fbpx
Wikipedia

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania (often abbreviated simply as Penn[12] or UPenn[13]) is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U.S. Declaration of Independence when Benjamin Franklin, the university's founder and first president, advocated for an educational institution that trained leaders in academia, commerce, and public service. Penn identifies as the fourth oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this representation is challenged by other universities, as Franklin first convened the Board of Trustees in 1749, arguably making it the fifth oldest institution of higher education in the U.S.[note 2]

University of Pennsylvania
Latin: Universitas Pennsylvaniensis
Former names
Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania (1751–1755)
College of Philadelphia (1755–1779, 1789–1791)[1]
University of the State of Pennsylvania (1779[note 1]–1791)
MottoLeges sine moribus vanae (Latin)
Motto in English
"Laws without morals are useless"
TypePrivate research university
EstablishedNovember 14, 1740; 282 years ago (1740-11-14)[note 2]
FounderBenjamin Franklin
AccreditationMSCHE
Academic affiliations
Endowment$21.0 billion (2022)[5]
Budget$3.5 billion (2020)[6]
PresidentM. Elizabeth Magill
ProvostJohn L. Jackson Jr.[7]
Academic staff
4,793 (2018)[8]
Total staff
39,859 (Fall 2020; includes health system)[9]
Students23,374 (Fall 2022)[10]
Undergraduates9,760 (Fall 2022)[10]
Postgraduates13,614 (Fall 2022)[10]
Location, ,
United States

39°57′N 75°11′W / 39.95°N 75.19°W / 39.95; -75.19
CampusLarge city, 1,085 acres (4.39 km2) (total);
299 acres (1.21 km2), University City campus;
694 acres (2.81 km2), New Bolton Center;
92 acres (0.37 km2), Morris Arboretum
Other campusesSan Francisco
NewspaperThe Daily Pennsylvanian
ColorsRed and blue[11]
   
NicknameQuakers
Sporting affiliations
MascotThe Quaker
Websitewww.upenn.edu

The university has four undergraduate schools and 12 graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the School of Nursing. Among its highly ranked graduate schools are its law school, whose first professor James Wilson participated in writing the first draft of the U.S. Constitution, its medical school, which was the first medical school established in North America, and Wharton, the nation's first collegiate business school. Penn's endowment is US$20.7 billion, making it the sixth-wealthiest private academic institution in the nation as of 2022. In 2020, the university was awarded $1.5 billion in research grants, the fourth-largest of any U.S. university.[14]

The University of Pennsylvania's main campus is located in the University City neighborhood of West Philadelphia, and is centered around College Hall. Notable campus landmarks include Houston Hall, the first modern student union, and Franklin Field, the nation's first dual-level college football stadium and the nation's longest-standing NCAA Division I college football stadium in continuous operation.[15] The university's athletics program, the Penn Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of NCAA Division I's Ivy League conference.

Since its founding, Penn alumni, trustees, and faculty have included 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 7 signers of the Constitution, 3 Presidents of the United States, 3 U.S. Supreme Court justices, 32 U.S. senators, 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 19 U.S. Cabinet Secretaries, 46 governors, 28 State Supreme Court justices, and nine foreign heads of state. Alumni and faculty include 39 Nobel laureates,[16][17] 4 Turing Award winners,[18] and a Fields Medalist.[19][20][21] Penn has graduated 32 Rhodes Scholars[22] and 21 Marshall Scholars.[23] As of 2022, Penn has the largest number of undergraduate alumni who are billionaires of all colleges and universities (17, counting only Penn's four undergraduate schools).[24] At least 2 Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts[25][26] and 5 Penn alumni have been awarded the Medal of Honor.[27][28]

History Edit

Origins of the college Edit

 
Benjamin Franklin, founder of the University of Pennsylvania, was the primary founder, benefactor, and a president of the board of trustees for the Academy and College of Philadelphia, which merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to form the University of Pennsylvania in 1791.

In 1740, a group of Philadelphians organized to erect a great preaching hall for George Whitefield, a traveling evangelist who toured the American colonies delivering open-air sermons.[29] The building was designed and constructed by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in Philadelphia at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time in which it was preached.[30]: 26  The preaching hall was initially intended to also serve as a charity school, but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended.

According to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution". However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin, though Peters was one of Penn's founding trustees [1749 to 1776], President of board of trustees [1756 to 1764], and Treasurer of board of trustees [1769 to 1770][31]).

Nothing further was done by Franklin for another six years when he again contacted not just Peters but many others.[30]: 30  Hence, in the fall of 1749, Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania", his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia",[32] which argued for establishing an institution that would provide higher education to its citizens.

The 1749 proposal was seen as innovative at the time, and Franklin organized 24 trustees to help guide the institution he envisioned. The group acquired a dormant building after its owners asked Franklin's group to assume their debts and, accordingly, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, a new board of trustees took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13, 1751, the Academy of Philadelphia, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, was established and began taking in its first secondary students. A charity school also was chartered on July 13, 1753,[33]: 12  by the intentions of the original donors, although it lasted only a few years. On June 16, 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction.[33]: 13  All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered part of the same institution.[34] The first commencement exercises were held on May 17, 1757.[33]: 14 

The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this is contested by Princeton and Columbia Universities.[note 3]

Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749, including Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, and the College of New Jersey, Franklin's new school did not focus exclusively on educating clergy. He advocated what was then an innovative concept of higher education, which taught both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and performing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith, who became the first provost, and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional curriculum.[45][46]

Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among Philadelphia's leading citizens, the first such non-sectarian board in the nation. At the first meeting of the board of trustees on November 13, 1749, the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House, later renamed and famously known since 1776 as Independence Hall, was offered without cost by James Logan, its owner, the trustees realized that the building erected in 1740 by Edmund Woolley for George Whitefield,[47] which was still vacant, was an even more preferable site.

The institution of higher learning was named and known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then provost William Smith's Loyalist tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a university, and in 1785 the legislature changed name to University of the State of Pennsylvania.[34][note 4] 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 a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution serving on the new board of trustees.[34]

Although Penn began operating as an academy or secondary school in 1751 and obtained its collegiate charter in 1755, it initially designated 1750 as its founding date. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began naming 1749 as its founding date, which it continued to reference as the founding date for over a century, including at a centennial celebration in 1849.[48] In 1899, the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again, this time to 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself", according to a book on the university's history.[49] The board of trustees voted in response to a three-year campaign by Penn's General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740 for a number of reasons, including to appear older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746.[50]

First university Edit

 
A 1765 admission ticket to "A Course of Lectures" given by Dr. John Morgan, the founder and first professor of medicine at Penn's Medical School

The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies, though that claim is contested by other universities. Penn has two claims to being the first university in the United States, according to the former university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd:

(1) the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America[51] made Penn the first institution to offer both "undergraduate" and professional education ("the 'de facto' position")
(2) the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University" ("the 'de jure' position").[52][53][54]

Original campus Edit

 
A circa 1780 sketch of the Academy and College of Philadelphia when its first dormitory (on right) was built

The Academy of Philadelphia, a secondary school for boys, began operations in 1751 in an unused church assembly hall building at 4th and Arch Streets, which had sat unfinished and dormant for over a decade. Upon receiving a collegiate charter in 1755, the first classes for the College of Philadelphia were taught in the same building, in many cases to the same boys who had already graduated from The Academy of Philadelphia.

Campus as Capital of United States Edit

When the British abandoned Philadelphia during the Philadelphia campaign in the American Revolutionary War, College Hall, the college's only building at the time,[note 5] served as the temporary meeting site of the Second Continental Congress from July 7 to 20, 1778.[55] The British Army, led by General Sir William Howe, damaged many important parts of Philadelphia. Howe's attack caused significant damage to the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, the site where the Second Continental Congress convened and which it was forced to abandon in anticipation of the British attack and occupation of the city.[56]

By July 7, 1778, the Second Continental Congress returned to Philadelphia with the requisite quorum, but convened at College Hall since Independence Hall was damaged by the British attack, briefly establishing Penn's campus as one of the early capitals of the United States.[57][58] Penn's brief status as the nation's capital is evidenced by a July 13, 1778, letter sent from Josiah Bartlett, a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence, to John Langdon, who was also a Founding Father from New Hampshire. Langdon, who later became a signatory of the United States Constitution, wrote: "The Congress meets in the College Hall[note 6] as the State House was left by the enemy in a most filthy and sordid situation, as were many of the public and private buildings in the City."[59]

9th Street campus Edit

 
A c. 1815 illustration of the Ninth Street campus of the University of Pennsylvania, including the medical department (on left) and the college building (on right), which was originally intended to serve as the residence for the President of the United States before the national capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in 1800
 
A ticket to an 1807 lecture by Benjamin Rush, then a professor at Penn's Department of Medicine[60]
 
The Ninth Street Campus, located on the west side of Ninth Street between Market and Chestnut Streets, and a hand-colored lithograph created in 1842 by John Caspar Wild of Medical Hall (on left) and College Hall (on right), both built between 1829 and 1830
 
The Ninth Street Campus above Chestnut Street and Medical Hall just prior to the university's 1871 move to its current location in West Philadelphia

In 1802, the university moved to the unused Presidential Mansion at Ninth and Market Streets, a building that both George Washington and John Adams had declined to occupy while Philadelphia was the nation's capital.[33]

Among the classes given in 1807 at this building were those offered by Benjamin Rush, a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice who was also a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress,[61][62] and surgeon general of the Continental Army.[63] Classes were held in the mansion until 1829 when it was demolished. Architect William Strickland designed twin buildings on the same site, College Hall[note 7] and Medical Hall (both 1829–1830), which formed the core of the Ninth Street Campus until Penn's move to West Philadelphia in the 1870s.

West Philadelphia campus Edit

 
An illustration of Penn's College Hall from a pocket guide to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence
 
An illustration of the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia from a Brief Guide to Philadelphia, published in 1918

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.

Residential university Edit

In the 1750s, roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging since they came from areas in the U.S. that were too far to commute, or were international students.[64] Before the completion of the construction of the first dormitory in 1765, out of town students were typically placed with guardians in the homes of faculty or in suitable boarding houses, such as the one run by widow Rachel Marks Graydon, mother of Penn College Class of 1775 student Alexander Graydon.[65][66]

In 1765, the campus was expanded by opening of the newly completed dormitory run by Benjamin Franklin's collaborator on the study of electricity using electrostatic machines and related technology and Penn professor and chief master Ebenezer Kinnersley.[note 8] Kinnersley was designated steward of the students in the dormitory and he and his wife were given disciplinary powers over the students and supervised the cleanliness of the students with respect to personal hygiene and washing of the students' dirty clothing.[67][68]

Even after its construction, however, many students sought living quarters elsewhere, where they would have more personal freedom, resulting in a loss of funds to the university. In the fall of 1775, Penn's trustees voted to advertise to lease the dormitory to a private family who would board the pupils at lesser cost to Penn.[69] In another attempt to control the off-campus activities of the students, the trustees agreed not to admit any out-of-town student unless he was lodged in a place which they and the faculty considered proper.[64] As of 1779, Penn, through its trustees, owned three houses on Fourth Street, just north of the campus's new building with the largest residence located on the corner of Fourth and Arch Streets.[70][64]

Starting in 1849 with formation of Penn's Eta chapter[note 9] of Delta Phi by five founders and 15 initiates,[71] Penn students began to establish residential fraternity houses. Since Penn only had limited housing near campus and since students, especially those at the medical school, came from all over the country, the students elected to fend for themselves rather than live in housing owned by Penn trustees. A number chose housing by pledging and living in Penn's first fraternities, which included Delta Phi, Zeta Psi, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Delta Psi.[72] These first fraternities were located within walking distance of 9th and Chestnut Street since the campus was located from 1800 to 1872 on the west side of Ninth Street, from Market Street on the north to Chestnut Street on the south. Zeta Psi Fraternity was located at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, Delta Phi was located on the south side of 11th Street near Chestnut Street, and Delta Psi was located on the north side of Chestnut Street, west of 10th Street.[73]

When Penn moved to West Philadelphia in 1872, the new campus and its associated fraternities centered on the intersection of Woodland Avenue, 36th Street, and Locust Street. Among the first fraternities to build near the new campus were Phi Delta Theta in 1883 and Psi Upsilon in 1891. By 1891, there were at least 17 fraternities at the university.[74]

From its founding until construction of the Quadrangle Dormitories, which started construction in 1895, the university largely lacked university-owned housing with the exception of a significant part of the 18th century. A significant portion of the undergraduate population commuted from Delaware Valley locations, and a large number of students resided in the Philadelphia area.[75] The medical school, then with roughly half the students, was a significant exception to this trend as it attracted a more geographically diverse population of students. For example, in the 1850s when Penn's medical school accounted for two-thirds to three-quarters of the student body, over half of the population of the medical school was from the southern part of the United States.[76][77]

The university experienced increased need for housing in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century as it began to compete with peer institutions to recruit foreign students.

George Henderson, president of the class of 1889, wrote in his monograph distributed to his classmates at their 20th reunion that Penn's strong growth in acreage and number of buildings it constructed over the prior two decades (along with a near-quadrupling in the size of the student body) was accommodated by building The Quad.[78]

Henderson argued that building The Quad was influential in attracting students, and he appealed for it to be expanded:[79]

And the new buildings? First of all there is need of greater dormitory room. Did you ever live in the "dorms?" Then you do not know what "dorm" life means for college spirit. Several hundred men who live in the same big family have a feeling of common fellowship. Life in the "dorms" develops what our sociologists call a "Solidarity of Responsibility." Men who live there learn to care for the associations that brought them together and that keep them related. And this college spirit they never lose or forget. Some parents, living at a distance, do not like to send their sons to live in a general boarding house. But a dormitory, a University institution, appeals to them, and the boys come and live there. You would scarcely believe it, but when College opened last fall not only were the dormitory rooms over subscribed, but there was a long list of anxious ones, ready to snap up the room of any unlucky fellow who might miss his examinations, and be forced to spend another year at preparatory school grind. So we need the new dormitories, and although they are going up steadily, they might well go up faster.[79]

In 1911, since it was difficult to house the international students due to the segregation-era housing regulations in Philadelphia and across the United States, the Christian Association at the University of Pennsylvania hired its first Foreign Mission Secretary, Reverend Alpheus Waldo Stevenson.[80] By 1912, Stevenson focused almost all his efforts on the foreign students at Penn who needed help finding housing resulting in the Christian Association buying 3905 Spruce Street located adjacent to Penn's West Philadelphia campus.[81] By January 1, 1918, 3905 Spruce Street officially opened under the sponsorship of the Christian Association as a Home for Foreign Students, which came to be known as the International Students' House with Reverend Stevenson as its first director. The International Students' House provided " ... counseling and information services for a host of problems foreign students might encounter, including language, financial, health and diet, immigration and technical problems as well as maladjustment to living in the United States. It was also used for recreation and leisure, as lounges had radio, phonograph and television facilities and there were game and reception rooms. The International Students' House also provided for programs including forums, debates, lectures, panels and planned trips and outings as well as weekend activities such as dances, films and game nights. Also, for the next thirty-three years, the International Students' House would be sponsored by the Christian Association of the University of Pennsylvania."[82]

The success of efforts to reach out to the international students was reported in 1921 when the university reported that the university's 12,000 students at the time came from all 50 states and 253 came from at least 50 foreign countries and foreign territories, including India, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and "...every Latin American country, and most of the Oriental and European nations".[83]

By 1931, first-year students were required to live in the quadrangle unless they received official permission to live with their families or other relatives.[76] However, throughout this period and into the early post-World War II period, the undergraduate schools of the university continued to have a large commuting population.[84] As an example, into the late 1940s, two-thirds of Penn women students were commuters.[85]

After World War II, the university began a capital spending program to overhaul its campus, including its student housing. A large number of students migrating to universities under the G.I. Bill, and the ensuing increase in Penn's student population highlighted that Penn had outgrown previous expansions, which ended during the Great Depression era. But in addition to a significant student population from the Delaware Valley, the university continued to attract international students from at least 50 countries and from all 50 states as early as of the second decade of the 1920s.[83][86] Penn Trustee Paul Miller wrote that, in the post-World War II era,: "[t]he bricks-and-mortar Capital Campaign of the Sixties...built the facilities that turned Penn from a commuter school to a residential one...."[87] By 1961, 79% of male undergraduates and 57% of female undergraduates lived on campus.[88]

Controversies Edit

From 1930 to 1966, there were 54 documented Rowbottom riots, a student tradition of rioting which included everything from car smashing to panty raids.[89] After 1966, there were five more instances of "Rowbottoms", the latest occurring in 1980.[89]

In 1965, Penn students learned that the university was sponsoring research projects for the United States' chemical and biological weapons program.[90] 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".[90] 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.[90]

In 1983, members of the Animal Liberation Front broke into the Head Injury Clinical Research Laboratory in the School of Medicine and stole research audio and video tapes. The stolen tapes were given to PETA who edited the footage to create a film, Unnecessary Fuss. As a result of media coverage and pressure from animal rights activists, the project was closed down.[91]

The school gained notoriety in 1993 for the water buffalo incident in which a student who told a group of mostly black female students to "shut up, you water buffalo" was charged with violating the university's racial harassment policy.[92]

In 2022, some asked for the tenure of a University of Pennsylvania law school professor to be revoked after she said the country is "better off with fewer Asians."[93][94]

Educational innovations Edit

 
Houston Hall, the first college student union in the nation
 
Franklin Institute's chief meteorologist Jon Nese (left) and his production crew from WHYY-TV (right) in front of a portion of the original ENIAC computer in the university's ENIAC museum on campus

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 business school, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall, in 1896;[95] the only school of veterinary medicine in the United States that originated directly from its medical school, in 1884;[96][97] 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.[98][99] In 1921, Penn was also the first university to award a PhD in economics to an African American woman, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander.[100]

Motto Edit

In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised. 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'.[101] Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace'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'.

Seal Edit

 
The 1757 seal of the Academy and College of Philadelphia; in 1779, the college was renamed the "University in Philadelphia" and, following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1782, assumed its current name, the University of Pennsylvania

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.[102] 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". In 1756, a public seal and motto for the college was engraved in silver.[103] 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.[102]

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 subjects of the trivium and a modified quadrivium, components of a classical education: Theolog[ia], Astronom[ia], Philosoph[ia], Mathemat[ica], Logica, Rhetorica and Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the university, "Leges Sine Moribus Vanae".[102]

Campus Edit

 
This statue of Benjamin Franklin, donated to the City of Philadelphia in 1899, now sits in front of College Hall at the center of Penn's main campus in honor of Franklin, the university's founder.[104]
 
A 1915 map of the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia, published by Rand McNally[105]
 
Upper Quad Gate forming lower part of Memorial Tower, which honors veterans of the Spanish–American War
 
Center City Philadelphia seen from the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District with Huntsman Hall in the foreground
 
Wistar Institute's seven-story steel and glass 2014 building located next to a brick building, constructed in 1897, both on Penn's main historic campus on North side of Spruce Street between 36th and 37th streets

Much of Penn's architecture was designed by the Philadelphia-based architecture firm Cope and Stewardson, whose owners were Philadelphia born and raised architects and professors at Penn who also designed Princeton University and a large part of Washington University in St. Louis.[106][107] They were known for having combined the Gothic architecture of the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge with the local landscape to establish the Collegiate Gothic style.[108]

The present core campus covers over 299 acres (121 ha) in a contiguous area of West Philadelphia's University City section, whereas 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, bars, a large upscale grocery store, and a movie theater on the western edge of campus. Penn's core campus borders Drexel University and is a few blocks from the University City campus of Saint Joseph's University (which absorbed University of the Sciences in Philadelphia via a merger) and The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.

The renowned cancer research center Wistar Institute is also located on campus. In 2014, a new 7-story glass and steel building was completed next to the institute's original brick edifice built in 1897 further expanding collaboration between the university and the Wistar Institute.[109]

The Module 6 Utility Plant and Garage at Penn was designed by BLT Architects and completed in 1995. Module 6 is located at 38th and Walnut and includes spaces for 627 vehicles, 9,000 sq ft (840 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.[110]

In 2010, in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River, Penn purchased 23 acres (9.3 ha) at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, the then site of DuPont Marshall Research Labs. In October 2016, Penn completed the design (with help from architects Matthias Hollwich, Marc Kushner, and KSS Architects) and renovation of the center piece of the project, a former paint factory it named Pennovation Works. Pennovation Works houses shared desks, wet labs, common areas, a "pitch bleacher," and other attributes of a tech incubator. The rest of the site, which Penn is formally calling "South Bank" (of Schuylkill River), is a mixture of lightly refurbished industrial buildings that serve as affordable and flexible workspaces and land for future development. Penn hopes that "South Bank will provide a place for academics, researchers, and entrepreneurs to establish their businesses in close proximity to each other to facilitate cross-pollination of their ideas, creativity, and innovation.[111]

Parks and arboreta Edit

In 2007, Penn acquired about 35 acres (14 ha) between the campus and the Schuylkill River at the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center and a nearby 24-acre (9.7 ha) site then 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 became the home to educational, research, biomedical, and mixed-use facilities. The first phase, comprising a park and athletic facilities, opened in the fall of 2011.

In September 2011, Penn completed the construction of the $46.5 million, 24-acre (9.7 ha) Penn Park, which features passive and active recreation and athletic components framed and subdivided by canopy trees, lawns, and meadows. It is located east of the Highline Green and stretches from Walnut Street to South Streets.

Penn maintains two arboreta. The first is the roughly 300-acre (120 ha) The Penn Campus Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania encompasses the entire University City main campus. The campus arboretum is an urban forest with over 6,500 trees representing 240 species of trees and shrubs, ten specialty gardens and five urban parks,[112] which has been designated as a Tree Campus USA[113] since 2009 and formally recognized as an accredited ArbNet Arboretum since 2017.[112] Penn maintains an interactive website linked to Penn's comprehensive tree inventory, which allows users to explore Penn's entire collection of trees.[114] The second arboretum, Penn's Morris Arboretum & Gardens (the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is 92 acres (sited over 15 miles from Penn's "Campus Arboretum") and contains more than 13,000 labelled plants from over 2,500 types, representing the temperate floras of North America, Asia, and Europe, with a primary focus on Asia [115]

Bolton Center Edit

Penn also owns the 687-acre (278 ha) New Bolton Center, the research and large-animal health care center of its veterinary school.[116] 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.[117]

Libraries Edit

Penn's library began in 1750 with a donation of books from cartographer Lewis Evans. Twelve years later, then-provost William Smith sailed to England to raise additional funds to increase the collection size. Benjamin Franklin was one of the libraries' earliest donors and, as a trustee, saw to it that funds were allocated for the purchase of texts from London, many of which are still part of the collection, more than 250 years later.

Penn library system has grown into a system of 14 libraries with 400 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees and a total operating budget of more than $48 million.[118] The library system has 6.19 million book and serial volumes as well as 4.23 million microform items and 1.11 million e-books.[8] It subscribes to over 68,000 print serials and e-journals.[119][120]

Penn has the following libraries, associated by school or subject area: (1) communications library, located on campus on Walnut Street between 36th and 37th Streets in the Annenberg Communications School; (2) Biddle Law Library, located on campus on 3500 block of Sansom in the Law School; (3) The Holman Biotech Commons library, located on campus, on 3500 block of Hamilton Walk, adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School and the Nursing School; (4) chemistry library, located on campus, on 3300 block of Spruce, in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building; (5) dental medicine library located on campus, on 4000 block of Locust Street, in Dental School; (6) fine arts library, located on campus, on 3400 block of Woodland Ave, within the Fisher Fine Arts Library; (7) Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies library, located off campus, at 420 Walnut Street, near Independence Hall and Washington Square; (8) humanities and social sciences library (including Weigle Information Commons) located on campus, between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; (9) Lea library collection of Roman Catholic Church history, located on campus, between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street, on the 6th floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; (10) Lippincott business library, located on campus, between 35th and 36th streets on Locust Street, in the second floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; (11) Math/Physics/Astronomy library, located on campus, on 3200 block of Walnut Streets, adjacent to The Palestra on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory; (12) archaeology and anthropology library within Penn Museum; (13) Rare Books and Manuscripts library (including the Yarnall Library of Theology) located on campus, between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street, in Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; (14) veterinary medicine library, located on Penn Campus, between 38th and 39th streets on Sansom Street, within the Vet School (with satellite library located off campus at New Bolton Center. Penn also maintains books and records off campus at high density storage facility.

The Penn Design School's Fine Arts Library was built to be Penn's main library and the first with its own building. The main library at the time was designed by Frank Furness to be first library in nation to separate the low ceilings of the library stack, where the books were stored, from forty-foot-plus high ceilinged rooms, where the books were read and studied.[121][122][123]

The Yarnall Library of Theology, a major American rare book collection, is part of Penn's libraries. The Yarnall Library of Theology was formerly affiliated with St. Clement's Church in Philadelphia. It was founded in 1911 under the terms of the wills of Ellis Hornor Yarnall (1839–1907) and Emily Yarnall, and subsequently housed at the former Philadelphia Divinity School. The library's major areas of focus are theology, patristics, and the liturgy, history and theology of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. It includes a large number of rare books, incunabula, and illuminated manuscripts, and new material continues to be added.[124][125]

Art installations Edit

 
Simone Leigh creating a sculpture similar to her "Brick House" work in February 2019
 
The Covenant, designed by artist Alexander Liberman and installed at Penn in 1975

The campus has more than 40 notable art installations, in part because of a 1959 Philadelphia ordinance requiring total budget for new construction or major renovation projects in which governmental resources are used to include 1% for art[126] to be used to pay for installation of site-specific public art,[127] in part because many alumni collected and donated art to Penn, and in part because of the presence of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design on the campus.[128]

In 2020, Penn installed Brick House, a monumental work of art, created by Simone Leigh at the College Green gateway to Penn's campus near the corner of 34th Street and Woodland Walk. This 5,900-pound (2,700 kg) bronze sculpture, which is 16 feet (4.9 m) high and 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter at its base, depicts an African woman's head crowned with an afro framed by cornrow braids atop a form that resembles both a skirt and a clay house.[129] At the installation, Penn president Amy Guttman proclaimed that "Ms. Leigh's sculpture brings a striking presence of strength, grace, and beauty—along with an ineffable sense of mystery and resilience—to a central crossroad of Penn's campus."[130]

The Covenant, known to the student body as "Dueling Tampons"[131][132] or "The Tampons",[133] is a large red structure created by Alexander Liberman and located on Locust Walk as a gateway to the high-rise residences "super block". It was installed in 1975 and is made of rolled sheets of milled steel.

