University of Pennsylvania
Encyclopedia
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn or UPenn) is a private
, Ivy League
university
located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education
in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution. Penn, Princeton
and Columbia
originated within a few years of each other. Penn considered 1749 to be its founding date for more than a century but, in 1895, elite universities in the United States agreed that henceforth formal academic processions would place visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution's founding dates. The following year, Penn's "The Alumni Register" magazine began a campaign to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740, in order to become older than Princeton, which had been chartered in 1746. Three years later in 1899, Penn's board of trustees acceded to this alumni initiative and officially changed its founding date from 1749 to 1740, affecting its rank in academic processions as well as the informal bragging rights that come with the age-based hierarchy in academia in general. See Building Penn's Brand for more details on why Penn did this. Princeton University
implicitly challenges this http://www.princeton.edu/main/about/history/, also considering itself to be the nation's fourth oldest institution of higher learning. http://www.princeton.edu/main/about/history/american-revolution/ To further complicate the comparison, a Presbyterian minister named William Tennent
and his son Gilbert Tennent
operated a "Log College
" in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, from 1726 until 1746; some have suggested a connection between it and the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) because five members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were affiliated with the Log College, including Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, Jr., and Samuel Finley, the latter of whom later became President of Princeton. (All twelve members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were Presbyterian leaders in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania area.http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/founders.shtml) This antecedent relationship, if considered a formal lineage with institutional continuity, would justify pushing Princeton's founding date back to 1726, earlier than Penn's 1740. However, Princeton has not done so, and a Princeton historian says that "the facts do not warrant" such an interpretation. http://etcweb1.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/log_college.html Columbia University also implicitly challenges Penn's use of either 1740 or 1749, as it claims to be the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States (after Harvard, William & Mary, Yale and Princeton), based upon its charter date of 1754 and Penn's charter date of 1755. http://www.columbia.edu/content/history.html Even Penn's own account of its early history agrees that the Academy of Philadelphia did not become an institution of higher learning until 1755, but university officials continue to make it their practice to assert their fourth-oldest place in academic processions. Other American universities which began as colonial era secondary schools such as St. John's College in 1696 and the University of Delaware in 1743 choose to march based upon the date they became institutions of higher learning. and considers itself to be the first university in the United States
with both undergraduate and graduate studies. It is also one of the Colonial Colleges
. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities
.
Benjamin Franklin
, Penn's founder
, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service
as on the classics and theology. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple "faculties" (e.g., theology
, classics
, medicine) into one institution. It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), the first collegiate business school (Wharton
, 1881) and the first student union (Houston Hall
, 1896), were all born at Penn.
Penn offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. It is particularly well known for its medical school, dental school
, school of business
, law school
, communications school
, nursing school, veterinary school, its social sciences
and humanities
programs, as well as its biomedical teaching and research capabilities. Its undergraduate programs are also among the most selective in the country (12.26% acceptance rate). One of Penn's most well known academic qualities is its emphasis on interdisciplinary education, which it promotes through numerous joint degree programs, research centers and professorships, a unified campus, and the ability for students to take classes from any of Penn's schools (the "One University Policy").
All of Penn's schools, alone or jointly, exhibit very high research activity. Penn is consistently included among the top five research universities in the US, and among the top research universities in the world, both in terms of quality and quantity of research. In fiscal year 2011, Penn will top the Ivy League in academic research spending with a $814 million budget, involving some 4,000 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,400 support staff/graduate assistants. As one of the most active and prolific research institutions, Penn is associated with several important innovations and discoveries in many fields of science and the humanities. Among them are the first general purpose electronic computer (ENIAC
), the Rubella
and Hepatitis B vaccines, Retin-A, cognitive therapy
, conjoint analysis
and others.
Penn's academic and research programs are led by a large and highly productive faculty. In the last ten years alone 9 Penn faculty members or graduates have won a Nobel Prize
. Over its long history the university has also produced a large volume of distinguished alumni. These include 11 heads of state (including one U.S. President), 3 United States Supreme Court justices, and supreme court justices of other states, 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence
, 9 signers of the Constitution
, and 18 living billionaires.
In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield
. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley
and was the largest building in the city at the time. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school; however, a lack of funds forced plans for a chapel and the school to be suspended. In the fall of 1749, eager to create a college to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin
circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia." However, according to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first drew up a proposal for establishing the academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution." Unlike the other Colonial colleges
that existed in 1743—Harvard
, William and Mary
, and Yale
—Franklin's new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study became the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum.
Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the Board of Trustees (November 13, 1749) the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from Independence Hall was offered without cost by James Logan
, its owner, the Trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, which was still vacant, would be an even better site. On February 1, 1750 the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. In 1751 the Academy of Philadelphia, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was opened in accordance with the intentions of the original "New Building" donors, although it lasted only a few years. In 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, paving the way for undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same Board of Trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution.
The institution was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Rev. William Smith's
loyalist
tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a University of the State of Pennsylvania
. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791 the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into the University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.
Penn referred to 1749 as its founding date until 1899, when the board of trustees voted to begin using 1740 instead. Penn has three claims to being the first university in the United States
, according to university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd: the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both "undergraduate" and professional education; the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University"; and existing colleges were established as seminaries.
After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River
to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse
in West Philadelphia
in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City
. In 1899, Penn's Board of Trustees voted to change the University's founding date from 1749 to 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself."
Penn's educational innovations include: the nation's first medical school in 1765; the first university teaching hospital in 1874; the Wharton School
, the world's first collegiate school of business, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall
, in 1896; the country's second school of veterinary medicine; and the home of ENIAC
, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946. Penn is also home to the oldest continuously functioning psychology
department in North America and is where the American Medical Association
was founded. Penn was also the first university to award a PhD to an African-American woman, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
, in 1921 (in economics).
’s III.24 (Book 3, Ode 24), quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] morals?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When it was pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals [are] useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless").
The outer ring of the current seal is inscribed with “Universitas Pennsylvaniensis,” the Latin name of the University of Pennsylvania. The inside contains seven stacked books on a desk with the titles of what was the common curriculum in 1932: Theolog, Astronom, Philosoph, Mathemat, Logica, Rhetorica, Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the University, “Leges Sine Moribus Vanae.”
Much of Penn's architecture was designed by the Cope & Stewardson
firm, whose principal architects combined the Gothic architecture
of the University of Oxford
and the University of Cambridge
with the local landscape to establish the Collegiate Gothic
style. The present core campus covers over 269 acres (1.1 km²) in a contiguous area of West Philadelphia's University City district; the older heart of the campus comprises the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District
. All of Penn's schools and most of its research institutes are located on this campus. The surrounding neighborhood includes several restaurants and pubs, a large upscale grocery store, and a movie theater on the western edge of campus.
The Module 6 Utility Plant and Garage at Penn was designed by BLT Architects and completed in 1995. Module 6 is located at 38th & Walnut and includes spaces for 627 vehicles, 9000 sq ft (836.1 m²) of storefront retail operations, a 9,500-ton chiller module and corresponding extension of the campus chilled water loop, and a 4,000-ton ice storage facility. In 2007, Penn acquired about 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) between the campus and the Schuylkill River
(the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center
and a nearby 24 acres (97,124.6 m²) site owned by the United States Postal Service
). Dubbed the Postal Lands, the site extends from Market Street on the north to Penn's Bower Field on the south, including the former main regional U.S. Postal Building at 30th and Market Streets, now the regional office for the U. S. Internal Revenue Service
. Over the next decade, the site will become the home to educational, research, biomedical
, and mixed-use
facilities. The first phase, a comprising a park and athletic facilities, opened in the fall of 2011. Penn also plans new connections between the campus and the city, including a pedestrian bridge. In 2010 Penn, in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River
, purchased 23 acres at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue from DuPont
for storage and office space.
The University also owns the 92 acres (372,311.1 m²) Morris Arboretum
in Chestnut Hill
in northwestern Philadelphia, the official arboretum of the state of Pennsylvania
. Penn also owns the 687 acres (2.8 km²) New Bolton Center
, the research and large-animal health care center of its Veterinary School. Located near Kennett Square
, New Bolton Center received nationwide media attention when Kentucky Derby
winner Barbaro
underwent surgery at its Widener Hospital for injuries suffered while running in the Preakness Stakes
.
Penn borders Drexel University
and is near the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
. The renowned cancer research center Wistar Institute
is also located on campus. In 2014 a new 7-story glass and steel building will be completed next to the Institute's historic 117-year old brick building further expanding collaboration between Penn and the Wistar Institute.
Penn's library began in 1750 with a donation of books from cartographer Louis Evans. Twelve years later, then-provost William Smith
sailed to England to raise additional funds to increase the collection size. More than 250 years later, it has grown into a system of 15 libraries (13 are on the contiguous campus) with 400 full-time equivalent
(FTE) employees and a total operating budget of more than $48 million. The library system holds 5.93 million book and serial volumes as well as 4.19 million microform
items. It subscribes to over 68,000 print serials and e-journals.
Penn's Libraries, with associated school or subject area: Annenberg (School of Communications), located in the Annenberg School; Biddle (Law), located in the Law School; Biomedical, located adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School; Chemistry, located in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building; Dental Medicine; Engineering, located on the second floor of the Towne Building in the Engineering School; Fine Arts, located within the Fisher Fine Arts Library
, designed by Frank Furness
; Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, located on Walnut Street at Washington Square; Lea Library, located within the Van Pelt Library; Lippincott (Wharton School), located on the second floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; Math/Physics/Astronomy, located on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory; Museum (Anthropology); Rare Books and Manuscripts; Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center
(Humanities and Social Sciences) - location of Weigle Information Commons; Veterinary Medicine, located in Penn Campus and New Bolton Center; and High Density Storage.
Since the University museum was founded in 1887, it has taken part in 400 research projects worldwide. The museum's first project was an excavation of Nippur
, a location in current day Iraq. The museum has three gallery floors with artifacts from Egypt, the Middle East, Mesoamerica
, Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa, and indigenous artifacts of the Americas. Its most famous object is the goat rearing into the branches of a rosette-leafed plant, from the royal tombs of Ur. Features of its Beaux-Arts building include a rotunda
and gardens that include Egyptian papyrus
. The Institute of Contemporary Art
, which is based on Penn's campus, showcases various art exhibitions throughout the year.
The College of Arts and Sciences
is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences, which also contains the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, Penn's division for non-traditional undergraduate and graduate students. Wharton
is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania. Other undergraduate schools include the School of Nursing
and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS)
Penn has a strong focus on interdisciplinary learning and research. It offers joint-degree programs, unique majors, and academic flexibility. Penn's "One University" policy allows undergraduates access to courses at all of Penn's undergraduate and graduate schools, except the medical, veterinary and dental schools. Undergraduates at Penn may also take courses at Bryn Mawr
, Haverford
, and Swarthmore
, under a reciprocal agreement known as the Quaker Consortium
.
(CDD) programs, which award candidates degrees from multiple schools at the University upon completion of graduation criteria of both schools. Undergraduate programs include:
Dual-degree programs which lead to the same multiple degrees without participation in the specific above programs are also available. Unlike CDD programs, "dual degree" students fulfill requirements of both programs independently without involvement of another program. Specialized dual-degree programs include Liberal Studies and Technology as well as a Computer and Cognitive Science Program. Both programs award a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and a degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In addition, the Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences
allows its students to either double major in the sciences or submatriculate and earn both a B.A. and a M.S. in four years. The most recent Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER) will be first offered for the class of 2015. A joint program of Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, VIPER leads to dual Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees by combining majors from each school.
For graduate programs, Penn offers many formalized joint-degree graduate degrees such as a joint J.D./MBA, and maintains a list of interdisciplinary institutions, such as the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies, and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science.
The size of Penn's biomedical research organization, however, adds a very capital intensive component to the university's operations, and introduces revenue instability due to changing government regulations, reduced federal funding for research, and Medicaid
/Medicare
program changes. This is a primary reason highlighted in bond rating agencies' views on Penn's overall financial rating, which ranks one notch below its academic peers. Penn has worked to address these issues by pooling its schools (as well as several hospitals and clinical practices) into the University of Pennsylvania Health System
, thereby pooling resources for greater efficiencies and research impact.
