Martin E. P. Seligman Gr’67—the positive psychology founder who has famously explored the worlds of both learned helplessness and learned optimism—is one of three Penn psychologists whose new books are discussed by Julia M. Klein in this issue’s cover story, “Don’t Only Connect—Get Situated and Practice Agency.”
Seligman considers his entry, Agency: The Psychological History of Human Progress, to be his most ambitious work to date, which is saying quite a lot. The others are Situated: Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best by Angela Duckworth Gr’06, a follow-up to her influential 2016 book Grit; and the prolific Adam Grant’s latest, Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World.
Besides noting the coincidence that three of Penn’s leading thinkers are publishing books nearly simultaneously—“a perfect storm,” Seligman called it—Julia’s piece highlights the key themes of each book and places them in the context of the authors’ previous works and also reveals some intriguing connections among them. “I think that all three of us are interested in how psychological science can help people live better lives,” Duckworth told her. Together, they make for some insightful and thought-provoking “Fall Reading,” as our cover line has it.
When he became the executive director of Penn Hillel in 2021, Rabbi Gabe Greenberg could not have anticipated the situation he’d face in the fall of 2023, as the campus became engulfed in tensions over antisemitism and the war in Gaza. But as associate editor Dave Zeitlin C’03 lays out in “A Haven at Hillel,” he has turned out to be the right person to steer Penn’s center for Jewish student life through that period and chart its future course.
Dave sketches in Penn Hillel’s history, and in interviews with Greenberg and others shows the range of reactions by Jewish students to recent events, whether reaching out for discussions with those of differing views or seeking solidarity within their community. The article also covers a recent survey of Jewish sentiment about Penn (generally positive, with important reservations), the shrinking Jewish presence at the University in recent decades, and the challenge for Hillel of building that back going forward. “If we do not stem the decline of Jewish students at Penn,” Greenberg has said, “then it kind of doesn’t matter what else we solve.”
In Molly Petrilla C’06’s “Play Maker,” theatre and film producer Leslie Urdang C’76 describes her often misunderstood role as, “You wake up every morning and try to figure out how you’re going to make something happen.”
Over a four-decade career in the entertainment industry, for Urdang those things have included cofounding New York Stage & Film, an incubator of new plays and movies where Hamilton, among many other shows, was shaped; major film productions; and a recent, critically lauded streaming series, American Classic. That the show’s second season was still in doubt when this issue went to press shows the challenges of today’s uncertain entertainment industry, even for veterans.
A companion piece, “Day by Day (By Decade by Decade),” surveys the cast and crew of the Urdang-directed 1975 Quadramics production of Godspell—whose future credits, Molly writes, “would leave anyone wondering what was in the Annenberg Center water fountains that year.”
—John Prendergast C’80
Editor