A white button, known as The Button and officially called the Split Button is a modern art sculpture designed by designed by Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg (who specialized in creating oversize sculptures of everyday objects). It sits at the south entrance of Van Pelt Library and has button holes large enough for people to stand inside. Penn also has a replica of the Love sculpture, part of a series created by Robert Indiana. It is a painted aluminum sculpture and was installed in 1998 overlooking College Green.[128]

In 2019, the Association for Public Art loaned Penn[134] two multi-ton sculptures.[135] The two works are Social Consciousness[136][134] (created by Sir Jacob Epstein in 1954 and sited on the walkway between Wharton's Lippincott Library and Phi Phi chapter of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity house) and Atmosphere and Environment XII (created by Louise Nevelson in 1970, which is sited on Shoemaker Green between Franklin Field and Ringe Squash Courts).[137]

In addition to the contemporary art, Penn also has a number of more traditional statues including a good number created by Penn's first Director of Physical Education Department, R. Tait McKenzie.[138] Among the notable sculptures is that of Young Ben Franklin, which McKenzie produced and Penn sited adjacent to the fieldhouse contiguous to Franklin Field. The sculpture is titled Benjamin Franklin in 1723 and was created by McKenzie during the pre-World War 1 era (1910–1914). Other sculptures he produced for Penn include the 1924 sculpture of then Penn provost Edgar Fahs Smith.

Penn is presently reevaluating all of its public art and has formed a working group led by Penn Design dean Frederick Steiner, who was part of a similar effort at the University of Texas at Austin (that led to the removal of statues of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials), and Penn's Chief Diversity Officer, Joann Mitchell. Penn has begun the process of adding art and removing or relocating art.[139] Penn removed from campus in 2020 the statue of the Reverend George Whitefield (who had inspired the 1740 establishment of a trust to establish a charity school, which trust Penn legally assumed in 1749) when research showed Whitefield owned fifty enslaved people and drafted and advocated for the key theological arguments in favor of slavery in Georgia and the rest of the Thirteen Colonies.[140]

Penn Museum Edit

 
University Museum and Warden Garden
 
Sphinx of Ramses II at the great temple of Ptah in Memphis, circa 1200 BC
 
Penn Museum's black granite statue of Goddess Sekhmet excavated in Thebes in Ramesseum in the late 18th dynasty of Egypt of 1405 to 1367 BC

Since the Penn Museum was founded in 1887,[141] it has taken part in 400 research projects worldwide.[142] The museum's first project was an excavation of Nippur, a location in current day Iraq.[143]

Penn Museum is home to the largest authentic sphinx in North America at about seven feet high, four feet wide, 13 feet long, and 12.9 tons (made of solid red granite).

The sphinx was discovered in 1912 by the British archeologist, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, during an excavation of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, Egypt, where the sphinx had guarded a temple to ward off evil. Since Petri's expedition was partially financed by Penn Petrie offered it to Penn, which arranged for it to be moved to museum in 1913. The sphinx was moved in 2019 to a more prominent spot intended to attract visitors.[144]

The museum has three gallery floors with artifacts from Egypt, the Middle East, Mesoamerica, Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa and indigenous artifacts of the Americas.[142] Its most famous object is the goat rearing into the branches of a rosette-leafed plant, from the royal tombs of Ur.

The Penn Museum's excavations and collections foster a strong research base for graduate students in the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World. Features of the Beaux-Arts building include a rotunda and gardens that include Egyptian papyrus.

Other Penn museums, galleries, and art collections Edit

 
The Institute of Contemporary Art, known as ICA, located just South of the Graduate Towers, the residence hall for graduate and professional students at the corner of 36th Street and Sansom Street

Penn maintains a website providing a detailed roadmap to small museums and galleries and over one hundred locations across campus where the public can access Penn's over 8,000 artworks acquired over 250 years and includes, but is not limited to, paintings, sculptures, photography, works on paper, and decorative arts.[145] The largest of the art galleries is the Institute of Contemporary Art, one of the only kunsthalles in the country, which showcases various art exhibitions throughout the year. Since 1983 the Arthur Ross Gallery, located at the Fisher Fine Arts Library, has housed Penn's art collection[146] and is named for its benefactor, philanthropist Arthur Ross.

Residences Edit

Every College House at the University of Pennsylvania has at least four members of faculty in the roles of House Dean, Faculty Master, and College House Fellows.[147] 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 their first year, as well as by graduate and professional students.

The College Houses include W.E.B. Du Bois, Fisher Hassenfeld, Gregory, Gutmann, Harnwell, Harrison, Hill College House, Kings Court English, Lauder, Riepe, Rodin, Stouffer, and Ware. The first College House was Van Pelt College House, established in the fall of 1971. It was later renamed Gregory House.[148] Fisher Hassenfeld, Ware and Riepe together make up one building called "The Quad". The latest College House to be built is Guttman[149] (formerly named New College House West), which opened in the fall of 2021.[150]

Penn students in Junior or Senior year may live in the 45 sororities and fraternities governed by three student-run governing councils, Interfraternity Council,[151] Intercultural Greek Council, and Panhellenic Council.[152]

Campus police Edit

The University of Pennsylvania Police Department (UPPD) is the largest, private police department in Pennsylvania, with 117 members. All officers are sworn municipal police officers and retain general law enforcement authority while on the campus.[156]

Academics and interdisciplinary focus Edit

Penn's "One University Policy" allows students to enroll in classes in any of Penn's twelve schools.[165] The College of Arts and Sciences is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences. The School of Arts and Sciences also contains the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, which is home to the Fels Institute of Government, the master's programs in Organizational Dynamics, and the Environmental Studies (MES) program. Wharton is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania. Other schools with undergraduate programs 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 double 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.

Admissions Edit

Undergraduate admissions to the University of Pennsylvania is considered by US News to be "most selective". Admissions officials consider a student's GPA to be a very important academic factor, with emphasis on an applicant's high school class rank and letters of recommendation.[166] Admission is need-blind for U.S., Canadian, and Mexican applicants.[167]

For the class of 2026, entering in Fall 2022, the university received 54,588 applications.[168] The Atlantic also ranked Penn among the 10 most selective schools in the country. At the graduate level, based on admission statistics from U.S. News & World Report, Penn's most selective programs include its law school, the health care schools (medicine, dental medicine, nursing, veterinary), and Wharton business school.

Fall first-year statistics, by year
2022[169] 2019[170] 2018[171] 2017[172]
Applicants 54,588 44,961 44,491 40,413
Admits 3,404 3,446 3,740 3,757
Admit rate 6.24% 7.66% 8.41% 9.30%
Enrolled 2,417 2,400 2,518 2,456
Yield 68.18% 69.65% 67.33% 65.37%
SAT range* 1510–1560 1450–1560 1440–1560 1420–1560
ACT range* 34–36 33–35 32–35 32–35

* SAT and ACT ranges are from the 25th to the 75th percentile.

Coordinated dual-degree, accelerated, interdisciplinary programs Edit

 
Smith Walk with a view of Towne Building and the Engineering Quad

Penn offers unique and specialized coordinated dual-degree (CDD) programs, which selectively award candidates degrees from multiple schools at the university upon completion of graduation criteria of both schools in addition to program-specific programs and senior capstone projects. Additionally, there are accelerated and interdisciplinary programs offered by the university. These undergraduate programs include:

  • Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business[173]
  • Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology (M&T)[174]
  • Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management (LSM)[175]
  • Nursing and Health Care Management (NHCM)[176]
  • Roy and Diana Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER)[177]
  • Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences (MLS)[178]
  • Singh Program in Networked and Social Systems Engineering (NETS)[179]
  • Digital Media Design (DMD)[180]
  • Computer and Cognitive Science[181]
  • Accelerated 7-Year Bio-Dental Program[182]
  • Accelerated 6-Year Law and Medicine Program[183]

Dual-degree programs that 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 the involvement of another program. Specialized dual-degree programs include Liberal Studies and Technology as well as an Artificial Intelligence: 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. Also, the Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences allows its students to either double major in the sciences or submatriculate and earn both a BA and an MS in four years. The most recent Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER) was first offered for the class of 2016. 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 double 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 University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, commonly known as Penn SP2, is a school of social policy and social work that offers degrees in a variety of subfields, in addition to several dual degree programs and sub-matriculation programs.[184][185][186] Penn SP2's vision is: "The passionate pursuit of social innovation, impact and justice."[187]

Originally named the School of Social Work, SP2 was founded in 1908 and is a graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania. The school specializes in research, education, and policy development in relation to both social and economic issues.[188][189]

The School of Veterinary Medicine offers five dual-degree programs, combining the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (VMD) with a Master of Social Work (MSW), Master of Environmental Studies (MES), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Master of Public Health (MPH) or Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree. The Penn Vet dual-degree programs are meant to support veterinarians planning to engage in interdisciplinary work in the areas of human health, environmental health, and animal health and welfare.[190]

Academic medical center and biomedical research complex Edit

 
Founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond, Pennsylvania Hospital is now part of University of Pennsylvania Health System and is the earliest established hospital in the United States with the country's oldest surgical amphitheater.

In 2018, the university's nursing school was ranked number one by Quacquarelli Symonds.[191] That year, Quacquarelli Symonds also ranked Penn's school of Veterinary Medicine sixth.[192] In 2019, the Perelman School of Medicine was named the third-best medical school for research in U.S. News & World Report's 2020 ranking.[193]

The University of Pennsylvania Health System, also known as UPHS, is a multi-hospital health system headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, owned by Trustees of University of Pennsylvania. UPHS and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania together constitute Penn Medicine, a clinical and research entity of the University of Pennsylvania. UPHS hospitals include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania,[194] Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Pennsylvania Hospital, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Hospital, and Princeton Medical Center.[195] Penn Medicine owns and operates the first hospital in the United States, the Pennsylvania Hospital.[196] It is also home to America's first surgical amphitheatre[197] and its first medical library.[198]

Research and discoveries Edit

 
ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, was founded at Penn in 1946
 
Claudia Cohen Hall, formerly Logan Hall, home of the College of Arts and Sciences and former home of the Wharton School and originally, the medical school

Penn is classified as an "R1" doctoral university: "Highest research activity."[199] Its economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 2015 amounted to $14.3 billion.[200] Penn's research expenditures in the 2018 fiscal year were $1.442 billion, the fourth largest in the U.S.[201] In fiscal year 2019 Penn received $582.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.[202]

Penn's research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010–2011 academic year, five interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing,[203] the Center for Global Women's Health at the Nursing School,[204] the $13 million Morris Arboretum's Horticulture Center,[205] the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton[206] and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine.[207] With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,300 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,500 academic support staff and graduate student trainees.[8] 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".[208] These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn's schools.

Penn is also among the most prolific 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).[209] It also has one of the highest numbers of post-doctoral appointees (933 in number for 2004–2007), ranking third in the Ivy League (behind Harvard and Yale) and tenth nationally.[210]

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.[211] 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 five rankings in these fields.[212]

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 oldest continuously operating degree-granting program in chemical engineering,[213] 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).[214] 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.[215]

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[216] 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".[217][218] 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,[219] the Penn effect (the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones) and the "Wharton Model"[220] developed by Nobel-laureate Lawrence Klein to measure and forecast economic activity. The idea behind Health Maintenance Organizations also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers, who put it into practice during then-President Nixon's health reform in the 1970s.[219]

Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering.[221] It was here also where the world's first spelling and grammar checkers were created, as well as the popular COBOL programming language.[221]

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;[222] the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn;[222] the discovery of cancer's link with genes, cognitive therapy, Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), Resistin, the Philadelphia gene (linked to chronic myelogenous leukemia) and the technology behind PET Scans were all discovered by Penn Med researchers.[222] More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the (a) genes for fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation; (b) spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, a disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting; (c) Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet and limbs;[222] and (d) genetically engineered T cells used to treat lymphoblastic leukemia and refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma.[223][224] Another contribution to medicine was made by Ralph L. Brinster (Penn faculty member since 1965) who developed the scientific basis for in vitro fertilization and the transgenic mouse at Penn and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010.

Penn professors Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa invented a conductive polymer process 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).

Academic profile and rankings Edit

International partnerships Edit

Students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions, which include the London School of Economics, University of Edinburgh, Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Melbourne, Sciences Po, University of Queensland, University College London, King's College London, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and ETH Zurich.

Rankings Edit

U.S. News & World Report's 2022 rankings place Penn seventh among national universities in the United States[241][242] and Center for World University Rankings' ("CWUR") 2020/2021 survey also ranks Penn as the eighth best university in the world.[243] The Princeton Review included Penn in its Dream Colleges list in 2015.[244] As reported by USA Today, Penn was ranked first in the United States by College Factual for 2015.[245] In 2023, Penn was ranked as having the 7th happiest students in the United States (the highest in the Ivy League).[246][247]

In their 2021 edition, Penn was ranked tenth in the nation by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds).[248] In the 2020 edition, Penn was ranked 15th in the world by the QS World University Rankings[249] and in 2019, 17th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and 12th by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2019, it ranked 12th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings.[250] According to the 2015 ARWU ranking, Penn is also the eighth- and ninth-best university in the world for economics/business and social sciences studies, respectively.[251] University of Pennsylvania ranked 12th among 300 Best World Universities in 2012 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR) on Measurements of World's Top 300 Universities Graduates' Performance.[252]

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.[253] Penn was also ranked 18th of all U.S. colleges and universities in terms of R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2013 by the National Science Foundation.[254] The High Impact Universities research performance index ranks Penn eighth 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 2007,[255] 2008[256] and 2010[257] and ninth for 2009.[258]

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. The SCImago Institutions Rankings World Report 2012, which ranks world universities, national institutions and academies in terms of research output, ranks Penn seventh nationally among U.S. universities (2nd in the Ivy League behind Harvard) and 28th in the world overall (the first being France's French National Centre for Scientific Research).[259]

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 second nationally behind Harvard.[260] According to a U.S. News article in 2010, Penn is tied for second (tied with Dartmouth College and Tufts University) for the number of undergraduate alumni who are current Fortune 100 CEOs.[261] Forbes ranked Penn 17th, based on a variety of criteria.[262] In 2022, Poets & Quants ranked the undergraduate Wharton business school as the top business school in the nation for the fifth year in a row.[263]

Graduate and professional programs Edit

Among its professional schools, the school of education was ranked number one in 2021 and Wharton School of Business was ranked number one in 2022,[264] the communication, dentistry, medicine, nursing, law and veterinary medicine schools rank in the top 5 nationally.[265] Penn's Law School was ranked number 4 in 2023[239] and Design school, and its School of Social Policy and Practice are ranked in the top 10[265]

Student life Edit

Ethnic breakdown of enrollment
Ethnic enrollment,
fall 2018[266]
Number (percentage)
of undergraduates
African American 715 (7.1%)
Native American 12 (0.1%)
Asian American and
Pacific Islander
2,084 (20.7%)
Hispanic and
Latino American
1,044 (10.4%)
White 4,278 (42.6%)
International 1,261 (12.6%)
Two or more races,
non-Hispanic
460 (4.6%)
Unknown 179 (1.8%)
Total 10,033 (100%)

Demographics and diversity Edit

 
Aaron Albert Mossell II, the first African American graduate of Penn Law School, at his 1888 graduation
 
Julian Abele, the first African American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design
 
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States
 
Edgar Fahs Smith, University of Pennsylvania provost from 1911 through 1920

Jonathan and Philip Gayienquitioga, two brothers of the Mohawk Nation,[267] were recruited by Benjamin Franklin to attend the Academy of Philadelphia,[268] making them the first Native Americans at Penn when they enrolled in 1755.[269] Moses Levy, the first Jewish student, enrolled in 1769 (and was also elected Penn's first Jewish trustee in 1802, serving to 1826).[270] Joseph M. Urquiola (aka José María de Urquiola y Fernández de Zúñiga), School of Medicine class of 1829 was the first Latino (from Cuba)[271][272][273] and Auxencio Maria Pena, School of Medicine class of 1836, was the first South American (from Venezuela)[274] to graduate from Penn.

William Adger, James Brister, and Nathan Francis Mossell in 1879 were the first African Americans to enroll at Penn. Adger was the first African American to graduate from the college at Penn (1883),[275] and when Brister graduated from the School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental) (class of 1881), he was the first African American to earn a degree at Penn.[276] Mossell was first African American to graduate from Penn Med (1882)[277] (and had a brother, Aaron Albert Mossell II who was the first African American graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School (in 1888) and [278] niece, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Albert's daughter, who not only was first African American woman to graduate from Penn Law (in 1927) and be admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, but prior to such noteworthy accomplishments was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in the United States (from Penn in 1922)).[279] Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander's uncle (via her mother's Tanner family), Lewis Baxter Moore, in 1896 became the first person of African descent to earn a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and only the fifth black person in the United States to earn a doctor of philosophy degree[280] and in 1899 founded the Teachers College (now known as the School of Education) of Howard University and served as its dean continuously from 1899 through September 1920.[281]

Tosui Imadate was the first person of Asian descent to graduate from Penn (College [282] Class of 1879).[283] In 1877, Imadate became the first Asian member of a fraternity at Penn when he became a brother at Phi Kappa Psi.[284] In a quote from a portion of a letter published in December 1880 issue of The Crescent, Imadate is described by a Phi Kappa Psi brother as a "brother member of Penn's I [iota] chapter of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, who is a professor in college at Kiota [(Kyoto, Japan)]".[285][286]

Fuji Tsukamoto, Penn Graduate School Class of 1889, became the first woman of Asian descent to matriculate at Penn when she started her study of biology and botany in 1885 and, like Tosui Imadate, also taught at Kyoto college in Japan.[287]

Mary Alice Bennett and Anna H. Johnson were in 1880 the first women to enroll in a Penn degree-granting program and Bennett was the first woman to receive a degree from Penn, which was a PhD.[288][289][271]

Julian Abele in 1902 was the first African American to graduate from University of Pennsylvania School of Design (then named Department of Architecture) and was elected as the president of Penn's Architectural Society.[290] Abele won a 1901 student competition where he designed a Beaux Arts pedestrian gateway that was built and still stands on the campus of Haverford College,[291] The Edward B. Conklin Memorial Gate at the Railroad Avenue entrance to Haverford College.[292] Abele contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings, including the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University (1912–1915), Philadelphia's Central Library (1917–1927),[293] and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1914–1928).[294] and was the primary designer of the west campus of Duke University (1924–1954).[295] Duke honored Abele by prominently displaying his portrait, the first portrait of an African American to be displayed on the campus.[296]

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, paternal niece of Nathan Francis Mossell and maternal niece of Lewis Baxter Moore, was the first African American to receive a PhD in economics in the United States (and third black woman to earn one in the United States in any subject)[297] and first from Penn in 1921, the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from Penn Law in 1927, and the first African-American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania.[279]

Alan L. Hart, who earned a master's degree at Penn Med in radiology (class of 1928),[298][note 11] was born in 1890 and publicly identified as a female, Alberta Lucille Hart, through much of 1917, the year Hart transitioned to being a man by having a hysterectomy, one of the first in the United States to be performed to help a person become a trans man, and lived the rest of his life as a man.[299] Hart, Penn's most prominent transgender alumnus in the first half of the twentieth century, was a pioneer in using x-ray photography to detect tuberculosis, allowing the identification of asymptomatic TB carriers (seventy-five percent of the total infected), permitting treatment of patients before they had complications, and allowing for separation of TB patients from others to stop the spread of one of the more infectious deadly diseases known to humanity.[298]

The first openly LGBTQ+ organization funded by Penn was formed in 1972 by Kiyoshi Kuromiya, a Benjamin Franklin Scholar and Penn alumnus from the College's class of 1966, when he created the Gay Coffee Hour, which met every week on campus and was also open to non-students and served as an alternative space to gay bars for gay people of all ages.[300] Penn funded the Gay Coffee House program (via a grant from the student government), which was held in Houston Hall at six o'clock in the evening every Wednesday and attracted, on average, roughly sixty people of all ages with roughly "one-quarter to one-third women and two-thirds to three-quarters men."[301] In March 2023, Penn announced a first in the United States LGBTQ+ scholar in residence after a $2-million gift.[302]

As detailed in part above, by the first decades of the twentieth century, Penn made strides and took an active interest in attracting diverse students from around the globe. Two examples of such action occurred in 1910. Penn's first director of publicity, created a recruiting brochure, translated into Spanish, with approximately 10,000 copies circulated throughout Latin America. That same year, the Penn-affiliated organization, the Cosmopolitan Club, started an annual tradition of hosting an opening "smoker", which attracted students from 40 nations who were formally welcomed to the university by then-vice provost Edgar Fahs Smith (who the following year would start a ten-year tenure as provost)[303][304][305][306][307] who spoke about how Penn wanted to "bring together students of different countries and break down misunderstandings existing between them".[271]

The success of such efforts were reported in 1921 when the official Penn publicity department reported that

We have an enrollment at the University of 12,000 students, who have registered from every State in the Union, and 253 students from at least fifty foreign countries and foreign territories, including India, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and practically all the British possessions except Ireland; every Latin American country, and most of the Oriental and European nations.

— George E. Nitzsche, 1921[83]

Of those accepted for admission in 2018, 48 percent were Asian, Hispanic, African-American or Native American.[8] Fourteen percent of entering undergraduates in 2018 were international students.[8] The composition of international first-year students in 2018 was: 46% from Asia; 15% from Africa and the Middle East; 16% from Europe; 14% from Canada and Mexico; 8% from the Caribbean, Central America and South America; 5% from Australia and the Pacific Islands.[8] The acceptance rate for international students admission in 2018 was 493 out of 8,316 (6.7%).[8] In 2018, 55% of all enrolled students were women.[8]

In the last few decades, Jewish enrollment has been declining. Circa 1999 about 28% of the students were Jewish.[308] In early 2020, 1,750 Penn undergraduate students were Jewish,[309] which would be approximately 17%[310] of the some 10,000 undergrads for 2019–20.

Penn Face and behavioral health Edit

The university's social pressure surrounding academic perfection, extreme competitiveness, and nonguaranteed readmission have created what is known as "Penn Face": students put on a façade of confidence and happiness while enduring mental turmoil.[311][312][313][314][315] Stanford University calls this phenomenon "Duck Syndrome."[314][316] In recent years, mental health has become an issue on campus with ten student suicides between the years of 2013 to 2016.[317] The school responded by launching a task force.[318][319] The most widely covered case of Penn Face has been Madison Holleran.[320][321] In 2018, initiatives were enacted to ameliorate mental health problems, such as requiring sophomores to live on campus and the daily closing of Huntsman Hall at 2:00 a.m.[322][323] The university's suicide rate was the catalyst for a 2018 state bill, introduced by Governor Tom Wolf, to raise Pennsylvania's standards for university suicide prevention.[324] The university's efforts to address mental health on campus came into the national spotlight again in September 2019 when the director of the university's counseling services died by suicide six months after starting the position.[325]

Selected student organizations Edit

Oldest organization
 
Philomathean Society graduation diploma For Isaac Norton Jr., 1858
 
The Philomathean Society Presidential Library named after United States President and Penn Med alumnus William Henry Harrison

The Philomathean Society, founded in 1813, is one of the United States' oldest collegiate literary societies and continues to host lectures and intellectual events open to the public.[326]

The Daily Pennsylvanian
 
34th Street logo in 2017

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper, which has been published daily since it was founded in 1885.[327] The newspaper went unpublished from May 1943 to November 1945 due to World War II.[327] In 1984, the university lost all editorial and financial control of The Daily Pennsylvanian (also known as The DP) when the newspaper became its own corporation.[327] The Daily Pennsylvanian has won the Pacemaker Award administered by the Associated Collegiate Press multiple times, most recently in 2019.[328][329] The DP also publishes a weekly arts and culture magazine called 34th Street Magazine.

The Daily Pennsylvanian also operates three principal websites, thedp.com, 34st.com, and underthebutton.com, and publishes opinion, news, and sports blogs. It has received various collegiate journalism awards.

Academic organizations

The Penn Debate Society (PDS), founded in 1984 as the Penn Parliamentary Debate Society, is Penn's debate team, which competes regularly on the American Parliamentary Debate Association and the international British Parliamentary circuit.[330]

The Penn History Review is a journal, published twice a year, through the Department of History, for undergraduate historical research, by and for undergraduates, and founded in 1991.[331][332][333]

LGBTQ+ organizations

Penn has been ranked as the number one LGBTQ+ friendly school in the country.[334] Penn's LGBTQ+ center is second oldest in the nation[335] and oldest in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as it has been serving the LGBTQ+ community since 1979 by providing support and guidance through 25 groups (including Penn J-Bagel a Jewish LGBTQ+ group, the Lambda Alliance a general LGBTQ social organization, and oSTEM a group for LGBTQ people in STEM fields).[336] Penn offers courses in Sexuality and Gender Studies which allows students to discover and learn queer theory, history of sexual norms, and other gender orientation related courses.[337] The first Penn funded LGBTQ+ organization was formed in 1972 by "Steve" Kiyoshi Kuromiya (Penn college class of 1966) when he created the Gay Coffee Hour, which met every week on campus and served as an alternative space to gay bars for gay people of all ages.[300] Penn funded the Gay Coffee House via a grant from the student government and the weekly event was held in Houston Hall Wednesday evenings.[301]

Penn Electric Racing Edit

 
Penn Electric Racing unveiled REV8 on March 31, 2023, in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue in front of College Hall.

Penn Electric Racing is the university's Formula SAE (FSAE) team, competing in the international electric vehicle (EV) competition. Colloquially known as "PER", the team designs, manufactures, and races custom electric racecars against other collegiate teams. In 2015, PER built and raced their first racecar, REV1, at the Lincoln Nebraska FSAE competition, winning first place.[338] The team repeated their success with their next two racecars: REV2 won second place in 2016,[339] and REV3 won first place in 2017.[340]

Placement of PER in overall category of FSAE competitions, 2015–present
Year Competition Result
2015 Electric 2015[338] 1
2016 Electric 2016[339] 2
2017 Electric 2017[340] 1
2018 Electric 2018[341] 11
2019 Electric 2019[342] 3
2020 Competition cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic[343][failed verification]
2021 Knowledge EV 2021[344] 2
2022 Michigan June 2022 Electric[345] 9

Performing arts organizations Edit

Penn is home to numerous organizations that promote the arts, from dance to spoken word, jazz to stand-up comedy, theatre, a cappella and more. The Performing Arts Council (PAC) oversees 45 student organizations in these areas.[346] The PAC has four subcommittees: A Cappella Council; Dance Arts Council; Singer, Musicians, and Comedians (SMAC); and Theatre Arts Council (TAC-e).

