Please make reservations at 215-732-0334 or franklininnclub.rsvp@gmail.com Steward Shefqet and Chef Tamara VanWinkle depend on day-ahead reservations in order to prepare enough food!
SEE ANNOUNCEMENTS BELOW PROGRAM LISTINGS
January 6, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Alina Macneal is our Quarterback.
Menu: Green Salad, Turkey Meatballs with Rice, Chocolate Cake
January 7, Tuesday Evening Buffet Roundtable, 6:00 pm
Speaker is Amy Cohen: “Louis Magaziner, Architect and Idealist.”
Menu: Green Salad, Tilapia with Rice, Mixed Vegetables, Lemon Cake
Amy Cohen is Education Director at History Making Productions and the great-grandniece of Louis Magaziner: Austrian immigrant, first Jewish graduate Penn’s architecture department, and prolific Philadelphia architect. Amy will speak about Magaziner’s architectural legacy, which includes commercial and residential designs in a broad range of styles, as seen in drawings from his archive at the Athenaeum–and about his personal legacy, which includes his friendship and support of Julian Abele, the first African-American graduate of the Penn architecture program, his mentoring of Louis Kahn, and the example he provided for son Henry, who became an architectural historian and preservationist.
January 9, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Speakers are Dick Goldberg and Dennis Faucher: “Impeachment and Conviction, Facts and Misperceptions.”
Menu: To come
Dick and Denny are teaming up to help us sort through a thicket of misunderstandings about impeachment.
January 13, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm (Board meeting follows)
Tom Ricks is our Quarterback.
Menu: Carrot Soup, Egg and Broccoli Casserole, Dessert TBD
January 17, Annual Meeting and William White Dinner, 5:30 pm
Starting upstairs with cocktails at 5:30 pm and meeting at 6:00 pm
Menu: Snapper Soup, Roast Lamb, Basmati Rice, Seasonal Vegetable, Flourless Chocolate Torte (Note: Soup choice depends on market availability.)
Please request Roasted Salmon as the non-meat option when making reservations.
January 20, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm Palmer Hartl is our Quarterback.
Menu: Green Salad, Roast Chicken and Herb Rice, Dessert TBD
January 23, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm Speaker is Ksenia Nouril: “Printmaking and Photography, Visual and Vital” Menu: Green Salad, Pasta with Tomato Vegetable Sauce, Dessert TBD
Ksenia Nouril is the Jensen Bryan Curator at The Print Center, a Philadelphia institution dedicated to expanding our understanding of printmaking and photography as vital contemporary arts. Dr. Nouril holds graduate degrees in art history from Rutgers and is a specialist in post-WWII and contemporary global art. She will highlight key moments in the Center’s 104-year history as well as recent and upcoming exhibitions.
January 27, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm Roberta Kangilaski is our Quarterback.
Menu: Green Salad, Mujadara (lentils with rice and onions), Dessert TBD
January 30, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Speaker is Patrick Spero: “Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776”
Menu: Green Salad, Chicken Tagine, Dessert TBD
Frontier Rebels recasts the familiar American Revolutionary narrative, moving the action from the eastern seaboard to the “borderlands” of the western frontier. The book elaborates an often-overlooked truth: the West played a crucial role in igniting the flame of American independence. After their 1763 victory in the Seven Years’ War, the British still faced treacherous upheavals in areas such as Ohio Country–from Native Americans who continued to fight for their freedom and from vigilante frontiersmen who considered the native groups as sworn enemies. These interwoven struggles would determine whose independence would prevail on the American frontier–whether it would be defined by the British, Native Americans, or colonial settlers.
Dr. Spero is Librarian and Director of the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum in Philadelphia, and a specialist in the history of the American Revolution. Frontier Rebels is his most recent book. Previously, he taught at Williams College. Other current appointments include the board of the Union League’s Abraham Lincoln Foundation, the Council of Penn’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and the Cabinet of George Washington’s Presidential Library at Mount Vernon.
February 3, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Michael Brooks is our Quarterback.
Menu: Green Salad, Turkey Chili, Dessert TBD
February 4, Tuesday Evening Buffet, 6:00 pm
Speaker is Janny Scott, on her biography of her father Robert Montgomery Scott, The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father.
Menu: Green Salad, Turkey Sausages with Cabbage, Scalloped Potatoes, Chocolate Cake
Janny Scott is a journalist and the author of two biographies, The Beneficiary, and A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother. During 14 years of reporting at The New York Times, she wrote on race, class, and demographic change, and she was part of the team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.” The Beneficiary was listed in the Times 100 Notable Books of 2019 and NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019. A Singular Woman was one of Time magazine’s top ten nonfiction books of 2011, as well as a Times bestseller and the 2012 runner-up for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Ms. Scott, a Harvard graduate, was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and The Record of Bergen County, NJ. She lives in New York City.
February 6, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Speaker is Innmate Palmer Hartl, on Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, a new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.
Menu: Green Salad, Cioppino (Fisherman’s Stew), Dessert TBD
[Note: Cioppino contains shrimp; egg entrée option is always available for lunch.]
