The Key — From Intention to Impact for Penn’s Title VI Office
Penn’s Office of Religious and Ethnic Interests (OREI, or the Title VI Office) launched a training program to the entire university community at the end of January. “Equal Opportunity and Nondiscrimination at Penn: An Introduction to Title VI” outlines federal law from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Penn policies, and how they apply to conduct involving “race, religion, color, and national origin.”
OREI was created to help build a safe and respectful community through education, dialogue, and institutional trust. But, for students, participation in the training is encouraged rather than required. This creates a gap between intention and impact and raises a broader question: can a voluntary initiative meaningfully educate the community?
OREI was launched in December of 2024 following recommendations from Penn’s Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Bullying and the University Task Force on Antisemitism. The office has goals of protecting community members from discrimination and harassment while fostering a sense of belonging.
OREI exists in part to ensure Penn fulfills its obligations under Title VI, which bars federally funded institutions from discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or national origin” (including certain forms of religious discrimination). When harassment creates a hostile environment and goes unaddressed, universities risk violating these federal obligations .
To advance its mission, OREI relies on a four-pronged approach: education, investigation, mediation, and evaluation. The office works to improve understanding of Title VI policies, receives reports and complaints, investigates when necessary, and helps mediate community conflicts. Its model prioritizes education and restorative dialogue over punishment.
In its first year, OREI leadership reported approximately 90 consultations and reports, most of which did not escalate to formal investigations. That early engagement suggests the office is building trust within the community, as students, faculty, and staff are voluntarily seeking help from OREI.
This training extends that educational mission. The same training was offered to the Class of 2029 during New Student Orientation in August, and now it is being offered to the whole Penn community. But if education is one of OREI’s core cornerstones, deployment strategy and participation rates matter just as much as content.
Undergraduates first received an email on January 30th “encouraging” them to complete the training, followed by a reminder on February 12th. But, given the demanding schedules of already-stressed students, many are unlikely to complete an optional training. Voluntary participation often skews towards students who are already highly attentive to policy and campus norms, leaving gaps among those least inclined to opt in.
If Penn’s aims are strengthening a culture of respect and accountability and ensuring student knowledge of school policies, broader participation may be essential. And if one of OREI’s goals is evaluation, judging the training’s impact may be difficult without widespread adoption. These goals depend on both content and participation.
Penn must consider: should nondiscrimination education be more formally integrated into student requirements? How should completion rates be tracked and assessed as part of OREI’s evaluative mandate? How will Penn measure whether this initiative is achieving its community-wide goals?
OREI represents a significant institutional investment with strong potential to help the community. Ensuring that its educational efforts translate from availability to meaningful impact is the next step in fulfilling its promise.
The Almanac
Curated highlights from this week’s Penn news
School of Arts and Sciences announces new “Horizons” strategic plan
The School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) unveiled a new strategic plan, “SAS Horizons: Pathways for a Changing World,” centered on “curiosity, discovery, and connection.” The plan aims to affirm the School of Arts & Sciences as Penn’s “intellectual core” and emphasizes “cultivating creativity, judgment, and inquiry” amid rapid technological changes.
Horizons outlines four tools for achieving its goals: “advancing strategic themes” (including AI & data, climate and society, and the humanities), “enhancing teaching across the learning continuum,” “strengthening the research ecosystem,” and “connecting scholarship and society.” It also introduces new initiatives such as the Dean’s Horizons Fund and renovations to the Physical Sciences Complex.
The plan aligns with Penn’s broader In Principle and Practice framework and President Jameson’s Penn Forward initiative.
So what? Mark Trodden is introducing Horizons less than a year into his tenure as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. While articulating a vision is important, too broad a strategy can sometimes be difficult for a community to grasp. Horizons emphasizes excellence, which serves Penn's core mission, but the strategy must be given more concrete guidance for it to translate into true impact, especially when the community is grappling with other strategic plans like In Principles and Practice and Penn Forward at the same time.
Penn ends free summer housing for Resident Advisors
Beginning this May, all undergraduate and graduate resident advisors (RAs/GRAs) will have to pay for summer housing on campus. For the past decade, RAs could stay in their housing during the summer for free.
While 2026 rates have not been published, prices last summer ranged from $420 to $525 per week with a five-week minimum, meaning RAs and GRAs could pay around $8,000 for a full summer stay.
This is not the first recent disruption to RA roles. In December, the RAs’ union, United RAs, launched a petition after Penn warned GRAs with other campus employment (research, teaching, etc.) could lose their GRA positions due to a 20-hour weekly work limit.
Last week, Penn and Graduate Employees Together UPenn (GET-UP) reached a deal for the union’s first contract. As we discussed last week, the agreement secures higher stipends for PhD candidates and leaves Penn’s administration grappling with the financial implications for the university.
So what? Although Penn has not announced its rationale, charging for summer RA housing is a revenue generating opportunity for the university while it wrestles with rising costs across the school, from more expensive PhD stipends to uncertainties in federal aid and research funding and a looming endowment tax.
Education Department shifts more authority to other departments
On Monday, the Department of Education (ED) announced two new partnerships with federal agencies, including transferring the role of tracking foreign funding to American universities from the ED to the State Department.
Over the past year, the government has focused on identifying and limiting foreign influence in higher education, namely through a renewed focus on federal funding disclosures and a public dashboard tracking foreign donations and partnerships by country and university.
From 2019-2025, Penn received the fifth-highest foreign funding of any US university. Since May of 2025, the university has been under investigation after the ED’s counsel claimed that Penn’s federally required foreign funding disclosures were incomplete and inaccurate.
So what? In the beginning of President Trump’s (W ‘68) second term, he announced his plan to dismantle the Department of Education, shifting the agency’s primary responsibilities to other federal departments and the states. Although the ED is scaling back, oversight of universities is not disappearing. Instead, it is shifting. For Penn and its peers, federal scrutiny may move across agencies, not diminish, keeping federal funding and compliance in focus.
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