Penn Glee Club Edit

 
Penn Glee Club's 1915–1916 academic year membership photo

The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club, founded in 1862, is tied for fourth oldest continually running glee clubs in the United States[347] and the oldest performing arts group at the University of Pennsylvania. Each year, the Penn Glee Club writes and produces a fully staged, Broadway-style production with an eclectic mix of Penn standards, Broadway classics, classical favorites, and pop hits, highlighting choral singing from all genders (as of April 9, 2021, it merged[348] with Penn Sirens, a previously all female chorale group), clever plots and dialogue, dancing, humor, colorful sets and costumes, and a pit band.[349] The Glee Club draws its singing members from the undergraduate and graduate students (and men and women from the Penn community are also called upon to fill roles in the pit band and technical staff when the club is involved with theatrical productions). The Penn Glee Club has traveled to nearly all 50 states in the United States and over 40 nations and territories on five continents.[350] Since the 1950s, Penn Glee Club has appeared on national television with such celebrities as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Ed McMahon, Carol Lawrence, and Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco and has been showcased on television specials such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and at professional sporting events for The Philadelphia Phillies where club sung the National Anthem at the 1993 National League Championship Series. Since its first performance at the White House for President Calvin Coolidge in 1926, the club has sung for numerous heads of state and world leaders. One of the highlights of 1989 was the club's performance for Polish President Lech Wałęsa. Bruce Montgomery, its best-known and longest-serving director, led the club from 1956 until 2000.[351]

Penn Band Edit

 
The University of Pennsylvania Band at the 2019 homecoming game

The University of Pennsylvania Band has been a part of student life since 1897.[352] The Penn Band presently mainly performs at football and basketball games as well as university functions (e.g. commencement and convocation) throughout the year but in past it was known not only as the first college band to perform at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but performed with notable musicians, including John Philip Sousa, members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the U.S. Marine Band ("The President's Own"), Doc Severinsen of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Beginning in the late 1920s and 1930s Penn Band recorded with the Victor Talking Machine Company (RCA-Victor Company) and was nationally broadcast on WABC (AM). In 1977, Penn Band performed with Chuck Barris of The Gong Show and in 1980 opened for Penn alumnus Maury Povich in his eponymously named show.

Penn Band has performed for Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco (sister and aunt to number of alumni), alumnus and District Attorney and Mayor of Philadelphia, and Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, Vice President Al Gore, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan, and Polish dissident and President Lech Wałęsa. By the 1970s, however, Penn Band had begun moving away from the traditional corps style and is now a scramble band. The first one hundred years of the organization's history was described in a book from Arcadia Publishing: Images of America:The University of Pennsylvania Band (2006).[352]

Penn's a cappella community Edit

 
Penn Masala performs in the Blue Room of the White House in October 2009 on invitation from President Barack Obama.

The A Cappella Council (ACK) is composed of 14 a cappella groups. Penn's a cappella groups entertain audiences with repertoires including pop, rock, R&B, jazz, Hindi, and Chinese songs.[353] ACK is also home to Off The Beat, which has received the most contemporary a cappella recording awards of any collegiate group in the United States and the most features on the Best of College A Cappella albums.[354] Penn Masala, formed in 1996, is world's oldest[355][356] and premier[357][358] South Asian a cappella group based in an American university, which has performed for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Henry Kissinger, Ban Ki Moon, Farooq Abdullah, Imran Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, A.R. Rahman, Narendra Modi[359] and Sunidhi Chauhan, had their a cappella version of Nazia Hassan's Urdu classic "Aap Jaisa Koi", (originally from the movie Qurbani) sung in the movie American Desi.[360]

Penn alumni Elizabeth Banks (class of 1996) and Max Handelman (Banks' husband, class of 1995) invited Masala to appear in Pitch Perfect 2, as Banks reported that Penn's a capella community inspired the film series starring and/or produced by Banks and Handleman.[361]

Comedy organizations Edit

 
The Mask and Wig clubhouse, also known as the Welsh Coachhouse and Stable, at 310 South Quince Street in Philadelphia; the stable was built between 1843 and 1853, remodeled into a clubhouse by Wilson Eyre Jr. in 1894, altered by Eyre in 1901. The murals were developed by Maxfield Parrish.

Mask and Wig, a club founded in 1889, was (until fall of 2021[362]) the oldest all-male musical comedy troupe in the country. In 2021 the club voted to become gender-inclusive, with auditions open to all undergraduates: male, female, and non-binary.

Bloomers comedy group, founded in 1978, is the "... nation's first collegiate all-women musical and sketch comedy troupe...".[363] Bloomers was founded at Penn by Joan Harrison.[364] In the mid teens, Bloomers revised its constitution to be open to "... anyone who does not identify as a cisgender man...".[365] and now accepts all persons from under-represented gender identities who perform comedy.[366][367] Bloomers performs sketches and elaborate shows almost every semester. The comedy troupe is named after bloomers, the once popular long, loose fitting under garment, gathered at the ankle, worn under a short skirt (developed in the mid 19th century as a healthy comfortable alternative to the heavy, constricting dresses then worn by American women), which were in turn, named after Amelia Jenks Bloomer. Bloomers most well known performing alumna is Vanessa Bayer, formerly of Saturday Night Live and is SNL's longest-serving female cast member.[368]

Religious and spiritual organizations Edit

The following religious and spiritual organizations have a significant on campus presence at Penn:

(A) Mainstream Protestantism: Dating back to 1857, The Christian Association (a.k.a. The CA), is composed primarily of students from Mainline Protestant backgrounds.[369] Historically, the CA ran several foreign missions including one in China[370] and for decades ran a camp for socio-economically disadvantaged children from Philadelphia.[371] At present the CA occupies part of the parsonage at Tabernacle United Church of Christ.[372]

(B) Judaism: Organized Jewish life did not begin on campus in earnest until the start of 20th century.[373] Jewish Life on campus is centered at Penn branch of Hillel International,[374][310] which inspires students to explore Judaism, creates patterns of Jewish living that can be sustained after graduation, provides religious communities, promotes educational initiatives, social justice projects, social and cultural opportunities, and groups focusing on Israel education and politics, and hosts a Kosher Penn approved dining hall (supervised by the Community Kashrus of Greater Philadelphia).[375] In addition to Hillel, the other major Jewish organization with significant impact on Penn's campus is The Chabad Lubavitch House at Penn (founded in 1980[376]), which, among other activities, brings together Jewish college students with noted Jewish academics for in-depth discussions and debate.[377]

(C) Roman Catholicism: The Penn Newman Catholic Center (the Newman Center), founded in 1893 (as the first Newman Center in the country) with the mission of supporting students, faculty, and staff in their religious endeavors. The organization brings prominent Christian figures to campus, including Rev. Thomas "Tom" J. Hagan, OSFS, who worked in the Newman Center and founded Haiti-based non-profit Hands Together;[378] and James Martin SJ (Wharton undergraduate class of 1982[379]). Father Martin, an editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America,[380] and frequent commentator on the life and teachings of Jesus and Ignatian spirituality, is especially well known for his outreach to the LGBT community, which has drawn a strong backlash from parts of the Catholic Church, but has provided comfort to Penn students and other members of Roman Catholic community who wish to stay connected with their faith and identify as LGBQT.[381][382][383]

(D) Hinduism and Jainism: Penn funds (via the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly or similar undergraduate organization) a variety of official clubs focused on India including a number focused on students who are Hindu or Jain such as: (1) 'Pan-Asian American Community House (PAACH)', a center for students to celebrate South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, culture and religion,[384] (2) 'Rangoli – The South Asian Association at Penn' that educates and informs Penn students (mainly graduate and professional students) with ancestry and/or interest in South Asia whose goals include a desire to "rekindle the spirit of community" through events,[385] and (3) 'Penn Hindu & Jain Association', a student-run official club at Penn that has 80 to 110 student members and an extensive alumni network, dedicated to raise awareness of the Hindu and Jain faiths and foster further development of these communities in the greater Philadelphia area by providing a variety of services and hosting a number of events such as Holi Festival (which has been held annually at Penn since 1993[386][387][388]) and ". . . aims to be a home to anyone seeking to explore their spiritual, religious, or social interests."[389]

(E) Islam: In 1963, the Muslim Students' Association (MSA National) and Penn chapter of MSA National were founded to facilitate Muslim life among students on college campuses.[390][391] Penn MSA was established to help Penn Muslims build faith and community by fostering a space under the guidance of Islamic principles[392][393] and towards that goal Penn MSA supports mission of its related umbrella organization, Islamic Society of North America, to "foster the development of the Muslim community, interfaith relations, civic engagement, and better understandings of Islam."[394] The Muslim Life Program at Penn also provides such support and helped cause Penn (in January 2017) to hire its first full-time Muslim chaplain, the co-president of the Association of Campus Muslim Chaplains, Sister Patricia Anton (whose background includes working with Muslim, interfaith, academic and peace-building institutions such as Islamic Society of North America and Islamic Relief). Chaplain Anton's mandate includes supporting and guiding the Penn Muslim community to foster further development of such community by creating a welcoming environment that provides Penn Muslim community opportunities to intellectually and spiritually engage with Islam.[395] Penn also has a residential house, the Muslim Life Residential Program, which provides a live/learn environment focused on the appreciation of Islamic culture, food, history, and practice, and shows its Penn student residents how Islam is deeply integrated in the culture of Philadelphia so they may appreciate how Islam influences daily life.[396]

(F) Buddhism: Penn has a Buddhist chaplain[397][398] (as well as chaplains of other faiths) and funds the Penn Meditation and Buddhism Club, which (1) is dedicated to helping Penn students practice mindfulness and meditation and learning about Buddhism, (2) conducts weekly meetings that begin with a guided meditation and are followed by discussions of topic(s) relating to mindfulness and Buddhism, and (3) organizes other activities such as ramen nights and weekend meditation retreats to the local Won Buddhism center.[399]

Athletics Edit

Penn's sports teams are nicknamed the Quakers, but the teams are often also referred to as The Red and Blue as reflected in the popular song sung after every athletic contest where the Penn Band or other musical groups are present.[400][401] The athletes 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 the cricket team, which formed in 1842 and played regularly through 1846, the year it lost its "grounds", and then only played intermittently until 1864, the year it played its first intercollegiate game (against Haverford College).[402] The rowing (or crew) team composed of Penn students but not officially representing Penn was formed in 1854 but did not compete against other colleges as official part of Penn until 1879. The rugby football team began to play against other colleges, most notably against College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1874 using a combination of association football (i.e. soccer) and rugby rules (the twenty players on each side were able to use their hands but were not able to pass or bat the ball forward).[403][404][405]

Cricket Edit

The first University of Pennsylvania cricket team, reported to be the first cricket team in the United States composed exclusively of Americans,[406] was organized in 1842 by a member of Philadelphia's prominent Wister family, William Rotch Wister (class of 1846 for Bachelor of Arts and 1849 for Master of Arts).[407] Penn never possessed its own "ground" except in 1846 when it leased one day a week, for a total sum of $50, a "ground" (located east of the Delaware River).[408][note 12] From 1846 to 1860, there is little evidence of Penn playing cricket but just as Civil War began, Penn students resumed playing cricket matches between classes of Penn students.

On May 7, 1864, Penn played its first intercollegiate game against Haverford College[409][410] and then proceeded to play Haverford for three consecutive years until 1869, when the Haverford faculty banned cricket away from their college grounds.

After Penn moved west of the Schuylkill River in 1872, Penn played cricket at one of the local clubs (Belmont Cricket Club, the closest to campus at 50th Street and Chester Avenue, Merion Cricket Club, and Germantown Cricket Club), or at Haverford College.[409] Though there is evidence of an occasional game during period 1870 through 1875, none were played against other colleges and there were no yearbook pictures for the three years after 1872 when Penn moved from Center City to University City. Starting in 1875 and through 1880, Penn fielded a varsity eleven, which played a few matches each year against opponents that included Haverford College and Columbia College.[411]

 
George Patterson, president of the University of Pennsylvania cricket team in 1877[409]

In 1881, Penn, Harvard College, Haverford College, Princeton College (then known as College of New Jersey), and Columbia College formed The Intercollegiate Cricket Association,[410] which Cornell University later joined.[402] Penn won The Intercollegiate Cricket Association championship (the de facto national championship) 23 times (18 solo, 3 shared with Haverford and Harvard, 1 shared with Haverford and Cornell, and 1 shared with just Haverford) during the 44 years that The Intercollegiate Cricket Association existed (1881 through 1924).[412]

In the 1890s Penn's cricket team frequently toured Canada and the British Isles.[413] In July 1895 an international cricket match between Canada and the United States was played on the Manheim grounds in Germantown section of Philadelphia with six of the United States team being Penn student athletes and, in September of that year, past and then current members of Penn's varsity cricket team played past and then current members of the English cricket teams of Oxford and Cambridge resulting in Penn defeating the Oxford-Cambridge team by one hundred runs.[402] This was not surprising as in the last two and a half decades of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th century, Philadelphia was the center of cricket in the United States[414]

Cricket had gained in popularity among the upper class from their travels abroad and cricket clubs sprung up all across the Eastern Seaboard (even today Philadelphia still has three cricket clubs: the Philadelphia Cricket Club, the Merion Cricket Club, and the Germantown Cricket Club).

Perhaps the university's most famous cricket player was George Patterson (class of 1888), who still holds the North American batting record and who went on to play for the professional Philadelphia Cricket Team.[415]

Following the First World War, cricket began to experience a serious decline (as baseball became the preferred sport of the warmer months and Imperial Cricket Conference, Cricket's "... international governing body and forerunner to the current International Cricket Conference (ICC), introduced a regulation making it clear that only countries within the British empire were welcome to compete")[408] such that in 1924 Penn fielded its last team in the twentieth century. Starting in 2009, however, Penn once again fielded a cricket team, albeit club, that ended up being the first winner of a tournament for teams from the Ivies.[416]

Rowing Edit

 
Penn's eight-oared crew in 1901, the first foreign crew to reach the final of the Grand Challenge Cup[417] at Henley Royal Regatta
 
Joe Burk, Wharton School class of 1934 and crew coach from 1950 to 1969, was named the "world's greatest oarsman" in 1938[418]

Rowing at Penn dates back to at least 1854 with the founding of the University Barge Club. The university currently hosts both heavyweight and lightweight men's teams and an open weight women's team, all of which compete as part of the Eastern Sprints League. Ellis Ward was Penn's first intercollegiate crew coach from 1879 through 1912.[419] During the course of Ward's coaching career at Penn his "... Red and Blue crews won 65 races, in about 150 starts."[420] Importantly, Ward coached Penn's 8-oared boat to the finals of the Grand Challenge Cup (the oldest and most prized trophy) at the Henley Royal Regatta (but in that final race was defeated by the champion Leander Club).[421]

Penn Rowing has produced a long list of famous coaches and Olympians. Members of Penn crew team, rowers Sidney Jellinek, Eddie Mitchell, and coxswain, John G. Kennedy, won the bronze medal for the United States at 1924 Olympics.[422]

Joe Burk (class of 1935) was captain of Penn crew team, winner of the Henley Diamond Sculls twice, named recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award for nation's best amateur athlete in 1939, and Penn coach from 1950 to 1969. The 1955 Men's Heavyweight 8, coached by Joe Burk, became one of only four American university crews in history to win the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. The outbreak of World War Two canceled the 1940 Olympics for which Burk was favored to win the gold medal.

Other Penn Olympic athletes and or Penn coaches of such athletes include: (a) John Anthony Pescatore (who competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games for the United States as stroke of the men's coxed eight which earned a bronze medal[423] and later competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games in the men's coxless pair), (b) Susan Francia (winner of gold medals as part of the women's 8 oared boat at 2008 Olympics and 2012 Olympics), (c) Regina Salmons (member of 2021 USA team),[424] (d) Rusty Callow, (e) Harry Parker, (f) Ted Nash,[422] and (g) John B. Kelly Jr., son of John B. Kelly Sr. (winner of three medals at 1920 Summer Olympics) and brother of Princess Grace of Monaco, was the second Penn Crew alumnus to win the James E. Sullivan Award[425] for being nation's best amateur athlete (in 1947), who was winner of a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics).

The Penn men's crew team won the National Collegiate Rowing Championship in 1991. A member of that team, Janusz Hooker (Wharton class of 1992)[426] won the bronze medal in Men's Quadruple Sculls for Australia at the 1996 Summer Olympics.[427] The Penn teams presently row out of College Boat Club, No.11 Boathouse Row.

Rugby Edit

 
The 1878 Penn Rugby team[428]
 
John Heisman, a University of Pennsylvania Law School class of 1892 alumnus and rugby football player, posing at Penn in 1891 holding elongated ellipsoidal rugby ball and gestures resembling the famed "Heisman Pose"[429]
 
Lithograph of University of Pennsylvania rugby player in 1907

The Penn men's rugby football team is one of the oldest collegiate rugby teams in the United States. Indeed, Penn first fielded a team in mid-1870s playing by rules much closer to the rugby union and Association football code rules (relative to American football rules, as such American football rules had not yet been invented[403]). Among its earliest games was a game against College of New Jersey (which in 1895 changed its name to Princeton) played in Philadelphia on Saturday, November 11, 1876, which was less than two weeks before Princeton met on November 23, 1876, with Harvard and Columbia to confirm that all their games would be played using the rugby union rules.[430][403] Princeton and Penn played their November 1876 game per a combination of rugby (there were 20 players per side and players were able to touch the ball with their hands) and Association football codes. The rugby code influence was due, in part, to the fact that some of their students had been educated in English public schools.[431]

Among the prominent alumni to play in a 19th century version of rugby in which rules then did not allow forward passes or center snaps was John Heisman, namesake of the Heisman Trophy and an 1892 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.[432]

Heisman was instrumental in the first decade of the 20th century in changing the rules to more closely relate to the present rules of American football.[433] One of Heisman's teammates (who was unanimously voted Captain in the fall after Heisman graduated) was Harry Arista Mackey, Penn Law class of 1893[434] (who subsequently served as Mayor of Philadelphia from 1928 to 1932).[435]

In 1906, Rugby per Rugby Union code was reintroduced to Penn[436] (as Penn last played per Rugby Union Code in 1882 as Penn played rugby per a number of different rugby football rulebooks and codes from 1883 through 1890s[437]) by Frank Villeneuve Nicholson (Frank Nicholson (rugby union)) University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine (class of 1910),[438] who in 1904 had captained the Australian national rugby team in its match against England.[439]

Penn played per rugby union code rules at least through 1912, contemporaneously with Penn playing American gridiron football. Evidence of such may be found in an October 22, 1910, Daily Pennsylvanian article (quoted below) and a yearbook photo[440] that rugby per rugby union code was played.

Such is the devotion to English rugby football on the part of University of Pennsylvania's students from New Zealand, Australia, and England that they meet on Franklin Field at 7 o'clock every morning and practice the game. The varsity track and football squads monopolize the field to such an extent that the early hours of the morning are the only ones during which the rugby enthusiasts can play. Any time except Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a squad of 25 men may be seen running through the hardest kind of practice after which they may divide into two teams and play a hard game. Once a week, captain CC Walton, ('11), dental, who hails from New Zealand, gives the enthusiastic players a blackboard talk in which he explains the intricacies of the game in detail.[441]

The player-coach of United States Olympic gold-winning rugby team at the 1924 Summer Olympics was Alan Valentine, who played rugby while at Penn (which he attended during 1921/1922 academic year) as he was getting a master's degree at Wharton.[442]

Though Penn played rugby per rugby union rules from 1929 through 1934,[443] there is no indication that Penn had a rugby team from 1935 through 1959 when Penn men's rugby became permanent due to leadership of Harry "Joe" Edwin Reagan III[444] Penn's College class of 1962 and Penn Law class of 1965, who also went onto help create and incorporate (in 1975) and was Treasurer (in 1981) of USA Rugby and Oreste P. "Rusty" D'Arconte Penn's College class of 1966[445] Thus, with D'Arconte's hustle and Reagan's charisma and organizational skills, a team, which had fielded a side of fifteen intermittently from 1912 through 1960, became permanent.

In spring of 1984[446][447] Penn women's rugby, led by Social Chair Tamara Wayland (College class of 1985 who subsequently became the women's representative to and vice president of USA Rugby South from 1996 to 1998),[448] Club President Marianne Seligson, and Penn Law student Gigi Sohn,[449] began to compete. Penn women's rugby team is coached, as of 2020, by (a) Adam Dick,[450] a 300-level certified coach with over 15 years of rugby coaching experience including being the first coach of the first women's rugby team at the University of Arizona and who was a four-year starter at University of Arizona men's first XV rugby team and (b) Philly women's player Kate Hallinan.

Penn's men's rugby team plays in the Ivy Rugby Conference[451] and have finished as runners-up in both 15s and 7s in the Conference and won the Ivy Rugby Tournament in 1992.[452] As of 2011, the club uses the state-of-the-art facilities at Penn Park. The Penn Quakers' rugby team played on national TV at the 2013 Collegiate Rugby Championship, a college rugby tournament that for number of years had been played each June at PPL Park (now known as Subaru Park) in Philadelphia and was broadcast live on NBC. In their inaugural year of participation, the Penn men's rugby team won the Shield Competition, beating local Big Five rival, Temple University, 17–12 in the final. In the semifinal match of that Shield Competition, Penn Rugby became the first Philadelphia team to beat a non-Philadelphia team in CRC history, with a 14–12 win over the University of Texas.[453]

Penn men's rugby, as of 2020,[454] is coached by Tiger Bax,[455] a former professional rugby player hailing from Cape Town, South Africa, whose playing experience includes stints in the Super Rugby competition with the Stormers (15s) and Mighty Mohicans (7s), as well as with the Gallagher Premiership Rugby side, Saracens[456] and whose coaching experience includes three successful years as coach at Valley Rugby Football Club in Hong Kong; and Tyler May, from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, who played rugby at Pennsylvania State University where he was a first XV player for three years.

Players on the 2019 men's team came from 11 countries: Australia, Botswana, Chile, Great Britain, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, South Africa, and the United States).

Penn's graduate business and law schools also fielded rugby teams. The Wharton rugby team has competed from 1978 to the present.[457] The Penn Law Rugby team (1985 through 1993) counts among its alumni Walter Joseph Jay Clayton, III[458] Penn Law class of 1993, and chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from May 4, 2017, until December 23, 2020, Raymond Hulser, former Chief of Public Integrity Section of United States Department of Justice,[459] and Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart[460] who approved the search of Mar-a-Lago, the residence of former U.S. president Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida.[461] Other recent Penn Rugby Alumni include Conor Lamb (Penn College class of 2006 and Penn Law class of 2009), who played for undergraduate team (and had an additional year of eligibility allowing him to continue to playing for undergraduate team while a student at Penn Law per USA Rugby rules), and, as of 2021, is a member of United States House of Representatives, elected originally to Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, since 2019 is a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district.

Football Edit

 
Chuck Bednarik, also known as Concrete Charlie was a three-time All-American at Penn who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the first player selected in the 1949 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, where he went on to win the 1960 NFL Championship and was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Penn first fielded a football team against Princeton at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia on November 11, 1876.[430]

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.[430] Among the key players on the teams from 1897 to 1900 was Truxton Hare, Sr. who was selected as a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951. While primarily a guard, he also ran, punted, kicked off, and drop-kicked extra points.

The achievements of two of Penn's other outstanding players from that era, John Heisman, a Law School alumnus, and John Outland, a Penn Med alumnus, 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.

Also, each year the Bednarik Award is given to college football's best defensive player. Chuck Bednarik (class of 1949) was a three-time All-American center/linebacker who starred on the 1947 team and is generally regarded as Penn's all-time finest. In addition to Bednarik, the 1947 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 1930s). Bednarik went on to play for 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969.

Penn's game against University of California at Berkeley on September 29, 1951 (in front of a crowd of 60,000 at Franklin Field), was first college football game to be broadcast in color.[462][463]ESPN's College GameDay traveled to Penn to highlight the Harvard–Penn game on November 17, 2002, the first time the show had visited an Ivy League campus.

Ice hockey Edit

 
University of Pennsylvania team in front of photo of College Hall in 1896–97, its first season of existence, featuring George Orton, the future winner of gold medal in the 1900 Summer Olympics 2500 meter steeplechase (top row, second from the end of the right side

Penn's first ice hockey team competed during the 1896–97 academic year, and joined the nascent Intercollegiate Hockey Association (IHA) in 1898–99. On the first team in 1896–97 were several players of Canadian background, among them middle-distance runner and Olympian George Orton (the first disabled person to compete in the Olympics). Penn fielded teams intermittently until 1965 when it formed a varsity squad that was terminated in 1977. Penn now fields a club team that plays in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II,[464] is a member of the Colonial States College Hockey Conference, and continues to play at the Class of 1923 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[465]

Basketball Edit

Penn basketball is steeped in tradition. Penn made its only (and the Ivy League's second) Final Four 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, Villanova, and Drexel. 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. Penn last made the NCAA tournament in 2018 where it lost to top seeded Kansas.[466]

 
University of Pennsylvania senior Ibby Jaaber sits on top of the rim after Penn defeated Yale 86-68 on March 2, 2007 to clinch the 2006-07 Ivy League championship (Penn's 25th).

Olympic athletes Edit

 
The University of Pennsylvania men's track team was the 1907 IC4A point winner. Left to right: Guy Haskins, R.C. Folwell, T.R. Moffitt, John Baxter Taylor, Jr., the first black athlete in the U.S. to win a gold medal in the Olympics,[467] Nathaniel Cartmell, and J.D. Whitham (seated)

At least 43 different Penn alumni have earned 81 Olympic medals (26 gold).[468][note 13] Penn won more of its "medals"[468] (which were actually cups, trophies, or plaques, as medals were not introduced until a later Olympics) at 1900 Summer Olympics held in Paris than at any other Olympics.[469] Penn's track and field alumni who won 21 'medals' at the 1900 Paris Olympics are: (1) Alvin Kraenzlein (University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine class of 1900),[470] known as "the father of the modern hurdling technique",[471] who was first sportsman in the history of Olympic games to win four individual gold medals in a single discipline;[472][473] (2) Josiah McCracken, MD (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine class of 1901) who won the silver medal in the shot put and a bronze medal for the hammer throw;[474][475][476] (3) John Walter Tewksbury (Penn Dental School class of 1899) who won five 'medals' (gold in the 200 meter dash and 400 meter hurdles, silver in the 60 meter dash and 100 meter dash, and a bronze in the 200 meter hurdles);[477] (4) Irving Baxter (Penn Law class of 1901) who won five medals, including gold in both the men's high jump and men's pole vault and silver in all three of the standing jumps (long, triple, and high);[478][479] (5) Meredith Colket (College Class of 1901 (BS), Penn Law class of 1904) who won the silver 'medal' in the pole vault,[480] (6) Truxton Hare (Penn Law class of 1904) who won the silver 'medal' in the hammer throw[481] (and at 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, Missouri, won (i) bronze medal in the all-around discipline (which consisted of 100 yard run, shot put, high jump, 880 yard walk, hammer throw, pole vault, 120 yard hurdles, long jump and one mile run), and (ii) gold medal as part of United States tug of war team),[481] and (7) George Orton (University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Arts and Sciences class of 1894 (MA) and class of 1896 (PhD)) who (as first physically disabled Olympic athlete) won a gold 'medal' in the 2,500 meter run and a bronze metal in the 400 meter hurdles[482]

The first African American in the United States to win an Olympic gold medal at an Olympics, the 1908 London Olympics, as part of Medley relay where he ran the third leg, the 400 meters, was John Taylor (University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (class of 1908)). Taylor was followed by William Hamilton and Nate Cartmell (fellow Penn athlete).[467]

In the 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan, in summer of 2021, nine Penn students and alumni played in six different sports from six different countries.[483]

Curling Edit

University of Pennsylvania Curling Club qualified for the 2023 National Championship at 6th place, the same ranking they qualified for the 2022 National Championship (where they finished in 2nd place), but in 2023 the team won the national championship by defeating arch rival Princeton University in the championship match (6 to 3).[484][485] Penn Curling also won the National Championship in 2016 and is the only East Coast team to have won the Curling National Championship.[486]

Facilities Edit

 
Penn's Franklin Field, in photograph taken shortly after completion of the upper deck in 1925.

