Earlier this year, The Wharton School merged two of its first-year programs — a move students say administrators directly attributed to compliance with the Trump administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion crackdown.
The school announced in February that Wharton Cohorts and the Successful Transition and Empowerment Program will be housed under a singular banner. The decision came nearly a year after 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring universities that receive federal funding — such as Penn — to terminate DEI programs in potential violation of federal civil rights laws.
A Wharton Cohorts participant — who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation — told The Daily Pennsylvanian that while the official reasoning for the merger was “efficiency and budgeting,” cohort leaders were “more privately” given a different explanation.
The anonymous student explained that Wharton Cohorts Director Lisa Podolsky and other school administrators “pretty much explicitly told” STEP and cohort leaders in February that the change was a result of the Trump administration’s new policies on DEI.
Podolsky redirected the DP’s request for comment to Wharton Senior Director for Strategy and Operations Michael Elias.
Elias said in an interview with the DP that the goal of combining STEP and Cohorts was to embed the first-year experience with “strategy and purpose.”
“The thing that STEP did really well was to foster students thinking about what their values are and how they’re using those values, their experiences, their interests, to make sense out of their four years in Wharton undergrad,” he said. “We’re taking both aspects of STEP and Cohorts and figuring out what worked really well.”
The anonymous Cohorts member alleged that the integration of the two programs was “covering up a much larger thing, which is killing STEP itself.”
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Historically, STEP aimed to help disadvantaged groups adjust to life on campus through a week of pre-orientation programming. In February 2025, the program’s website read that its purpose was to “help historically underrepresented students successfully acclimate to college life.”
The website no longer refers to “historically underrepresented” groups.
Wharton Cohorts — the other first-year program previously offered by the school — was instead open to all incoming Wharton undergraduates. The program was meant to serve as an opportunity for students to “get to know each other better and expand their personal and professional networks.”
“Now there’s no directed programming for any individuals who might be falling through the cracks,” a Wharton student involved in the STEP program, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said. “It’s disappointing as someone who has gone through this program, that this is the best solution that they found — because what is this? Nobody wanted this.”
The student said that, earlier this year, he was “made more aware” that programming should no longer include “buzzwords” such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
He explained that the two groups were first informed that larger changes to both programs were coming in January.
“We knew that there was change coming on the STEP side, and also on the cohort side,” he said. “However, we did not picture that it would be a combination of the two organizations at all.”
Wharton junior and cohort leader Chance Padlo echoed a similar sentiment, stating that students “started wondering” about the status of both programs when the Cohorts did not hold elections for co-chair presidents in their typical timeframe.
According to the anonymous STEP member, Wharton administrators told cohort leaders that their program would be combined with STEP in February.
“They just ripped the band-aid off,” he said. “They just told everybody. Everybody was asking questions — it was crazy for us, especially because the Cohorts program has been working independently of STEP for years. So it was a shock for a lot of people.”
The student described the process as “rushed” and a “last-ditch effort” to “save” both programs.
“It was just completely out of the blue,” he added.
Elias said Wharton informed student leaders at both STEP and Cohorts about the changes through routine meetings, email communication, and town hall conversations.
Wharton first-year Dario Cavalieri — who also served as a first-year representative at Wharton Cohorts — told the DP that “both organizations scrambled” after the announcement.
Because STEP had already completed its elections, cohort leaders were allowed to run for a single remaining co-chair position — rather than the three co-chairs offered by the original Cohorts structure.
“That’s why a lot of Cohorts are not retained,” Cavalieri explained. “It’s an entirely new group of people in this new STEP-merged structure.”
The anonymous STEP member described the integration of the two programs as “just for show” and “half-assed.”
“Realistically speaking, they might have changed the name as a whole to be STEP, but nothing about it is STEP anymore,” he added. “It’s just Cohorts with the STEP logo on it.”
As part of the integrated program, STEP will no longer offer a pre-orientation program, which Elias described as a “scaling issue.”
“There’s only a certain amount of students that come back early and that we could actually hold in the program,” he said. “This is a meaningful way that we could truly think about how it captures the entire incoming student body.”
“It’s kind of a joke that they try to portray, that this is going to be a good thing for the long-term program,” the anonymous STEP student continued. “I think it’s just going to dilute both of them.”
According to emails obtained by the DP, Wharton students were invited to a luncheon in October 2025, introducing them to the “Exploration + Application” framework spearheaded by Wharton Vice Dean Cait Lamberton.
Elias — who works alongside Lamberton — wrote that the new framework was intended to help first-years “explore academic, co-curricular, and community resources across Penn and Wharton” and expand their “networks and personal and professional interests.”
Several students criticized the new framework in conversations with the DP, arguing that it restricted the social aspects of the Cohorts program.
“Before, all the cohort events were a lot more chill,” Padlo, who served as a leader under the previous Cohorts program, said. “We would essentially go get boba with kids, or we would take them to a movie or some random activity — a lot of community-building things. Now, the new administration has wanted the events and activities to be a lot more intentional.”
Under the revised framework, Padlo added, the school’s administration had “more oversight” over events related to Wharton Cohorts.
Cavalieri offered similar criticism of the guidelines outlined under the new framework.
“The entire point of Cohorts is that, as a Wharton undergraduate, you’ll throw an event, you can just show up, you can have fun, you can be friends with your cohort leaders,” Cavalieri said. “It’s been a great way to hone class unity and a very socially cohesive part of Wharton that has essentially been killed.”
Elias told the DP that the Wharton was “open” to student feedback on the school’s decision to merge the two programs.
Padlo — who plans to continue working under the restructured STEP program — said that he was “skeptical and apprehensive” but “trying to keep an open mind” about the restructuring.
“I just want whatever is best for the community,” Padlo said. “I’m not sure if this is what’s best, but if it is, then I think I’d be happy to embrace it. I think it’s just going to take until the fall, till we see how it really pans out.”
Senior reporter Arti Jain covers state and local politics and can be reached at jain@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies economics and political science. Follow her on X @arti_jain_.