Penn is considered a "very high research
activity" university. In 2011 Penn will top the Ivy League in research expenditures with $814 million worth of research, of which about 70% comes from federal support and in the most part from the Department of Health and Human Services. Penn also enjoys strong support from the private sector, which in 2010 contributed almost $400 million to Penn, making it the 6th strongest US university in terms of fundraising. In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn's research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010-11 academic year alone 5 interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing, the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Nursing School, the $13 million Morris Arboretum’s Horticulture Center, the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton, and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,000 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,400 academic support staff and graduate student trainees. To further assist the advancement of interdisciplinary research President Amy Gutmann
established the "Penn Integrates Knowledge" title awarded to selected Penn professors "whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge." These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn's schools. The most recent of the 13 PIK professors is Ezekiel Emanuel, who started at Penn in September 2011 as the Diane S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor with a joint appointment at the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, which he chairs in the Perelman School of Medicine, and the Department of Health Care Management in the Wharton School.
As a powerful research-oriented institution Penn is also among the most prolific and high-quality producers of doctoral students. With 487 PhDs awarded in 2009, Penn ranks third in the Ivy League, only behind Columbia
and Cornell (Harvard did not report data). It also has one of the highest numbers of post-doctoral appointees (933 in number for 2004-07), ranking third in the Ivy League (behind Harvard and Yale
), and tenth nationally. In most disciplines Penn professors' productivity is among the highest in the nation, and first in the fields of Epidemiology, Business, Communication Studies, Comparative Literature, Languages, Information Science, Criminal Justice and Criminology, Social Sciences and Sociology. According to the National Research Council
nearly three-quarters of Penn’s 41 assessed programs were placed in ranges including the top 10 rankings in their fields, with more than half of these in ranges including the top 5 rankings in these fields.
Penn's research tradition has historically been complemented by innovations that shaped higher education. In addition to establishing the first medical school, the first university teaching hospital, the first business school, and the first student union, Penn was also the cradle of other significant developments. In 1852 Penn Law was the first law school in the nation to publish a law journal still in existence (then called The American Law Register, now the Penn Law Review
, one of the most cited law journals in the world); under the deanship of William Draper Lewis
, the law school was also one of the first schools to emphasize legal teaching by full-time professors instead of practitioners, a system that is still followed today; The Wharton School was home to several pioneering developments in business education. It established the first research center in a business school in 1921 and the first center for entrepreneurship center in 1973, and it regularly introduced novel curricula for which BusinessWeek
wrote, "Wharton is on the crest of a wave of reinvention and change in management education."
Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best well known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC
) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering
. It was here also where the world's first spelling and grammar checker were created as well as the popular COBOL
programming language. Penn can also boast some of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine. The dialysis
machine used as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function was conceived and devised out of a pressure cooker by William Inouye while he was still a student at Penn Med; the Rubella
and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn; the discovery of cancer's link with genes, cognitive therapy
, Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), and Resistin
were all discovered by Penn Med researchers. More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the genes for fragile X syndrome
, the most common form of inherited mental retardation, Kennedy's disease, a disorder marked by progressive muscle and bulbar atrophy, and Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet, and limbs. Conductive polymer
was also developed at Penn by Alan J. Heeger
, Alan MacDiarmid
and Hideki Shirakawa
, an invention that earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
. The theory of superconductivity
was also partly developed at Penn, by then faculty member John Robert Schrieffer
(along with John Bardeen
and Leon Cooper
). The university has also contributed major advancements in the fields of economics and management. Among the many discoveries are conjoint analysis
, widely used as a predictive tool especially in market research, Simon Kuznets
's method of measuring Gross National Product, the Penn effect
(the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones), and the "Wharton Model" developed by Nobel-laurete Lawrence Klein
to measure and forecast economic activity. The idea behind Health Maintenance Organization
s also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers, who put it into practice during Nixon's health reform in the 1970s.
According to U.S. News & World Report
Penn is currently ranked 5th in the United States (tied with Stanford, MIT, CalTech and Chicago), behind Harvard
, Princeton
, Yale
and Columbia
. The fifth position is one spot down compared to 2005 and 2010; the university attributed the drop in U.S. News new methodology that takes into account graduation rates and the opinions of high school college counselors, who emphasize the benefits of large urban centers like New York.
In their latest editions Penn was ranked 9th in the world by the QS World University Rankings, 14th by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
's Academic Ranking of World Universities (up one spot from 2010), and 16th by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
(up three spots from 2010). According to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
ranking Penn is also the 8th and 9th best university in the world for economics and business and social sciences studies accordingly.
Research rankings
The Center for Measuring University Performance places Penn in the first tier of the United States' top research universities (tied with Columbia
, MIT and Stanford), based on research expenditures, faculty awards, PhD granted and other academic criteria. Penn was also ranked 9th by the National Science Foundation
in terms of R&D expenditures topping all other Ivy League Schools.
The High Impact Universities
research performance index ranks Penn 8th in the world, whereas the 2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities (published by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan) ranks Penn 11th in the world for 2010, 2008 and 2007, and 9th for 2009. The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers measures universities' research productivity, research impact, and research excellence based on the scientific papers published by their academic staff.
Other rankings
The Mines ParisTech International Professional Ranking, which ranks universities on the basis of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies, ranks Penn 11th worldwide, and 2nd nationally behind Harvard. The Washington Monthly
ranked Penn 21st on its list of universities' contributions to national service (Social mobility: percentage of, and support for, Pell grant recipients; Research: total research spending; PhDs granted in science and engineering; and Community Service: the number of students in ROTC, Peace Corps, etc.). Forbes ranked Penn 52nd, based on "student criteria," such as student evaluations of professors and total debt upon graduation.
Undergraduate programs
Penn's arts and science programs are all well regarded, with many departments ranked amongst the nation's top 10. At the undergraduate level, Wharton
, Penn's business school, and Penn's nursing school have maintained their #1, 2 or 3 rankings since U.S. News began reviewing such programs. In the School of Engineering, top departments are bioengineering (typically ranked in the top 5 by U.S. News), mechanical engineering
, chemical engineering
and nanotechnology
. The school is also strong in some areas of computer science and artificial intelligence.
Graduate and professional programs
Among its professional schools, the schools of business
, communication
, dentistry
, medicine, nursing
, and veterinary medicine rank in the top 5 nationally (see U.S. News and National Research Council). Penn's Law School
is ranked 7th, and its School of Education
and School of Social Policy & Practice are ranked in the top 10 (see U.S. News). In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
, Penn was ranked 2nd in North America.
, Hispanic
, African
, or Native American
. In addition, 51.1% of current students are women.
More than 11% of the first year class are international student
s. The composition of international students accepted in the Class of 2014 is: 50.2% from Asia
; 9.2% from Africa
and the Middle East
; 17.7% from Europe
; 15.5% from Canada
and Mexico
; 4.8% from the Caribbean
, Central America
, and South America
; 1.1% from Australia
and the Pacific Islands
. The acceptance rate for international students applying for the class of 2014 was 411 out of 4,390 (9.4%).
, founded in 1813, is the United States' oldest continuously-existing collegiate literary society. The Mask and Wig Club
is the oldest all-male musical comedy troupe in the country. The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club
, founded in 1862, is one of the oldest continually operating collegiate choruses in the United States. Bruce Montgomery
, its best-known and longest-serving director, led the club from 1956 until 2000. The International Affairs Association (IAA) was founded in 1963 as an organization to promote international affairs and diplomacy at Penn and beyond. With over 400 members, it is the largest student-funded organization on campus. The IAA serves as an umbrella organization for various conferences (UPMUNC, ILMUNC
, and PIRC), as well as a host of other academic and social activities.
The University of Pennsylvania Band
has been a part of student life since 1897. The Penn Band performs at football and basketball games as well as university functions (e.g. commencement
and convocation
) throughout the year and was the first college band to perform at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
. Membership fluctuates between 80 and 100 students.
is an independent, student-run newspaper, which has been published daily since it was founded in 1885. The newspaper went unpublished from May 1943 to November 1945 due to World War II. In 1984, the University lost all editorial and financial control of The Daily Pennsylvanian when the newspaper became its own corporation. In 2007, The Daily Pennsylvanian won the Pacemaker Award administered by the Associated Collegiate Press
.
teams are nicknamed the Quakers
. They participate in the Ivy League
and Division I (Division I FCS for football) in the NCAA
. In recent decades they often have been league
champions in football (14 times from 1982 to 2010) and basketball (22 times from 1970 to 2006). The first athletic team at Penn was its cricket
team.
. The university currently hosts both heavyweight and lightweight men's teams and an openweight women's team, all of which compete as part of the Eastern Sprints
League. Penn Rowing has produced a long list of famous coaches and Olympians, including John B. Kelly, Jr.
, Joe Burk, Rusty Callow, Harry Parker, and Ted Nash
. The teams row out of College Boat Club
, No. 11 Boathouse Row
. The program is currently under the direction of men's head coach Greg Myhr.
The team existed on and off during the World War
s, with the current club having its roots in the 1960s.
Penn first fielded a football
team against Princeton
at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia on November 11, 1876.
Penn football made many contributions to the sport in its early days. During the 1890s, Penn's famed coach and alumnus George Washington Woodruff
introduced the quarterback kick, a forerunner of the forward pass
, as well as the place-kick
from scrimmage and the delayed pass. In 1894, 1895, 1897, and 1904, Penn was generally regarded as the national champion of collegiate football. The achievements of two of Penn's outstanding players from that era—John Heisman
and John Outland—are remembered each year with the presentation of the Heisman Trophy
to the most outstanding college football player of the year, and the Outland Trophy
to the most outstanding college football interior lineman of the year.
In addition, each year the Bednarik Award is given to college football's best defensive player. Chuck Bednarik
(Class of 1949) was a three-time All-America
n center
/linebacker
who starred on the 1947 team and is generally regarded as Penn's all-time finest. In addition to Bednarik, the '47 squad boasted four-time All-American tackle George Savitsky
and three-time All-American halfback
Skip Minisi
. All three standouts were subsequently elected to the College Football Hall of Fame
, as was their coach, George Munger
(a star running back at Penn in the early '30s). Bednarik went on to play for 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles
, becoming the NFL's
last 60-minute man. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 1969. During his presidency of the institution from 1948 to 1953, Harold Stassen
attempted to recultivate Penn's heyday of big-time college football
, but the effort lacked support and was short-lived.
ESPN
's College GameDay traveled to Penn to highlight the Harvard
-Penn game on November 17, 2002, the first time the popular college football show had visited an Ivy League campus.
appearance in 1979, where the Quakers lost to Magic Johnson
-led Michigan State
in Salt Lake City. (Dartmouth twice finished second in the tournament in the 1940s, but that was before the beginning of formal League play.) Penn's team is also a member of the Philadelphia Big 5
, along with La Salle
, Saint Joseph's
, Temple
, and Villanova
. In 2007, the men's team won its third consecutive Ivy League title and then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament
to Texas A&M
.
is where the Quakers play football, field hockey
, lacrosse
, sprint football, and track and field
(and formerly soccer). It is the oldest stadium still operating for football games and was the first stadium to sport two tiers. It hosted the first commercially televised football game, was once the home field of the Philadelphia Eagles, and was the site of early Army – Navy games. Today it is also used by Penn students for recreation such as intramural
and club sports, including touch football
and cricket. Franklin Field hosts the annual collegiate track and field event "the Penn Relays
."
Penn's home court, the Palestra
, is an arena used for men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball
teams, wrestling
team, and Philadelphia Big Five basketball
, as well as high school sporting events. The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility. Penn baseball plays its home games at Meiklejohn Stadium
.
The Olympic Boycott Games
of 1980 were held at the University of Pennsylvania in response to Moscow
's hosting of the 1980 Summer Olympics
following the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan
. Twenty-nine of the boycotting nations participated in the Boycott Games.
