Sunday, January 18, Quaker Courage had its first meeting. Nine alums attended representing classes from 1967 to 1985. Participants Zoomed in from Santa Barbara to Kansas City to Boston to Philadelphia. Some have been active with the Penn alumni community; others have not. All were motivated by concern about Penn’s ability to live up to its values under pressure from our current government.
Background
Quaker Courage (QC) is pretty new. We started the meeting with the history of the group—why it started, and what QC has done so far. We have a website, QuakerCourage.org, and an active letter writing campaign.
Concerns/goals brainstormed by participants:
- Penn making changes to policies, academic curricula, or other practices *because* Trump & Co. demand it.
- Limiting rights of students under the guise of fairness (anti-DEI, trans, scholarships for minorities; so-call antisemitism efforts that are not that; limiting free speech of students, faculty or staff.)
- Would like to know what alumni understand as the purpose of the university, how that purpose is realized in their life experience; how they see the university aligned with that.
- How to support UP when under pressure from the Trump administration; gather info on what other universities/alums are doing and consider replicating/adapting; organize letter-writing to Congress? to Shapiro?
- Concern about the governments’ interference with admissions, hiring and firing of professors, defunding programs it doesn’t agree with as well as research, especially medical research at which Penn has been at the forefront. Democracy depends on universities and the press, and the curtailing of either is dangerous.
- Harness alums to take action; how to create a dialogue with top univ administrators about their positions on topics; set top 3-4 priority topics for on campus positions on antisemitism, foreign students, academic freedom; role of protests and equal representation of viewpoints.
Quaker Courage Vision:
Help Penn live up to its own vision and values. As they state on their website they are for “excellence, freedom of inquiry and expression, and respect. Penn’s culture is inspired by its founder, Benjamin Franklin—open-minded and curious, inventive and practical, exhibiting brilliance across fields, imperfect but self-improving, and relentlessly focused on enhancing social good.”
Actions we want to do now:
- Add content to our blog, especially around issues we are watching.
- Find information about other Penn groups and build connections.
- Get in contact with other college courage groups and link their websites on our quakercourage.org blog
- Come up with good motto and tagline
- Since the meeting, updated blog tagline to “Leges sine moribus vanae – Laws without morals are useless”
- Write our own letters to university leadership.
- Expand outreach efforts to grow our membership
Homework before next meeting (Feb. 15, 4pm)
- Read Penn’s statement on their values and words that guide them
- Join our letter writing campaign. Paper letters encouraged! If willing, share these for QC website by emailing them to info@quakercourage.org, but first delete anything that you do not want posted on the web.
- Email info@quakercourage.org a paragraph about your concerns and what issues you are watching at Penn and universities/colleges elsewhere.
Sign up for the next meeting (Feb. 15, 4pm on Zoom) and bring a friend.
