Helpful Resources
Campus Resources
The Graduate Emergency Fund provides grants to assist currently enrolled graduate and professional students with urgent financial needs and financial hardship due to unanticipated, one-time expenses.
Greenfield Intercultural Center
The mission of the Albert M. Greenfield Intercultural Center (GIC) is to serve as Penn’s resource for enhancing student’s intercultural knowledge, competency, and leadership. We do this by offering experiential courses for credit, signature intercultural programs, and other services related to diversity and intercultural education.
The mission of IDEAL Research is to ensure alignment between innovation and impact in biomedical research with a commitment to inclusion, diversity, and equity that is necessary for research excellence by valuing, engaging, and embracing the diversity of identity within the Penn Medicine research community and ensuring access to opportunities to individuals from marginalized identities to grow, contribute, and develop within it. IDEAL Research can help BGS students and post-docs connect with and navigate through various university resources.
International Student & Scholar Services
Our mission is to advance global engagement at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliated hospitals by offering inclusive, innovative and impactful immigration and integration services.
Penn’s Emergency and Opportunity Funding
Any enrolled undergraduate, graduate, or professional student is potentially eligible for this financial assistance. Students do not need to identify as First-Generation Low-Income (FGLI) or highly aided to apply.
Student Counseling (215-898-7021) provides access to a trained clinician by phone, day or night, as well as virtual appointments and a Caring for Yourself and Others page for additional emotional health support.
Student Intervention Services (vpul-sisteam@pobox.upenn.edu) supports students in crises, helps students access resources, and responds to concerns about students’ well-being.
The Office of the Chaplain (215-898-8456) provides pastoral support, informal advising, and counseling to students of all faiths in need of care and comfort.
The Trainee Advocacy Alliance (TAA) is a collaborative group of Biomedical Graduate Studies (BGS) graduate students, Biomedical Postdoctoral Program (BPP) post-docs, and Penn faculty members from across the University who are committed to creating, nurturing, and maintaining a Penn biomedical research community that embodies inclusivity, diversity, and equity. TAA can provide guidance, assist with conflict mediation, and aide with navigation of university resources.
Information about Penn Centers
Office of the Chaplain/The Spiritual & Religious Center: Resources for spiritual and religious groups: https://chaplain.upenn.edu/
Graduate Student Center: Home for graduate & professional students at Penn: https://gsc.upenn.edu/resources
African American Resource Center (AARC): Dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of faculty, staff, and students with a particular focus on those of African descent: https://aarc.upenn.edu/
Center for Hispanic Excellence: La Casa Latina promotes greater awareness of Latina issues, culture, and identity at Penn: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/lacasa/
LGBT Center: Offers peer mentorships, space to study and socialize events and is a social and political hub: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/lgbtc/
MAKUU Black Cultural Center: Focal point for student activities, ideas, outreach, and support linked to Black culture and the African Diaspora: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/makuu/
Penn Women’s Center (PWC): Promotes gender justice, and to empower, support, and advance personal and professional development for women and female identified persons: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/pwc/
The Pan-Asian American Community (PAACH): Hub of academic, personal, and professional growth for students interested in Asian American culture and the Asian American Diaspora: https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/paach/
Penn Hillel: Aims to create the relationships, experiences and communities that provoke students to engage in a process of “Jewish Self Authorship: https://www.pennhillel.org/