, former Prime Minister of the Philippines
, Cesar Virata
, the first president of Nigeria
, Nnamdi Azikiwe
, the first president of Ghana
, Kwame Nkrumah
and the current president of Côte d'Ivoire
, Alassane Ouattara
. The university has also produced three United States Supreme Court justices, William J. Brennan, Owen J. Roberts and James Wilson
, and supreme court justices of foreign states (e.g. Ronald Wilson
of the High Court of Australia
, Ayala Procaccia
of the Israel Supreme Court, and Jasper Yeates Brinton (architect of the Egyptian court system, Justice of the Egyptian Supreme Court and former U.S. Legal Advisor to Egypt)). Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence
and nine signers of the Constitution
are also alumni. These include George Clymer
, Francis Hopkinson
, Thomas McKean
, Robert Morris, William Paca
, George Ross
, Benjamin Rush
, James Wilson
, Thomas Fitzsimons
, Jared Ingersoll
, Rufus King
, Thomas Mifflin
, Gouverneur Morris
, and Hugh Williamson
. Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include former Utah Governor and 2012 Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Jr.
, former Senator Arlen Specter
, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
.
Penn alumni also have a strong presence in economic life. Penn has graduated several governors of central banks including Ignazio Visco
(Bank of Italy), Zeti Akhtar Aziz
(Central Bank of Malaysia), Pridiyathorn Devakula
(Governor, Bank of Thailand, and former Minister of Finance), Farouk El Okdah
(Central Bank of Egypt), and Alfonso Prat Gay
(Central Bank of Argentina). Founders of technology companies include Ralph J. Roberts
(co-founder of Comcast
), Elon Musk
(founder of Paypal
, Tesla Motors
, and SpaceX
), Leonard Bosack
(co-founder of Cisco
), David Brown
(co-founder of Silicon Graphics
) and Mark Pincus
(founder of Zynga
, the company behind Farmville
), and founders of law firms include James Harry Covington
(co-founder of Covington & Burling
), Martin Lipton
(co-founder of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz), George Wharton Pepper (Senator from Pennsylvania, and founder of Pepper Hamilton), Russell Duane (co-founder of Duane Morris
), and Stephen Cozen, (co-founder of Cozen O'Connor
). Other notable businessmen and entrepreneurs who studied at or graduated from the University of Pennsylvania include William S. Paley
(former president of CBS
), Warren BuffetBuffet studied at Penn for 3 years before he transferred to the University of Nebraska (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
), Donald Trump
, Donald Trump, Jr.
, and Ivanka Trump
, Safra Catz (President and CFO of Oracle Corporation
), Leonard Lauder
(Chairman Emeritus of Estée Lauder Companies
and son of founder Estée Lauder
), Steven A. Cohen
(founder of SAC Capital Advisors), Robert Kapito (president of Blackrock
, the world's largest asset manager), and P. Roy Vagelos
(former President and CEO of multinational pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.
).
Among other distinguished alumni are poets Ezra Pound
and William Carlos Williams
, linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky
, starchitect
Louis Kahn
, cartoonist Charles Addams
, theatrical producer Harold Prince, actress Candace Bergen, counter-terrorism expert and author Richard A. Clarke
, pollster Frank Luntz
, attorney Gloria Allred
, recording artist John Legend
, and football athlete and coach John Heisman
.
In total, 28 Penn affiliates have won Nobel Prize
s, of whom four are current faculty members and nine are alumni. Nine of the Nobel-laureates have won the prize in the last decade. Penn also counts 120 members of the United States National Academies
, 77 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences
, eight National Medal of Science
laureates, 28 members of the American Philosophical Society
, and 175 Guggenheim Fellowship
s.
In TV
In Movies
In Literature
In 1965, Penn students learned that the University was sponsoring research projects for the United States' chemical and biological weapons program. According to Herman
and Rutman, the revelation that "CB Projects Spicerack and Summit were directly connected with U.S. military activities in Southeast Asia", caused students to petition Penn president Gaylord Harnwell
to halt the program, citing the project as being, "immoral, inhuman, illegal, and unbefitting of an academic institution." Members of the faculty believed that an academic university should not be performing classified research and voted to re-examine the University agency which was responsible for the project on November 4, 1965.
In 1984, the Head Lab at the University of Pennsylvania was raided by members of the Animal Liberation Front
. 60 hours worth of video footage depicting animal cruelty was stolen from the lab. The video footage was released to PETA
who edited the tapes and created the documentary Unnecessary Fuss
. As a result of an investigation called by the Office for Protection from Research Risks, the chief veterinarian was fired and the Head Lab was closed.
The school gained notoriety in 1993 for the water buffalo incident
in which a student who told a noisy group of black students to "shut up, you water buffalo" was charged with violating the University's racial harassment policy.
In 2007, the undergraduate Dean of Admissions, Lee Stetson
, abruptly resigned one year before his expected departure date. Penn President Amy Gutmann
remained quiet about the event, stating only that the resignation was made in the best interests of the University and Stetson himself.
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...
, Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution. Penn, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
originated within a few years of each other. Penn considered 1749 to be its founding date for more than a century but, in 1895, elite universities in the United States agreed that henceforth formal academic processions would place visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution's founding dates. The following year, Penn's "The Alumni Register" magazine began a campaign to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740, in order to become older than Princeton, which had been chartered in 1746. Three years later in 1899, Penn's board of trustees acceded to this alumni initiative and officially changed its founding date from 1749 to 1740, affecting its rank in academic processions as well as the informal bragging rights that come with the age-based hierarchy in academia in general. See Building Penn's Brand for more details on why Penn did this. Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
implicitly challenges this http://www.princeton.edu/main/about/history/, also considering itself to be the nation's fourth oldest institution of higher learning. http://www.princeton.edu/main/about/history/american-revolution/ To further complicate the comparison, a Presbyterian minister named William Tennent
William Tennent
William Tennent was an early American religious leader and educator in British North America.-Early life:Tennent was born in Mid Calder, Linlithgowshire, Scotland, in 1673. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1695 and was ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1706...
and his son Gilbert Tennent
Gilbert Tennent
Gilbert Tennent was a religious leader. Gilbert was one of the leaders of the Great Awakening of religious feeling in Colonial America, along with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield...
operated a "Log College
Log College
The Log College was the first American Presbyterian theological seminary located in what is now Warminster, Pennsylvania. It was founded by William Tennent and his son Gilbert Tennent and operated from 1726 until William Tennent's death in 1746....
" in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, from 1726 until 1746; some have suggested a connection between it and the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) because five members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were affiliated with the Log College, including Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, Jr., and Samuel Finley, the latter of whom later became President of Princeton. (All twelve members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were Presbyterian leaders in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania area.http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/founders.shtml) This antecedent relationship, if considered a formal lineage with institutional continuity, would justify pushing Princeton's founding date back to 1726, earlier than Penn's 1740. However, Princeton has not done so, and a Princeton historian says that "the facts do not warrant" such an interpretation. http://etcweb1.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/log_college.html Columbia University also implicitly challenges Penn's use of either 1740 or 1749, as it claims to be the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States (after Harvard, William & Mary, Yale and Princeton), based upon its charter date of 1754 and Penn's charter date of 1755. http://www.columbia.edu/content/history.html Even Penn's own account of its early history agrees that the Academy of Philadelphia did not become an institution of higher learning until 1755, but university officials continue to make it their practice to assert their fourth-oldest place in academic processions. Other American universities which began as colonial era secondary schools such as St. John's College in 1696 and the University of Delaware in 1743 choose to march based upon the date they became institutions of higher learning. and considers itself to be the first university in the United States
First university in the United States
First university in the United States is a status asserted by more than one U.S. university. In the U.S. there is no official definition of what entitles an institution to be considered a university versus a college, and the common understanding of "university" has evolved over time.The 1911...
with both undergraduate and graduate studies. It is also one of the Colonial Colleges
Colonial colleges
The Colonial Colleges are nine institutions of higher education chartered in the American Colonies before the United States of America became a sovereign nation after the American Revolution. These nine have long been considered together, notably in the survey of their origins in the 1907 The...
. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, Penn's founder
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service
Public services
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...
as on the classics and theology. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple "faculties" (e.g., theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
, medicine) into one institution. It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), the first collegiate business school (Wharton
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, 1881) and the first student union (Houston Hall
Houston Hall (University of Pennsylvania)
Houston Hall is the student union at the University of Pennsylvania, established in 1896. The idea of a student union was first established at Oxford University in 1823...
, 1896), were all born at Penn.
Penn offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. It is particularly well known for its medical school, dental school
University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine is one of twelve graduate schools at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, school of business
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, law school
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The University of Pennsylvania Law School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the Ivy League, it is among the oldest and most selective law schools in the nation. It is currently ranked 7th overall by U.S. News & World Report,...
, communications school
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communications school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School's alum Walter Annenberg as "The Annenberg School of Communications." The name was changed to its current title in the late 1980's.Walter...
, nursing school, veterinary school, its social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
and humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
programs, as well as its biomedical teaching and research capabilities. Its undergraduate programs are also among the most selective in the country (12.26% acceptance rate). One of Penn's most well known academic qualities is its emphasis on interdisciplinary education, which it promotes through numerous joint degree programs, research centers and professorships, a unified campus, and the ability for students to take classes from any of Penn's schools (the "One University Policy").
All of Penn's schools, alone or jointly, exhibit very high research activity. Penn is consistently included among the top five research universities in the US, and among the top research universities in the world, both in terms of quality and quantity of research. In fiscal year 2011, Penn will top the Ivy League in academic research spending with a $814 million budget, involving some 4,000 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,400 support staff/graduate assistants. As one of the most active and prolific research institutions, Penn is associated with several important innovations and discoveries in many fields of science and the humanities. Among them are the first general purpose electronic computer (ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
), the Rubella
Rubella
Rubella, commonly known as German measles, is a disease caused by the rubella virus. The name "rubella" is derived from the Latin, meaning little red. Rubella is also known as German measles because the disease was first described by German physicians in the mid-eighteenth century. This disease is...
and Hepatitis B vaccines, Retin-A, cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...
, conjoint analysis
Conjoint analysis
Conjoint analysis, also called multi-attribute compositional models or stated preference analysis, is a statistical technique that originated in mathematical psychology. Today it is used in many of the social sciences and applied sciences including marketing, product management, and operations...
and others.
Penn's academic and research programs are led by a large and highly productive faculty. In the last ten years alone 9 Penn faculty members or graduates have won a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
. Over its long history the university has also produced a large volume of distinguished alumni. These include 11 heads of state (including one U.S. President), 3 United States Supreme Court justices, and supreme court justices of other states, 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
, 9 signers of the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, and 18 living billionaires.
History
George Whitefield
George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally...
. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley
Edmund Woolley
Edmund Woolley was an early American architect and master carpenter. He was responsible for designing and erecting the first building on the University of Pennsylvania's first campus, the Pennsylvania State House and Hope Lodge. Woolley was born in England around 1695, and emigrated to America...
and was the largest building in the city at the time. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school; however, a lack of funds forced plans for a chapel and the school to be suspended. In the fall of 1749, eager to create a college to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia." However, according to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first drew up a proposal for establishing the academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution." Unlike the other Colonial colleges
Colonial colleges
The Colonial Colleges are nine institutions of higher education chartered in the American Colonies before the United States of America became a sovereign nation after the American Revolution. These nine have long been considered together, notably in the survey of their origins in the 1907 The...
that existed in 1743—Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
, and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
—Franklin's new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study became the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum.
Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the Board of Trustees (November 13, 1749) the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from Independence Hall was offered without cost by James Logan
James Logan (statesman)
James Logan , a statesman and scholar, was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland of Scottish descent and Quaker parentage. In 1689, the Logan family moved to Bristol, England where, in 1693, James replaced his father as schoolmaster...
, its owner, the Trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, which was still vacant, would be an even better site. On February 1, 1750 the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. In 1751 the Academy of Philadelphia, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was opened in accordance with the intentions of the original "New Building" donors, although it lasted only a few years. In 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, paving the way for undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same Board of Trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution.
William Smith (Anglican priest)
William Smith was the first provost of the University of Pennsylvania.thumb|300px|right|Dr William Smith's residence as it appeared circa 1919-Biography:...
loyalist
Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution...
tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a University of the State of Pennsylvania
University of the State of Pennsylvania
The University of the State of Pennsylvania,which was a Charitable school first in 1740, one-hundred and four years before Harvard and thirty-nine years before Yale. in...
. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791 the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into the University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.
Penn referred to 1749 as its founding date until 1899, when the board of trustees voted to begin using 1740 instead. Penn has three claims to being the first university in the United States
First university in the United States
First university in the United States is a status asserted by more than one U.S. university. In the U.S. there is no official definition of what entitles an institution to be considered a university versus a college, and the common understanding of "university" has evolved over time.The 1911...
