton STEP, Cohorts leaders criticize program merger The school announced in February that Wharton Cohorts and the Successful Transition and Empowerment Program will be housed under a singular banner ARTI JAIN Senior Reporter

Earlier this year, the Wharton School merged two of its first-year programs — a move students say administrators directly attributed to compliance with the Trump administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion crackdown. The school announced in February that Wharton Cohorts and the Successful Transition and Empowerment Program will be housed under a singular banner. The decision came nearly a year after 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring universities that receive federal funding — such as Penn — to terminate DEI programs that could be in violation of federal civil rights laws. A Wharton Cohorts participant — who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation — told The Daily Pennsylvanian that while the official explanation for the merger was “efficiency and budgeting,” Cohorts leaders were “more privately” given a different reasoning. The anonymous student explained that Wharton Cohorts Director Lisa Podolsky and other school administrators “pretty much explicitly told” STEP and Cohorts leaders in February that the change was a result of the Trump administration’s new policies on DEI. Podolsky redirected the DP’s request for comment to Wharton Senior Director for Strategy and Operations Michael Elias. Elias said in an interview with the DP that the goal of combining STEP and Cohorts was to embed the first-year experience with “strategy and purpose.” “The thing that STEP did really well was to foster students thinking about what their values are and how they’re using those values, their experiences, their interests, to make sense out of their four years in Wharton undergrad,” he said. “We’re taking both aspects of STEP and Cohorts and figuring out what worked really well.” The anonymous Cohorts member alleged that the integration of the two programs was “covering up a much larger thing, which is killing STEP itself.” Historically, STEP aimed to help disadvantaged groups adjust to life on campus through a week of pre-orientation programming. In February 2025, the program’s website read that its purpose was to “help historically underrepresented students successfully acclimate to college life.” The website no longer refers to “historically See STEP, page 3

Penn alum John Ternus named next Apple CEO John Ternus graduated from Penn in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics AMY LIAO AND LUKE PETERSEN Senior Reporter and Staff Reporter

1997 Engineering graduate John Ternus was announced as Apple’s next CEO on Monday. Ternus — who serves as senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple — will succeed current CEO Tim Cook on Sept. 1. Ternus graduated from Penn in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, alongside a minor in psychology. As an undergraduate at Penn, Ternus was a member of the men’s swimming and diving team and, for his senior project, developed a mechanical feeding arm that could be controlled by individuals with quadriplegia using head movements. He graduated from Penn in the same year as 1997 College and Wharton graduate Elon Musk — who is currently the largest shareholder of the automobile company Tesla, space technology company SpaceX, and social media company X. See APPLE, page 2

NEWS Penn officially launched its Office of the Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action on Monday

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Proposed open expression guidelines centralize power with administrators, committee members say Students and faculty raised concerns about the revised structure of the Open Expression Committee JAMES WAN AND KATHRYN YE Staff Reporters

Last month, Penn published a revised draft of the Guidelines on Open Expression with a revamped committee leading the charge. Under the new proposals, the Committee on Open Expression has fewer members, a new role under the provost, and is no longer responsible for mediating alleged violations of the guidelines. As the University prepares to gather input on its draft through listening sessions this week, students and faculty raised concerns about the revised role and structure of the committee. Temporary guidelines and the old committee In May 2024, the committee — a group of Penn community members tasked with reviewing open expression cases — called for a review of Penn’s guidelines. On the heels of the 16-day Gaza Solidarity Encampment on College Green — which was disbanded by police and resulted in the arrest of 33 protesters — members of the committee wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that they “believe the infrastructure of open expression at Penn needs strengthening consistent with the law.” At the time, the committee claimed it would work with the Faculty Senate and University Council to review the guidelines — but instead, Penn implemented the temporary guidelines and announced that a faculty-led task force

would evaluate the standards. Wharton School professor Eric Orts, a committee member from 2022 to 2025, told the DP that the temporary guidelines were “basically just decided by the University” because “they felt that this was kind of an emergency situation.” Fourth-year physics Ph.D. candidate Will Chan, who previously served as the president of the Pan-Asian Graduate Student Association, received an invitation to join the 2024-25 committee for a one-year term in July 2024. The University officially announced the charge of the newly formed Task Force on Open Expression in August 2024. Chaired by Executive Vice Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine Lisa Bellini — who was also the chair of the committee at the time — and SNF Paideia Program Faculty Director Sigal Ben-Porath, the task force consisted of 12 individuals, including faculty, students, and one staff member. The committee met seven times from September 2024 to February 2025, including “meetings focused on building out the principles and recommendations from the TFOE into a revised draft of the Guidelines on Open Expression,” according to the group’s year-end report in May 2025. Chan said that the committee and the task force went

