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

PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

VOL. CXXXVIII

NO. 18 PHOTO BY JESSE ZHANG

Magill’s path to the Penn presidency The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with 30 people who know Magill — and the president herself — to understand how she emerged as the “clear consensus” candidate JARED MITOVICH & JACOB POLLACK Senior Reporters

When she was learning cursive in the second grade of Catholic school in North Dakota, Mary Elizabeth Magill decided to change her name to “Liz.” It took until eighth grade for the change to stick, Magill said during an October 2019 talk in which she introduced herself to the University of Virginia after being named as the school’s provost. At the age of 7 — a time when she recalls “nothing but happy memories” with her

parents and five siblings — Magill stopped seeing herself as “little Mary” and began introducing herself more simply: “I’m Liz Magill.” Magill told the packed audience in UVA’s Old Cabell Hall that her name change symbolized rebellion against the life created by her mother and father — a Reagan-era federal judge whose conservative politics she grew to disagree with. She preserved, however, the “M” before “Elizabeth” — a decision she made to honor her upbringing and “the craziness of being from North Dakota.” UVA nursing professor Kimberly Acquaviva, a triple Penn graduate who was in the audience during Magill’s talk, said that Magill’s delivery of such a personal story as a high-level university leader “stuck with” her. See MAGILL, page 4

Penn Middle East Center loses all federal funding, a ‘devastating’ blow to its future The DOE informed staff that the University was not sufficiently supporting the center with its own money and efforts JARED MITOVICH Senior Reporter

The Penn Middle East Center has lost its federal Title VI funding due to insufficient institutional support from the University, threatening the future of Middle Eastern studies on campus. In August, the United States Department of Education denied the MEC’s application for grant money, which it had consistently received every four years since its founding in 1966. The MEC was previously one of several federally recognized National Resource Centers at Penn, a status that granted it funding, which was allocated to student language fellowships with the DOE’s Foreign Language & Area Studies program. On Aug. 4, the MEC learned it had been stripped of its NRC funding eligibility and FLAS fellowship grants, amounting to nearly $500,000 in lost funds — nearly all of the center’s financial support, MEC Assistant Director Ibrahim Bakri said. DOE officials informed MEC staff that the University was not sufficiently supporting the center with its own money and efforts, leading its grant application for the 2022-2026 cycle to be denied. This comes despite the MEC emphasizing Penn’s commitment to Middle East studies in the application and receiving perfect scores for its plans and how it has previously administered the grants. The MEC employs several full-time staffers and supports the work of dozens of faculty, students, and Ph.D. candidates. It also oversees the Modern Middle Eastern Studies major and minor, which have become increasingly popular, and the Penn Law School certificate in Middle East and Islamic Studies. Students, staff, and faculty affiliated with the MEC described the loss of funds as an unexpected and “devastating” blow that — if no remedy comes from the University — will jeopardize every aspect of the center’s

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Grand reopening of ARCH attracts students, staff, and administrators The reopening event included a ribboncutting ceremony and remarks from Penn President Liz Magill MATTEO BUSTERNA Senior Reporter

public scholarship through film festivals, conferences, and academic symposiums, Bakri said. “With the loss of the funding, all of a sudden, our four years of planning came to an abrupt halt,” Bakri said. College junior Sarah Asfari, a Modern Middle Eastern Studies major and board member of the Penn Muslim Students Association, said she was “frustrated” and “confused” after learning the center had lost its funding. As a result of the loss, she said that she will lose the FLAS Arabic studies scholarship that she was awarded over the summer, making it more difficult for her to afford college as a first-generation, low-income student.

The ARCH building reopened to the Penn community in an event this Wednesday following months of renovations, expanding space for cultural centers and minority groups on campus. The reopening event — which took place Sept. 7 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. — welcomed students, faculty, and members of the community to “reimagine the ARCH” as a space for community gathering and inclusion. The event included a ribbon-cutting ceremony and remarks from Penn President Liz Magill. Students enjoyed performances, cultural foods, and speakers at the reopening event. The redesigned ARCH building reopened its doors as a dedicated space for the school’s cultural resource centers and minority coalition groups after years of advocacy and months of discussion with students, staff, and administrators about a renovation project. Magill spoke at the ceremony at around 12:30 p.m. about the importance of cultural resources at Penn and cut a ribbon with students to mark the grand reopening. “For us to be a great university, we must be a welcoming, inclusive, and equitable community,” Magill said. “We should be working on anything and everything we can do to strengthen ties, to build support, and to improve spaces and services for Penn students and the wider community.”

See MIDDLE EAST, page 3

See ARCH, page 3

PHOTO BY JESSE ZHANG

The Middle East Center on Sept. 7, 2022.

operations, including staff salaries, student scholarships, and center programming. “Alongside our outstanding faculty and education programs, the Middle East Center is an important component of the School of Arts and Sciences’ ongoing commitment to research and teaching in Middle East studies,” School of Arts and Sciences Dean Steven Fluharty — who oversees the MEC — wrote in an emailed statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “SAS is now considering the challenge of how to support the Center in the absence of its federal funding.” The MEC is also heavily involved in the broader Philadelphia community as the city’s only center for the study of the Middle East. The MEC provides free lectures at K-12 schools, offers workshops for teachers, and participates in

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