Tightrope is a story of American communities and people “left behind” in recent decades, told partially through the lives of children who rode the schoolbus with Kristof as he grew up in tiny Yamhill, Oregon. Their stories share much in common with those of other people and places in the book, where blue-collar jobs have disappeared, working-class families are devastated by poverty, and lives are shortened by drugs, alcohol, and suicide. The book documents the damage of a half century of policy failures while focusing on possible solutions.
Palmer is a human resources specialist and author of The Ten Commandments of Management. He consults with major corporate and nonprofit clients on transition management, strategic planning and corporate culture change, as well as executive development and team building. A graduate of Grinnell College and Virginia Theological Seminary, he is also a Parish Associate at Christ Church.
February 10, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Basil Talbott is our Quarterback.
Menu: Potato Soup, Egg and Broccoli Casserole, Dessert TBD
February 13, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Speaker is M. Kathryn Jedrziewski, deputy director of Penn’s Institute on Aging: “Exercise and Successful Aging”
Dr. Jedrziewski will bring us up to date with a discussion of recent research on aging and exercise. She received her PhD from Penn in 1991 and has worked in gerontology and geriatrics for over 30 years. Her own research focuses on the impact of exercise on dementia risk.
As deputy director of the Institute on Aging, she oversees all administrative activities and works closely with the institute’s director, Dr. John Trojanowski, the renowned specialist on neurodegenerative disorders. Recently she has been studying African dance as an aerobic activity and assessing its impact on cognition and dementia risk. Prior to her studies at Penn, Dr. Jedrziewski worked directly with older adults in programs at what is now the Philadelphia Senior Center, and she now provides training to service workers through the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging.
Menu: Green Salad, Cheese Tortellini in Broth, Dessert TBD
February 17, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Alan Penziner is our Quarterback.
Menu: Green Salad, Chicken Fricassee, Dessert TBD
February 21, Friday Club Dinner, starting at 5:30 pm
Speaker is Charles McMahon, artistic director of Lantern Theater. “Wherever You Like, As Long As It’s London”
William Shakespeare famously set his plays all over Europe–from Scotland to Denmark and from Athens to Verona–but Charles McMahon believes the playwright really was always writing about contemporary issues in late-16th and early-17th century London and his native Warwickshire. Charles has directed 20 productions of the Bard’s plays and will share his insights on the Shakespeare canon, focusing on his recent artistic projects, including Othello, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Coriolanus.
Charles McMahon founded the Lantern in 1994. A native Philadelphian, he earned a BFA in acting and directing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Menu: Cream of Broccoli Soup, Roast Salmon with Pearled Cous Cous, Vegetables, Poached Pears [Note: Request Roasted Chicken option for non-fish eaters when making reservations.]
February 24, Monday Quarterback Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Dick Goldberg is our Quarterback.
Menu: Butternut Squash Soup, Steak over Salad, Dessert TBD
February 27, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable, 12:30 – 1:45 pm
Speaker is Joseph Minott, executive director of the Clean Air Council.
Joseph Minott has led the Clean Air Council for more than three decades, developing statewide recognition for his work on transport-related urban air pollution and environmental justice issues. He started the Council’s Indoor Air Pollution Information Center over 20 years ago and is an expert on the Clean Air Act and regulatory policies in Pennsylvania. He holds an M.A. in political science from Penn and a J.D. from Villanova and has taught courses in environmental law and policy at both Penn and Temple.
Menu: Green Salad, Roast Chicken and Herb Rice, Dessert TBD
* * * ANNOUNCEMENTS * * *
Dues payments are due by February 29
Checks are welcome, as always, but remember that you can now pay by credit card, too.
To pay by credit card, use the “Member Dues” payment portal on the Franklin Inn Club website. The Club will cover processing fees charged by your credit card company, provided that you make payment in full by February 29.
March Program Highlights
March 3 Tuesday Evening Buffet – Alex Conner, millennial artist, educator, collector, and entrepreneur speaking on American contemporary art, “Painted into a Corner—Emergent/Divergent Paths in American Art”
March 5 Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – Dr. Beth Hessel, executive director of the Athanaeum, speaking on the vitality of America’s membership libraries from their beginnings in the 18th century through today, “Cultivating Our Sense of Wonder at the Athanaeum: Tales of Membership Libraries”
March 12 Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – Innmate Margaret Chew Barringer, founder and chair of American Insight (as well as first woman president of the Franklin Inn Club), speaking on “Issues of Free Speech Examined Through Film”
March 20 Friday Club Dinner – Scott Guzielek, vice-president and general manager of the Academy of Vocal Arts, exploring and explaining the fundamentals of operatic singing, with live demonstrations by current AVA mezzosoprano Anne Marie Stanley and master vocal coach Luke Housner
March 26 Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – Dianne Semingson, chair of the Women 100 Advisory Committee, speaking on the centennial commemoration of the 19th Amendment, which launches here in Philadelphia in March: “A Seat at the Table.”
March Quarterbacks
March 2: Tom Tropp
March 9: Tom Ricks
March 16: Bill Untereker
March 23: Roberta Kangilaski
March 30: Gresham Riley