Franklin Field, with a present seating capacity of 52,593,[487] is where the Quakers play football, lacrosse, sprint football and track and field (and formerly played baseball, field hockey, soccer, and rugby). It is the (a) oldest stadium still operating for college football games,[488] (b) first stadium to sport two tiers,[489] (c) first stadium in the country to have a scoreboard, (d) second stadium to have a radio broadcast of football (in 1922 as Pitt versus West Virginia was broadcast in 1921), (e) first stadium from which a commercially televised football game was broadcast (in 1940),[487] and (f) first stadium from which college football game was broadcast in color (on September 29, 1951).[490] Franklin Field also played host to the Philadelphia Eagles from 1958 to 1970 (where installation of artificial turf in 1969 caused it to be first NFL stadium to have such artificial turf),[487] and was the site of 18 Army–Navy games between 1899 and 1935.[491]

It is currently also used by Penn students for recreation such as intramural and club sports, including touch football and cricket. Since 1895, Franklin Field has hosted the annual collegiate track and field event "the Penn Relays", which is the oldest and largest track and field competition in the United States.[492]

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, and other high school sporting events. The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility. Penn staff and students make use of the Palestra to play and/or watch basketball, volleyball, and fencing.

Penn's River Fields hosts a number of athletic fields including the Rhodes Soccer Stadium (for both women's and men's soccer, which includes elevated stands for 650 spectators, a 180-degree rotating scoreboard, and the Rapaport Family Suite), the Ellen Vagelos C'90 Field Hockey Field (with special artificial turf), and Irving "Moon" Mondschein Throwing Complex (for javelin, shot put, discus, and Hammer throw).[493] In addition, Penn baseball plays its home games at Meiklejohn Stadium at Murphy Field.

Penn's Class of 1923 Arena (with seating for up to 3,000 people) was built to host the University of Pennsylvania Varsity Ice Hockey Team, which has been disbanded, and now hosts or in the past hosted: (a) Penn's Men's and Penn Women's club ice hockey teams, (b) practices and/or exhibition games for the Philadelphia Flyers, Colorado Avalanche and Carolina Hurricanes, (c) roller hockey for the Philadelphia Bulldogs professional team, and (d) rock concerts such as one in 1982 featuring Prince.[494][495][496]

The Olympic Boycott Games of 1980 was 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.

 
Palestra interior in 2016
 
Exterior of the Palestra in April 2007

Notable people Edit

Gallery Edit

Overview Edit

Penn alumni include those who have distinguished themselves in the sciences, academia, politics, business, military, arts, and media.[505]

Some eleven heads of state or government have been affiliated with Penn, former president Donald Trump;[505] former president William Henry Harrison, who attended the medical school for less than a semester;[506] current president Joe Biden, who served as a Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor and led the Penn Biden Center,[507] 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 Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara. Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include India's former minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha,[508][509] former ambassador and Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., Mexico's current minister of finance, Ernesto J. Cordero, former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, and former Pennsylvania governor and DNC chair Ed Rendell.[510]

Penn alumni have also served in several positions in the United States cabinet. Notable alumni include Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates; US Attorney Generals Henry Dilworth Gilpin, Caesar Augustus Rodney, and George W. Wickersham; Secretaries of the Treasury Robert John Walker and William M. Meredith; Secretaries of Labor Ann Dore McLaughlin and Frances Perkins (the longest serving Secretary of Labor and first woman to serve in a Presidential Cabinet); six Secretaries of the Navy; a Surgeon General of the United States, C. Everett Koop;

Penn alumni or faculty also include three United States Supreme Court justices, William J. Brennan, Owen J. Roberts and James Wilson; Supreme Court justices of foreign states (e.g., Ronald Wilson of the High Court of Australia, Ayala Procaccia of the Israel Supreme Court, Yvonne Mokgoro, former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa); and Irish Court of Appeal justice Gerard Hogan).

Penn is also a top feeder school for careers in finance and investment banking on Wall Street[511] and its alumni have a strong presence in financial and economic life. Penn alumni include 64 living billionaires, 28 of whom are undergraduate alumni billionaires (as Penn has the second highest number of undergrad billionaire alumni with only Harvard [with only one more (but Penn undergraduate alumni billionaires have accumulated over 65 billion more in wealth than Harvard's)],[512][513] Penn alumni who received federal aid, 10 years after starting at Penn, have the highest median incomes among alumni of Ivy League schools[514] and Penn has educated many governors/leaders of national central banks including Dawne Williams ( St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank), Yasin Anwar (Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan), Ignazio Visco (Governor of the Bank of Italy), Kim Choongsoo (Governor of Bank of Korea), Zeti Akhtar Aziz (Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia), Pridiyathorn Devakula (governor, Bank of Thailand, and former minister of finance), Farouk El Okdah (Central Bank of Egypt), John Moran (Secretary General of the Department of Finance (Ireland)), Alfonso Prat Gay (President of the Central Bank of Argentina and leader of Ministry of Economy (Argentina)), and the director of the United States National Economic Council, Gene Sperling.[515] Other alumni include Warren Buffett [note 14] (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway),[505] Steven A. Cohen (founder of SAC Capital Advisors), and Robert Kapito (president of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager).[516]

Penn alumni who are founders of technology companies include Ralph J. Roberts (co-founder of Comcast); Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal, Tesla, OpenAI and Neuralink, founder of SpaceX and The Boring Company); Leonard Bosack (co-founder of Cisco); David J. Brown (co-founder of Silicon Graphics) and Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga, the company behind FarmVille).

Among other distinguished alumni are the current or past presidents of over one hundred universities including Harvard University (Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard's first female president), Cornell University (Martha E. Pollack), Penn (Judith Rodin, first female president in the Ivy League), Princeton University (Harold Dodds), the University of California (Mark Yudof), Carnegie Mellon University (Jared Cohon), and Northwestern University (Morton O. Schapiro).[citation needed]

Penn's alumni also include poets William Augustus Muhlenberg, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams; civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.; linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky;[505] architect Louis Kahn; cartoonist Charles Addams; actresses Candice Bergen and Elizabeth Banks; journalist Joe Klein; and fashion designer Tory Burch.

Penn alumni have won (a) 53 Tony Awards,[517][518] (b) 17 Grammy Awards,[519] (c) 25 Emmy Awards,[520][521] (d) 13 Academy Awards (and one alumnus[522] who has earned all four awards, known as an EGOT).[note 15] as exemplified by EGOT recipient, recording artist John Legend.[523]

Within the ranks of Penn's most historic graduates are also eight signers of the Declaration of Independence[524][525] and seven signers of the United States Constitution[526] and 24 members of the Continental Congress. These historic figures 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.[527][528]

Penn alumni have also had a significant impact on the United States military as they include Samuel Nicholas, United States Marine Corps founder, and William A. Newell, whose congressional action formed a predecessor to the current United States Coast Guard,[529]: p.1 col.5 – p.2 col.1  and numerous alumni have become generals or similar rank in the United States Armed Forces. At least 2 Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts[530][531] and 5 Penn alumni have been awarded the Medal of Honor.[27][28]

As of 2023, there have been 38 Nobel laureates affiliated (see List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation) with the University of Pennsylvania,[532][505][16] of whom four are current faculty members and eight are alumni.[citation needed] Penn also educated members of the United States National Academies and the Academy of Arts and Sciences,[citation needed] eight National Medal of Science laureates, numerous Sloan Fellows, several members of the American Philosophical Society, many Guggenheim Fellowships, several Pulitzer Prize winners, four Turing Award winners, and a Fields Medalist[533] [534] [535][536][537]

Alumni relations and inter-Ivy events Edit

In addition to active alumni chapters globally, in 1989, the university bought a 14-story clubhouse building (purpose-built for Yale Club) in New York City from Touro College for $15 million[538] to house Penn's largest alumni chapter. After raising a separate $25 million (including $150,000+ donations each from such alumni as Estee Lauder heirs Leonard Lauder and Ronald Lauder, Saul Steinberg, Michael Milken, Donald Trump, and Ronald Perelman) and two years of renovation,[539] the Penn Club of New York moved to its current location at 30 West 44th Street on NYC's Clubhouse Row[540] across the street from the Harvard Club of New York City, a block west of the Cornell Club of New York, and two blocks west of the Yale Club of New York City. It also is one block north of the (closed due to bank default[541] in 2021) former Princeton Club of New York and joins with those clubs in inter-Ivy events. Although its university is located in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, the Columbia University Club of New York does not have its own clubhouse and shares the 30 West 44th Street clubhouse with the Penn Club. The New York region of Columbia maintains an office in the Penn Club.

See also Edit

Notes Edit

  1. ^ It was not until 1785 that the name was made official as between 1779 and 1785 name was simply "University" in Philadelphia see "Statutes of the Trustees". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
  2. ^ a b The university officially uses 1740 as its founding date and has since 1899. The ideas and intellectual inspiration for the academic institution stem from 1749, with a pamphlet published by Benjamin Franklin (1705/1706–1790). When Franklin's institution was established, it inhabited a schoolhouse built on November 14, 1740, for another school, which never came to practical fruition.[2] Penn archivist Mark Frazier Lloyd noted, "In 1899, UPenn's Trustees adopted a resolution that established 1740 as the founding date, but good cases may be made for 1749, when Franklin first convened the Trustees, or 1751, when the first classes were taught at the affiliated secondary school for boys, Academy of Philadelphia, or 1755, when Penn obtained its collegiate charter to add a post-secondary institution, the College of Philadelphia."[3] Princeton's library presents another diplomatically-phrased view.[4]
  3. ^ Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution. The College of Philadelphia, which became Penn, College of New Jersey, which became Princeton University, and King's College, which later became Columbia College and ultimately Columbia University, all originated within a few years of each other. After initially designating 1750 as its founding date, Penn later considered 1749 to be its founding date for more than a century with Penn alumni observing a centennial celebration in 1849. In 1895, several elite universities in the United States convened in New York City as the Intercollegiate Commission at the invitation of John J. McCook, a Union Army officer during the American Civil War and member of Princeton's board of trustees who chaired its Committee on Academic Dress. The primary purpose of the conference was to standardize American academic regalia, which was accomplished through the adoption of the Intercollegiate Code on Academic Costume. This formalized protocol included a provision that established academic processions and placed visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution's founding dates. The following year, Penn's The Alumni Register magazine, published by the General Alumni Society, began a campaign to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740, to become older than Princeton, which had been chartered in 1746. Three years later in 1899, the university's board of trustees acceded to this alumni initiative and officially changed its founding date from 1749 to 1740, altering its rank in academic processions and offering the informal bragging rights associated with the age-based hierarchy in academia.[35] Princeton implicitly challenges this rationale,[36][37] Further complicating the comparison, a University of Edinburgh-educated Presbyterian minister from Scotland, 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 Princeton because five members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were affiliated with it, including Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, Jr., and Samuel Finley, the latter of whom later became president of Princeton. All 12 members of Princeton's first Board of Trustees were leaders from the New Side or New Light wing of the Presbyterian Church in the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania areas.[38] This antecedent relationship, when considered a formal lineage with institutional continuity, would justify placing Princeton's founding date back to 1726, which would make it earlier than Penn's 1740 founding. However, Princeton has not asserted this, and a Princeton historian says that "the facts do not warrant" such an interpretation.[39] Columbia also implicitly challenges Penn's use of either 1750, 1749 or 1740 as its founding date since it claims to be the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States after Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, and Princeton based on its charter date of 1754 and Penn's charter date of 1755.[40] Academic histories of American higher education typically list Penn variously as either the nation's fifth or sixth-oldest institution of higher learning in the nation after Princeton and immediately before or after Columbia.[41][42][43] Even Penn's account of its early history agrees that the Academy of Philadelphia did not add the College of Philadelphia until 1755, but university officials continue to make it their practice to assert their fourth-oldest place in academic processions. Other American universities that began in the colonial era, such as St. John's College, which was founded as King William's School in 1696, and the University of Delaware, which was founded as the Free Academy in 1743, choose to utilize the dates they became institutions of higher learning. Penn history professor Edgar Potts Cheyney was a member of the Penn class of 1883 who played a leading role in the 1896–1899 alumni campaign to change the university's formal founding date. According to Cheyney's later recollection, the university considered its founding date to be 1749 for almost a century. However, it was changed with good reason, and primarily due to a publication about the university issued by the U.S. Commissioner of Education written by Francis Newton Thorpe, a fellow alumnus, and colleague in the Penn history department. The year 1740 is the date of the establishment of the university's first educational trust. Cheyney states that "it might be considered a lawyer's date; it is a familiar legal practice in considering the date of any institution to seek out the oldest trust it administers". He also points out that Harvard's founding date is also the year in which the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature of Massachusetts at the time of its founding, resolved to establish a fund in a year's time for a school or college. Princeton claims its founding date is 1746, the date of its first charter. However, the exact words of the charter are unknown, the number and names of the trustees in the charter are unknown, and no known original of the charter is known to exist. Except for Columbia University, the majority of colonial-era colleges and universities do not have clear-cut dates of foundation.[44]
  4. ^ "...(d) On November 27, 1779, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed an act for the establishment of a University incorporating the rights and powers of the College, Academy, and Charitable School. This was the first designation of an institution in the United States as a University; (e) On September 22, 1785, an act was passed naming the University the University of the State of Pennsylvania..." See "Statues of the Trustees". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
  5. ^ As Penn moved West, "College Hall" continued to be the name of Penn's headquarters building and now serves as location of "The Office of the President". See "President's Center". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  6. ^ The "College Hall" on the 4th and Arch Street campus was the first of three Penn buildings named "College Hall."
  7. ^ The "College Hall" on the 9th Street campus was the second of three Penn buildings named "College Hall", the first (the one that served as temporary, for 10 days, Capitol of United States) being located on the original campus at 4th and Arch Streets)
  8. ^ In 1753, a Presbyterian minister without a pulpit, Reverend Kinnersley, was elected Chief Master in the College of Philadelphia, and in 1755 was appointed professor of English and oratory. See Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1892). "Kinnersley, Ebenezer". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  9. ^ Now known at Penn as "St. Elmo's Club" with male and female members.. St. Elmo Club. Archived from the original on May 26, 2016. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  10. ^ In 1790, the first lecture on law was given by James Wilson; however, a full time program was not offered until 1850.[160]
  11. ^ Note other sources states Class of 1930[299]
  12. ^ the cricket "ground" was on land owned by the Union Club of Camden, New Jersey, which, in 1840, arguably organized the first cricket team in the United States) and site was formerly occupied by Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company[409]
  13. ^ See list of University of Pennsylvania people athletics section for list of Penn Olympic medal winners, replete with hyperlinks.
  14. ^ Buffett studied at Penn for two years before he transferred to the University of Nebraska.
  15. ^ See List of University of Pennsylvania people 'Arts, media, and entertainment' section for list of Penn alumni who earned Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award winners, replete with hyperlinks.