, according to university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd: the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both "undergraduate" and professional education; the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University"; and existing colleges were established as seminaries.
After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse
Blockley Almshouse
The Blockley Almshouse, later known as Philadelphia General Hospital, was a charity hospital and poorhouse located in West Philadelphia. It originally opened in 1732/33 in a different part of the city as the Philadelphia Almshouse...
in West Philadelphia
West Philadelphia
West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though there is no official definition of its boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Line Avenue to the northwest, Cobbs Creek to the southwest, and...
in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City
University City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
University City is the easternmost region of West Philadelphia.The University of Pennsylvania has long been the dominant institution in the area and was instrumental in coining the name University City as part of a 1950s urban-renewal effort...
. In 1899, Penn's Board of Trustees voted to change the University's founding date from 1749 to 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself."
Educational innovations
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, the world's first collegiate school of business, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall
Houston Hall (University of Pennsylvania)
Houston Hall is the student union at the University of Pennsylvania, established in 1896. The idea of a student union was first established at Oxford University in 1823...
, in 1896; the country's second school of veterinary medicine; and the home of ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946. Penn is also home to the oldest continuously functioning psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
department in North America and is where the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
was founded. Penn was also the first university to award a PhD to an African-American woman, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, born Sarah Tanner Mossell , was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D...
, in 1921 (in economics).
Motto
Penn's motto is based on a line from HoraceHorace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
’s III.24 (Book 3, Ode 24), quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] morals?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When it was pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals [are] useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless").
Seal
The official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation. A request for one was first recorded in a meeting of the trustees in 1753 during which some of the Trustees “desired to get a Common Seal engraved for the Use of [the] Corporation.” However, it was not until a meeting in 1756 that “a public Seal for the Colledge with a proper device and Motto” was requested to be engraved in silver. The most recent design, a modified version of the original seal, was approved in 1932, adopted a year later, and is still used for much of the same purposes as the original.The outer ring of the current seal is inscribed with “Universitas Pennsylvaniensis,” the Latin name of the University of Pennsylvania. The inside contains seven stacked books on a desk with the titles of what was the common curriculum in 1932: Theolog, Astronom, Philosoph, Mathemat, Logica, Rhetorica, Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the University, “Leges Sine Moribus Vanae.”
Campus
Cope & Stewardson
Cope & Stewardson was an architecture firm best known for its academic building and campus designs. The firm is often regarded as a Master of the Collegiate Gothic style. Walter Cope and John Stewardson established the firm in 1885, and were later joined by Emlyn Stewardson in 1887...
firm, whose principal architects combined the Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
of the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
with the local landscape to establish the Collegiate Gothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
style. The present core campus covers over 269 acres (1.1 km²) in a contiguous area of West Philadelphia's University City district; the older heart of the campus comprises the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District
University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District
The University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, eastern USA...
. All of Penn's schools and most of its research institutes are located on this campus. The surrounding neighborhood includes several restaurants and pubs, a large upscale grocery store, and a movie theater on the western edge of campus.
The Module 6 Utility Plant and Garage at Penn was designed by BLT Architects and completed in 1995. Module 6 is located at 38th & Walnut and includes spaces for 627 vehicles, 9000 sq ft (836.1 m²) of storefront retail operations, a 9,500-ton chiller module and corresponding extension of the campus chilled water loop, and a 4,000-ton ice storage facility. In 2007, Penn acquired about 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) between the campus and the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
(the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center
Philadelphia Civic Center
The Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center, more commonly known as the Philadelphia Civic Center and the Philadelphia Convention Center, was a complex of five or more buildings developed out of a series of buildings dedicated to expanding trade which began with the National Export Exhibition...
and a nearby 24 acres (97,124.6 m²) site owned by the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
). Dubbed the Postal Lands, the site extends from Market Street on the north to Penn's Bower Field on the south, including the former main regional U.S. Postal Building at 30th and Market Streets, now the regional office for the U. S. Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
. Over the next decade, the site will become the home to educational, research, biomedical
Biomedical engineering
Biomedical Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve...
, and mixed-use
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
facilities. The first phase, a comprising a park and athletic facilities, opened in the fall of 2011. Penn also plans new connections between the campus and the city, including a pedestrian bridge. In 2010 Penn, in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
, purchased 23 acres at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue from DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
for storage and office space.
Morris Arboretum
The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania is the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located at 100 East Northwestern Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
in Chestnut Hill
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Chestnut Hill is bounded as follows:...
in northwestern Philadelphia, the official arboretum of the state of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Penn also owns the 687 acres (2.8 km²) New Bolton Center
New Bolton Center
The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s 700 acre New Bolton Center campus in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is home to one of the busiest large animal teaching veterinary clinics in the nation. Founded in 1964 with contributions from equestrienne Esther du Pont Thouron and...
, the research and large-animal health care center of its Veterinary School. Located near Kennett Square
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World because mushroom farming in the region produces over a million pounds of mushrooms a year...
, New Bolton Center received nationwide media attention when Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...
winner Barbaro
Barbaro
Barbaro was an American thoroughbred who decisively won the 2006 Kentucky Derby, but shattered his leg two weeks later in the 2006 Preakness Stakes, ending his racing career and eventually leading to his death....
underwent surgery at its Widener Hospital for injuries suffered while running in the Preakness Stakes
Preakness Stakes
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds ; fillies 121 lb...
.
Penn borders Drexel University
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...
and is near the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
University of the Sciences , officially known as University of the Sciences in Philadelphia , located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in pharmacy and a variety of other health-related disciplines.-History:The history of the University of the Sciences...
. The renowned cancer research center Wistar Institute
Wistar Institute
The Wistar Institute is a biomedical center, with a focus on cancer research and vaccine development. It is located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Pa...
is also located on campus. In 2014 a new 7-story glass and steel building will be completed next to the Institute's historic 117-year old brick building further expanding collaboration between Penn and the Wistar Institute.
Libraries
William Smith (Anglican priest)
William Smith was the first provost of the University of Pennsylvania.thumb|300px|right|Dr William Smith's residence as it appeared circa 1919-Biography:...
sailed to England to raise additional funds to increase the collection size. More than 250 years later, it has grown into a system of 15 libraries (13 are on the contiguous campus) with 400 full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...
(FTE) employees and a total operating budget of more than $48 million. The library system holds 5.93 million book and serial volumes as well as 4.19 million microform
Microform
Microforms are any forms, either films or paper, containing microreproductions of documents for transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about one twenty-fifth of the original document size...
items. It subscribes to over 68,000 print serials and e-journals.
Penn's Libraries, with associated school or subject area: Annenberg (School of Communications), located in the Annenberg School; Biddle (Law), located in the Law School; Biomedical, located adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School; Chemistry, located in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building; Dental Medicine; Engineering, located on the second floor of the Towne Building in the Engineering School; Fine Arts, located within the Fisher Fine Arts Library
Fisher Fine Arts Library
The Anne & Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library, also known as the Furness Library, is located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, on the east side of College Green...
, designed by Frank Furness
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...
; Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, located on Walnut Street at Washington Square; Lea Library, located within the Van Pelt Library; Lippincott (Wharton School), located on the second floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; Math/Physics/Astronomy, located on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory; Museum (Anthropology); Rare Books and Manuscripts; Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center
Van Pelt Library
The Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library is the primary library at the University of Pennsylvania....
(Humanities and Social Sciences) - location of Weigle Information Commons; Veterinary Medicine, located in Penn Campus and New Bolton Center; and High Density Storage.
The University Museum
Since the University museum was founded in 1887, it has taken part in 400 research projects worldwide. The museum's first project was an excavation of Nippur
Nippur
Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...
, a location in current day Iraq. The museum has three gallery floors with artifacts from Egypt, the Middle East, Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
, Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa, and indigenous artifacts of the Americas. Its most famous object is the goat rearing into the branches of a rosette-leafed plant, from the royal tombs of Ur. Features of its Beaux-Arts building include a rotunda
Rotunda (architecture)
A rotunda is any building with a circular ground plan, sometimes covered by a dome. It can also refer to a round room within a building . The Pantheon in Rome is a famous rotunda. A Band Rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome...
and gardens that include Egyptian papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
. The Institute of Contemporary Art
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
The Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA is a contemporary art museum located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, and is located on its campus. The Institute is one of the country's leading museums dedicated to exhibiting the innovative...
, which is based on Penn's campus, showcases various art exhibitions throughout the year.
Residences
Every College House at the University of Pennsylvania has at least 4 members of faculty in the roles of House Dean, Faculty Master, and College House Fellows. Within the College Houses, Penn has nearly 40 themed residential programs for students with shared interests such as world cinema or science and technology. Many of the nearby homes and apartments in the area surrounding the campus are often rented by undergraduate students moving off campus after freshman year, as well as by graduate and professional students.Academics
University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences
The School of Arts and Sciences is the home of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.SAS has three main academic components:...
is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences, which also contains the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, Penn's division for non-traditional undergraduate and graduate students. Wharton
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania. Other undergraduate schools include the School of Nursing
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is an undergraduate and graduate institution at the University of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since its establishment in 1935, the School of Nursing at Penn is currently the top-ranked private nursing institution in the nation...
and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS)
University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science
The School of Engineering and Applied Science, also known as SEAS, is one of the four undergraduate schools of the University of Pennsylvania. The School offers a boutique approach to the study of engineering in that its programs emphasize hands-on study of engineering fundamentals while...
Penn has a strong focus on interdisciplinary learning and research. It offers joint-degree programs, unique majors, and academic flexibility. Penn's "One University" policy allows undergraduates access to courses at all of Penn's undergraduate and graduate schools, except the medical, veterinary and dental schools. Undergraduates at Penn may also take courses at Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
, Haverford
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
, and Swarthmore
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, under a reciprocal agreement known as the Quaker Consortium
Quaker Consortium
The Quaker Consortium is an arrangement between three liberal arts colleges, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, and one research university, the University of Pennsylvania, in the greater Philadelphia area...
.
Coordinated dual-degree and interdisciplinary programs
Penn offers specialized coordinated dual-degreeDouble degree
A double-degree program, sometimes called a combined degree, conjoint degree, dual degree, or simultaneous degree program, involves a student's working for two different university degrees in parallel, either at the same institution or at different institutions , completing them in less time than...
(CDD) programs, which award candidates degrees from multiple schools at the University upon completion of graduation criteria of both schools. Undergraduate programs include:
- The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology
- The Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business
- Nursing and Health Care Management
- The Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and ManagementVagelos Program in Life Sciences and ManagementThe Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management is a 4-year dual-degree undergraduate program of the School of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Students of the program graduate with both a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School as well as a B.A...
- Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER)
- Accelerated 7 year Bio-Dental Program
Dual-degree programs which lead to the same multiple degrees without participation in the specific above programs are also available. Unlike CDD programs, "dual degree" students fulfill requirements of both programs independently without involvement of another program. Specialized dual-degree programs include Liberal Studies and Technology as well as a Computer and Cognitive Science Program. Both programs award a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and a degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In addition, the Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences
Vagelos Scholars Program In Molecular Life Sciences
The Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences is an undergraduate program at the University of Pennsylvania, named after Penn alumnus and Merck CEO Roy Vagelos and his wife Diana....
allows its students to either double major in the sciences or submatriculate and earn both a B.A. and a M.S. in four years. The most recent Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER) will be first offered for the class of 2015. A joint program of Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, VIPER leads to dual Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees by combining majors from each school.
For graduate programs, Penn offers many formalized joint-degree graduate degrees such as a joint J.D./MBA, and maintains a list of interdisciplinary institutions, such as the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies, and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science.
Academic medical center and biomedical research complex
Penn's health-related programs—including the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Dental Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine, and programs in bioengineering (School of Engineering) and health management (the Wharton School)—are among the university's strongest academic components. The combination of intellectual breadth, research funding (each of the health sciences schools ranks in the top 5 in annual NIH funding), clinical resources and overall scale ranks Penn with only a small handful of peer universities in the U.S.The size of Penn's biomedical research organization, however, adds a very capital intensive component to the university's operations, and introduces revenue instability due to changing government regulations, reduced federal funding for research, and Medicaid
Medicaid
Medicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent...
