The Penn GSE Magazine

Dear Alumni and Friends,

For more than a year, we have all been living through a time of extraordinary change and challenge, surrounded by uncertainty, loss, racial injustice, and national tumult. Across the field of education, faculty, staff, and students have had to navigate unprecedented circumstances. Yet this has also been a time of learning and growth, and one that gives our world an opportunity for real change for the better.

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As you will read below,  I recently collaborated with Wharton School Dean Erika James on advice to help educational leaders cultivate the skills and mindsets to lead in a crisis. Dean James and I believe that through purposeful relationship building, decision making, and reflection, leaders can create change and innovation that outlast crises and support the long-term health of communities and institutions.

Leading through change is an area in which Penn GSE’s 2021 Commencement speaker, Michael Sorrell, GRD’15, a member of our Board of Advisors, had built remarkable experience well before the pandemic. As president of Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Sorrell transformed a struggling institution, successfully pioneering an urban work college model and reimagining the important role of our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in creating opportunity for students of color.

Heightened economic challenges due to the pandemic mean that the future of higher education will require continued bold efforts to ensure access for minoritized, low-income, and first-generation students. As you will read in the cover story  of this issue, Penn GSE faculty, students, and alumni are deeply committed to ensuring that as a new era dawns, the students most in need can gain access to lifelong opportunity through higher education. The many inspiring voices in the piece include that of Ivy Taylor, GRD’20, another HBCU president, who graduated from Penn GSE and stepped into her role at Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, during the pandemic.

As you will see throughout this issue, the Penn GSE community is also having an impact on many other urgent issues of our time—supporting mental health, improving the lives of at-risk children, and fostering the ideals of democracy. I am proud that the latter topic, brought to life in “Preparing Future Citizens”  by four vibrant alumni, has long been a focus our faculty, including Drs. Sigal Ben-Porath, Jonathan Zimmerman, Krystal Strong, and Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher. Their research on democratic theory and practice, civic dialogue, free speech, political and social movements, citizenship, and belonging provides a foundation that is much-needed today as our country grapples with division and issues of inclusion. 

Despite a landscape that has been unfamiliar in so many ways since the pandemic began, the continued strengths of our community could not be more apparent, and I am thrilled that we have attained the #1 spot in the 2022 U.S. News & World Report rankings for graduate schools of education. This recognition is a result of so much leadership and dedication across the School as we have worked together to ensure a brighter future through the power of education. Our impact truly is extraordinary, and following the conclusion of the Extraordinary Impact Campaign on June 30, we will be celebrating the many ways that our alumni and friends have made that impact possible. As always, thank you for your commitment to education and to Penn GSE.

Pam Grossman
Dean, Penn Graduate School of Education
George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education

Editor’s note: This issue of The Penn GSE Magazine went to print on May 17, 2021.

Leading in a Crisis

Deans Pam Grossman and Erika James argue that to be prepared, leaders need to consider the necessary crisis leadership practices that should occur before, during, and after a crisis happens.

It’s Time to Celebrate and Stay Engaged

As you enter a quickly changing world and job market, stay engaged in our community by taking advantage of Penn GSE Connects, an exclusive new platform to build professional relationships with Penn GSE students and alumni.