References Edit

  1. ^ . upenn.edu. Archived from the original on April 28, 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  2. ^ . University Archives and Records Center. Archived from the original on August 22, 2019. Retrieved January 31, 2019.
  3. ^ . June 3, 2011. Archived from the original on June 3, 2011.
  4. ^ . March 19, 2003. Archived from the original on March 19, 2003.
  5. ^ As of June 30, 2023. About Us Penn Office of Investments (Report). Penn Office of Investments. June 30, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
  6. ^ . Office of Budget and Management Analysis. University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on November 12, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  7. ^ Snyder, Susan (January 25, 2023). "Penn appoints Annenberg dean John L. Jackson Jr. its next provost". The Inquirer. Retrieved September 4, 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h . University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on October 23, 2019. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  9. ^ "Facts | University of Pennsylvania". www.upenn.edu.
  10. ^ a b c "Common Data Set 2022–2023" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania. (PDF) from the original on August 3, 2023. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
  11. ^ "Elements of the Penn Logo". Branding.Web-Resources.UPenn.edu. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  12. ^ The registered trademark as the primary substitute for using the University's full name and part of official brand, accessed June 9, 2021
  13. ^ Permissible in situations where it may help to distinguish Penn from other universities within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and used as part of email address, accessed June 9, 2021
  14. ^ "Penn Research: By the Numbers", University of Pennsylvania website
  15. ^ "These are the 10 oldest stadiums in Division I college football", NCAA, July 26, 2022
  16. ^ a b Nobel Prize Awarded to Covid Vaccine Pioneers https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html?smid=nytcore-android-share accessed October 2, 2023
  17. ^ "Congratulations to Claudia Goldin, who was awarded the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences today". University of Pennsylvania. October 9, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  18. ^ https://www.turing.ac.uk/search/node?keys=University%20of%20Pennsylvania%20&page=1%2C0 access date September 10, 2023
  19. ^ "Charles W Bachman". A.M Turing Award. Retrieved June 13, 2023.
  20. ^ Lambert, Max (1991). Who's Who in New Zealand, 1991 (12th ed.). Auckland: Octopus. p. 331. ISBN 9780790001302. Retrieved July 29, 2015.
  21. ^ "Vaughan Jones - University of St. Andrews". Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  22. ^ "Colleges and Universities with U.S. Rhodes Scholarship Winners | The Rhodes Scholarships". www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  23. ^ "Two Penn seniors named 2022 Marshall Scholars | Penn CURF". curf.upenn.edu. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  24. ^ https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/news/this-school-has-the-most-billionaire-alumni/ and https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2022/10/02/billionaire-alma-maters-the-11-most-popular-colleges-among-americas-richest/?sh=9d31b4b4a6cd accessed September 11, 2023
  25. ^ https://www.garrettreisman.com/ and https://news.seas.upenn.edu/pieces-of-penn-history-return-from-space/
  26. ^ "Biographical Data" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on February 12, 2021. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  27. ^ a b Ahern, Joseph-James; Hawley, Scott W. (January 2011). "Congressional Medals of Honor, Recipients from the Civil War • University Archives and Records Center". Penn University Archives and Records Center.
  28. ^ a b "Frederick C. Murphy, Our Facility's Namesake". archives.gov. National Archives at Boston. August 15, 2016. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  29. ^ see second footnote 9 in Extracts from the Benjamin Franklin published Pennsylvania Gazette, (January 3 to December 25, 1740) – Founders Online https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0065 "Note: The annotations to this document, and any other modern editorial content, are copyright © the American Philosophical Society and Yale University. All rights reserved."
  30. ^ a b Montgomery, Thomas Harrison (1900). A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A. D. 1770. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co. LCCN 00003240.
  31. ^ "Richard Peters". Archives.upenn.edu. January 24, 2022. Retrieved May 31, 2022.
  32. ^ Friedman, Steven Morgan. . Archives.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on January 2, 2010. Retrieved December 9, 2010.
  33. ^ a b c d Wood, George Bacon (1834). The History of the University of Pennsylvania, from Its Origin to the Year 1827. McCarty and Davis. LCCN 07007833. OCLC 760190902.
  34. ^ a b c . University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on April 28, 2006. Retrieved April 29, 2006.
  35. ^ "Gazette: Building Penn's Brand (Sept/Oct 2002)". www.upenn.edu. from the original on November 20, 2005. Retrieved January 25, 2006.
  36. ^ "History". Princeton University. from the original on August 5, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  37. ^ . Princeton University. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016.
  38. ^ . Princeton University. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013.
  39. ^ . Princeton University. Archived from the original on November 17, 2005. Retrieved January 30, 2006.
  40. ^ "History – Columbia University in the City of New York". www.columbia.edu. from the original on May 17, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  41. ^ "COH-03-057_Page-45". dmr.bsu.edu. from the original on January 22, 2020. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  42. ^ "American Colonial Colleges" (PDF). scholarship.rice.edu. (PDF) from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  43. ^ Zubatsky, David (2007). "The History of American Colleges and Their Libraries in The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" (PDF). ideals.illinois.edu. (PDF) from the original on October 28, 2014. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  44. ^ Edgar Potts Cheyney, "History of the University of Pennsylvania: 1740–1940", Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940: pp. 45–52.
  45. ^ "Penn's Heritage". University of Pennsylvania. from the original on April 22, 2016. Retrieved May 8, 2016.
  46. ^ N. Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680–1760 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 30.
  47. ^ Extracts from the Pennsylvania Gazette, (January 3 to December 25, 1740) – Founders Online https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0065
  48. ^ . University of Pennsylvania University Archives. Archived from the original on November 25, 2012. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  49. ^ Cheyney, Edward Potts (1940). "History of the University of Pennsylvania 1740–1940". History of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 46–48. from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2011. Cheyney was a Penn professor and alumnus from the class of 1883 who advocated the change in Penn's founding date in 1899 to appear older than both Princeton and Columbia. The explanation, "It will have been noted that 1740 is the date of the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself," is Professor Cheyney's justification (pp. 47–48) for Penn retroactively changing its founding date, not language used by the Board of Trustees.
  50. ^ "Presidents of Penn Alumni". www.archives.upenn.edu. from the original on July 19, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2016.
  51. ^ "University of Pennsylvania". World Digital Library. from the original on January 1, 2014. Retrieved February 14, 2013.
  52. ^ . University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on July 11, 2006. Retrieved April 29, 2006.
  53. ^ "William Rotch Wister". University Archives and Records Center. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
  54. ^ See also "Statutes of the Trustees". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
  55. ^ "Meeting Places for the Continental Congresses and the Confederation Congress, 1774–1789". Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  56. ^ Riley, Edward M. (1953). "The Independence Hall Group". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 43 (1): 7–42. doi:10.2307/1005661. ISSN 0065-9746. JSTOR 1005661.
  57. ^ "College Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: July 2, 1778 to July 20, 1778". unitedstatescapitals.org.
  58. ^ "U.S. Senate: The Nine Capitals of the United States". United States Senate. from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  59. ^ see also Ford, Worthington C.; Hunt, Gaillard; Fitzpatrick, John C.; Hill, Roscoe R. (eds.). "Journals of the Continental Congress (JCC) 1774–1789". A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Databases, 1774–1875. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 1: 13, 104, 114 – via Library of Congress.
  60. ^ "Rush 1787". kdhist.sitehost.iu.edu. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  61. ^ Renker, Elizabeth M. (1989). "'Declaration–Men' and the Rhetoric of Self-Presentation". Early American Literature. 24 (2): 123 and n. 10 there. JSTOR 25056766.
  62. ^ Rush, Benjamin (1970) [1948]. George Washington Corner (ed.). The autobiography of Benjamin Rush; his Travels through life together with his Commonplace book for 1789–1813. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  63. ^ . University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on June 10, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
  64. ^ a b c "Penn in the 18th Century Student Life: A Campus Shared by the College, the Academy, and the Charity School". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  65. ^ University of Pennsylvania's The Alumni Register, June 1905, article by Isaac Anderson Pennypacker, (Penn College Class of '02) pp. 408–412
  66. ^ "A Description of Life at the Academy and College of Philadelphia by Student Alexander Graydon, 1811". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  67. ^ Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 volumes, 1997: volume I: pages 80, 90, 154, 339—40; volume II: pages 69, 179; volume III: pages 22, 33, 41, 200–207, 298, 307, 533 (needs to be confirmed as this cite was copied from other Wikipedia entry for Kinnersley)
  68. ^ "Ebenezer Kinnersley 1711 – 1778". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  69. ^ "October 17, 1775". Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Minute Books 1768–1779; 1789–1791. Vol. II. College, Academy and Charitable School; University of Pennsylvania. p. 93 – via Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image.
  70. ^ The Trustees Minutes and a 1779 Plan of the College
  71. ^ "Early Fraternities Delta Phi (St. Elmo)". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  72. ^ "Early Penn Fraternities". University Archives and Records Center.
  73. ^ "Histories of Early Penn Fraternities: Earliest Account of Penn Fraternities". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved April 7, 2021. excerpted from the diary of George D. Budd (1843–1874) who received his A.B. from Penn in 1862, and LL.B. from Penn Law in 1865.
  74. ^ "Histories of Early Penn Fraternities". University Archives and Records Center. Penn. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  75. ^ Baltzell, Digby (1996). Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. 253. ISBN 978-1560008309.
  76. ^ a b Linck, Elizabeth (1990). "The Quadrangle". University of Pennsylvania Archives & Records Center. from the original on February 19, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  77. ^ Pieczynski, Denise (1990). "National Crisis, Institutional Change: Penn and the Civil War" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Archives & Records Center. (PDF) from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
  78. ^
university, pennsylvania, this, article, about, private, league, research, university, philadelphia, public, research, university, with, campuses, across, pennsylvania, pennsylvania, state, university, state, owned, public, universities, pennsylvania, pennsylv. This article is about the private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia For the public research university with campuses across Pennsylvania see Pennsylvania State University For state owned public universities in Pennsylvania see Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably Its current readable prose size is 107 kilobytes Please consider splitting content into sub articles condensing it or adding subheadings Please discuss this issue on the article s talk page August 2023 The University of Pennsylvania often abbreviated simply as Penn 12 or UPenn 13 is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia Pennsylvania It is one of nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U S Declaration of Independence when Benjamin Franklin the university s founder and first president advocated for an educational institution that trained leaders in academia commerce and public service Penn identifies as the fourth oldest institution of higher education in the United States though this representation is challenged by other universities as Franklin first convened the Board of Trustees in 1749 arguably making it the fifth oldest institution of higher education in the U S note 2 University of PennsylvaniaCoat of armsLatin Universitas PennsylvaniensisFormer namesAcademy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania 1751 1755 College of Philadelphia 1755 1779 1789 1791 1 University of the State of Pennsylvania 1779 note 1 1791 MottoLeges sine moribus vanae Latin Motto in English Laws without morals are useless TypePrivate research universityEstablishedNovember 14 1740 282 years ago 1740 11 14 note 2 FounderBenjamin FranklinAccreditationMSCHEAcademic affiliationsAAUCOFHENAICUURAEndowment 21 0 billion 2022 5 Budget 3 5 billion 2020 6 PresidentM Elizabeth MagillProvostJohn L Jackson Jr 7 Academic staff4 793 2018 8 Total staff39 859 Fall 2020 includes health system 9 Students23 374 Fall 2022 10 Undergraduates9 760 Fall 2022 10 Postgraduates13 614 Fall 2022 10 LocationPhiladelphia Pennsylvania United States39 57 N 75 11 W 39 95 N 75 19 W 39 95 75 19CampusLarge city 1 085 acres 4 39 km2 total 299 acres 1 21 km2 University City campus 694 acres 2 81 km2 New Bolton Center 92 acres 0 37 km2 Morris ArboretumOther campusesSan FranciscoNewspaperThe Daily PennsylvanianColorsRed and blue 11 NicknameQuakersSporting affiliationsNCAA Division I FCS Ivy LeaguePhiladelphia Big 5City 6IRAEARCEAWRCMascotThe QuakerWebsitewww wbr upenn wbr eduThe university has four undergraduate schools and 12 graduate and professional schools Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences the School of Engineering and Applied Science the Wharton School and the School of Nursing Among its highly ranked graduate schools are its law school whose first professor James Wilson participated in writing the first draft of the U S Constitution its medical school which was the first medical school established in North America and Wharton the nation s first collegiate business school Penn s endowment is US 20 7 billion making it the sixth wealthiest private academic institution in the nation as of 2022 In 2020 the university was awarded 1 5 billion in research grants the fourth largest of any U S university 14 The University of Pennsylvania s main campus is located in the University City neighborhood of West Philadelphia and is centered around College Hall Notable campus landmarks include Houston Hall the first modern student union and Franklin Field the nation s first dual level college football stadium and the nation s longest standing NCAA Division I college football stadium in continuous operation 15 The university s athletics program the Penn Quakers fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of NCAA Division I s Ivy League conference Since its founding Penn alumni trustees and faculty have included 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence 7 signers of the Constitution 3 Presidents of the United States 3 U S Supreme Court justices 32 U S senators 163 members of the U S House of Representatives 19 U S Cabinet Secretaries 46 governors 28 State Supreme Court justices and nine foreign heads of state Alumni and faculty include 39 Nobel laureates 16 17 4 Turing Award winners 18 and a Fields Medalist 19 20 21 Penn has graduated 32 Rhodes Scholars 22 and 21 Marshall Scholars 23 As of 2022 Penn has the largest number of undergraduate alumni who are billionaires of all colleges and universities 17 counting only Penn s four undergraduate schools 24 At least 2 Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts 25 26 and 5 Penn alumni have been awarded the Medal of Honor 27 28 Contents 1 History 1 1 Origins of the college 1 2 First university 1 3 Original campus 1 4 Campus as Capital of United States 1 5 9th Street campus 1 6 West Philadelphia campus 1 7 Residential university 1 8 Controversies 1 9 Educational innovations 1 10 Motto 1 11 Seal 2 Campus 2 1 Parks and arboreta 2 2 Bolton Center 2 3 Libraries 2 4 Art installations 2 5 Penn Museum 2 6 Other Penn museums galleries and art collections 2 7 Residences 2 8 Campus police 3 Academics and interdisciplinary focus 3 1 Admissions 3 2 Coordinated dual degree accelerated interdisciplinary programs 3 3 Academic medical center and biomedical research complex 4 Research and discoveries 5 Academic profile and rankings 5 1 International partnerships 5 2 Rankings 5 2 1 Graduate and professional programs 6 Student life 6 1 Demographics and diversity 6 2 Penn Face and behavioral health 6 3 Selected student organizations 6 3 1 Penn Electric Racing 6 4 Performing arts organizations 6 4 1 Penn Glee Club 6 4 2 Penn Band 6 4 3 Penn s a cappella community 6 4 4 Comedy organizations 6 5 Religious and spiritual organizations 7 Athletics 7 1 Cricket 7 2 Rowing 7 3 Rugby 7 4 Football 7 5 Ice hockey 7 6 Basketball 7 7 Olympic athletes 7 8 Curling 7 9 Facilities 8 Notable people 8 1 Gallery 8 2 Overview 8 3 Alumni relations and inter Ivy events 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 External linksHistory EditOrigins of the college Edit Further information Academy and College of Philadelphia See also Benjamin Franklin nbsp Benjamin Franklin founder of the University of Pennsylvania was the primary founder benefactor and a president of the board of trustees for the Academy and College of Philadelphia which merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to form the University of Pennsylvania in 1791 In 1740 a group of Philadelphians organized to erect a great preaching hall for George Whitefield a traveling evangelist who toured the American colonies delivering open air sermons 29 The building was designed and constructed by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in Philadelphia at the time drawing thousands of people the first time in which it was preached 30 26 The preaching hall was initially intended to also serve as a charity school but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended According to Franklin s autobiography it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy thinking the Rev Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution However Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin though Peters was one of Penn s founding trustees 1749 to 1776 President of board of trustees 1756 to 1764 and Treasurer of board of trustees 1769 to 1770 31 Nothing further was done by Franklin for another six years when he again contacted not just Peters but many others 30 30 Hence in the fall of 1749 Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania his vision for what he called a Public Academy of Philadelphia 32 which argued for establishing an institution that would provide higher education to its citizens The 1749 proposal was seen as innovative at the time and Franklin organized 24 trustees to help guide the institution he envisioned The group acquired a dormant building after its owners asked Franklin s group to assume their debts and accordingly their inactive trusts On February 1 1750 a new board of trustees took over the building and trusts of the old board On August 13 1751 the Academy of Philadelphia using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets was established and began taking in its first secondary students A charity school also was chartered on July 13 1753 33 12 by the intentions of the original donors although it lasted only a few years On June 16 1755 the College of Philadelphia was chartered paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction 33 13 All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered part of the same institution 34 The first commencement exercises were held on May 17 1757 33 14 The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth oldest institution of higher education in the United States though this is contested by Princeton and Columbia Universities note 3 Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749 including Harvard William amp Mary Yale and the College of New Jersey Franklin s new school did not focus exclusively on educating clergy He advocated what was then an innovative concept of higher education which taught both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and performing public service The proposed program of study could have become the nation s first modern liberal arts curriculum although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith who became the first provost and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional curriculum 45 46 Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among Philadelphia s leading citizens the first such non sectarian board in the nation At the first meeting of the board of trustees on November 13 1749 the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House later renamed and famously known since 1776 as Independence Hall was offered without cost by James Logan its owner the trustees realized that the building erected in 1740 by Edmund Woolley for George Whitefield 47 which was still vacant was an even more preferable site The institution of higher learning was named and known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779 In 1779 not trusting then provost William Smith s Loyalist tendencies the revolutionary State Legislature created a university and in 1785 the legislature changed name to University of the State of Pennsylvania 34 note 4 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 a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution serving on the new board of trustees 34 Although Penn began operating as an academy or secondary school in 1751 and obtained its collegiate charter in 1755 it initially designated 1750 as its founding date Sometime later in its early history Penn began naming 1749 as its founding date which it continued to reference as the founding date for over a century including at a centennial celebration in 1849 48 In 1899 the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again this time to 1740 the date of the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself according to a book on the university s history 49 The board of trustees voted in response to a three year campaign by Penn s General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university s founding date to 1740 for a number of reasons including to appear older than Princeton University which had been chartered in 1746 50 First university Edit nbsp A 1765 admission ticket to A Course of Lectures given by Dr John Morgan the founder and first professor of medicine at Penn s Medical SchoolThe University of Pennsylvania considers itself the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies though that claim is contested by other universities Penn has two claims to being the first university in the United States according to the former university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd 1 the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America 51 made Penn the first institution to offer both undergraduate and professional education the de facto position 2 the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of University the de jure position 52 53 54 Original campus Edit nbsp A circa 1780 sketch of the Academy and College of Philadelphia when its first dormitory on right was builtThe Academy of Philadelphia a secondary school for boys began operations in 1751 in an unused church assembly hall building at 4th and Arch Streets which had sat unfinished and dormant for over a decade Upon receiving a collegiate charter in 1755 the first classes for the College of Philadelphia were taught in the same building in many cases to the same boys who had already graduated from The Academy of Philadelphia Campus as Capital of United States Edit When the British abandoned Philadelphia during the Philadelphia campaign in the American Revolutionary War College Hall the college s only building at the time note 5 served as the temporary meeting site of the Second Continental Congress from July 7 to 20 1778 55 The British Army led by General Sir William Howe damaged many important parts of Philadelphia Howe s attack caused significant damage to the Pennsylvania State House now known as Independence Hall the site where the Second Continental Congress convened and which it was forced to abandon in anticipation of the British attack and occupation of the city 56 By July 7 1778 the Second Continental Congress returned to Philadelphia with the requisite quorum but convened at College Hall since Independence Hall was damaged by the British attack briefly establishing Penn s campus as one of the early capitals of the United States 57 58 Penn s brief status as the nation s capital is evidenced by a July 13 1778 letter sent from Josiah Bartlett a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence to John Langdon who was also a Founding Father from New Hampshire Langdon who later became a signatory of the United States Constitution wrote The Congress meets in the College Hall note 6 as the State House was left by the enemy in a most filthy and sordid situation as were many of the public and private buildings in the City 59 9th Street campus Edit nbsp A c 1815 illustration of the Ninth Street campus of the University of Pennsylvania including the medical department on left and the college building on right which was originally intended to serve as the residence for the President of the United States before the national capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington D C in 1800 nbsp A ticket to an 1807 lecture by Benjamin Rush then a professor at Penn s Department of Medicine 60 nbsp The Ninth Street Campus located on the west side of Ninth Street between Market and Chestnut Streets and a hand colored lithograph created in 1842 by John Caspar Wild of Medical Hall on left and College Hall on right both built between 1829 and 1830 nbsp The Ninth Street Campus above Chestnut Street and Medical Hall just prior to the university s 1871 move to its current location in West PhiladelphiaIn 1802 the university moved to the unused Presidential Mansion at Ninth and Market Streets a building that both George Washington and John Adams had declined to occupy while Philadelphia was the nation s capital 33 Among the classes given in 1807 at this building were those offered by Benjamin Rush a professor of chemistry medical theory and clinical practice who was also a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence member of the Continental Congress 61 62 and surgeon general of the Continental Army 63 Classes were held in the mansion until 1829 when it was demolished Architect William Strickland designed twin buildings on the same site College Hall note 7 and Medical Hall both 1829 1830 which formed the core of the Ninth Street Campus until Penn s move to West Philadelphia in the 1870s West Philadelphia campus Edit nbsp An illustration of Penn s College Hall from a pocket guide to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 celebrating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence nbsp An illustration of the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia from a Brief Guide to Philadelphia published in 1918After 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 Residential university Edit In the 1750s roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging since they came from areas in the U S that were too far to commute or were international students 64 Before the completion of the construction of the first dormitory in 1765 out of town students were typically placed with guardians in the homes of faculty or in suitable boarding houses such as the one run by widow Rachel Marks Graydon mother of Penn College Class of 1775 student Alexander Graydon 65 66 In 1765 the campus was expanded by opening of the newly completed dormitory run by Benjamin Franklin s collaborator on the study of electricity using electrostatic machines and related technology and Penn professor and chief master Ebenezer Kinnersley note 8 Kinnersley was designated steward of the students in the dormitory and he and his wife were given disciplinary powers over the students and supervised the cleanliness of the students with respect to personal hygiene and washing of the students dirty clothing 67 68 Even after its construction however many students sought living quarters elsewhere where they would have more personal freedom resulting in a loss of funds to the university In the fall of 1775 Penn s trustees voted to advertise to lease the dormitory to a private family who would board the pupils at lesser cost to Penn 69 In another attempt to control the off campus activities of the students the trustees agreed not to admit any out of town student unless he was lodged in a place which they and the faculty considered proper 64 As of 1779 Penn through its trustees owned three houses on Fourth Street just north of the campus s new building with the largest residence located on the corner of Fourth and Arch Streets 70 64 Starting in 1849 with formation of Penn s Eta chapter note 9 of Delta Phi by five founders and 15 initiates 71 Penn students began to establish residential fraternity houses Since Penn only had limited housing near campus and since students especially those at the medical school came from all over the country the students elected to fend for themselves rather than live in housing owned by Penn trustees A number chose housing by pledging and living in Penn s first fraternities which included Delta Phi Zeta Psi Phi Kappa Sigma and Delta Psi 72 These first fraternities were located within walking distance of 9th and Chestnut Street since the campus was located from 1800 to 1872 on the west side of Ninth Street from Market Street on the north to Chestnut Street on the south Zeta Psi Fraternity was located at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street Delta Phi was located on the south side of 11th Street near Chestnut Street and Delta Psi was located on the north side of Chestnut Street west of 10th Street 73 When Penn moved to West Philadelphia in 1872 the new campus and its associated fraternities centered on the intersection of Woodland Avenue 36th Street and Locust Street Among the first fraternities to build near the new campus were Phi Delta Theta in 1883 and Psi Upsilon in 1891 By 1891 there were at least 17 fraternities at the university 74 From its founding until construction of the Quadrangle Dormitories which started construction in 1895 the university largely lacked university owned housing with the exception of a significant part of the 18th century A significant portion of the undergraduate population commuted from Delaware Valley locations and a large number of students resided in the Philadelphia area 75 The medical school then with roughly half the students was a significant exception to this trend as it attracted a more geographically diverse population of students For example in the 1850s when Penn s medical school accounted for two thirds to three quarters of the student body over half of the population of the medical school was from the southern part of the United States 76 77 The university experienced increased need for housing in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century as it began to compete with peer institutions to recruit foreign students George Henderson president of the class of 1889 wrote in his monograph distributed to his classmates at their 20th reunion that Penn s strong growth in acreage and number of buildings it constructed over the prior two decades along with a near quadrupling in the size of the student body was accommodated by building The Quad 78 Henderson argued that building The Quad was influential in attracting students and he appealed for it to be expanded 79 And the new buildings First of all there is need of greater dormitory room Did you ever live in the dorms Then you do not know what dorm life means for college spirit Several hundred men who live in the same big family have a feeling of common fellowship Life in the dorms develops what our sociologists call a Solidarity of Responsibility Men who live there learn to care for the associations that brought them together and that keep them related And this college spirit they never lose or forget Some parents living at a distance do not like to send their sons to live in a general boarding house But a dormitory a University institution appeals to them and the boys come and live there You would scarcely believe it but when College opened last fall not only were the dormitory rooms over subscribed but there was a long list of anxious ones ready to snap up the room of any unlucky fellow who might miss his examinations and be forced to spend another year at preparatory school grind So we need the new dormitories and although they are going up steadily they might well go up faster 79 In 1911 since it was difficult to house the international students due to the segregation era housing regulations in Philadelphia and across the United States the Christian Association at the University of Pennsylvania hired its first Foreign Mission Secretary Reverend Alpheus Waldo Stevenson 80 By 1912 Stevenson focused almost all his efforts on the foreign students at Penn who needed help finding housing resulting in the Christian Association buying 3905 Spruce Street located adjacent to Penn s West Philadelphia campus 81 By January 1 1918 3905 Spruce Street officially opened under the sponsorship of the Christian Association as a Home for Foreign Students which came to be known as the International Students House with Reverend Stevenson as its first director The International Students House provided counseling and information services for a host of problems foreign students might encounter including language financial health and diet immigration and technical problems as well as maladjustment to living in the United States It was also used for recreation and leisure as lounges had radio phonograph and television facilities and there were game and reception rooms The International Students House also provided for programs including forums debates lectures panels and planned trips and outings as well as weekend activities such as dances films and game nights Also for the next thirty three years the International Students House would be sponsored by the Christian Association of the University of Pennsylvania 82 The success of efforts to reach out to the international students was reported in 1921 when the university reported that the university s 12 000 students at the time came from all 50 states and 253 came from at least 50 foreign countries and foreign territories including India South Africa New Zealand Australia and every Latin American country and most of the Oriental and European nations 83 By 1931 first year students were required to live in the quadrangle unless they received official permission to live with their families or other relatives 76 However throughout this period and into the early post World War II period the undergraduate schools of the university continued to have a large commuting population 84 As an example into the late 1940s two thirds of Penn women students were commuters 85 After World War II the university began a capital spending program to overhaul its campus including its student housing A large number of students migrating to universities under the G I Bill and the ensuing increase in Penn s student population highlighted that Penn had outgrown previous expansions which ended during the Great Depression era But in addition to a significant student population from the Delaware Valley the university continued to attract international students from at least 50 countries and from all 50 states as early as of the second decade of the 1920s 83 86 Penn Trustee Paul Miller wrote that in the post World War II era t he bricks and mortar Capital Campaign of the Sixties built the facilities that turned Penn from a commuter school to a residential one 87 By 1961 79 of male undergraduates and 57 of female undergraduates lived on campus 88 Controversies Edit From 1930 to 1966 there were 54 documented Rowbottom riots a student tradition of rioting which included everything from car smashing to panty raids 89 After 1966 there were five more instances of Rowbottoms the latest occurring in 1980 89 In 1965 Penn students learned that the university was sponsoring research projects for the United States chemical and biological weapons program 90 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 90 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 90 In 1983 members of the Animal Liberation Front broke into the Head Injury Clinical Research Laboratory in the School of Medicine and stole research audio and video tapes The stolen tapes were given to PETA who edited the footage to create a film Unnecessary Fuss As a result of media coverage and pressure from animal rights activists the project was closed down 91 The school gained notoriety in 1993 for the water buffalo incident in which a student who told a group of mostly black female students to shut up you water buffalo was charged with violating the university s racial harassment policy 92 In 2022 some asked for the tenure of a University of Pennsylvania law school professor to be revoked after she said the country is better off with fewer Asians 93 94 Educational innovations Edit nbsp Houston Hall the first college student union in the nation nbsp Franklin Institute s chief meteorologist Jon Nese left and his production crew from WHYY TV right in front of a portion of the original ENIAC computer in the university s ENIAC museum on campusPenn 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 business school in 1881 the first American student union building Houston Hall in 1896 95 the only school of veterinary medicine in the United States that originated directly from its medical school