< Previous28 | TALK MAGAZINE • SUMMER 2019 COLLEGE NEWS continued from page 4-5 LINCOLN Th e Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation sponsors the annual Lindback Award for Distinguished Teachers, which recognizes 60 outstanding teachers from Philadelphia public schools who demonstrate excellence in promot- ing learning at the highest levels. Th e award recipients are chosen based on their activities that improve the intellectual and character development of students. Th e recipients receive $3,500 and recognition at a spring reception. Th e Foundation also make grants in support of certain colleges and universities primarily in the Greater Delaware Valley area, including Lincoln University. UPMC/PITT About 8,000 liver transplants are performed each year, according to the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network, and living-donor liver transplant comprises less than 5% of that total. Additionally, about 25% of people on the waiting list die each year waiting for a transplant, and those who eventually receive a transplant often have a lengthy period on the waiting list, resulting in poorer health at the time of trans- plant. “Th e consequences for patients on the waiting list can mean the diff erence between life and death because the longer they are waiting, the sicker they become,” said Abhinav Humar, M.D., chief of transplant services at UPMC, clinical director of the Th omas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute and lead author of the study. “Living-donor liver transplants, in tandem with deceased-donor liver transplants, represents an opportunity to significant- ly decrease the risk of wait-list mortality, and gives us the ability to transplant a person sooner.” PENN STATE It’s especially been a while since the program had to fire somebody on their own. Th eir previ- ous coach, Bill O’Brien who was hired back in 2012 exited Happy Valley on his own terms by accepting a head coaching job with the Houston Texans. Th at’s when Penn State’s current leader in charge, James Franklin joined the team ahead of the 2014 season. Over time, Franklin has proven to be one solid coach for the program. So far, Franklin has a winning record as the Nittany Lions head coach at 45-21. Like many major college coaches though, Franklin has his fair share of doubters. It wouldn’t be college football if certain packs of fans didn’t overreact from time to time, calling for the coach’s job. Th at’s just how the football fandom world works. While we don’t think Franklin’s time in Happy Valley is by any means numbered, is there any chance he could be head- ing into the 2019 season on the hot seat from the program? Email _____________________________________________ Telephone ____________________________________________ Make checks payable to The Pittsburgh Contingency/TMAG Mail checks to PO Box 143 ~ Monroeville, PA 15146-0143 Our Partner The Pittsburgh Contingency (TPC) is a 501(c)3 non-profit and your Contribution is tax deductible. P 412.823.4007 ~ E contact@talkminorityactiongroup.org ~ www.talkminorityactiongroup.org TMAGCaviar fees from Santucci’s and Bing Bing (those bills included both a delivery fee and a service fee, and I had to tip the driver). Th ere was the annual $50 fee I have to pay to the City of Philadelphia for having a security system on my own house; something called a “small cart fee” on Postmates (that’s on top of the service fee and $5.99 delivery fee); the $200-plus we paid in admin fees for leasing a car from a dealer- ship; and a $3.95 fee on my water bill, not because I was late with my payment, but because I used a cred- it card. I could go on, but for the sake of my health, I’ll stop. Grand total: somewhere in the thousands of dollars per year. When you have some time to kill, examine your bills and read all that fine print. You’ll see the fees, too, although they might be disguised with noms de plume like “surcharge,” “processing,” “handling” and “toll.” Economists — and CEOs, I would imagine — refer to them as “partitioned pricing,” a phrase that’s become the main character in many academic papers and studies. Which makes sense, because we’re officially living in a fee economy. While partitioned pricing has existed for centuries, it’s just recently grown “more pervasive and complex,” according to an article written by professors from NYU and Columbia and published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2016. Th e 2008 recession is partially to blame for this: Th e economic downturn demanded that busi- nesses come up with creative ways to bring in more revenue without raising prices, which would have been unpalatable to newly cash- strapped Americans. But like the “temporary” tollbooths set up on the Garden State Parkway in the 1950s, fees are here to stay. In fact, partitioned pricing has emerged as a reliable revenue stream, or a complete business model, for more businesses and governments than ever before. And in a trickle-down, pass-the-buck kind of way, guess whom it hurts the most? Yup, you and me. continued from page 8 by Screwed Fees Getting combat bias in hiring. Kellee James, who worked for the first market- place to trade carbon credits and advised the Obama administration on environmental markets as a White House fellow, is behind Mer- caris, a futures market for organic and non-GMO commodities. Th is small but growing wave of black, female entrepreneurs is pry- ing open doors for a new sisterhood in tech. “Although I recognize that I am the first,” Collins says of becoming a unicorn, “the thing that I spend the most time thinking about is how to make sure I am not the last or the only one.” BLACK WOMEN AMONG LEAST LIKELY TO GET VENTURE CAPITAL Black women face significant roadblocks in Silicon Valley – insu- lar networks, negative stereotypes, overlapping discrimination based on gender and race. Nowhere are they more sharply underrepresented than on Sand Hill Road, the leafy stretch in Menlo Park, California, where venture capitalists cluster, miles from the headquarters of some of the world’s most powerful tech companies. Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of education tech company Dream- Box Learning and the daughter of a Haitian immigrant, recalls being asked to fetch coff ee while waiting to pitch her company in 2012. “I turned around and said, ‘I don’t know where the coff ee is here, but when you find it, would you mind bringing me some? I take it black,’ “ she says. “I laugh about that now, but I said it at the time with a tense jaw.” TURNING THE TABLES ON INVESTORS Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is in the vanguard of those remaking Silicon Valley’s image of black women. Her tech startup, Promise, is down one flight of stairs in a historic 19th-century building in Oak- land. Th e airy, upscale offices with exposed brickwork and duct work are below street level. Ellis-Lamkins jokes it’s the “garden” level. Ellis-Lamkins moves through the day in a staccato rhythm, never dropping a beat as she takes meetings one after the other with the cool efficiency of an air-traffic controller. Promise, which graduated from Y Combinator, the hotshot incubator that birthed Airbnb and Dropbox, is working on “decarceration,” keep- ing people – mostly poor or of color – out of jail who don’t need to be there. She secured $12 million and the confidence of venture capital- ists, including First Round Capital and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. From the start, Ellis-Lamkins was picky about whose money she would take. “I felt like I was inter- viewing them: Who could help build the vision I wanted, who could give me the capital I wanted?” she says. One investor with FOMO (fear of missing out) pursued her relentlessly, then began the meeting by directing her to pitch him. “Pitch you?” she replied. “You asked to meet with me.” No one in this data-driven industry quantified the dearth of black, female entrepreneurs in tech until Kathryn Finney, an epidemi- ologist trained at Yale University, funded a research initiative, Project- Diane, named for 1960s civil rights leader Diane Nash. Her first report in 2016 found that just 12 startups led by black women had raised more than $1 million in funding. Two years later, nearly triple the number of black women founders – 34 – had crossed that threshold. Black Female Entrepreneurs Changing Silicon Valley ARE continued from page 8 AHN.org/Cancer From you have cancer to you had cancer. Roxann had an aggressive form of breast cancer. But Roxann had the AHN Cancer Institute. And with her team of oncology experts and an innovative treatment plan, Roxann’s cancer went from untreatable to beatable. Outsmarting cancer on all fronts is #LivingProof. If you have cancer, you have us. 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