/Medicare
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...
program changes. This is a primary reason highlighted in bond rating agencies' views on Penn's overall financial rating, which ranks one notch below its academic peers. Penn has worked to address these issues by pooling its schools (as well as several hospitals and clinical practices) into the University of Pennsylvania Health System
University of Pennsylvania Health System
The University of Pennsylvania Health System is a diverse research and clinical care organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1993, it currently operates under the direction and auspices of Penn Medicine, a division of the University of Pennsylvania...
, thereby pooling resources for greater efficiencies and research impact.
Admissions selectivity
The Princeton Review ranks Penn as the 6th most selective school in the United States. For the Class of 2015, entering in the fall of 2011, the University received a record of 31,659 applications and admitted 12.26 percent of the applicants (9.5% in the regular decision cycle), marking Penn's most selective admissions cycle in the history of the University. The Atlantic also ranked Penn among the 10 most selective schools in the country. At the graduate level, Penn's admissions rates, like most universities', vary considerably based on school and program. Based on admission statistics from U.S. News and World Report, Penn's most selective programs include its law school, the health care schools (medicine, dental medicine, nursing, and veterinary), and its business school.Research, innovations, and discoveries
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
activity" university. In 2011 Penn will top the Ivy League in research expenditures with $814 million worth of research, of which about 70% comes from federal support and in the most part from the Department of Health and Human Services. Penn also enjoys strong support from the private sector, which in 2010 contributed almost $400 million to Penn, making it the 6th strongest US university in terms of fundraising. In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn's research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010-11 academic year alone 5 interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing, the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Nursing School, the $13 million Morris Arboretum’s Horticulture Center, the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton, and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,000 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,400 academic support staff and graduate student trainees. To further assist the advancement of interdisciplinary research President Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
established the "Penn Integrates Knowledge" title awarded to selected Penn professors "whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge." These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn's schools. The most recent of the 13 PIK professors is Ezekiel Emanuel, who started at Penn in September 2011 as the Diane S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor with a joint appointment at the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, which he chairs in the Perelman School of Medicine, and the Department of Health Care Management in the Wharton School.
As a powerful research-oriented institution Penn is also among the most prolific and high-quality producers of doctoral students. With 487 PhDs awarded in 2009, Penn ranks third in the Ivy League, only behind Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and Cornell (Harvard did not report data). It also has one of the highest numbers of post-doctoral appointees (933 in number for 2004-07), ranking third in the Ivy League (behind Harvard and Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
), and tenth nationally. In most disciplines Penn professors' productivity is among the highest in the nation, and first in the fields of Epidemiology, Business, Communication Studies, Comparative Literature, Languages, Information Science, Criminal Justice and Criminology, Social Sciences and Sociology. According to the National Research Council
United States National Research Council
The National Research Council of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academies, carrying out most of the studies done in their names.The National Academies include:* National Academy of Sciences...
nearly three-quarters of Penn’s 41 assessed programs were placed in ranges including the top 10 rankings in their fields, with more than half of these in ranges including the top 5 rankings in these fields.
University of Pennsylvania Law Review
The University of Pennsylvania Law Review is a law review focusing on legal issues, published by an organization of second and third year J.D. students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. It is the oldest law journal in the United States, having been published continuously since 1852...
, one of the most cited law journals in the world); under the deanship of William Draper Lewis
William Draper Lewis
William Draper Lewis was the first full-time dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the founding director of the American Law Institute.-Personal life and education:...
, the law school was also one of the first schools to emphasize legal teaching by full-time professors instead of practitioners, a system that is still followed today; The Wharton School was home to several pioneering developments in business education. It established the first research center in a business school in 1921 and the first center for entrepreneurship center in 1973, and it regularly introduced novel curricula for which BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...
wrote, "Wharton is on the crest of a wave of reinvention and change in management education."
Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best well known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering
Moore School of Electrical Engineering
The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne Building...
. It was here also where the world's first spelling and grammar checker were created as well as the popular COBOL
COBOL
COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....
programming language. Penn can also boast some of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine. The dialysis
Dialysis
In medicine, dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood, and is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with renal failure...
machine used as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function was conceived and devised out of a pressure cooker by William Inouye while he was still a student at Penn Med; the Rubella
Rubella
Rubella, commonly known as German measles, is a disease caused by the rubella virus. The name "rubella" is derived from the Latin, meaning little red. Rubella is also known as German measles because the disease was first described by German physicians in the mid-eighteenth century. This disease is...
and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn; the discovery of cancer's link with genes, cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...
, Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), and Resistin
Resistin
Resistin also known as adipose tissue-specific secretory factor or C/EBP-epsilon-regulated myeloid-specific secreted cysteine-rich protein is a cysteine-rich protein that in humans is encoded by the RETN gene....
were all discovered by Penn Med researchers. More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the genes for fragile X syndrome
Fragile X syndrome
Fragile X syndrome , Martin–Bell syndrome, or Escalante's syndrome , is a genetic syndrome that is the most commonly known single-gene cause of autism and the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability...
, the most common form of inherited mental retardation, Kennedy's disease, a disorder marked by progressive muscle and bulbar atrophy, and Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet, and limbs. Conductive polymer
Conductive polymer
Conductive polymers or, more precisely, intrinsically conducting polymers are organic polymers that conduct electricity. Such compounds may have metallic conductivity or can be semiconductors. The biggest advantage of conductive polymers is their processability, mainly by dispersion. Conductive...
was also developed at Penn by Alan J. Heeger
Alan J. Heeger
Alan Jay Heeger is an American physicist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry.Heeger was born in Sioux City, Iowa to a Jewish family. He earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1957, and a Ph.D in physics from the University of California,...
, Alan MacDiarmid
Alan MacDiarmid
Alan Graham MacDiarmid ONZ was a chemist, and one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000.-Early life:He was born in Masterton, New Zealand as one of five children - three brothers and two sisters...
and Hideki Shirakawa
Hideki Shirakawa
Hideki Shirakawa is a Japanese chemist and winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of conductive polymers together with physics professor Alan J. Heeger and chemistry professor Alan G...
, an invention that earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
. The theory of superconductivity
BCS theory
BCS theory — proposed by Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer in 1957 — is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since its discovery in 1911. The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a "condensation" of pairs of electrons into a boson-like state...
was also partly developed at Penn, by then faculty member John Robert Schrieffer
John Robert Schrieffer
John Robert Schrieffer is an American physicist and, with John Bardeen and Leon N Cooper, recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for developing the BCS theory, the first successful microscopic theory of superconductivity.-Biography:...
(along with John Bardeen
John Bardeen
John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a...
and Leon Cooper
Leon Cooper
Leon N Cooper is an American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, who with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity...
). The university has also contributed major advancements in the fields of economics and management. Among the many discoveries are conjoint analysis
Conjoint analysis
Conjoint analysis, also called multi-attribute compositional models or stated preference analysis, is a statistical technique that originated in mathematical psychology. Today it is used in many of the social sciences and applied sciences including marketing, product management, and operations...
, widely used as a predictive tool especially in market research, Simon Kuznets
Simon Kuznets
Simon Smith Kuznets was a Russian American economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and...
's method of measuring Gross National Product, the Penn effect
Penn effect
The Penn effect is the economic finding associated with what became the Penn World Table that real income ratios between high and low income countries are systematically exaggerated by gross domestic product conversion at market exchange rates...
(the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones), and the "Wharton Model" developed by Nobel-laurete Lawrence Klein
Lawrence Klein
Lawrence Robert Klein is an American economist. For his work in creating computer models to forecast economic trends in the field of econometrics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1980...
to measure and forecast economic activity. The idea behind Health Maintenance Organization
Health maintenance organization
A health maintenance organization is an organization that provides managed care for health insurance contracts in the United States as a liaison with health care providers...
s also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers, who put it into practice during Nixon's health reform in the 1970s.
Rankings
General rankingsAccording to U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
Penn is currently ranked 5th in the United States (tied with Stanford, MIT, CalTech and Chicago), behind Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. The fifth position is one spot down compared to 2005 and 2010; the university attributed the drop in U.S. News new methodology that takes into account graduation rates and the opinions of high school college counselors, who emphasize the benefits of large urban centers like New York.
In their latest editions Penn was ranked 9th in the world by the QS World University Rankings, 14th by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...
's Academic Ranking of World Universities (up one spot from 2010), and 16th by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an international ranking of universities published by the British magazine Times Higher Education in partnership with Thomson Reuters, which provided citation database information...
(up three spots from 2010). According to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...
ranking Penn is also the 8th and 9th best university in the world for economics and business and social sciences studies accordingly.
Research rankings
The Center for Measuring University Performance places Penn in the first tier of the United States' top research universities (tied with Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, MIT and Stanford), based on research expenditures, faculty awards, PhD granted and other academic criteria. Penn was also ranked 9th by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
in terms of R&D expenditures topping all other Ivy League Schools.
The High Impact Universities
High Impact Universities
Initially launched in September 2010, the High Impact Universities research performance index or RPI is an Australian initiative to benchmark the research performance of world's universities. The pilot project involved a study of over 1,000 universities and 5,000 faculties worldwide. Ranked results...
research performance index ranks Penn 8th in the world, whereas the 2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities (published by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan) ranks Penn 11th in the world for 2010, 2008 and 2007, and 9th for 2009. The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers measures universities' research productivity, research impact, and research excellence based on the scientific papers published by their academic staff.
Other rankings
The Mines ParisTech International Professional Ranking, which ranks universities on the basis of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies, ranks Penn 11th worldwide, and 2nd nationally behind Harvard. The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...
ranked Penn 21st on its list of universities' contributions to national service (Social mobility: percentage of, and support for, Pell grant recipients; Research: total research spending; PhDs granted in science and engineering; and Community Service: the number of students in ROTC, Peace Corps, etc.). Forbes ranked Penn 52nd, based on "student criteria," such as student evaluations of professors and total debt upon graduation.
Undergraduate programs
Penn's arts and science programs are all well regarded, with many departments ranked amongst the nation's top 10. At the undergraduate level, Wharton
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, Penn's business school, and Penn's nursing school have maintained their #1, 2 or 3 rankings since U.S. News began reviewing such programs. In the School of Engineering, top departments are bioengineering (typically ranked in the top 5 by U.S. News), mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
, chemical engineering
Chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...
and nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
. The school is also strong in some areas of computer science and artificial intelligence.
Graduate and professional programs
Among its professional schools, the schools of business
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, communication
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communications school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School's alum Walter Annenberg as "The Annenberg School of Communications." The name was changed to its current title in the late 1980's.Walter...
, dentistry
University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine is one of twelve graduate schools at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, medicine, nursing
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is an undergraduate and graduate institution at the University of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since its establishment in 1935, the School of Nursing at Penn is currently the top-ranked private nursing institution in the nation...
, and veterinary medicine rank in the top 5 nationally (see U.S. News and National Research Council). Penn's Law School
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The University of Pennsylvania Law School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the Ivy League, it is among the oldest and most selective law schools in the nation. It is currently ranked 7th overall by U.S. News & World Report,...
is ranked 7th, and its School of Education
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, commonly known as Penn GSE, is one of the leading educational research schools in the United States...
and School of Social Policy & Practice are ranked in the top 10 (see U.S. News). In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
The QS Global 200 Business Schools Report identifies the most popular business schools in each region of the world. It aims to serve employers seeking MBAs at a regional level. It originated in the early 1990s under the partnership Quacquarelli Symonds. The TopMBA Career Guide was made in 1990, and...
, Penn was ranked 2nd in North America.
Student life
| Multicultural background | Number enrolled | Percent of class |
|---|---|---|
| American Indian | 25 | 1.0% |
| Asian | 592 | 24.5% |
| Black | 218 | 9.0% |
| Caucasian | 1,372 | 56.8% |
| Hispanic | 209 | 8.7% |
Demographics
Of those accepted for admission to the Class of 2014, 40.8 percent are AsianAsian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
, Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
, African
African people
African people refers to natives, inhabitants, or citizen of Africa and to people of African descent.-Etymology:Many etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":...
, or Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. In addition, 51.1% of current students are women.