in 1884 96 97 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 98 99 In 1921 Penn was also the first university to award a PhD in economics to an African American woman Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander 100 Motto Edit In 1932 all elements of the seal were revised 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 101 Penn s motto is based on a line from Horace 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 Seal Edit nbsp The 1757 seal of the Academy and College of Philadelphia in 1779 the college was renamed the University in Philadelphia and following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1782 assumed its current name the University of PennsylvaniaThe official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation 102 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 In 1756 a public seal and motto for the college was engraved in silver 103 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 102 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 subjects of the trivium and a modified quadrivium components of a classical education Theolog ia Astronom ia Philosoph ia Mathemat ica Logica Rhetorica and Grammatica Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the university Leges Sine Moribus Vanae 102 Campus Edit nbsp This statue of Benjamin Franklin donated to the City of Philadelphia in 1899 now sits in front of College Hall at the center of Penn s main campus in honor of Franklin the university s founder 104 nbsp A 1915 map of the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia published by Rand McNally 105 nbsp Upper Quad Gate forming lower part of Memorial Tower which honors veterans of the Spanish American War nbsp Center City Philadelphia seen from the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District with Huntsman Hall in the foreground nbsp Wistar Institute s seven story steel and glass 2014 building located next to a brick building constructed in 1897 both on Penn s main historic campus on North side of Spruce Street between 36th and 37th streetsMuch of Penn s architecture was designed by the Philadelphia based architecture firm Cope and Stewardson whose owners were Philadelphia born and raised architects and professors at Penn who also designed Princeton University and a large part of Washington University in St Louis 106 107 They were known for having combined the Gothic architecture of the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge with the local landscape to establish the Collegiate Gothic style 108 The present core campus covers over 299 acres 121 ha in a contiguous area of West Philadelphia s University City section whereas 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 bars a large upscale grocery store and a movie theater on the western edge of campus Penn s core campus borders Drexel University and is a few blocks from the University City campus of Saint Joseph s University which absorbed University of the Sciences in Philadelphia via a merger and The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College The renowned cancer research center Wistar Institute is also located on campus In 2014 a new 7 story glass and steel building was completed next to the institute s original brick edifice built in 1897 further expanding collaboration between the university and the Wistar Institute 109 The Module 6 Utility Plant and Garage at Penn was designed by BLT Architects and completed in 1995 Module 6 is located at 38th and Walnut and includes spaces for 627 vehicles 9 000 sq ft 840 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 110 In 2010 in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River Penn purchased 23 acres 9 3 ha at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue the then site of DuPont Marshall Research Labs In October 2016 Penn completed the design with help from architects Matthias Hollwich Marc Kushner and KSS Architects and renovation of the center piece of the project a former paint factory it named Pennovation Works Pennovation Works houses shared desks wet labs common areas a pitch bleacher and other attributes of a tech incubator The rest of the site which Penn is formally calling South Bank of Schuylkill River is a mixture of lightly refurbished industrial buildings that serve as affordable and flexible workspaces and land for future development Penn hopes that South Bank will provide a place for academics researchers and entrepreneurs to establish their businesses in close proximity to each other to facilitate cross pollination of their ideas creativity and innovation 111 Parks and arboreta Edit In 2007 Penn acquired about 35 acres 14 ha between the campus and the Schuylkill River at the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center and a nearby 24 acre 9 7 ha site then 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 became the home to educational research biomedical and mixed use facilities The first phase comprising a park and athletic facilities opened in the fall of 2011 In September 2011 Penn completed the construction of the 46 5 million 24 acre 9 7 ha Penn Park which features passive and active recreation and athletic components framed and subdivided by canopy trees lawns and meadows It is located east of the Highline Green and stretches from Walnut Street to South Streets Penn maintains two arboreta The first is the roughly 300 acre 120 ha The Penn Campus Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania encompasses the entire University City main campus The campus arboretum is an urban forest with over 6 500 trees representing 240 species of trees and shrubs ten specialty gardens and five urban parks 112 which has been designated as a Tree Campus USA 113 since 2009 and formally recognized as an accredited ArbNet Arboretum since 2017 112 Penn maintains an interactive website linked to Penn s comprehensive tree inventory which allows users to explore Penn s entire collection of trees 114 The second arboretum Penn s Morris Arboretum amp Gardens the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is 92 acres sited over 15 miles from Penn s Campus Arboretum and contains more than 13 000 labelled plants from over 2 500 types representing the temperate floras of North America Asia and Europe with a primary focus on Asia 115 Bolton Center Edit Main article New Bolton Center Penn also owns the 687 acre 278 ha New Bolton Center the research and large animal health care center of its veterinary school 116 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 117 Libraries Edit Penn s library began in 1750 with a donation of books from cartographer Lewis Evans Twelve years later then provost William Smith sailed to England to raise additional funds to increase the collection size Benjamin Franklin was one of the libraries earliest donors and as a trustee saw to it that funds were allocated for the purchase of texts from London many of which are still part of the collection more than 250 years later Penn library system has grown into a system of 14 libraries with 400 full time equivalent FTE employees and a total operating budget of more than 48 million 118 The library system has 6 19 million book and serial volumes as well as 4 23 million microform items and 1 11 million e books 8 It subscribes to over 68 000 print serials and e journals 119 120 Penn has the following libraries associated by school or subject area 1 communications library located on campus on Walnut Street between 36th and 37th Streets in the Annenberg Communications School 2 Biddle Law Library located on campus on 3500 block of Sansom in the Law School 3 The Holman Biotech Commons library located on campus on 3500 block of Hamilton Walk adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School and the Nursing School 4 chemistry library located on campus on 3300 block of Spruce in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building 5 dental medicine library located on campus on 4000 block of Locust Street in Dental School 6 fine arts library located on campus on 3400 block of Woodland Ave within the Fisher Fine Arts Library 7 Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies library located off campus at 420 Walnut Street near Independence Hall and Washington Square 8 humanities and social sciences library including Weigle Information Commons located on campus between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street in the Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center 9 Lea library collection of Roman Catholic Church history located on campus between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street on the 6th floor of Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center 10 Lippincott business library located on campus between 35th and 36th streets on Locust Street in the second floor of the Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center 11 Math Physics Astronomy library located on campus on 3200 block of Walnut Streets adjacent to The Palestra on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory 12 archaeology and anthropology library within Penn Museum 13 Rare Books and Manuscripts library including the Yarnall Library of Theology located on campus between 34th and 35th streets on Locust Street in Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center 14 veterinary medicine library located on Penn Campus between 38th and 39th streets on Sansom Street within the Vet School with satellite library located off campus at New Bolton Center Penn also maintains books and records off campus at high density storage facility The Penn Design School s Fine Arts Library was built to be Penn s main library and the first with its own building The main library at the time was designed by Frank Furness to be first library in nation to separate the low ceilings of the library stack where the books were stored from forty foot plus high ceilinged rooms where the books were read and studied 121 122 123 The Yarnall Library of Theology a major American rare book collection is part of Penn s libraries The Yarnall Library of Theology was formerly affiliated with St Clement s Church in Philadelphia It was founded in 1911 under the terms of the wills of Ellis Hornor Yarnall 1839 1907 and Emily Yarnall and subsequently housed at the former Philadelphia Divinity School The library s major areas of focus are theology patristics and the liturgy history and theology of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America It includes a large number of rare books incunabula and illuminated manuscripts and new material continues to be added 124 125 nbsp Van Pelt Library Penn s main library building nbsp Interior of the reading room at what is now School of Design library The low ceilinged stacks are separate from the high ceilinged rooms where the books are read nbsp The floor plan for Penn s first stand alone library building published in 1891Art installations Edit nbsp Simone Leigh creating a sculpture similar to her Brick House work in February 2019 nbsp The Covenant designed by artist Alexander Liberman and installed at Penn in 1975The campus has more than 40 notable art installations in part because of a 1959 Philadelphia ordinance requiring total budget for new construction or major renovation projects in which governmental resources are used to include 1 for art 126 to be used to pay for installation of site specific public art 127 in part because many alumni collected and donated art to Penn and in part because of the presence of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design on the campus 128 In 2020 Penn installed Brick House a monumental work of art created by Simone Leigh at the College Green gateway to Penn s campus near the corner of 34th Street and Woodland Walk This 5 900 pound 2 700 kg bronze sculpture which is 16 feet 4 9 m high and 9 feet 2 7 m in diameter at its base depicts an African woman s head crowned with an afro framed by cornrow braids atop a form that resembles both a skirt and a clay house 129 At the installation Penn president Amy Guttman proclaimed that Ms Leigh s sculpture brings a striking presence of strength grace and beauty along with an ineffable sense of mystery and resilience to a central crossroad of Penn s campus 130 The Covenant known to the student body as Dueling Tampons 131 132 or The Tampons 133 is a large red structure created by Alexander Liberman and located on Locust Walk as a gateway to the high rise residences super block It was installed in 1975 and is made of rolled sheets of milled steel A white button known as The Button and officially called the Split Button is a modern art sculpture designed by designed by Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg who specialized in creating oversize sculptures of everyday objects It sits at the south entrance of Van Pelt Library and has button holes large enough for people to stand inside Penn also has a replica of the Love sculpture part of a series created by Robert Indiana It is a painted aluminum sculpture and was installed in 1998 overlooking College Green 128 In 2019 the Association for Public Art loaned Penn 134 two multi ton sculptures 135 The two works are Social Consciousness 136 134 created by Sir Jacob Epstein in 1954 and sited on the walkway between Wharton s Lippincott Library and Phi Phi chapter of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity house and Atmosphere and Environment XII created by Louise Nevelson in 1970 which is sited on Shoemaker Green between Franklin Field and Ringe Squash Courts 137 In addition to the contemporary art Penn also has a number of more traditional statues including a good number created by Penn s first Director of Physical Education Department R Tait McKenzie 138 Among the notable sculptures is that of Young Ben Franklin which McKenzie produced and Penn sited adjacent to the fieldhouse contiguous to Franklin Field The sculpture is titled Benjamin Franklin in 1723 and was created by McKenzie during the pre World War 1 era 1910 1914 Other sculptures he produced for Penn include the 1924 sculpture of then Penn provost Edgar Fahs Smith Penn is presently reevaluating all of its public art and has formed a working group led by Penn Design dean Frederick Steiner who was part of a similar effort at the University of Texas at Austin that led to the removal of statues of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials and Penn s Chief Diversity Officer Joann Mitchell Penn has begun the process of adding art and removing or relocating art 139 Penn removed from campus in 2020 the statue of the Reverend George Whitefield who had inspired the 1740 establishment of a trust to establish a charity school which trust Penn legally assumed in 1749 when research showed Whitefield owned fifty enslaved people and drafted and advocated for the key theological arguments in favor of slavery in Georgia and the rest of the Thirteen Colonies 140 Penn Museum Edit Main article University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology nbsp University Museum and Warden Garden nbsp Sphinx of Ramses II at the great temple of Ptah in Memphis circa 1200 BC nbsp Penn Museum s black granite statue of Goddess Sekhmet excavated in Thebes in Ramesseum in the late 18th dynasty of Egypt of 1405 to 1367 BCSince the Penn Museum was founded in 1887 141 it has taken part in 400 research projects worldwide 142 The museum s first project was an excavation of Nippur a location in current day Iraq 143 Penn Museum is home to the largest authentic sphinx in North America at about seven feet high four feet wide 13 feet long and 12 9 tons made of solid red granite The sphinx was discovered in 1912 by the British archeologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie during an excavation of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis Egypt where the sphinx had guarded a temple to ward off evil Since Petri s expedition was partially financed by Penn Petrie offered it to Penn which arranged for it to be moved to museum in 1913 The sphinx was moved in 2019 to a more prominent spot intended to attract visitors 144 The museum has three gallery floors with artifacts from Egypt the Middle East Mesoamerica Asia the Mediterranean Africa and indigenous artifacts of the Americas 142 Its most famous object is the goat rearing into the branches of a rosette leafed plant from the royal tombs of Ur The Penn Museum s excavations and collections foster a strong research base for graduate students in the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World Features of the Beaux Arts building include a rotunda and gardens that include Egyptian papyrus Other Penn museums galleries and art collections Edit nbsp The Institute of Contemporary Art known as ICA located just South of the Graduate Towers the residence hall for graduate and professional students at the corner of 36th Street and Sansom StreetPenn maintains a website providing a detailed roadmap to small museums and galleries and over one hundred locations across campus where the public can access Penn s over 8 000 artworks acquired over 250 years and includes but is not limited to paintings sculptures photography works on paper and decorative arts 145 The largest of the art galleries is the Institute of Contemporary Art one of the only kunsthalles in the country which showcases various art exhibitions throughout the year Since 1983 the Arthur Ross Gallery located at the Fisher Fine Arts Library has housed Penn s art collection 146 and is named for its benefactor philanthropist Arthur Ross Residences Edit Main article University of Pennsylvania College Houses Every College House at the University of Pennsylvania has at least four members of faculty in the roles of House Dean Faculty Master and College House Fellows 147 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 their first year as well as by graduate and professional students The College Houses include W E B Du Bois Fisher Hassenfeld Gregory Gutmann Harnwell Harrison Hill College House Kings Court English Lauder Riepe Rodin Stouffer and Ware The first College House was Van Pelt College House established in the fall of 1971 It was later renamed Gregory House 148 Fisher Hassenfeld Ware and Riepe together make up one building called The Quad The latest College House to be built is Guttman 149 formerly named New College House West which opened in the fall of 2021 150 Penn students in Junior or Senior year may live in the 45 sororities and fraternities governed by three student run governing councils Interfraternity Council 151 Intercultural Greek Council and Panhellenic Council 152 nbsp The university s first purpose built dormitory in the foreground on right built in 1765 153 nbsp The Upper Quad originally called The Triangle 154 and formerly The Men s Dormitory viewed from the Memorial Tower 155 nbsp Woodland Walk pathway between Hill College House and Lauder College House nbsp Hill College House a dormitory designed in 1958 to house female students was designed by Eero Saarinen nbsp The Quad formerly known as the Men s Dormitory in 2014 nbsp The Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house built by George W Childs Drexel as one of two mansions for his daughtersCampus police Edit The University of Pennsylvania Police Department UPPD is the largest private police department in Pennsylvania with 117 members All officers are sworn municipal police officers and retain general law enforcement authority while on the campus 156 Academics and interdisciplinary focus EditUniversity of Pennsylvania graduate and professional schools 157 School Year foundedPerelman School of Medicine 1765 158 School of Engineering and Applied Science 1852 159 Law School 1850 note 10 School of Design 1868School of Dental Medicine 1878 161 The Wharton School 1881 162 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1755 163 School of Veterinary Medicine 1884 164 School of Social Policy and Practice 1908Graduate School of Education 1915School of Nursing 1935Annenberg School for Communication 1958Penn s One University Policy allows students to enroll in classes in any of Penn s twelve schools 165 The College of Arts and Sciences is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences The School of Arts and Sciences also contains the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies which is home to the Fels Institute of Government the master s programs in Organizational Dynamics and the Environmental Studies MES program Wharton is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania Other schools with undergraduate programs 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 double 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 Admissions Edit Undergraduate admissions to the University of Pennsylvania is considered by US News to be most selective Admissions officials consider a student s GPA to be a very important academic factor with emphasis on an applicant s high school class rank and letters of recommendation 166 Admission is need blind for U S Canadian and Mexican applicants 167 For the class of 2026 entering in Fall 2022 the university received 54 588 applications 168 The Atlantic also ranked Penn among the 10 most selective schools in the country At the graduate level based on admission statistics from U S News amp World Report Penn s most selective programs include its law school the health care schools medicine dental medicine nursing veterinary and Wharton business school Fall first year statistics by year 2022 169 2019 170 2018 171 2017 172 Applicants 54 588 44 961 44 491 40 413Admits 3 404 3 446 3 740 3 757Admit rate 6 24 7 66 8 41 9 30 Enrolled 2 417 2 400 2 518 2 456Yield 68 18 69 65 67 33 65 37 SAT range 1510 1560 1450 1560 1440 1560 1420 1560ACT range 34 36 33 35 32 35 32 35 SAT and ACT ranges are from the 25th to the 75th percentile Coordinated dual degree accelerated interdisciplinary programs Edit nbsp Smith Walk with a view of Towne Building and the Engineering QuadPenn offers unique and specialized coordinated dual degree CDD programs which selectively award candidates degrees from multiple schools at the university upon completion of graduation criteria of both schools in addition to program specific programs and senior capstone projects Additionally there are accelerated and interdisciplinary programs offered by the university These undergraduate programs include Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business 173 Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology M amp T 174 Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management LSM 175 Nursing and Health Care Management NHCM 176 Roy and Diana Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research VIPER 177 Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences MLS 178 Singh Program in Networked and Social Systems Engineering NETS 179 Digital Media Design DMD 180 Computer and Cognitive Science 181 Accelerated 7 Year Bio Dental Program 182 Accelerated 6 Year Law and Medicine Program 183 Dual degree programs that 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 the involvement of another program Specialized dual degree programs include Liberal Studies and Technology as well as an Artificial Intelligence 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 Also the Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences allows its students to either double major in the sciences or submatriculate and earn both a BA and an MS in four years The most recent Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research VIPER was first offered for the class of 2016 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 double 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 University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice commonly known as Penn SP2 is a school of social policy and social work that offers degrees in a variety of subfields in addition to several dual degree programs and sub matriculation programs 184 185 186 Penn SP2 s vision is The passionate pursuit of social innovation impact and justice 187 Originally named the School of Social Work SP2 was founded in 1908 and is a graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania The school specializes in research education and policy development in relation to both social and economic issues 188 189 The School of Veterinary Medicine offers five dual degree programs combining the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine VMD with a Master of Social Work MSW Master of Environmental Studies MES Doctor of Philosophy PhD Master of Public Health MPH or Masters in Business Administration MBA degree The Penn Vet dual degree programs are meant to support veterinarians planning to engage in interdisciplinary work in the areas of human health environmental health and animal health and welfare 190 Academic medical center and biomedical research complex Edit nbsp Founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond Pennsylvania Hospital is now part of University of Pennsylvania Health System and is the earliest established hospital in the United States with the country s oldest surgical amphitheater In 2018 the university s nursing school was ranked number one by Quacquarelli Symonds 191 That year Quacquarelli Symonds also ranked Penn s school of Veterinary Medicine sixth 192 In 2019 the Perelman School of Medicine was named the third best medical school for research in U S News amp World Report s 2020 ranking 193 The University of Pennsylvania Health System also known as UPHS is a multi hospital health system headquartered in Philadelphia Pennsylvania owned by Trustees of University of Pennsylvania UPHS and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania together constitute Penn Medicine a clinical and research entity of the University of Pennsylvania UPHS hospitals include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania 194 Penn Presbyterian Medical Center Pennsylvania Hospital Chester County Hospital Lancaster General Hospital and Princeton Medical Center 195 Penn Medicine owns and operates the first hospital in the United States the Pennsylvania Hospital 196 It is also home to America s first surgical amphitheatre 197 and its first medical library 198 nbsp The Pennsylvania Hospital as painted by Pavel Svinyin in 1811 nbsp Perelman School of Medicine nbsp Penn School of Dental Medicine nbsp Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania facing northwest towards front entrance nbsp Penn owned Princeton Medical Center eastern facadeResearch and discoveries Edit nbsp ENIAC the first general purpose electronic computer was founded at Penn in 1946 nbsp Claudia Cohen Hall formerly Logan Hall home of the College of Arts and Sciences and former home of the Wharton School and originally the medical schoolPenn is classified as an R1 doctoral university Highest research activity 199 Its economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 2015 amounted to 14 3 billion 200 Penn s research expenditures in the 2018 fiscal year were 1 442 billion the fourth largest in the U S 201 In fiscal year 2019 Penn received 582 3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health 202 Penn s research centers often span two or more disciplines In the 2010 2011 academic year five interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded these include the Center for Health care Financing 203 the Center for Global Women s Health at the Nursing School 204 the 13 million Morris Arboretum s Horticulture Center 205 the 15 million Jay H Baker Retailing Center at Wharton 206 and the 13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine 207 With these additions Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4 300 faculty and over 1 100 postdoctoral fellows 5 500 academic support staff and graduate student trainees 8 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 208 These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn s schools Penn is also among the most prolific 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 209 It also has one of the highest numbers of post doctoral appointees 933 in number for 2004 2007 ranking third in the Ivy League behind Harvard and Yale and tenth nationally 210 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 211 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 five rankings in these fields 212 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 oldest continuously operating degree granting program in chemical engineering 213 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 214 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 215 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 216 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 217 218 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 219 the Penn effect the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones and the Wharton Model 220 developed by Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein to measure and forecast economic activity The idea behind Health Maintenance Organizations also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers who put it into practice during then President Nixon s health reform in the 1970s 219 Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn The university is probably best known as the place where the first general purpose electronic computer ENIAC was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering 221 It was here also where the world s first spelling and grammar checkers were created as well as the popular COBOL programming language 221 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 222 the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn 222 the discovery of cancer s link with genes cognitive therapy Retin A the cream used to treat acne Resistin the Philadelphia gene linked to chronic myelogenous leukemia and the technology behind PET Scans were all discovered by Penn Med researchers 222 More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the a genes for fragile X syndrome the most common form of inherited mental retardation b spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy a disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting c Charcot Marie Tooth disease a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands feet and limbs 222 and d genetically engineered T cells used to treat lymphoblastic leukemia and refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma 223 224 Another contribution to medicine was made by Ralph L Brinster Penn faculty member since 1965 who developed the scientific basis for in vitro fertilization and the transgenic mouse at Penn and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010 Penn professors Alan J Heeger Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa invented a conductive polymer process 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 Academic profile and rankings EditInternational partnerships Edit Students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions which include the London School of Economics University of Edinburgh Chinese University of Hong Kong University of Melbourne Sciences Po University of Queensland University College London King s College London Hebrew University of Jerusalem and ETH Zurich Rankings Edit Academic rankingsNationalARWU 227 12Forbes 228 9THE WSJ 229 7 225 U S News amp World Report 230 6 226 Washington Monthly 231 2GlobalARWU 234 14 232 QS 235 12 233 THE 236 13U S News amp World Report 237 13 National program rankings 238 Program RankingBiological Sciences 15Business 1Chemistry 19Clinical Psychology 8Computer Science 19Criminology 11Earth Sciences 68Economics 10Education 1Engineering 18English 3Fine Arts 64History 11Law 4 239 Mathematics 16Medicine Primary Care 24Medicine Research 9Nursing Master s 3Nursing Anesthesia 29Nursing Midwifery 7Physics 14Political Science 19Psychology 8Public Health 31Social Work 10Sociology 13Statistics 12Veterinary Medicine 4 Global subject rankings 240 Program RankingArts and Humanities 13Biology and Biochemistry 18Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology 13Cardiac amp Cardiovascular Systems 9Cell Biology 8Chemistry 86Clinical Medicine 7Computer Science 85Condensed Matter Physics 97Economics and Business 6Electrical and Electronic Engineering 295Endocrinology and Metabolism 12Engineering 226Gastroenterology and Hepatology 12Immunology 6Infectious Diseases 24Materials Science 74Mathematics 42Microbiology 8Molecular Biology and Genetics 6Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 109Neuroscience and Behavior 8Oncology 11Pharmacology and Toxicology 30Physical Chemistry 119Physics 52Plant and Animal Science 114Polymer Science 89Psychiatry Psychology 12Public Environmental and Occupational Health 49Radiology Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging 15Social Sciences and Public Health 19Space Science 73Surgery 7 U S News amp World Report s 2022 rankings place Penn seventh among national universities in the United States 241 242 and Center for World University Rankings CWUR 2020 2021 survey also ranks Penn as the eighth best university in the world 243 The Princeton Review included Penn in its Dream Colleges list in 2015 244 As reported by USA Today Penn was ranked first in the United States by College Factual for 2015 245 In 2023 Penn was ranked as having the 7th happiest students in the United States the highest in the Ivy League 246 247 In their 2021 edition Penn was ranked tenth in the nation by QS Quacquarelli Symonds 248 In the 2020 edition Penn was ranked 15th in the world by the QS World University Rankings 249 and in 2019 17th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities ARWU and 12th by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings In 2019 it ranked 12th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings 250 According to the 2015 ARWU ranking Penn is also the eighth and ninth best university in the world for economics business and social sciences studies respectively 251 University of Pennsylvania ranked 12th among 300 Best World Universities in 2012 compiled by Human Resources amp Labor Review HRLR on Measurements of World s Top 300 Universities Graduates Performance 252 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 253 Penn was also ranked 18th of all U S colleges and universities in terms of R amp D expenditures in fiscal year 2013 by the National Science Foundation 254 The High Impact Universities research performance index ranks Penn eighth 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 2007 255 2008 256 and 2010 257 and ninth for 2009 258 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 The SCImago Institutions Rankings World Report 2012 which ranks world universities national institutions and academies in terms of research output ranks Penn seventh nationally among U S universities 2nd in the Ivy League behind Harvard and 28th in the world overall the first being France s French National Centre for Scientific Research 259 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 second nationally behind Harvard 260 According to a U S News article in 2010 Penn is tied for second tied with Dartmouth College and Tufts University for the number of undergraduate alumni who are current Fortune 100 CEOs 261 Forbes ranked Penn 17th based on a variety of criteria 262 In 2022 Poets amp Quants ranked the undergraduate Wharton business school as the top business school in the nation for the fifth year in a row 263 Graduate and professional programs Edit Among its professional schools the school of education was ranked number one in 2021 and Wharton School of Business was ranked number one in 2022 264 the communication dentistry medicine nursing law and veterinary medicine schools rank in the top 5 nationally 265 Penn s Law School was ranked number 4 in 2023 239 and Design school and its School of Social Policy and Practice are ranked in the top 10 265 Student life EditEthnic breakdown of enrollment Ethnic enrollment fall 2018 266 Number percentage of undergraduatesAfrican American 715 7 1 Native American 12 0 1 Asian American andPacific Islander 2 084 20 7 Hispanic andLatino American 1 044 10 4 White 4 278 42 6 International 1 261 12 6 Two or more races non Hispanic 460 4 6 Unknown 179 1 8 Total 10 033 100 Demographics and diversity Edit nbsp Aaron Albert Mossell II the first African American graduate of Penn Law School at his 1888 graduation nbsp Julian Abele the first African American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design nbsp Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander the first African American woman to receive a Ph D in economics in the United States nbsp Edgar Fahs Smith University of Pennsylvania provost from 1911 through 1920Jonathan and Philip Gayienquitioga two brothers of the Mohawk Nation 267 were recruited by Benjamin Franklin to attend the Academy of Philadelphia 268 making them the first Native Americans at Penn when they enrolled in 1755 269 Moses Levy the first Jewish student enrolled in 1769 and was also elected Penn s first Jewish trustee in 1802 serving to 1826 270 Joseph M Urquiola aka Jose Maria de Urquiola y Fernandez de Zuniga School of Medicine class of 1829 was the first Latino from Cuba 271 272 273 and Auxencio Maria Pena School of Medicine class of 1836 was the first South American from Venezuela 274 to graduate from Penn William Adger James Brister and Nathan Francis Mossell in 1879 were the first African Americans to enroll at Penn Adger was the first African American to graduate from the college at Penn 1883 275 and when Brister graduated from the School of Dental Medicine Penn Dental class of 1881 he was the first African American to earn a degree at Penn 276 Mossell was first African American to graduate from Penn Med 1882 277 and had a brother Aaron Albert Mossell II who was the first African American graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1888 and 278 niece Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Albert s daughter who not only was first African American woman to graduate from Penn Law in 1927 and be admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania but prior to such noteworthy accomplishments was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in the United States from Penn in 1922 279 Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander s uncle via her mother s Tanner family Lewis Baxter Moore in 1896 became the first person of African descent to earn a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and only the fifth black person in the United States to earn a doctor of philosophy degree 280 and in 1899 founded the Teachers College now known as the School of Education of Howard University and served as its dean continuously from 1899 through September 1920 281 Tosui Imadate was the first person of Asian descent to graduate from Penn College 282 Class of 1879 283 In 1877 Imadate became the first Asian member of a fraternity at Penn when he became a brother at Phi Kappa Psi 284 In a quote from a portion of a letter published in December 1880 issue of The Crescent Imadate is described by a Phi Kappa Psi brother as a brother member of Penn s I iota chapter of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity who is a professor in college at Kiota Kyoto Japan 285 286 Fuji Tsukamoto Penn Graduate School Class of 1889 became the first woman of Asian descent to matriculate at Penn when she started her study of