![]() (Other members of Penn’s board of trustees have affirmed their support for her and beleaguered board chairman Scott Bok.) She’ll have to navigate ongoing battles over MOVE remains held by the Penn Museum, legacy admissions, minority enrollment, and polarizing guest speakers, among other sensitive topics - not to mention controversy over whether college (Penn’s price tag this year is $85,000-plus) is worth the cost.Īnd then there are the calls for her dismissal and the multiple donors slamming their checkbooks shut over the university’s response to what they consider antisemitism on campus. But higher ed is at a crossroads, and Penn is just the sort of institution reformers have in their sights. To kick things off last fall, she initiated a strategic planning process in which she posed two guiding questions to the school community: “What does the world need from Penn?” and “How do we cultivate a community that will rise to that challenge?” Like last year’s winning football team, she intends to “plan boldly and play offense,” she says. In her inaugural address, she referenced his famous kite feat and said she, too, hopes “to draw down the lightning”: “That same excitement and urgency to make the experiment, to unlock foundational discoveries and share knowledge - I’ve felt it all year long.” It’s the sort of varied career our Ivy’s multi-talented founding father would have approved of most heartily. It’s been a year since Magill took the helm at Penn after stints at UVA and Stanford Law, not to mention clerking for Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. “She must grow into a transformative leader, not a better politician.” - Ernest Owens “The future of several Black generations, at this Trump inflection point, will be defined in the next four to eight years, and this requires new and innovative thinking,” former City Councilmember and mayoral candidate George Burrell says of Parker. Now, on the precipice of taking office (provided she defeats Republican David Oh, who’s considered a huge long shot in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one), she must decide what kind of leader she wants to be - what kind of leader the city desperately needs her to be. Throughout her journey, the former state Representative and City Councilmember had to overcome campaign fund-raising hurdles, rhetoric that she wasn’t progressive enough (compared to her biggest challengers, Gym and Rhynhart), and the challenge of how to build momentum in spite of how polls/political commentators had defined her campaign. “She should strive to be as good a mayor as she was a candidate.” “She was prepared for every forum and could read the room as well as any candidate I have witnessed,” Larry Ceisler, longtime Philly political analyst and founder of Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy, says of Parker’s performance during the primary. If elected, she’ll be not only the city’s 100th mayor, but the first woman to hold the position. ![]() But when the votes were tallied, Parker - methodically, assuredly - made history as she won the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor. Rebecca Rhynhart had her moment in the sun, and even Amen Brown stole some spotlight (for the wrong reasons). ![]() Jeff Brown grabbed the early headlines, followed by Helen Gym. You’d be forgiven if, as last spring’s Democratic mayoral primary marched along, Cherelle Parker’s campaign slipped off your radar. Because in a city like Philly, where we take big swings, we found that even a list of 100 people wasn’t quite enough to distill the movers, shakers, power players and doers driving this burgeoning, vibrant region boldly into the future. With that in mind, you’ll notice something a bit different about this year’s list: It’s bigger. Our biotech scene is booming, massive infrastructure projects are on the table, we’re preparing to elect a brand-new mayor, and there’s just a crisp sense of - what’s that? - civic pride in the air. ¶ Since last year’s Most Influential list came out, Philadelphians have won a Nobel Prize, four James Beard Awards, the National League pennant, and the National Football Conference. After a few years of stagnation - much of it not the city’s fault - something feels different about Philly right now. Maybe there’s a crane or two that you can spot from your window, or a new apartment building that just opened its doors.
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