More than 11% of the first year class are international student
International student
According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. Despite that, the definition of international students varies in each country in accordance to their own national...
s. The composition of international students accepted in the Class of 2014 is: 50.2% from Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
; 9.2% from Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
; 17.7% from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
; 15.5% from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
; 4.8% from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
, and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
; 1.1% from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
. The acceptance rate for international students applying for the class of 2014 was 411 out of 4,390 (9.4%).
Selected student organizations
The Philomathean SocietyPhilomathean Society
The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania is a collegiate literary society, the oldest student group at the university, and a claimant to the title of the oldest continuously-existing literary society in the United States.This claim is disputed between the Philomathean Society and...
, founded in 1813, is the United States' oldest continuously-existing collegiate literary society. The Mask and Wig Club
Mask and Wig
The Mask and Wig Club, founded in 1889 by Clayton Fotterall McMichael, is the oldest all-male collegiate musical comedy troupe in the United States...
is the oldest all-male musical comedy troupe in the country. The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club
The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club
Founded in 1862, the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club is one of the oldest continually running glee clubs in the United States. The Club draws its singing members from the undergraduate and graduate men of the University of Pennsylvania; men and women from the Penn community are also called...
, founded in 1862, is one of the oldest continually operating collegiate choruses in the United States. Bruce Montgomery
Bruce Montgomery (entertainer)
Bruce Eglinton Montgomery was an American composer, author, musical theater performer and painter; and a conductor and director, particularly of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....
, its best-known and longest-serving director, led the club from 1956 until 2000. The International Affairs Association (IAA) was founded in 1963 as an organization to promote international affairs and diplomacy at Penn and beyond. With over 400 members, it is the largest student-funded organization on campus. The IAA serves as an umbrella organization for various conferences (UPMUNC, ILMUNC
ILMUNC
The Ivy League Model United Nations Conference, or ILMUNC, is one of the largest Model UN conferences for high school students worldwide. It is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania's International Affairs Association. Penn's ILMUNC High School Conference, along with the conferences hosted by...
, and PIRC), as well as a host of other academic and social activities.
The University of Pennsylvania Band
The University of Pennsylvania Band
The University of Pennsylvania Band is among the most active collegiate band programs in the U.S...
has been a part of student life since 1897. The Penn Band performs at football and basketball games as well as university functions (e.g. commencement
Graduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
and convocation
Convocation
A Convocation is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose.- University use :....
) throughout the year and was the first college band to perform at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, often shortened to Macy's Day Parade, is an annual parade presented by Macy's. The tradition started in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States along with America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, and four years younger than...
. Membership fluctuates between 80 and 100 students.
The Daily Pennsylvanian
The Daily PennsylvanianThe Daily Pennsylvanian
The Daily Pennsylvanian is the independent daily student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania.It is published every weekday when the university is in session by a staff of more than 250 students. During the summer months, a smaller staff produces a weekly version called The Summer...
is an independent, student-run newspaper, which has been published daily since it was founded in 1885. The newspaper went unpublished from May 1943 to November 1945 due to World War II. In 1984, the University lost all editorial and financial control of The Daily Pennsylvanian when the newspaper became its own corporation. In 2007, The Daily Pennsylvanian won the Pacemaker Award administered by the Associated Collegiate Press
Associated Collegiate Press
The Associated Collegiate Press is the largest and oldest national membership organization for college student media in the United States. The ACP is a division of the National Scholastic Press Association...
.
Athletics
Penn's sportsCollege athletics
College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...
teams are nicknamed the Quakers
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
. They participate in the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
and Division I (Division I FCS for football) in the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
. In recent decades they often have been league
Sports league
League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...
champions in football (14 times from 1982 to 2010) and basketball (22 times from 1970 to 2006). The first athletic team at Penn was its cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
team.
Rowing
Rowing at Penn dates back to at least 1854 with the founding of the University Barge ClubUniversity Barge Club
University Barge Club of Philadelphia is an amateur rowing club located at #7 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia Pennsylvania, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark...
. The university currently hosts both heavyweight and lightweight men's teams and an openweight women's team, all of which compete as part of the Eastern Sprints
Eastern Sprints
Eastern Sprints refers to the annual rowing championship for the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges . Since 1974, the "Women's Eastern Sprints" has been held as the annual championship for the Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges league.*For the women's regatta, see Women's Eastern...
League. Penn Rowing has produced a long list of famous coaches and Olympians, including John B. Kelly, Jr.
John B. Kelly, Jr.
John Brendan Kelly, Jr. , also known as Kell Kelly or Jack Kelly, was an accomplished oarsman, a four-time Olympian, and an Olympic medal winner. He was also the son of triple Olympic gold medal winner John B. Kelly, Sr. In 1947, Kelly was awarded the James E...
, Joe Burk, Rusty Callow, Harry Parker, and Ted Nash
Ted Nash (rower)
Theodore "Ted" Allison Nash is an American competition rower and Olympic champion, rowing coach, and sports administrator...
. The teams row out of College Boat Club
College Boat Club
College Boat Club of the University of Pennsylvania is the rowing program for University of Pennsylvania Rowing, located at #11 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its membership consists entirely of past and present rowers of the University of Pennsylvania...
, No. 11 Boathouse Row
Boathouse Row
-Early 19th century beginnings:The history of Boathouse Row begins with the construction of the Fairmount Dam and the adjacent Water Works. The Dam was built in 1810 as part of a lock at the Falls of the Schuylkill to bring coal downriver. The Dam submerged rapids and transformed the Schuylkill...
. The program is currently under the direction of men's head coach Greg Myhr.
Rugby
The Penn Men's Rugby Football Club is recognized as one of the oldest collegiate rugby teams in America. The earliest documentation of its existence comes from a 1910 issue of the Daily Pennsylvanian:The team existed on and off during the World War
World war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
s, with the current club having its roots in the 1960s.
Football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
team against Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia on November 11, 1876.
Penn football made many contributions to the sport in its early days. During the 1890s, Penn's famed coach and alumnus George Washington Woodruff
George Washington Woodruff
Note: Before 1936, national champions were determined by historical research and retroactive ratings and polls. 1894 Poll Results = Penn: Parke H. Davis, Princeton: Houlgate, Yale: Billingsley, Helms, National Championship Foundation, Parke H. Davis1895 Poll Results = Penn: Billingsley, Helms,...
introduced the quarterback kick, a forerunner of the forward pass
Forward pass
In several forms of football a forward pass is when the ball is thrown in the direction that the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line...
, as well as the place-kick
Placekicker
Placekicker, or simply kicker , is the title of the player in American and Canadian football who is responsible for the kicking duties of field goals, extra points...
from scrimmage and the delayed pass. In 1894, 1895, 1897, and 1904, Penn was generally regarded as the national champion of collegiate football. The achievements of two of Penn's outstanding players from that era—John Heisman
John Heisman
John William Heisman was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College , Buchtel College, now known as the University of Akron , Auburn University , Clemson University , Georgia Tech , the...
and John Outland—are remembered each year with the presentation of the Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
to the most outstanding college football player of the year, and the Outland Trophy
Outland Trophy
The Outland Trophy is awarded to the best United States college football interior lineman by the Football Writers Association of America. It is named after John H. Outland. One of only a few players ever to be named All-America at two positions, Outland garnered consensus All-America honors in...
to the most outstanding college football interior lineman of the year.
In addition, each year the Bednarik Award is given to college football's best defensive player. Chuck Bednarik
Chuck Bednarik
Charles Philip Bednarik is a former professional American football player, known as one of the most devastating tacklers in the history of football and the last two-way player in the National Football League...
(Class of 1949) was a three-time All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
n center
Center (American football)
Center is a position in American football and Canadian football . The center is the innermost lineman of the offensive line on a football team's offense...
/linebacker
Linebacker
A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...
who starred on the 1947 team and is generally regarded as Penn's all-time finest. In addition to Bednarik, the '47 squad boasted four-time All-American tackle George Savitsky
George Savitsky
George Michael Savitsky is a former American football offensive tackle in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles. He played college football at the University of Pennsylvania and was drafted in the fifth round of the 1947 NFL Draft. Savitsky was inducted into the College...
and three-time All-American halfback
Halfback (American football)
A halfback, sometimes referred to as a tailback, is an offensive position in American football, which lines up in the backfield and generally is responsible for carrying the ball on run plays. Historically, from the 1870s through the 1950s, the halfback position was both an offensive and defensive...
Skip Minisi
Skip Minisi
Anthony Salvatore "Skip" Minisi was an American football halfback in the National Football League for the New York Giants. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1985 based on his college career at the University of Pennsylvania and the United States Naval Academy.-External links:...
. All three standouts were subsequently elected to the College Football Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and museum devoted to college football. Located in South Bend, Indiana, it is connected to a convention center and situated in the city's renovated downtown district, two miles south of the University of Notre Dame campus. It is slated to move...
, as was their coach, George Munger
George Munger (American football)
George Almond Munger was an American athlete, coach and athletic director. He played college football and competed in track and field at the University of Pennsylvania from 1930 to 1933. He returned to Penn as head coach of the football team from 1938 to 1953 and as director of physical...
(a star running back at Penn in the early '30s). Bednarik went on to play for 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, becoming the NFL's
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
last 60-minute man. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...
in 1969. During his presidency of the institution from 1948 to 1953, Harold Stassen
Harold Stassen
Harold Edward Stassen was the 25th Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. After service in World War II, from 1948 to 1953 he was president of the University of Pennsylvania...
attempted to recultivate Penn's heyday of big-time college football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
, but the effort lacked support and was short-lived.
ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
's College GameDay traveled to Penn to highlight the Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
-Penn game on November 17, 2002, the first time the popular college football show had visited an Ivy League campus.
Basketball
Penn basketball is steeped in tradition. Penn made its only (and the Ivy League's second) Final FourFinal four
Final Four isa sports term that is commonly applied to the last four teams remaining in a playoff tournament, most notably NCAA Division I college basketball tournaments. The term usually refers to the four teams who compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final round...
appearance in 1979, where the Quakers lost to Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers...
-led Michigan State
Michigan State Spartans
The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic team that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 25 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the school colors are green and white...
in Salt Lake City. (Dartmouth twice finished second in the tournament in the 1940s, but that was before the beginning of formal League play.) Penn's team is also a member of the Philadelphia Big 5
Philadelphia Big 5
The Philadelphia Big 5 is an informal association of college athletic programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is not a conference; indeed the five schools that are members of the Big 5 are members of three separate conferences: the Atlantic 10, the Big East, and the Ivy League.The five...
, along with La Salle
La Salle University
La Salle University is a private, co-educational, Roman Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the school was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. As of 2008 the school has approximately 7,554...
, Saint Joseph's
Saint Joseph's University
Saint Joseph's University is a private, coeducational Roman Catholic Jesuit university located partially in the Wynnefield section of Philadelphia and partially in Lower Merion Township and located in the Pennsylvania Main Line, Pennsylvania, United States.The school was founded in 1851 as Saint...
, Temple
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
, and Villanova
Villanova University
Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...
. In 2007, the men's team won its third consecutive Ivy League title and then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
to Texas A&M
Texas A&M Aggies
Texas A&M Aggies refers to the students, graduates, and sports teams of Texas A&M University. The nickname "Aggie" is common at land-grant or "Ag" schools in many states. The teams compete in Division I of NCAA sports...
.
Facilities
Franklin FieldFranklin Field
Franklin Field is the University of Pennsylvania's stadium for football, field hockey, lacrosse, sprint football, and track and field . It is also used by Penn students for recreation, and for intramural and club sports, including touch football and cricket, and is the site of Penn's graduation...
is where the Quakers play football, field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
, sprint football, and track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
(and formerly soccer). It is the oldest stadium still operating for football games and was the first stadium to sport two tiers. It hosted the first commercially televised football game, was once the home field of the Philadelphia Eagles, and was the site of early Army – Navy games. Today it is also used by Penn students for recreation such as intramural
Intramural sports
Intramural sports or intramurals are recreational sports organized within a set geographic area. The term derives from the Latin words intra muros meaning "within walls", and was used to indicate sports matches and contests that took place among teams from "within the walls" of an ancient city...
and club sports, including touch football
Touch football (American)
Touch football is a variant of American football in which the basic rules are similar to those of the mainstream game , but instead of tackling players to the ground, the person carrying the ball need only be touched by a member of the opposite team to end a down...
and cricket. Franklin Field hosts the annual collegiate track and field event "the Penn Relays
Penn Relays
The Penn Relays is the oldest and largest track and field competition in the United States, hosted annually since April 21, 1895 by the University of Pennsylvania at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
."