biology and botany in 1885 and like Tosui Imadate also taught at Kyoto college in Japan 287 Mary Alice Bennett and Anna H Johnson were in 1880 the first women to enroll in a Penn degree granting program and Bennett was the first woman to receive a degree from Penn which was a PhD 288 289 271 Julian Abele in 1902 was the first African American to graduate from University of Pennsylvania School of Design then named Department of Architecture and was elected as the president of Penn s Architectural Society 290 Abele won a 1901 student competition where he designed a Beaux Arts pedestrian gateway that was built and still stands on the campus of Haverford College 291 The Edward B Conklin Memorial Gate at the Railroad Avenue entrance to Haverford College 292 Abele contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings including the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University 1912 1915 Philadelphia s Central Library 1917 1927 293 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art 1914 1928 294 and was the primary designer of the west campus of Duke University 1924 1954 295 Duke honored Abele by prominently displaying his portrait the first portrait of an African American to be displayed on the campus 296 Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander paternal niece of Nathan Francis Mossell and maternal niece of Lewis Baxter Moore was the first African American to receive a PhD in economics in the United States and third black woman to earn one in the United States in any subject 297 and first from Penn in 1921 the first African American woman to receive a law degree from Penn Law in 1927 and the first African American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania 279 Alan L Hart who earned a master s degree at Penn Med in radiology class of 1928 298 note 11 was born in 1890 and publicly identified as a female Alberta Lucille Hart through much of 1917 the year Hart transitioned to being a man by having a hysterectomy one of the first in the United States to be performed to help a person become a trans man and lived the rest of his life as a man 299 Hart Penn s most prominent transgender alumnus in the first half of the twentieth century was a pioneer in using x ray photography to detect tuberculosis allowing the identification of asymptomatic TB carriers seventy five percent of the total infected permitting treatment of patients before they had complications and allowing for separation of TB patients from others to stop the spread of one of the more infectious deadly diseases known to humanity 298 The first openly LGBTQ organization funded by Penn was formed in 1972 by Kiyoshi Kuromiya a Benjamin Franklin Scholar and Penn alumnus from the College s class of 1966 when he created the Gay Coffee Hour which met every week on campus and was also open to non students and served as an alternative space to gay bars for gay people of all ages 300 Penn funded the Gay Coffee House program via a grant from the student government which was held in Houston Hall at six o clock in the evening every Wednesday and attracted on average roughly sixty people of all ages with roughly one quarter to one third women and two thirds to three quarters men 301 In March 2023 Penn announced a first in the United States LGBTQ scholar in residence after a 2 million gift 302 As detailed in part above by the first decades of the twentieth century Penn made strides and took an active interest in attracting diverse students from around the globe Two examples of such action occurred in 1910 Penn s first director of publicity created a recruiting brochure translated into Spanish with approximately 10 000 copies circulated throughout Latin America That same year the Penn affiliated organization the Cosmopolitan Club started an annual tradition of hosting an opening smoker which attracted students from 40 nations who were formally welcomed to the university by then vice provost Edgar Fahs Smith who the following year would start a ten year tenure as provost 303 304 305 306 307 who spoke about how Penn wanted to bring together students of different countries and break down misunderstandings existing between them 271 The success of such efforts were reported in 1921 when the official Penn publicity department reported that We have an enrollment at the University of 12 000 students who have registered from every State in the Union and 253 students from at least fifty foreign countries and foreign territories including India South Africa New Zealand Australia and practically all the British possessions except Ireland every Latin American country and most of the Oriental and European nations George E Nitzsche 1921 83 Of those accepted for admission in 2018 48 percent were Asian Hispanic African American or Native American 8 Fourteen percent of entering undergraduates in 2018 were international students 8 The composition of international first year students in 2018 was 46 from Asia 15 from Africa and the Middle East 16 from Europe 14 from Canada and Mexico 8 from the Caribbean Central America and South America 5 from Australia and the Pacific Islands 8 The acceptance rate for international students admission in 2018 was 493 out of 8 316 6 7 8 In 2018 55 of all enrolled students were women 8 In the last few decades Jewish enrollment has been declining Circa 1999 about 28 of the students were Jewish 308 In early 2020 1 750 Penn undergraduate students were Jewish 309 which would be approximately 17 310 of the some 10 000 undergrads for 2019 20 Penn Face and behavioral health Edit The university s social pressure surrounding academic perfection extreme competitiveness and nonguaranteed readmission have created what is known as Penn Face students put on a facade of confidence and happiness while enduring mental turmoil 311 312 313 314 315 Stanford University calls this phenomenon Duck Syndrome 314 316 In recent years mental health has become an issue on campus with ten student suicides between the years of 2013 to 2016 317 The school responded by launching a task force 318 319 The most widely covered case of Penn Face has been Madison Holleran 320 321 In 2018 initiatives were enacted to ameliorate mental health problems such as requiring sophomores to live on campus and the daily closing of Huntsman Hall at 2 00 a m 322 323 The university s suicide rate was the catalyst for a 2018 state bill introduced by Governor Tom Wolf to raise Pennsylvania s standards for university suicide prevention 324 The university s efforts to address mental health on campus came into the national spotlight again in September 2019 when the director of the university s counseling services died by suicide six months after starting the position 325 Selected student organizations Edit Oldest organization nbsp Philomathean Society graduation diploma For Isaac Norton Jr 1858 nbsp The Philomathean Society Presidential Library named after United States President and Penn Med alumnus William Henry HarrisonThe Philomathean Society founded in 1813 is one of the United States oldest collegiate literary societies and continues to host lectures and intellectual events open to the public 326 The Daily PennsylvanianMain article The Daily Pennsylvanian nbsp 34th Street logo in 2017The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent student run newspaper which has been published daily since it was founded in 1885 327 The newspaper went unpublished from May 1943 to November 1945 due to World War II 327 In 1984 the university lost all editorial and financial control of The Daily Pennsylvanian also known as The DP when the newspaper became its own corporation 327 The Daily Pennsylvanian has won the Pacemaker Award administered by the Associated Collegiate Press multiple times most recently in 2019 328 329 The DP also publishes a weekly arts and culture magazine called 34th Street Magazine The Daily Pennsylvanian also operates three principal websites thedp com 34st com and underthebutton com and publishes opinion news and sports blogs It has received various collegiate journalism awards Academic organizationsSee also Penn Debate Society and Penn History Review The Penn Debate Society PDS founded in 1984 as the Penn Parliamentary Debate Society is Penn s debate team which competes regularly on the American Parliamentary Debate Association and the international British Parliamentary circuit 330 The Penn History Review is a journal published twice a year through the Department of History for undergraduate historical research by and for undergraduates and founded in 1991 331 332 333 LGBTQ organizationsPenn has been ranked as the number one LGBTQ friendly school in the country 334 Penn s LGBTQ center is second oldest in the nation 335 and oldest in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as it has been serving the LGBTQ community since 1979 by providing support and guidance through 25 groups including Penn J Bagel a Jewish LGBTQ group the Lambda Alliance a general LGBTQ social organization and oSTEM a group for LGBTQ people in STEM fields 336 Penn offers courses in Sexuality and Gender Studies which allows students to discover and learn queer theory history of sexual norms and other gender orientation related courses 337 The first Penn funded LGBTQ organization was formed in 1972 by Steve Kiyoshi Kuromiya Penn college class of 1966 when he created the Gay Coffee Hour which met every week on campus and served as an alternative space to gay bars for gay people of all ages 300 Penn funded the Gay Coffee House via a grant from the student government and the weekly event was held in Houston Hall Wednesday evenings 301 Penn Electric Racing Edit nbsp Penn Electric Racing unveiled REV8 on March 31 2023 in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue in front of College Hall Penn Electric Racing is the university s Formula SAE FSAE team competing in the international electric vehicle EV competition Colloquially known as PER the team designs manufactures and races custom electric racecars against other collegiate teams In 2015 PER built and raced their first racecar REV1 at the Lincoln Nebraska FSAE competition winning first place 338 The team repeated their success with their next two racecars REV2 won second place in 2016 339 and REV3 won first place in 2017 340 Placement of PER in overall category of FSAE competitions 2015 present Year Competition Result2015 Electric 2015 338 12016 Electric 2016 339 22017 Electric 2017 340 12018 Electric 2018 341 112019 Electric 2019 342 32020 Competition cancelled due to the COVID 19 pandemic 343 failed verification 2021 Knowledge EV 2021 344 22022 Michigan June 2022 Electric 345 9Performing arts organizations Edit Penn is home to numerous organizations that promote the arts from dance to spoken word jazz to stand up comedy theatre a cappella and more The Performing Arts Council PAC oversees 45 student organizations in these areas 346 The PAC has four subcommittees A Cappella Council Dance Arts Council Singer Musicians and Comedians SMAC and Theatre Arts Council TAC e Penn Glee Club Edit nbsp Penn Glee Club s 1915 1916 academic year membership photoThe University of Pennsylvania Glee Club founded in 1862 is tied for fourth oldest continually running glee clubs in the United States 347 and the oldest performing arts group at the University of Pennsylvania Each year the Penn Glee Club writes and produces a fully staged Broadway style production with an eclectic mix of Penn standards Broadway classics classical favorites and pop hits highlighting choral singing from all genders as of April 9 2021 it merged 348 with Penn Sirens a previously all female chorale group clever plots and dialogue dancing humor colorful sets and costumes and a pit band 349 The Glee Club draws its singing members from the undergraduate and graduate students and men and women from the Penn community are also called upon to fill roles in the pit band and technical staff when the club is involved with theatrical productions The Penn Glee Club has traveled to nearly all 50 states in the United States and over 40 nations and territories on five continents 350 Since the 1950s Penn Glee Club has appeared on national television with such celebrities as Bob Hope Frank Sinatra Jimmy Stewart Ed McMahon Carol Lawrence and Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco and has been showcased on television specials such as the Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade and at professional sporting events for The Philadelphia Phillies where club sung the National Anthem at the 1993 National League Championship Series Since its first performance at the White House for President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 the club has sung for numerous heads of state and world leaders One of the highlights of 1989 was the club s performance for Polish President Lech Walesa Bruce Montgomery its best known and longest serving director led the club from 1956 until 2000 351 Penn Band Edit Main article The University of Pennsylvania Band nbsp The University of Pennsylvania Band at the 2019 homecoming gameThe University of Pennsylvania Band has been a part of student life since 1897 352 The Penn Band presently mainly performs at football and basketball games as well as university functions e g commencement and convocation throughout the year but in past it was known not only as the first college band to perform at Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade but performed with notable musicians including John Philip Sousa members of the Philadelphia Orchestra the U S Marine Band The President s Own Doc Severinsen of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson Beginning in the late 1920s and 1930s Penn Band recorded with the Victor Talking Machine Company RCA Victor Company and was nationally broadcast on WABC AM In 1977 Penn Band performed with Chuck Barris of The Gong Show and in 1980 opened for Penn alumnus Maury Povich in his eponymously named show Penn Band has performed for Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco sister and aunt to number of alumni alumnus and District Attorney and Mayor of Philadelphia and Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell Vice President Al Gore Presidents Theodore Roosevelt Lyndon B Johnson and Ronald Reagan and Polish dissident and President Lech Walesa By the 1970s however Penn Band had begun moving away from the traditional corps style and is now a scramble band The first one hundred years of the organization s history was described in a book from Arcadia Publishing Images of America The University of Pennsylvania Band 2006 352 Penn s a cappella community Edit nbsp Penn Masala performs in the Blue Room of the White House in October 2009 on invitation from President Barack Obama The A Cappella Council ACK is composed of 14 a cappella groups Penn s a cappella groups entertain audiences with repertoires including pop rock R amp B jazz Hindi and Chinese songs 353 ACK is also home to Off The Beat which has received the most contemporary a cappella recording awards of any collegiate group in the United States and the most features on the Best of College A Cappella albums 354 Penn Masala formed in 1996 is world s oldest 355 356 and premier 357 358 South Asian a cappella group based in an American university which has performed for Barack Obama Joe Biden Henry Kissinger Ban Ki Moon Farooq Abdullah Imran Khan Rajkumar Hirani A R Rahman Narendra Modi 359 and Sunidhi Chauhan had their a cappella version of Nazia Hassan s Urdu classic Aap Jaisa Koi originally from the movie Qurbani sung in the movie American Desi 360 Penn alumni Elizabeth Banks class of 1996 and Max Handelman Banks husband class of 1995 invited Masala to appear in Pitch Perfect 2 as Banks reported that Penn s a capella community inspired the film series starring and or produced by Banks and Handleman 361 Comedy organizations Edit nbsp The Mask and Wig clubhouse also known as the Welsh Coachhouse and Stable at 310 South Quince Street in Philadelphia the stable was built between 1843 and 1853 remodeled into a clubhouse by Wilson Eyre Jr in 1894 altered by Eyre in 1901 The murals were developed by Maxfield Parrish Mask and Wig a club founded in 1889 was until fall of 2021 362 the oldest all male musical comedy troupe in the country In 2021 the club voted to become gender inclusive with auditions open to all undergraduates male female and non binary Bloomers comedy group founded in 1978 is the nation s first collegiate all women musical and sketch comedy troupe 363 Bloomers was founded at Penn by Joan Harrison 364 In the mid teens Bloomers revised its constitution to be open to anyone who does not identify as a cisgender man 365 and now accepts all persons from under represented gender identities who perform comedy 366 367 Bloomers performs sketches and elaborate shows almost every semester The comedy troupe is named after bloomers the once popular long loose fitting under garment gathered at the ankle worn under a short skirt developed in the mid 19th century as a healthy comfortable alternative to the heavy constricting dresses then worn by American women which were in turn named after Amelia Jenks Bloomer Bloomers most well known performing alumna is Vanessa Bayer formerly of Saturday Night Live and is SNL s longest serving female cast member 368 Religious and spiritual organizations Edit This section contains academic boosterism which primarily serves to praise or promote the subject and may be a sign of a conflict of interest Please improve this article by removing peacock terms weasel words and other promotional material July 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message The following religious and spiritual organizations have a significant on campus presence at Penn A Mainstream Protestantism Dating back to 1857 The Christian Association a k a The CA is composed primarily of students from Mainline Protestant backgrounds 369 Historically the CA ran several foreign missions including one in China 370 and for decades ran a camp for socio economically disadvantaged children from Philadelphia 371 At present the CA occupies part of the parsonage at Tabernacle United Church of Christ 372 B Judaism Organized Jewish life did not begin on campus in earnest until the start of 20th century 373 Jewish Life on campus is centered at Penn branch of Hillel International 374 310 which inspires students to explore Judaism creates patterns of Jewish living that can be sustained after graduation provides religious communities promotes educational initiatives social justice projects social and cultural opportunities and groups focusing on Israel education and politics and hosts a Kosher Penn approved dining hall supervised by the Community Kashrus of Greater Philadelphia 375 In addition to Hillel the other major Jewish organization with significant impact on Penn s campus is The Chabad Lubavitch House at Penn founded in 1980 376 which among other activities brings together Jewish college students with noted Jewish academics for in depth discussions and debate 377 C Roman Catholicism The Penn Newman Catholic Center the Newman Center founded in 1893 as the first Newman Center in the country with the mission of supporting students faculty and staff in their religious endeavors The organization brings prominent Christian figures to campus including Rev Thomas Tom J Hagan OSFS who worked in the Newman Center and founded Haiti based non profit Hands Together 378 and James Martin SJ Wharton undergraduate class of 1982 379 Father Martin an editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America 380 and frequent commentator on the life and teachings of Jesus and Ignatian spirituality is especially well known for his outreach to the LGBT community which has drawn a strong backlash from parts of the Catholic Church but has provided comfort to Penn students and other members of Roman Catholic community who wish to stay connected with their faith and identify as LGBQT 381 382 383 D Hinduism and Jainism Penn funds via the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly or similar undergraduate organization a variety of official clubs focused on India including a number focused on students who are Hindu or Jain such as 1 Pan Asian American Community House PAACH a center for students to celebrate South Asian East Asian Southeast Asian culture and religion 384 2 Rangoli The South Asian Association at Penn that educates and informs Penn students mainly graduate and professional students with ancestry and or interest in South Asia whose goals include a desire to rekindle the spirit of community through events 385 and 3 Penn Hindu amp Jain Association a student run official club at Penn that has 80 to 110 student members and an extensive alumni network dedicated to raise awareness of the Hindu and Jain faiths and foster further development of these communities in the greater Philadelphia area by providing a variety of services and hosting a number of events such as Holi Festival which has been held annually at Penn since 1993 386 387 388 and aims to be a home to anyone seeking to explore their spiritual religious or social interests 389 E Islam In 1963 the Muslim Students Association MSA National and Penn chapter of MSA National were founded to facilitate Muslim life among students on college campuses 390 391 Penn MSA was established to help Penn Muslims build faith and community by fostering a space under the guidance of Islamic principles 392 393 and towards that goal Penn MSA supports mission of its related umbrella organization Islamic Society of North America to foster the development of the Muslim community interfaith relations civic engagement and better understandings of Islam 394 The Muslim Life Program at Penn also provides such support and helped cause Penn in January 2017 to hire its first full time Muslim chaplain the co president of the Association of Campus Muslim Chaplains Sister Patricia Anton whose background includes working with Muslim interfaith academic and peace building institutions such as Islamic Society of North America and Islamic Relief Chaplain Anton s mandate includes supporting and guiding the Penn Muslim community to foster further development of such community by creating a welcoming environment that provides Penn Muslim community opportunities to intellectually and spiritually engage with Islam 395 Penn also has a residential house the Muslim Life Residential Program which provides a live learn environment focused on the appreciation of Islamic culture food history and practice and shows its Penn student residents how Islam is deeply integrated in the culture of Philadelphia so they may appreciate how Islam influences daily life 396 F Buddhism Penn has a Buddhist chaplain 397 398 as well as chaplains of other faiths and funds the Penn Meditation and Buddhism Club which 1 is dedicated to helping Penn students practice mindfulness and meditation and learning about Buddhism 2 conducts weekly meetings that begin with a guided meditation and are followed by discussions of topic s relating to mindfulness and Buddhism and 3 organizes other activities such as ramen nights and weekend meditation retreats to the local Won Buddhism center 399 Athletics EditMain article Penn Quakers Penn s sports teams are nicknamed the Quakers but the teams are often also referred to as The Red and Blue as reflected in the popular song sung after every athletic contest where the Penn Band or other musical groups are present 400 401 The athletes 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 the cricket team which formed in 1842 and played regularly through 1846 the year it lost its grounds and then only played intermittently until 1864 the year it played its first intercollegiate game against Haverford College 402 The rowing or crew team composed of Penn students but not officially representing Penn was formed in 1854 but did not compete against other colleges as official part of Penn until 1879 The rugby football team began to play against other colleges most notably against College of New Jersey now Princeton University in 1874 using a combination of association football i e soccer and rugby rules the twenty players on each side were able to use their hands but were not able to pass or bat the ball forward 403 404 405 Cricket Edit The first University of Pennsylvania cricket team reported to be the first cricket team in the United States composed exclusively of Americans 406 was organized in 1842 by a member of Philadelphia s prominent Wister family William Rotch Wister class of 1846 for Bachelor of Arts and 1849 for Master of Arts 407 Penn never possessed its own ground except in 1846 when it leased one day a week for a total sum of 50 a ground located east of the Delaware River 408 note 12 From 1846 to 1860 there is little evidence of Penn playing cricket but just as Civil War began Penn students resumed playing cricket matches between classes of Penn students On May 7 1864 Penn played its first intercollegiate game against Haverford College 409 410 and then proceeded to play Haverford for three consecutive years until 1869 when the Haverford faculty banned cricket away from their college grounds After Penn moved west of the Schuylkill River in 1872 Penn played cricket at one of the local clubs Belmont Cricket Club the closest to campus at 50th Street and Chester Avenue Merion Cricket Club and Germantown Cricket Club or at Haverford College 409 Though there is evidence of an occasional game during period 1870 through 1875 none were played against other colleges and there were no yearbook pictures for the three years after 1872 when Penn moved from Center City to University City Starting in 1875 and through 1880 Penn fielded a varsity eleven which played a few matches each year against opponents that included Haverford College and Columbia College 411 nbsp George Patterson president of the University of Pennsylvania cricket team in 1877 409 In 1881 Penn Harvard College Haverford College Princeton College then known as College of New Jersey and Columbia College formed The Intercollegiate Cricket Association 410 which Cornell University later joined 402 Penn won The Intercollegiate Cricket Association championship the de facto national championship 23 times 18 solo 3 shared with Haverford and Harvard 1 shared with Haverford and Cornell and 1 shared with just Haverford during the 44 years that The Intercollegiate Cricket Association existed 1881 through 1924 412 In the 1890s Penn s cricket team frequently toured Canada and the British Isles 413 In July 1895 an international cricket match between Canada and the United States was played on the Manheim grounds in Germantown section of Philadelphia with six of the United States team being Penn student athletes and in September of that year past and then current members of Penn s varsity cricket team played past and then current members of the English cricket teams of Oxford and Cambridge resulting in Penn defeating the Oxford Cambridge team by one hundred runs 402 This was not surprising as in the last two and a half decades of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th century Philadelphia was the center of cricket in the United States 414 Cricket had gained in popularity among the upper class from their travels abroad and cricket clubs sprung up all across the Eastern Seaboard even today Philadelphia still has three cricket clubs the Philadelphia Cricket Club the Merion Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club Perhaps the university s most famous cricket player was George Patterson class of 1888 who still holds the North American batting record and who went on to play for the professional Philadelphia Cricket Team 415 Following the First World War cricket began to experience a serious decline as baseball became the preferred sport of the warmer months and Imperial Cricket Conference Cricket s international governing body and forerunner to the current International Cricket Conference ICC introduced a regulation making it clear that only countries within the British empire were welcome to compete 408 such that in 1924 Penn fielded its last team in the twentieth century Starting in 2009 however Penn once again fielded a cricket team albeit club that ended up being the first winner of a tournament for teams from the Ivies 416 Rowing Edit nbsp Penn s eight oared crew in 1901 the first foreign crew to reach the final of the Grand Challenge Cup 417 at Henley Royal Regatta nbsp Joe Burk Wharton School class of 1934 and crew coach from 1950 to 1969 was named the world s greatest oarsman in 1938 418 Rowing at Penn dates back to at least 1854 with the founding of the University Barge Club The university currently hosts both heavyweight and lightweight men s teams and an open weight women s team all of which compete as part of the Eastern Sprints League Ellis Ward was Penn s first intercollegiate crew coach from 1879 through 1912 419 During the course of Ward s coaching career at Penn his Red and Blue crews won 65 races in about 150 starts 420 Importantly Ward coached Penn s 8 oared boat to the finals of the Grand Challenge Cup the oldest and most prized trophy at the Henley Royal Regatta but in that final race was defeated by the champion Leander Club 421 Penn Rowing has produced a long list of famous coaches and Olympians Members of Penn crew team rowers Sidney Jellinek Eddie Mitchell and coxswain John G Kennedy won the bronze medal for the United States at 1924 Olympics 422 Joe Burk class of 1935 was captain of Penn crew team winner of the Henley Diamond Sculls twice named recipient of the James E Sullivan Award for nation s best amateur athlete in 1939 and Penn coach from 1950 to 1969 The 1955 Men s Heavyweight 8 coached by Joe Burk became one of only four American university crews in history to win the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta The outbreak of World War Two canceled the 1940 Olympics for which Burk was favored to win the gold medal Other Penn Olympic athletes and or Penn coaches of such athletes include a John Anthony Pescatore who competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games for the United States as stroke of the men s coxed eight which earned a bronze medal 423 and later competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games in the men s coxless pair b Susan Francia winner of gold medals as part of the women s 8 oared boat at 2008 Olympics and 2012 Olympics c Regina Salmons member of 2021 USA team 424 d Rusty Callow e Harry Parker f Ted Nash 422 and g John B Kelly Jr son of John B Kelly Sr winner of three medals at 1920 Summer Olympics and brother of Princess Grace of Monaco was the second Penn Crew alumnus to win the James E Sullivan Award 425 for being nation s best amateur athlete in 1947 who was winner of a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics The Penn men s crew team won the National Collegiate Rowing Championship in 1991 A member of that team Janusz Hooker Wharton class of 1992 426 won the bronze medal in Men s Quadruple Sculls for Australia at the 1996 Summer Olympics 427 The Penn teams presently row out of College Boat Club No 11 Boathouse Row Rugby Edit nbsp The 1878 Penn Rugby team 428 nbsp John Heisman a University of Pennsylvania Law School class of 1892 alumnus and rugby football player posing at Penn in 1891 holding elongated ellipsoidal rugby ball and gestures resembling the famed Heisman Pose 429 nbsp Lithograph of University of Pennsylvania rugby player in 1907The Penn men s rugby football team is one of the oldest collegiate rugby teams in the United States Indeed Penn first fielded a team in mid 1870s playing by rules much closer to the rugby union and Association football code rules relative to American football rules as such American football rules had not yet been invented 403 Among its earliest games was a game against College of New Jersey which in 1895 changed its name to Princeton played in Philadelphia on Saturday November 11 1876 which was less than two weeks before Princeton met on November 23 1876 with Harvard and Columbia to confirm that all their games would be played using the rugby union rules 430 403 Princeton and Penn played their November 1876 game per a combination of rugby there were 20 players per side and players were able to touch the ball with their hands and Association football codes The rugby code influence was due in part to the fact that some of their students had been educated in English public schools 431 Among the prominent alumni to play in a 19th century version of rugby in which rules then did not allow forward passes or center snaps was John Heisman namesake of the Heisman Trophy and an 1892 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School 432 Heisman was instrumental in the first decade of the 20th century in changing the rules to more closely relate to the present rules of American football 433 One of Heisman s teammates who was unanimously voted Captain in the fall after Heisman graduated was Harry Arista Mackey Penn Law class of 1893 434 who subsequently served as Mayor of Philadelphia from 1928 to 1932 435 In 1906 Rugby per Rugby Union code was reintroduced to Penn 436 as Penn last played per Rugby Union Code in 1882 as Penn played rugby per a number of different rugby football rulebooks and codes from 1883 through 1890s 437 by Frank Villeneuve Nicholson Frank Nicholson rugby union University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine class of 1910 438 who in 1904 had captained the Australian national rugby team in its match against England 439 Penn played per rugby union code rules at least through 1912 contemporaneously with Penn playing American gridiron football Evidence of such may be found in an October 22 1910 Daily Pennsylvanian article quoted below and a yearbook photo 440 that rugby per rugby union code was played Such is the devotion to English rugby football on the part of University of Pennsylvania s students from New Zealand Australia and England that they meet on Franklin Field at 7 o clock every morning and practice the game The varsity track and football squads monopolize the field to such an extent that the early hours of the morning are the only ones during which the rugby enthusiasts can play Any time except Friday Saturday and Sunday a squad of 25 men may be seen running through the hardest kind of practice after which they may divide into two teams and play a hard game Once a week captain CC Walton 11 dental who hails from New Zealand gives the enthusiastic players a blackboard talk in which he explains the intricacies of the game in detail 441 The player coach of United States Olympic gold winning rugby team at the 1924 Summer Olympics was Alan Valentine who played rugby while at Penn which he attended during 1921 1922 academic year as he was getting a master s degree at Wharton 442 Though Penn played rugby per rugby union rules from 1929 through 1934 443 there is no indication that Penn had a rugby team from 1935 through 1959 when Penn men s rugby became permanent due to leadership of Harry Joe Edwin Reagan III 444 Penn s College class of 1962 and Penn Law class of 1965 who also went onto help create and incorporate in 1975 and was Treasurer in 1981 of USA Rugby and Oreste P Rusty D Arconte Penn s College class of 1966 445 Thus with D Arconte s hustle and Reagan s charisma and organizational skills a team which had fielded a side of fifteen intermittently from 1912 through 1960 became permanent In spring of 1984 446 447 Penn women s rugby led by Social Chair Tamara Wayland College class of 1985 who subsequently became the women s representative to and vice president of USA Rugby South from 1996 to 1998 448 Club President Marianne Seligson and Penn Law student Gigi Sohn 449 began to compete Penn women s rugby team is coached as of 2020 by a Adam Dick 450 a 300 level certified coach with over 15 years of rugby coaching experience including being the first coach of the first women s rugby team at the University of Arizona and who was a four year starter at University of Arizona men s first XV rugby team and b Philly women s player Kate Hallinan Penn s men s rugby team plays in the Ivy Rugby Conference 451 and have finished as runners up in both 15s and 7s in the Conference and won the Ivy Rugby Tournament in 1992 452 As of 2011 update the club uses the state of the art facilities at Penn Park The Penn Quakers rugby team played on national TV at the 2013 Collegiate Rugby Championship a college rugby tournament that for number of years had been played each June at PPL Park now known as Subaru Park in Philadelphia and was broadcast live on NBC In their inaugural year of participation the Penn men s rugby team won the Shield Competition beating local Big Five rival Temple University 17 12 in the final In the semifinal match of that Shield Competition Penn Rugby became the first Philadelphia team to beat a non Philadelphia team in CRC history with a 14 12 win over the University of Texas 453 Penn men s rugby as of 2020 454 is coached by Tiger Bax 455 a former professional rugby player hailing from Cape Town South Africa whose playing experience includes stints in the Super Rugby competition with the Stormers 15s and Mighty Mohicans 7s as well as with the Gallagher Premiership Rugby side Saracens 456 and whose coaching experience includes three successful years as coach at Valley Rugby Football Club in Hong Kong and Tyler May from Cherry Hill New Jersey who played rugby at Pennsylvania State University where he was a first XV player for three years Players on the 2019 men s team came from 11 countries Australia Botswana Chile Great Britain Malaysia Netherlands New Zealand China Taiwan South Africa and the United States Penn s graduate business and law schools also fielded rugby teams The Wharton rugby team has competed from 1978 to the present 457 The Penn Law Rugby team 1985 through 1993 counts among its alumni Walter Joseph Jay Clayton III 458 Penn Law class of 1993 and chair of the U S Securities and Exchange Commission from May 4 2017 until December 23 2020 Raymond Hulser former Chief of Public Integrity Section of United States Department of Justice 459 and Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart 460 who approved the search of Mar a Lago the residence of former U S president Donald Trump in Palm Beach Florida 461 Other recent Penn Rugby Alumni include Conor Lamb Penn College class of 2006 and Penn Law class of 2009 who played for undergraduate team and had an additional year of eligibility allowing him to continue to playing for undergraduate team while a student at Penn Law per USA Rugby rules and as of 2021 is a member of United States House of Representatives elected originally to Pennsylvania s 18th congressional district since 2019 is a U S Representative from Pennsylvania s 17th congressional district Football Edit Main article Penn Quakers football nbsp Chuck Bednarik also known as Concrete Charlie was a three time All American at Penn who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame the first player selected in the 1949 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles where he went on to win the 1960 NFL Championship and was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame Penn first fielded a football team against Princeton at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia on November 11 1876 430 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 