Annenberg School launches ‘Connected Futures’ strategic vision The Daily Pennsylvanian followed up with Annenberg School for Communication Dean Sarah Banet-Weiser to discuss the school’s mission across research, education, and public engagement ANANYA KARTHIK Senior Reporter

At the beginning of the new year, Annenberg School for Communication Dean Sarah Banet-Weiser said one of her goals for 2026 was working toward the school’s first strategic vision. Four months later, on April 13, Banet-Weiser announced “Connected Futures,” a plan to guide the school over the next five years. The Daily Pennsylvanian followed up with Banet-Weiser to discuss the school’s mission across research, education, infrastructure, and public engagement. The plan is intended to better articulate the school’s mission to the public. Recalling conversations from the start of her tenure in July 2023,

she said many peers were aware of the school’s reputation but unclear on the specifics of its work. “Almost without exception, people would say, ‘Oh, I know that people do incredible work there, but we don’t really know what you do,’” BanetWeiser said. “Part of what I wanted to do with my vision as a dean was to tell the story of what Annenberg does and tell it to a wider audience.” According to Banet-Weiser, that disconnect partly prompted a two-year process of meeting with students, faculty, and staff through “informal” encounters in an effort to understand what See ANNENBERG, page 3

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Banet-Weiser pictured explaining the Annenberg School’s first strategic vision on April 15.

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NEWS The Daily Pennsylvanian analyzed a decade of data to understand how the University’s Health System has grown

OPINION Columnist Lindsay Muneton criticizes Penn students’ habit of neglecting their wellbeing

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through a “back-and-forth process” while drafting the revised guidelines. He added that the committee provided its “visions” while the task force indicated “what they felt was appropriate and not appropriate.” “We didn’t all see eye to eye,” Chan said. Ultimately, the committee anonymously voted 9-1 to approve a draft of the task force’s recommendations in February 2025. The task force continued the revision process afterward, but Chan noted that the committee did not meet again. “It felt like the vote was the conclusion of the work,” he said. “There wasn’t a follow-up saying, ‘People have asked for these changes.’” During the 2024-25 academic year, “a small number of individuals reached out to the COE chair for guidance but did not wish to advance their concerns further for full committee review,” according to the University Council report. Chan confirmed that the committee did not discuss any mediation of open expression violations at its meetings. “While that may be true that no students had come to the committee, it also begs the question: Are we functioning well as a University in terms of open expression?” he asked. “It was very disappointing to go through all that work, and we didn’t hear anything,” Orts stated. “Then finally, See COMMITTEE, page 2

Budget cuts to hit Penn schools, centers next year The budget reductions may include staffing changes or modifications to programs and services PHOEBE ANAGNOS Senior Reporter

Penn is moving forward with budget reductions across all schools, centers, and administrative units as part of its planning for fiscal year 2027, according to a Tuesday email sent to University faculty. Announced on April 21 by Provost John Jackson Jr. and Executive Vice President Mark Dingfield, the decision formalizes cross-cutting measures first introduced in January. The reductions — which may include staffing changes or modifications to programs and services — will vary across schools and units. “All Schools, Centers, and central administrative units will be making reductions as part of a shared effort to meet this moment,” they wrote in the email, citing rising institutional costs, federal policy changes, and broader economic uncertainty. According to Jackson and Dingfield, the reductions will be implemented as part of Penn’s finalized FY27 budgets. They wrote that the cuts are intended to address “structural costs deliberately.” Director of Communications for Penn’s Division of Finance Annie Weinstein similarly described the changes as an attempt to support long-term stability in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “We remain committed to advancing our core academic goals while navigating this period with transparency, care, and a shared focus on resilience,” See BUDGET, page 3

SPORTS Ahead of The Penn Relay Carnival, track and field families rally behind their student-athletes