Penn's home court, the Palestra
Palestra
The Palestra, also known as the Cathedral of College Basketball, is a historic arena and the home gym of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. Located at 215 South 33rd St...
, is an arena used for men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
teams, wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
team, and Philadelphia Big Five basketball
Philadelphia Big 5
The Philadelphia Big 5 is an informal association of college athletic programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is not a conference; indeed the five schools that are members of the Big 5 are members of three separate conferences: the Atlantic 10, the Big East, and the Ivy League.The five...
, as well as high school sporting events. The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility. Penn baseball plays its home games at Meiklejohn Stadium
Meiklejohn Stadium
Meiklejohn Stadium is a ballpark in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is on the University of Pennsylvania campus and is the home field for the University of Pennsylvania Quakers varsity baseball team....
.
The Olympic Boycott Games
Olympic Boycott Games
The Liberty Bell Classic was an event held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1980 by 29 of the boycotting countries of the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics as an alternative to the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow...
of 1980 were held at the University of Pennsylvania in response to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
's hosting of the 1980 Summer Olympics
1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Moscow in the Soviet Union. In addition, the yachting events were held in Tallinn, and some of the preliminary matches and the quarter-finals of the football tournament...
following the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
. Twenty-nine of the boycotting nations participated in the Boycott Games.
Notable people
Penn has produced many alumni that have distinguished themselves in the sciences, academia, politics, arts and media. Eleven heads of state have graduated from Penn, including former US president William Henry HarrisonWilliam Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States , an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when elected, the oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the...
, former Prime Minister of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Cesar Virata
Cesar Virata
Cesar Enrique Aguinaldo Virata is a former Prime Minister of the Philippines from 1981-1986 under the Interim Batasang Pambansa and the Regular Batasang Pambansa. One of the Philippines' business leaders and leading technocrats, he served as Finance Minister from 1970 during the Marcos regime and...
, the first president of Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Nnamdi Azikiwe
Nnamdi Azikiwe
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe , usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe and popularly known as "Zik", was one of the leading figures of modern Nigerian nationalism who became the first President of Nigeria after Nigeria secured its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960; holding the...
, the first president of Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
and the current president of Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
, Alassane Ouattara
Alassane Ouattara
Alassane Dramane Ouattara is an Ivorian politician who has been President of Côte d'Ivoire since 2011. An economist by profession, Ouattara worked for the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West African States , and he was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire from November 1990 to...
. The university has also produced three United States Supreme Court justices, William J. Brennan, Owen J. Roberts and James Wilson
James Wilson
James Wilson was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a major force in drafting the United States Constitution...
, and supreme court justices of foreign states (e.g. Ronald Wilson
Ronald Wilson
Sir Ronald Darling Wilson, AC, KBE, CMG, QC was a distinguished Australian lawyer, judge and social activist serving on the High Court of Australia between 1979 and 1989 and as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission between 1990 and 1997.Wilson is probably best known as...
of the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
, Ayala Procaccia
Ayala Procaccia
Ayala Procaccia is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, since 2001. Before being elected to the Supreme Court, she served as a judge in the Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court until 1993 and in the Jerusalem District Court from 1993 to 2001.-Biography:...
of the Israel Supreme Court, and Jasper Yeates Brinton (architect of the Egyptian court system, Justice of the Egyptian Supreme Court and former U.S. Legal Advisor to Egypt)). Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
and nine signers of the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
are also alumni. These include George Clymer
George Clymer
George Clymer was an American politician and founding father. He was one of the first Patriots to advocate complete independence from Britain. As a Pennsylvania representative, Clymer was, along with five others, a signatory of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution...
, Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson , an American author, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey. He later served as a federal judge in Pennsylvania...
, Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of...
, Robert Morris, William Paca
William Paca
William Paca was a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland, and later Governor of Maryland and a United States federal judge.-Early life:...
, George Ross
George Ross (delegate)
George Ross was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Pennsylvania.He was born in New Castle, Delaware, and educated at home. He studied law at his brother John's law office, the common practice in those days, and was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia...
, Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
, James Wilson
James Wilson
James Wilson was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a major force in drafting the United States Constitution...
, Thomas Fitzsimons
Thomas Fitzsimons
Thomas FitzSimons was an American merchant and statesman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the U.S. Congress.-Biography:...
, Jared Ingersoll
Jared Ingersoll
Jared Ingersoll was an early American lawyer and statesman from Philadelphia.He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and signed the U.S. Constitution for Pennsylvania...
, Rufus King
Rufus King
Rufus King was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was a delegate for Massachusetts to the Continental Congress. He also attended the Constitutional Convention and was one of the signers of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin was an American merchant and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania, President of the Continental...
, Gouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris , was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation. Morris was also an author of large sections of the...
, and Hugh Williamson
Hugh Williamson
Hugh Williamson was an American politician. He is best known for representing North Carolina at the Constitutional Convention.Williamson was a scholar of international renown...
. Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include former Utah Governor and 2012 Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Jon Meade Huntsman, Jr. is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 16th Governor of Utah. He also served in the administrations of four United States presidents and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.Huntsman worked as a White House staff assistant for...
, former Senator Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009...
, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
Ed Rendell
Edward Gene "Ed" Rendell is an American politician who served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania. Rendell, a member of the Democratic Party, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002, and his term of office began January 21, 2003...
.
Penn alumni also have a strong presence in economic life. Penn has graduated several governors of central banks including Ignazio Visco
Ignazio Visco
Ignazio Visco is an Italian economist and the current Governor of the Banca d'Italia- Life and career :Visco was born in Naples on 21 November 1949...
(Bank of Italy), Zeti Akhtar Aziz
Zeti Akhtar Aziz
Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz is the 7th and current governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysia's central bank. She has been governor since May 2000, and was the first woman in the position.-Early life:...
(Central Bank of Malaysia), Pridiyathorn Devakula
Pridiyathorn Devakula
Mom Rajawongse Pridiyathorn Devakula served as Minister of Finance in Thailand's interim civilian government. Before being named to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, Pridiyathorn had served as Governor of the Bank of Thailand since 2001...
(Governor, Bank of Thailand, and former Minister of Finance), Farouk El Okdah
Farouk El Okdah
Farouk Abd El Baky El Okdah is the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt "CBE" since December 2003.-Academic Qualifications:*Ph.D. in Business and Applied economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1983...
(Central Bank of Egypt), and Alfonso Prat Gay
Alfonso Prat Gay
Alfonso Prat Gay is an Argentine economist and politician. He was President of the Central Bank of Argentina from December 2002 to September 2004, and was elected Congressman for the Civic Coalition in the 2009 elections.-Career:...
(Central Bank of Argentina). Founders of technology companies include Ralph J. Roberts
Ralph J. Roberts
Ralph Joel Roberts is the co-founder of Comcast Communications and was its chief executive officer for 46 years. As of 2011 he serves as founder and chairman emeritus of Comcast's board of directors. His son, Brian L...
(co-founder of Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
), Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is an American engineer and entrepreneur heritage best known for co-founding PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. He is currently the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors and Chairman of SolarCity...
(founder of Paypal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors, Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based company that designs, manufactures and sells electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components. It was the only automaker building and selling a zero-emission sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in serial production...
, and SpaceX
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or more popularly and informally known as SpaceX, is an American space transport company that operates out of Hawthorne, California...
), Leonard Bosack
Leonard Bosack
Leonard Bosack along with his wife Sandy Lerner, is a co-founder of Cisco Systems, an American-based multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services...
(co-founder of Cisco
Cisco
Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
), David Brown
David J. Brown
David J. Brown is an American computer scientist. He was one of a small group that helped to develop the system at Stanford that later resulted in Sun Microsystems, and later was a founder Silicon Graphics in 1982.- Education :...
(co-founder of Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
) and Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Zynga, which makes online social games. Pincus also founded Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and SupportSoft. Pincus currently serves as CEO of Zynga, which had 232 million monthly active users as of July 1, 2011...
(founder of Zynga
Zynga
Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace....
, the company behind Farmville
FarmVille
FarmVille is a farming simulation social network game developed by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm, Farm Town,, and older games such as the Harvest Moon series...
), and founders of law firms include James Harry Covington
James Harry Covington
James Harry Covington, II was an American jurist and politician. He represented the Maryland's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1909 to 1914, and served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia from 1914 to 1918.Covington was...
(co-founder of Covington & Burling
Covington & Burling
Covington & Burling LLP is an international law firm with offices in Beijing, Brussels, London, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Washington, DC. The firm advises multinational corporations on significant transactional, litigation, regulatory, and public policy matters...
), Martin Lipton
Martin Lipton
Martin Lipton is an American lawyer. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz specializing in advising major corporations on mergers and acquisitions and matters affecting corporate policy and strategy. He has written and lectured extensively on these subjects...
(co-founder of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz), George Wharton Pepper (Senator from Pennsylvania, and founder of Pepper Hamilton), Russell Duane (co-founder of Duane Morris
Duane Morris
Duane Morris LLP is a law firm headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1904 as Duane, Morris, Heckscher & Roberts, the firm has 24 offices in the United States, London, Singapore and Vietnam. In addition to legal services, Duane Morris has independent affiliates employing...
), and Stephen Cozen, (co-founder of Cozen O'Connor
Cozen O'Connor
Cozen O'Connor P.C. is a large U.S. law firm based in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The firm was ranked 99th on the AmLaw 100 Survey in 2011, ranked 114th on the AmLaw 200 Survey in 2008, and ranked 89th on the National Law Journal's list of the 250 Largest American Law Firms in 2007...
). Other notable businessmen and entrepreneurs who studied at or graduated from the University of Pennsylvania include William S. Paley
William S. Paley
William S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...
(former president of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
), Warren BuffetBuffet studied at Penn for 3 years before he transferred to the University of Nebraska (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. The company averaged an annual growth in book value of 20.3% to its shareholders for the last 44 years,...
), Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
, Donald Trump, Jr.
Donald Trump, Jr.
Donald "Don" John Trump, Jr. is an American businessman who is the first child of real estate developer Donald J. Trump and Ivana Trump. He currently works along with his sister Ivanka Trump and brother Eric Trump in the position of Executive Vice President at The Trump Organization...
, and Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Marie Trump is an American businesswoman, socialite, heiress, and fashion model. The daughter of Ivana and Donald Trump, she is Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions at The Trump Organization...
, Safra Catz (President and CFO of Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
), Leonard Lauder
Leonard Lauder
Leonard A. Lauder is chairman emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. He was chief executive until 1999. Today Estée Lauder operates several brands in the cosmetics industry including Estée Lauder, Clinique, MAC Cosmetics, Aveda, Bobbi Brown and La Mer...
(Chairman Emeritus of Estée Lauder Companies
Estée Lauder Companies
Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. is a manufacturer and marketer of prestige skincare, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. The company has its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.-History:...
and son of founder Estée Lauder
Estée Lauder (person)
Estée Lauder was an American businesswoman who was the co-founder, along with her husband Joseph Lauder, of Estée Lauder Companies, a pioneering cosmetics company. Lauder was the only woman on TIME magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She was the...
), Steven A. Cohen
Steven A. Cohen
Steven "Steve" A. Cohen is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund focusing primarily on equity market strategies....
(founder of SAC Capital Advisors), Robert Kapito (president of Blackrock
Blackrock
Blackrock is a suburb of Dublin in County Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Ireland. It is northwest of Dún Laoghaire.-Location and access:Blackrock covers a large but not precisely defined area, rising from sea level on the coast to at White's Cross on the N11 national primary road. Blackrock is bordered...
, the world's largest asset manager), and P. Roy Vagelos
P. Roy Vagelos
Pindaros Roy Vagelos, better known as P. Roy Vagelos or Roy Vagelos , was president and chief executive officer and chairman of the multinational pharmaceutical company Merck. He attracted research scientists who developed many major new drugs...
(former President and CEO of multinational pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.
Merck & Co.
Merck & Co., Inc. , also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The Merck headquarters is located in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, an unincorporated area in Readington Township...
).