430 Among the key players on the teams from 1897 to 1900 was Truxton Hare Sr who was selected as a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 While primarily a guard he also ran punted kicked off and drop kicked extra points The achievements of two of Penn s other outstanding players from that era John Heisman a Law School alumnus and John Outland a Penn Med alumnus 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 Also each year the Bednarik Award is given to college football s best defensive player Chuck Bednarik class of 1949 was a three time All American center linebacker who starred on the 1947 team and is generally regarded as Penn s all time finest In addition to Bednarik the 1947 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 1930s Bednarik went on to play for 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969 Penn s game against University of California at Berkeley on September 29 1951 in front of a crowd of 60 000 at Franklin Field was first college football game to be broadcast in color 462 463 ESPN s College GameDay traveled to Penn to highlight the Harvard Penn game on November 17 2002 the first time the show had visited an Ivy League campus Ice hockey Edit Main article Penn Quakers men s ice hockey nbsp University of Pennsylvania team in front of photo of College Hall in 1896 97 its first season of existence featuring George Orton the future winner of gold medal in the 1900 Summer Olympics 2500 meter steeplechase top row second from the end of the right sidePenn s first ice hockey team competed during the 1896 97 academic year and joined the nascent Intercollegiate Hockey Association IHA in 1898 99 On the first team in 1896 97 were several players of Canadian background among them middle distance runner and Olympian George Orton the first disabled person to compete in the Olympics Penn fielded teams intermittently until 1965 when it formed a varsity squad that was terminated in 1977 Penn now fields a club team that plays in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II 464 is a member of the Colonial States College Hockey Conference and continues to play at the Class of 1923 Arena in Philadelphia Pennsylvania 465 Basketball Edit Main article Penn Quakers men s basketball Penn basketball is steeped in tradition Penn made its only and the Ivy League s second Final Four 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 Villanova and Drexel 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 amp M Penn last made the NCAA tournament in 2018 where it lost to top seeded Kansas 466 nbsp University of Pennsylvania senior Ibby Jaaber sits on top of the rim after Penn defeated Yale 86 68 on March 2 2007 to clinch the 2006 07 Ivy League championship Penn s 25th Olympic athletes Edit nbsp The University of Pennsylvania men s track team was the 1907 IC4A point winner Left to right Guy Haskins R C Folwell T R Moffitt John Baxter Taylor Jr the first black athlete in the U S to win a gold medal in the Olympics 467 Nathaniel Cartmell and J D Whitham seated At least 43 different Penn alumni have earned 81 Olympic medals 26 gold 468 note 13 Penn won more of its medals 468 which were actually cups trophies or plaques as medals were not introduced until a later Olympics at 1900 Summer Olympics held in Paris than at any other Olympics 469 Penn s track and field alumni who won 21 medals at the 1900 Paris Olympics are 1 Alvin Kraenzlein University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine class of 1900 470 known as the father of the modern hurdling technique 471 who was first sportsman in the history of Olympic games to win four individual gold medals in a single discipline 472 473 2 Josiah McCracken MD University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine class of 1901 who won the silver medal in the shot put and a bronze medal for the hammer throw 474 475 476 3 John Walter Tewksbury Penn Dental School class of 1899 who won five medals gold in the 200 meter dash and 400 meter hurdles silver in the 60 meter dash and 100 meter dash and a bronze in the 200 meter hurdles 477 4 Irving Baxter Penn Law class of 1901 who won five medals including gold in both the men s high jump and men s pole vault and silver in all three of the standing jumps long triple and high 478 479 5 Meredith Colket College Class of 1901 BS Penn Law class of 1904 who won the silver medal in the pole vault 480 6 Truxton Hare Penn Law class of 1904 who won the silver medal in the hammer throw 481 and at 1904 Summer Olympics held in St Louis Missouri won i bronze medal in the all around discipline which consisted of 100 yard run shot put high jump 880 yard walk hammer throw pole vault 120 yard hurdles long jump and one mile run and ii gold medal as part of United States tug of war team 481 and 7 George Orton University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Arts and Sciences class of 1894 MA and class of 1896 PhD who as first physically disabled Olympic athlete won a gold medal in the 2 500 meter run and a bronze metal in the 400 meter hurdles 482 The first African American in the United States to win an Olympic gold medal at an Olympics the 1908 London Olympics as part of Medley relay where he ran the third leg the 400 meters was John Taylor University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine class of 1908 Taylor was followed by William Hamilton and Nate Cartmell fellow Penn athlete 467 In the 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo Japan in summer of 2021 nine Penn students and alumni played in six different sports from six different countries 483 Curling Edit University of Pennsylvania Curling Club qualified for the 2023 National Championship at 6th place the same ranking they qualified for the 2022 National Championship where they finished in 2nd place but in 2023 the team won the national championship by defeating arch rival Princeton University in the championship match 6 to 3 484 485 Penn Curling also won the National Championship in 2016 and is the only East Coast team to have won the Curling National Championship 486 Facilities Edit nbsp Penn s Franklin Field in photograph taken shortly after completion of the upper deck in 1925 Franklin Field with a present seating capacity of 52 593 487 is where the Quakers play football lacrosse sprint football and track and field and formerly played baseball field hockey soccer and rugby It is the a oldest stadium still operating for college football games 488 b first stadium to sport two tiers 489 c first stadium in the country to have a scoreboard d second stadium to have a radio broadcast of football in 1922 as Pitt versus West Virginia was broadcast in 1921 e first stadium from which a commercially televised football game was broadcast in 1940 487 and f first stadium from which college football game was broadcast in color on September 29 1951 490 Franklin Field also played host to the Philadelphia Eagles from 1958 to 1970 where installation of artificial turf in 1969 caused it to be first NFL stadium to have such artificial turf 487 and was the site of 18 Army Navy games between 1899 and 1935 491 It is currently also used by Penn students for recreation such as intramural and club sports including touch football and cricket Since 1895 Franklin Field has hosted the annual collegiate track and field event the Penn Relays which is the oldest and largest track and field competition in the United States 492 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 and other high school sporting events The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility Penn staff and students make use of the Palestra to play and or watch basketball volleyball and fencing Penn s River Fields hosts a number of athletic fields including the Rhodes Soccer Stadium for both women s and men s soccer which includes elevated stands for 650 spectators a 180 degree rotating scoreboard and the Rapaport Family Suite the Ellen Vagelos C 90 Field Hockey Field with special artificial turf and Irving Moon Mondschein Throwing Complex for javelin shot put discus and Hammer throw 493 In addition Penn baseball plays its home games at Meiklejohn Stadium at Murphy Field Penn s Class of 1923 Arena with seating for up to 3 000 people was built to host the University of Pennsylvania Varsity Ice Hockey Team which has been disbanded and now hosts or in the past hosted a Penn s Men s and Penn Women s club ice hockey teams b practices and or exhibition games for the Philadelphia Flyers Colorado Avalanche and Carolina Hurricanes c roller hockey for the Philadelphia Bulldogs professional team and d rock concerts such as one in 1982 featuring Prince 494 495 496 The Olympic Boycott Games of 1980 was 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 nbsp Palestra interior in 2016 nbsp Exterior of the Palestra in April 2007Notable people EditMain article List of University of Pennsylvania people See also List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Gallery Edit nbsp Benjamin Franklin Founding Father one of the drafters and signers of the Declaration of Independence 1st Postmaster General nbsp Francis Hopkinson signed the Declaration of Independence and designed the first official American flag nbsp George Clymer Founding Father early advocate for complete independence from Britain nbsp Benjamin Rush Founding Father surgeon general of the Continental Army nbsp William Henry Harrison 9th president of the United States nbsp Donald Trump 45th president of the United States nbsp Joe Biden 46th President of the United States 47th Vice President of the United States Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor 497 nbsp Martin Luther King Jr leader of the civil rights movement recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize King audited several courses at University of Pennsylvania 498 nbsp Alice Paul one of the foremost leaders and strategists of the women s suffrage movement nbsp George W Wickersham 47th United States Attorney General nbsp Robert J Walker 18th United States Secretary of the Treasury United States Senator from Mississippi 4th Territorial Governor of Kansas nbsp Frances Perkins longest serving United States Secretary of Labor instrumental figure in the development the social security nbsp Jon Huntsman Jr 6th Governor of Utah United States Ambassador to China United States Ambassador to Russia nbsp James Wilson Founding Father one of the six original justices appointed by George Washington to the Supreme Court of the United States nbsp Owen J Roberts Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court nbsp William Brennan Jr Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court nbsp Kwame Nkrumah first president of Ghana and previously first prime minister of Ghana nbsp Alassane Ouattara President of Cote de Ivoire since 2010 nbsp Drew Gilpin Faust 28th president of Harvard University nbsp Doc Holliday famed gunslinger attended the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery nbsp William Wrigley Jr founder and eponym of the Wm Wrigley Jr Company nbsp Physician and poet William Carlos Williams graduated from Penn s School of Medicine nbsp Ezra Pound poet and critic a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement nbsp Noam Chomsky studied philosophy and linguistics at Penn graduating with a BA in 1949 an MA in 1951 and a PhD in 1955 nbsp Warren Buffett chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway 499 500 nbsp Donald Arthur Norman co founder of the Nielsen Norman Group 501 an IDEO fellow and researcher and advocate of user centered design nbsp Elon Musk a founder CEO or both of all of PayPal 502 Tesla 503 SpaceX 504 OpenAI The Boring Company Neuralink and Twitter nbsp Tory Burch fashion designer and founder of Tory Burch LLC nbsp John Legend musician and recipient of Academy Emmy Grammy and Tony Awards nbsp Stanley B Prusiner neurologist and biochemist recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine nbsp Christian B Anfinsen biochemist recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry nbsp I M Pei Pritzker Prize winning architectOverview Edit Penn alumni include those who have distinguished themselves in the sciences academia politics business military arts and media 505 Some eleven heads of state or government have been affiliated with Penn former president Donald Trump 505 former president William Henry Harrison who attended the medical school for less than a semester 506 current president Joe Biden who served as a Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor and led the Penn Biden Center 507 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 Ivory Coast Alassane Ouattara Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include India s former minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha 508 509 former ambassador and Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr Mexico s current minister of finance Ernesto J Cordero former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter and former Pennsylvania governor and DNC chair Ed Rendell 510 Penn alumni have also served in several positions in the United States cabinet Notable alumni include Secretary of Defense Thomas S Gates US Attorney Generals Henry Dilworth Gilpin Caesar Augustus Rodney and George W Wickersham Secretaries of the Treasury Robert John Walker and William M Meredith Secretaries of Labor Ann Dore McLaughlin and Frances Perkins the longest serving Secretary of Labor and first woman to serve in a Presidential Cabinet six Secretaries of the Navy a Surgeon General of the United States C Everett Koop Penn alumni or faculty also include three United States Supreme Court justices William J Brennan Owen J Roberts and James Wilson Supreme Court justices of foreign states e g Ronald Wilson of the High Court of Australia Ayala Procaccia of the Israel Supreme Court Yvonne Mokgoro former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Irish Court of Appeal justice Gerard Hogan Penn is also a top feeder school for careers in finance and investment banking on Wall Street 511 and its alumni have a strong presence in financial and economic life Penn alumni include 64 living billionaires 28 of whom are undergraduate alumni billionaires as Penn has the second highest number of undergrad billionaire alumni with only Harvard with only one more but Penn undergraduate alumni billionaires have accumulated over 65 billion more in wealth than Harvard s 512 513 Penn alumni who received federal aid 10 years after starting at Penn have the highest median incomes among alumni of Ivy League schools 514 and Penn has educated many governors leaders of national central banks including Dawne Williams St Kitts Nevis Anguilla National Bank Yasin Anwar Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan Ignazio Visco Governor of the Bank of Italy Kim Choongsoo Governor of Bank of Korea Zeti Akhtar Aziz Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia Pridiyathorn Devakula governor Bank of Thailand and former minister of finance Farouk El Okdah Central Bank of Egypt John Moran Secretary General of the Department of Finance Ireland Alfonso Prat Gay President of the Central Bank of Argentina and leader of Ministry of Economy Argentina and the director of the United States National Economic Council Gene Sperling 515 Other alumni include Warren Buffett note 14 CEO of Berkshire Hathaway 505 Steven A Cohen founder of SAC Capital Advisors and Robert Kapito president of BlackRock the world s largest asset manager 516 Penn alumni who are founders of technology companies include Ralph J Roberts co founder of Comcast Elon Musk co founder of PayPal Tesla OpenAI and Neuralink founder of SpaceX and The Boring Company Leonard Bosack co founder of Cisco David J Brown co founder of Silicon Graphics and Mark Pincus founder of Zynga the company behind FarmVille Among other distinguished alumni are the current or past presidents of over one hundred universities including Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust Harvard s first female president Cornell University Martha E Pollack Penn Judith Rodin first female president in the Ivy League Princeton University Harold Dodds the University of California Mark Yudof Carnegie Mellon University Jared Cohon and Northwestern University Morton O Schapiro citation needed Penn s alumni also include poets William Augustus Muhlenberg Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky 505 architect Louis Kahn cartoonist Charles Addams actresses Candice Bergen and Elizabeth Banks journalist Joe Klein and fashion designer Tory Burch Penn alumni have won a 53 Tony Awards 517 518 b 17 Grammy Awards 519 c 25 Emmy Awards 520 521 d 13 Academy Awards and one alumnus 522 who has earned all four awards known as an EGOT note 15 as exemplified by EGOT recipient recording artist John Legend 523 Within the ranks of Penn s most historic graduates are also eight signers of the Declaration of Independence 524 525 and seven signers of the United States Constitution 526 and 24 members of the Continental Congress These historic figures 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 527 528 Penn alumni have also had a significant impact on the United States military as they include Samuel Nicholas United States Marine Corps founder and William A Newell whose congressional action formed a predecessor to the current United States Coast Guard 529 p 1 col 5 p 2 col 1 and numerous alumni have become generals or similar rank in the United States Armed Forces At least 2 Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts 530 531 and 5 Penn alumni have been awarded the Medal of Honor 27 28 As of 2023 there have been 38 Nobel laureates affiliated see List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania 532 505 16 of whom four are current faculty members and eight are alumni citation needed Penn also educated members of the United States National Academies and the Academy of Arts and Sciences citation needed eight National Medal of Science laureates numerous Sloan Fellows several members of the American Philosophical Society many Guggenheim Fellowships several Pulitzer Prize winners four Turing Award winners and a Fields Medalist 533 534 535 536 537 Alumni relations and inter Ivy events Edit In addition to active alumni chapters globally in 1989 the university bought a 14 story clubhouse building purpose built for Yale Club in New York City from Touro College for 15 million 538 to house Penn s largest alumni chapter After raising a separate 25 million including 150 000 donations each from such alumni as Estee Lauder heirs Leonard Lauder and Ronald Lauder Saul Steinberg Michael Milken Donald Trump and Ronald Perelman and two years of renovation 539 the Penn Club of New York moved to its current location at 30 West 44th Street on NYC s Clubhouse Row 540 across the street from the Harvard Club of New York City a block west of the Cornell Club of New York and two blocks west of the Yale Club of New York City It also is one block north of the closed due to bank default 541 in 2021 former Princeton Club of New York and joins with those clubs in inter Ivy events Although its university is located in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan the Columbia University Club of New York does not have its own clubhouse and shares the 30 West 44th Street clubhouse with the Penn Club The New York region of Columbia maintains an office in the Penn Club See also Edit nbsp Philadelphia portal nbsp Pennsylvania portalList of universities by number of billionaire alumni Education in Philadelphia Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program TTCSP University of Pennsylvania PressNotes Edit It was not until 1785 that the name was made official as between 1779 and 1785 name was simply University in Philadelphia see Statutes of the Trustees University of Pennsylvania Retrieved September 12 2022 a b The university officially uses 1740 as its founding date and has since 1899 The ideas and intellectual inspiration for the academic institution stem from 1749 with a pamphlet published by Benjamin Franklin 1705 1706 1790 When Franklin s institution was established it inhabited a schoolhouse built on November 14 1740 for another school which never came to practical fruition 2 Penn archivist Mark Frazier Lloyd noted In 1899 UPenn s Trustees adopted a resolution that established 1740 as the founding date but good cases may be made for 1749 when Franklin first convened the Trustees or 1751 when the first classes were taught at the affiliated secondary school for boys Academy of Philadelphia or 1755 when Penn obtained its collegiate charter to add a post secondary institution the College of Philadelphia 3 Princeton s library presents another diplomatically phrased view 4 Penn is the fourth oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution The College of Philadelphia which became Penn College of New Jersey which became Princeton University and King s College which later became Columbia College and ultimately Columbia University all originated within a few years of each other After initially designating 1750 as its founding date Penn later considered 1749 to be its founding date for more than a century with Penn alumni observing a centennial celebration in 1849 In 1895 several elite universities in the United States convened in New York City as the Intercollegiate Commission at the invitation of John J McCook a Union Army officer during the American Civil War and member of Princeton s board of trustees who chaired its Committee on Academic Dress The primary purpose of the conference was to standardize American academic regalia which was accomplished through the adoption of the Intercollegiate Code on Academic Costume This formalized protocol included a provision that established academic processions and placed visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution s founding dates The following year Penn s The Alumni Register magazine published by the General Alumni Society began a campaign to retroactively revise the university s founding date to 1740 to become older than Princeton which had been chartered in 1746 Three years later in 1899 the university s board of trustees acceded to this alumni initiative and officially changed its founding date from 1749 to 1740 altering its rank in academic processions and offering the informal bragging rights associated with the age based hierarchy in academia 35 Princeton implicitly challenges this rationale 36 37 Further complicating the comparison a University of Edinburgh educated Presbyterian minister from Scotland 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 Princeton because five members of Princeton s first Board of Trustees were affiliated with it including Gilbert Tennent William Tennent Jr and Samuel Finley the latter of whom later became president of Princeton All 12 members of Princeton s first Board of Trustees were leaders from the New Side or New Light wing of the Presbyterian Church in the New Jersey New York and Pennsylvania areas 38 This antecedent relationship when considered a formal lineage with institutional continuity would justify placing Princeton s founding date back to 1726 which would make it earlier than Penn s 1740 founding However Princeton has not asserted this and a Princeton historian says that the facts do not warrant such an interpretation 39 Columbia also implicitly challenges Penn s use of either 1750 1749 or 1740 as its founding date since it claims to be the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States after Harvard William amp Mary Yale and Princeton based on its charter date of 1754 and Penn s charter date of 1755 40 Academic histories of American higher education typically list Penn variously as either the nation s fifth or sixth oldest institution of higher learning in the nation after Princeton and immediately before or after Columbia 41 42 43 Even Penn s account of its early history agrees that the Academy of Philadelphia did not add the College of Philadelphia until 1755 but university officials continue to make it their practice to assert their fourth oldest place in academic processions Other American universities that began in the colonial era such as St John s College which was founded as King William s School in 1696 and the University of Delaware which was founded as the Free Academy in 1743 choose to utilize the dates they became institutions of higher learning Penn history professor Edgar Potts Cheyney was a member of the Penn class of 1883 who played a leading role in the 1896 1899 alumni campaign to change the university s formal founding date According to Cheyney s later recollection the university considered its founding date to be 1749 for almost a century However it was changed with good reason and primarily due to a publication about the university issued by the U S Commissioner of Education written by Francis Newton Thorpe a fellow alumnus and colleague in the Penn history department The year 1740 is the date of the establishment of the university s first educational trust Cheyney states that it might be considered a lawyer s date it is a familiar legal practice in considering the date of any institution to seek out the oldest trust it administers He also points out that Harvard s founding date is also the year in which the Massachusetts General Court the state legislature of Massachusetts at the time of its founding resolved to establish a fund in a year s time for a school or college Princeton claims its founding date is 1746 the date of its first charter However the exact words of the charter are unknown the number and names of the trustees in the charter are unknown and no known original of the charter is known to exist Except for Columbia University the majority of colonial era colleges and universities do not have clear cut dates of foundation 44 d On November 27 1779 the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed an act for the establishment of a University incorporating the rights and powers of the College Academy and Charitable School This was the first designation of an institution in the United States as a University e On September 22 1785 an act was passed naming the University the University of the State of Pennsylvania See Statues of the Trustees University of Pennsylvania Retrieved September 12 2022 As Penn moved West College Hall continued to be the name of Penn s headquarters building and now serves as location of The Office of the President See President s Center University of Pennsylvania Retrieved June 5 2022 The College Hall on the 4th and Arch Street campus was the first of three Penn buildings named College Hall The College Hall on the 9th Street campus was the second of three Penn buildings named College Hall the first the one that served as temporary for 10 days Capitol of United States being located on the original campus at 4th and Arch Streets In 1753 a Presbyterian minister without a pulpit Reverend Kinnersley was elected Chief Master in the College of Philadelphia and in 1755 was appointed professor of English and oratory See Wilson J G Fiske J eds 1892 Kinnersley Ebenezer Appletons Cyclopaedia of American Biography New York D Appleton Now known at Penn as St Elmo s Club with male and female members St Elmo Club St Elmo Club Archived from the original on May 26 2016 Retrieved August 18 2021 In 1790 the first lecture on law was given by James Wilson however a full time program was not offered until 1850 160 Note other sources states Class of 1930 299 the cricket ground was on land owned by the Union Club of Camden New Jersey which in 1840 arguably organized the first cricket team in the United States and site was formerly occupied by Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company 409 See list of University of Pennsylvania people athletics section for list of Penn Olympic medal winners replete with hyperlinks Buffett studied at Penn for two years before he transferred to the University of Nebraska See List of University of Pennsylvania people Arts media and entertainment section for list of Penn alumni who earned Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony award winners replete with hyperlinks References Edit Penn in the 18th Century upenn edu Archived from the original on April 28 2006 Retrieved July 20 2021 Penn History Exhibits University Archives and Records Center Archived from the original on August 22 2019 Retrieved January 31 2019 A Penn Trivial Pursuit Penn Current June 3 2011 Archived from the original on June 3 2011 Seeley G Mudd Library FAQ Princeton vs University of Pennsylvania Which is the Older Institution March 19 2003 Archived from the original on March 19 2003 As of June 30 2023 About Us Penn Office of Investments Report Penn Office of Investments June 30 2023 Retrieved October 17 2023 Operating Budget Office of Budget and Management Analysis University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on November 12 2019 Retrieved January 19 2020 Snyder Susan January 25 2023 Penn appoints Annenberg dean John L Jackson Jr its next provost The Inquirer Retrieved September 4 2023 a b c d e f g h Penn Penn Facts University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on October 23 2019 Retrieved January 18 2020 Facts University of Pennsylvania www upenn edu a b c Common Data Set 2022 2023 PDF University of Pennsylvania Archived PDF from the original on August 3 2023 Retrieved September 12 2023 Elements of the Penn Logo Branding Web Resources UPenn edu Retrieved November 14 2022 The registered trademark as the primary substitute for using the University s full name and part of official brand accessed June 9 2021 Permissible in situations where it may help to distinguish Penn from other universities within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and used as part of email address accessed June 9 2021 Penn Research By the Numbers University of Pennsylvania website These are the 10 oldest stadiums in Division I college football NCAA July 26 2022 a b Nobel Prize Awarded to Covid Vaccine Pioneers https www nytimes com 2023 10 02 health nobel prize medicine html smid nytcore android share accessed October 2 2023 Congratulations to Claudia Goldin who was awarded the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences today University of Pennsylvania October 9 2023 Retrieved October 14 2023 https www turing ac uk search node keys University 20of 20Pennsylvania 20 amp page 1 2C0 access date September 10 2023 Charles W Bachman A M Turing Award Retrieved June 13 2023 Lambert Max 1991 Who s Who in New Zealand 1991 12th ed Auckland Octopus p 331 ISBN 9780790001302 Retrieved July 29 2015 Vaughan Jones University of St Andrews Retrieved September 9 2020 Colleges and Universities with U S Rhodes Scholarship Winners The Rhodes Scholarships www rhodeshouse ox ac uk Retrieved February 5 2023 Two Penn seniors named 2022 Marshall Scholars Penn CURF curf upenn edu Retrieved February 5 2023 https poetsandquantsforundergrads com news this school has the most billionaire alumni and https www forbes com sites conormurray 2022 10 02 billionaire alma maters the 11 most popular colleges among americas richest sh 9d31b4b4a6cd accessed September 11 2023 https www garrettreisman com and https news seas upenn edu pieces of penn history return from space Biographical Data PDF Archived PDF from the original on February 12 2021 Retrieved October 14 2023 a b Ahern Joseph James Hawley Scott W January 2011 Congressional Medals of Honor Recipients from the Civil War University Archives and Records Center Penn University Archives and Records Center a b Frederick C Murphy Our Facility s Namesake archives gov National Archives at Boston August 15 2016 Retrieved October 14 2023 see second footnote 9 in Extracts from the Benjamin Franklin published Pennsylvania Gazette January 3 to December 25 1740 Founders Online https founders archives gov documents Franklin 01 02 02 0065 Note The annotations to this document and any other modern editorial content are copyright c the American Philosophical Society and Yale University All rights reserved a b Montgomery Thomas Harrison 1900 A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A D 1770 Philadelphia George W Jacobs amp Co LCCN 00003240 Richard Peters Archives upenn edu January 24 2022 Retrieved May 31 2022 Friedman Steven Morgan A Brief History of the University University of Pennsylvania Archives Archives upenn edu Archived from the original on January 2 2010 Retrieved December 9 2010 a b c d Wood George Bacon 1834 The History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Origin to the Year 1827 McCarty and Davis LCCN 07007833 OCLC 760190902 a b c Penn in the 18th Century University of Pennsylvania Archives University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on April 28 2006 Retrieved April 29 2006 Gazette Building Penn s Brand Sept Oct 2002 www upenn edu Archived from the original on November 20 2005 Retrieved January 25 2006 History Princeton University Archived from the original on August 5 2019 Retrieved May 16 2019 Princeton University in the American Revolution Princeton University Archived from the original on April 3 2016 Who founded Princeton University and when Princeton University Archived from the original on November 5 2013 Log College Princeton University Archived from the original on November 17 2005 Retrieved January 30 2006 History Columbia University in the City of New York www columbia edu Archived from the original on May 17 2019 Retrieved May 16 2019 COH 03 057 Page 45 dmr bsu edu Archived from the original on January 22 2020 Retrieved May 16 2019 American Colonial Colleges PDF scholarship rice edu Archived PDF from the original on January 16 2013 Retrieved May 16 2019 Zubatsky David 2007 The History of American Colleges and Their Libraries in The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries PDF ideals illinois edu Archived PDF from the original on October 28 2014 Retrieved May 16 2019 Edgar Potts Cheyney History of the University of Pennsylvania 1740 1940 Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press 1940 pp 45 52 Penn s Heritage University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on April 22 2016 Retrieved May 8 2016 N Landsman From Colonials to Provincials American Thought and Culture 1680 1760 Ithaca Cornell University Press 1997 p 30 Extracts from the Pennsylvania Gazette January 3 to December 25 1740 Founders Online https founders archives gov documents Franklin 01 02 02 0065 Penn Trustees 1749 1800 University of Pennsylvania University Archives Archived from the original on November 25 2012 Retrieved July 23 2013 Cheyney Edward Potts 1940 History of the University of Pennsylvania 1740 1940 History of the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press 46 48 Archived from the original on May 24 2011 Retrieved August 19 2011 Cheyney was a Penn professor and alumnus from the class of 1883 who advocated the change in Penn s founding date in 1899 to appear older than both Princeton and Columbia The explanation It will have been noted that 1740 is the date of the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself is Professor Cheyney s justification pp 47 48 for Penn retroactively changing its founding date not language used by the Board of Trustees Presidents of Penn Alumni www archives upenn edu Archived from the original on July 19 2016 Retrieved August 24 2016 University of Pennsylvania World Digital Library Archived from the original on January 1 2014 Retrieved February 14 2013 The University of Pennsylvania America s First University University Archives and Records Center University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on July 11 2006 Retrieved April 29 2006 William Rotch Wister University Archives and Records Center Retrieved August 20 2022 See also Statutes of the Trustees University of Pennsylvania Retrieved September 12 2022 Meeting Places for the Continental Congresses and the Confederation Congress 1774 1789 Retrieved January 30 2022 Riley Edward M 1953 The Independence Hall Group Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 43 1 7 42 doi 10 2307 1005661 ISSN 0065 9746 JSTOR 1005661 College Hall Philadelphia Pennsylvania July 2 1778 to July 20 1778 unitedstatescapitals org U S Senate The Nine Capitals of the United States United States Senate Archived from the original on June 16 2021 Retrieved May 30 2022 see also Ford Worthington C Hunt Gaillard Fitzpatrick John C Hill Roscoe R eds Journals of the Continental Congress JCC 1774 1789 A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation U S Congressional Documents and Databases 1774 1875 Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 13 104 114 via Library of Congress Rush 1787 kdhist sitehost iu edu Retrieved February 27 2023 Renker Elizabeth M 1989 Declaration Men and the Rhetoric of Self Presentation Early American Literature 24 2 123 and n 10 there JSTOR 25056766 Rush Benjamin 1970 1948 George Washington Corner ed The autobiography of Benjamin Rush his Travels through life together with his Commonplace book for 1789 1813 Westport CT Greenwood Press Benjamin Rush 1746 1813 University of Pennsylvania Archived from the original on June 10 2011 Retrieved August 20 2011 a b c Penn in the 18th Century Student Life A Campus Shared by the College the Academy and the Charity School University of Pennsylvania Retrieved August 18 2021 University of Pennsylvania s The Alumni Register June 1905 article by Isaac Anderson Pennypacker Penn College Class of 02 pp 408 412 A Description of Life at the Academy and College of Philadelphia by Student Alexander Graydon 1811 University of Pennsylvania Retrieved August 18 2021 Bell Whitfield J and Charles Greifenstein Jr Patriot Improvers Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society 3 volumes 1997 volume I pages 80 90 154 339 40 volume II pages 69 179 volume III pages 22 33 41 200 207 298 307 533 needs to be confirmed as this cite was copied from other Wikipedia entry for Kinnersley Ebenezer Kinnersley 1711 1778 University of Pennsylvania Retrieved August 18 2021 October 17 1775 Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Minute Books 1768 1779 1789 1791 Vol II College Academy and Charitable School University of Pennsylvania p 93 via Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image The Trustees Minutes and a 1779 Plan of the College Early Fraternities Delta Phi St Elmo University of Pennsylvania Retrieved April 7 2021 Early Penn Fraternities University Archives and Records Center Histories of Early Penn Fraternities Earliest Account of Penn Fraternities University of Pennsylvania Retrieved April 7 2021 excerpted from the diary of George D Budd 1843 1874 who received his A B from Penn in 1862 and LL B from Penn Law in 1865 Histories of Early Penn Fraternities University Archives and Records Center Penn Retrieved May 12 2021 Baltzell Digby 1996 Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia Piscataway NJ Transaction Publishers p 253 ISBN 978 1560008309 a b Linck Elizabeth 1990 The Quadrangle University of Pennsylvania Archives amp Records Center Archived from the original on February 19 2019 Retrieved March 16 2019 Pieczynski Denise 1990 National Crisis Institutional Change Penn and the Civil War PDF University of Pennsylvania Archives amp Records Center Archived PDF from the original on March 2 2019 Retrieved April 26 2021 link rel, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.