Among other distinguished alumni are poets Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
and William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, starchitect
Starchitect
Starchitect is a neologism used to describe architects whose celebrity and critical acclaim have transformed them into idols of the architecture world and may even have given them some degree of fame amongst the general public. Celebrity status is generally associated with avant-gardist novelty...
Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
, cartoonist Charles Addams
Charles Addams
Charles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, theatrical producer Harold Prince, actress Candace Bergen, counter-terrorism expert and author Richard A. Clarke
Richard A. Clarke
Richard Alan Clarke was a U.S. government employee for 30 years, 1973–2003. He worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National...
, pollster Frank Luntz
Frank Luntz
Frank I. Luntz is an American political consultant and pollster. His most recent work has been with the Fox News Channel as a frequent commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups after presidential debates...
, attorney Gloria Allred
Gloria Allred
Gloria Rachel Allred is an American lawyer noted for taking high-profile and often controversial cases, particulary those involving the protection of women's rights.-Early life:...
, recording artist John Legend
John Legend
John Roger Stephens , better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career...
, and football athlete and coach John Heisman
John Heisman
John William Heisman was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College , Buchtel College, now known as the University of Akron , Auburn University , Clemson University , Georgia Tech , the...
.
In total, 28 Penn affiliates have won Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
s, of whom four are current faculty members and nine are alumni. Nine of the Nobel-laureates have won the prize in the last decade. Penn also counts 120 members of the United States National Academies
United States National Academies
The United States National Academies comprises four organizations:* National Academy of Sciences * National Academy of Engineering * Institute of Medicine * National Research Council...
, 77 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, eight National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
laureates, 28 members of the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
, and 175 Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
s.
In popular culture
- The mansion of The Addams FamilyThe Addams FamilyThe Addams Family is a group of fictional characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. As named by Charles Addams, the Addams Family characters include Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Grandmama, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Thing....
was modeled in part after Penn's College HallCollege Hall (University of Pennsylvania)College Hall is the oldest building on the West Philadelphia campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to its construction, the university was located on Ninth Street in Center City, Philadelphia. The building was designed by Thomas Webb Richards and completed in 1873...
, and was inspired by Penn alumnus and Addams Family creator Charles AddamsCharles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
. - Penn has been used as a setting for many scenes of the show It's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaIt's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaIt's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American television sitcom that premiered on FX on August 4, 2005. New episodes continue to air on FX, with reruns playing on Comedy Central, general broadcast syndication, and WGN America—the first-ever cable-to-cable syndication deal for a sitcom...
. Dennis graduated from Penn whereas Dee failed to enroll to major in psychology. - Penn is frequently mentioned in TV series American DreamsAmerican DreamsAmerican Dreams is an American television comedy-drama program broadcast on the NBC television network, produced by Once A Frog and Dick Clark Productions in association with Universal Network Television and NBC Studios...
. Sam and Beth are students at Penn. - One of the characters in the TV series Queer as Folk, Ted Schmidt boasts of being a graduate of Wharton. Matthew Blank, a Wharton graduate, is the Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing of Showtime—the station Queer as Folk is aired on.
- Lindsey Naegle, the SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
character who plays the role of Springfield's residential business link is a Wharton alumna, and is characterized as "stereotypical upper-management executive."
In Movies
- In the 1951 film Jim Thorpe - All-American starring Burt LancasterBurt LancasterBurton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
as the legendary football player, Penn's prowess as an early 20th century football powerhouse is referenced several times throughout the movie. - In the 1951 film Goodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My Fancy is a 1951 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Young, and Frank Lovejoy in a light tale about a woman and her old flame. The screenplay by Ivan Goff was based upon a 1948 play by Fay Kanin. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke...
starring Joan CrawfordJoan CrawfordJoan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, Robert YoungRobert Young (actor)Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
, and Eve ArdenEve ArdenEve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
, a "Pennsylvania" college pennantPennonA pennon was one of the principal three varieties of flags carried during the Middle Ages . Pennoncells and streamers or pendants are considered as minor varieties of this style of flag. The pennon is a flag resembling the guidon in shape, but only half the size...
is featured prominently in the dorm room setting of the fictional Good Hope College. - In the 1981 Oscar-winning film On Golden PondOn Golden Pond (1981 film)On Golden Pond is a 1981 American drama film directed by Mark Rydell. The screenplay by Ernest Thompson was adapted from his 1979 play of the same title. Henry Fonda won the Academy Award in what was his final film role. Co-star Katharine Hepburn also received an Oscar, as did Thompson for his...
starring Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and Katharine HepburnKatharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, Fonda's character is a retired Penn professor – at one point he is shown perusing an old copy of the campus newspaper, The Daily PennsylvanianThe Daily PennsylvanianThe Daily Pennsylvanian is the independent daily student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania.It is published every weekday when the university is in session by a staff of more than 250 students. During the summer months, a smaller staff produces a weekly version called The Summer...
. - Several scenes of the 1993 Oscar-winning movie Philadelphia (film)Philadelphia (film)Philadelphia is a 1993 American drama film that was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality and homophobia. It was written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Jonathan Demme. The film stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington...
were shot at Penn's Fisher Fine Arts LibraryFisher Fine Arts LibraryThe Anne & Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library, also known as the Furness Library, is located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, on the east side of College Green...
, which in the movie serves as the law library. - In the 2003 film Mona Lisa SmileMona Lisa SmileMona Lisa Smile is a 2003 romantic drama film produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures in association with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Julia Stiles...
, Tommy, Joan's fiance, plans to attend graduate school at Penn. - In the 2004 IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n film SwadesSwadesSwades: We, the People is a 2004 Indian film written, produced and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. The film stars Shahrukh Khan and debutante Gayatri Joshi...
, Mohan is a student at Penn. - Several scenes of the 2006 film InvincibleInvincible (2006 film)Invincible is a 2006 family film directed by Ericson Core set in 1976. It is based on the true story of Vince Papale, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1976–78. Mark Wahlberg portrays Papale and Greg Kinnear plays Papale's coach, Dick Vermeil...
starring Mark WahlbergMark WahlbergMark Robert Michael Wahlberg is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as a musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of...
, Greg KinnearGreg KinnearGregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...
and Penn alum Elizabeth BanksElizabeth BanksElizabeth Maresal Mitchell , known professionally as Elizabeth Banks, is an American actress. Banks had her film debut in the low-budget independent film Surrender Dorothy...
were shot at Penn's Franklin FieldFranklin FieldFranklin Field is the University of Pennsylvania's stadium for football, field hockey, lacrosse, sprint football, and track and field . It is also used by Penn students for recreation, and for intramural and club sports, including touch football and cricket, and is the site of Penn's graduation...
. - In the 2008 film Baby MamaBaby Mama (film)Baby Mama is a 2008 comedy film from Universal Pictures written and directed by Michael McCullers and starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear, and Dax Shepard.-Plot:...
, Amy PoehlerAmy PoehlerAmy Meredith Poehler is an American comedian, actress and voice actress. She was a cast member on the NBC television entertainment show Saturday Night Live from 2001 to 2008. In 2004, she starred in the film Mean Girls with Tina Fey, with whom she worked again in Baby Mama in 2008. She is...
's character Angie gives birth at the Hospital of the University of PennsylvaniaHospital of the University of PennsylvaniaThe Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is a hospital affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Health System located in the University City section of West Philadelphia. The hospital was founded at its current location in 1874 by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,...
. - WhartonWharton School of the University of PennsylvaniaThe Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
and AnnenbergAnnenberg School for Communication at the University of PennsylvaniaThe Annenberg School for Communication is the communications school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School's alum Walter Annenberg as "The Annenberg School of Communications." The name was changed to its current title in the late 1980's.Walter...
are often mentioned in the 2008 political satirePolitical satirePolitical satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...
film War, Inc.War, Inc.War, Inc. is a 2008 American political satire film starring John Cusack and directed by Joshua Seftel. Cusack also co-wrote and produced the film.- Plot :...
, starring John CusackJohn CusackJohn Paul Cusack is an American film actor and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 50 films, including The Journey of Natty Gann, Say Anything..., Grosse Point Blank, The Thin Red Line, Stand by Me, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, Serendipity, Runaway Jury, The Ice Harvest,...
. - Various scenes of the 2009 film Transformers: Revenge of the FallenTransformers: Revenge of the FallenTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction-action film directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the sequel to the 2007 film Transformers and the second installment in the live-action Transformers series...
were shot at Penn.
In Literature
- The hero in Lisa ScottolineLisa ScottolineLisa Scottoline is an American author of legal thrillers. Her novels have been translated into 25 languages.Scottoline was born in Philadelphia and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a degree in English. In 1981, she received a Juris Doctorate from the...
's bestselling legal thriller Moment of Truth is a graduate of Penn Law School. The heroine in Lisa Scottoline's book Daddy's Girl is a graduate of Penn College. - The hero in Kermit RooseveltKermit Roosevelt IIIKermit "Kim" Roosevelt III is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of The Myth of Judicial Activism and the D.C. legal thriller In the Shadow of the Law .-Early life:Kim Roosevelt III was born in Washington, D.C...
's legal thriller In the Shadow of the Law is a graduate of Penn Law School. - Gary Lambert in Jonathan FranzenJonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections , a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
's The CorrectionsThe CorrectionsThe Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-twentieth century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium...
is a student at Penn and the school serves as a setting on several occasions. - Dupont University in Tom WolfeTom WolfeThomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
's novel I am Charlotte SimmonsI Am Charlotte SimmonsI Am Charlotte Simmons is a 2004 novel by Tom Wolfe, concerning sexual and status relationships at the fictional Dupont University, closely modeled after Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University...
was modeled after Penn, Duke and Stanford. - In the best-selling novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering GeniusA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering GeniusA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents....
Dave Eggers's suicidal childhood friend, Tom, attends Penn. - The film professor in the New York Times best-selling novel Good in BedGood in BedGood In Bed is the debut novel of Jennifer Weiner. It tells the story of large Jewish woman journalist, her love and work life and her emotional abuse issues with her father. The novel was a New York Times Best Seller.-Plot summary:...
teaches at Penn.
Controversies
From 1930-1966 there were 54 documented Rowbottom riots, a student tradition of rioting which included everything from car smashing to panty raids. After 1966, there were five more instances of "Rowbottoms", the latest occurring in 1980.In 1965, Penn students learned that the University was sponsoring research projects for the United States' chemical and biological weapons program. According to Herman
Edward S. Herman
Edward S. Herman is an American economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also teaches at Annenberg School for...
and Rutman, the revelation that "CB Projects Spicerack and Summit were directly connected with U.S. military activities in Southeast Asia", caused students to petition Penn president Gaylord Harnwell
Gaylord Harnwell
Gaylord Probasco Harnwell CBE , was an American educator and physicist, who was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1953 to 1970...
to halt the program, citing the project as being, "immoral, inhuman, illegal, and unbefitting of an academic institution." Members of the faculty believed that an academic university should not be performing classified research and voted to re-examine the University agency which was responsible for the project on November 4, 1965.
In 1984, the Head Lab at the University of Pennsylvania was raided by members of the Animal Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
. 60 hours worth of video footage depicting animal cruelty was stolen from the lab. The video footage was released to PETA
Peta
Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...
who edited the tapes and created the documentary Unnecessary Fuss
Unnecessary Fuss
Unnecessary Fuss is a film produced by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , showing footage shot inside the University of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Clinic in Philadelphia....
. As a result of an investigation called by the Office for Protection from Research Risks, the chief veterinarian was fired and the Head Lab was closed.
The school gained notoriety in 1993 for the water buffalo incident
Water buffalo incident
The water buffalo incident was a controversy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993, in which student Eden Jacobowitz was charged with violating the university's racial harassment policy.-History:...
in which a student who told a noisy group of black students to "shut up, you water buffalo" was charged with violating the University's racial harassment policy.
In 2007, the undergraduate Dean of Admissions, Lee Stetson
Lee Stetson
Willis Stetson was the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania for 29 years. In September 2007, Stetson abruptly left the University of Pennsylvania a year ahead of his scheduled retirement date under mysterious circumstances, and without any of the normal fanfare and...
, abruptly resigned one year before his expected departure date. Penn President Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
remained quiet about the event, stating only that the resignation was made in the best interests of the University and Stetson himself.
See also
- Education in Philadelphia
- Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP)Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP)Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program is a non-profit program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. TTCSP was established at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1989...