Academy of Philadelphia

The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universities by numerous organizations and scholars. While the university dates its founding to 1740, it was created by Benjamin Franklin and other Philadelphia citizens in 1749. It is a member of the Ivy League.

The university has four undergraduate schools as well as twelve 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 wrote the first draft of the United States Constitution, its medical school, the first in North America, and Wharton, the first collegiate business school. Penn's endowment is US$20.7 billion, putting it amongst the wealthiest academic institutions in the world, and its 2019 research budget was $1.02 billion.

Penn was one of nine colonial colleges chartered before 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. The campus, in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, is centered around College Hall, and notable landmarks are Houston Hall, the first modern " student union", and Franklin Field, the first double-decker college football stadium. Penn also is the home of the Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is located 15 miles northwest of the campus, in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. The university's athletics program, the Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

Throughout its existence, Penn alumni, trustees, and/or faculty have included 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 7 signers of the U.S. Constitution, 2 Presidents of the United States, 3 Supreme Court justices, 32 U.S. senators, 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 12 U.S. Cabinet Secretaries, 46 governors, and 9 foreign heads of state. Alumni and or faculty include 36 Nobel laureates and 33 Rhodes Scholars. Penn alumni (a) have won 28 Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards, 11 Emmy Awards, and 4 Academy Awards and (b) include one of only 17 people who have earned all 4 awards (an EGOT). In addition, Penn has the greatest number of alumni on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans out of all colleges and has the greatest number of undergraduate billionaire alumni of all colleges, with 64 living billionaires, 28 of whom are alumni of Penn's undergraduate schools. Penn alumni have won 81 Olympic medals (26 of them gold). Two Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts and 5 have been awarded the United States Armed Forces' highest award for gallantry, the Medal of Honor.

History

Origins of the college

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.

In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open-air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time in which it was preached. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well, 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 749 to 1776
President of board of trustees 756 to 1764 and
Treasurer of board of trustees 769 to 1770 and nothing further was done by Franklin for another six years when he again contacted not just Peters but many others. In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin 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".

Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749— Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, and the College of New Jersey—Franklin's new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith (1727–1803), who became the first provost, and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional curriculum.

Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the board of trustees 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, which was still vacant, would be an even better site.

The original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklin's group to assume their debts and, accordingly, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, the new board 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, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was chartered on July 13, 1753, by the intentions of the original "New Building" 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. All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution. The first commencement exercises were held on May 17, 1757.

The institution of higher learning was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Reverend William Smith's "Loyalist" tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a "University" (which in 1785 the legislature changed name to University of the State of Pennsylvania). The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791, the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.

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; this is the year that appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to consider 1749 as its founding date and this year was referenced for over a century, including at the centennial celebration in 1849. 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". 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.

First university

The University of Pennsylvania also considers itself as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies. 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 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").

Original campus

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. When the British abandoned Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, Penn's then only academic building "College Hall" served as temporary meeting site of the Second Continental Congress (from July 2 to July 13, 1778) as the British armed forces extensively damaged many parts of the city including the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), the site in which the Second Continental Congress had convened on May 10, 1775 and had been forced to abandon on December 12, 1776 to escape capture by the British. The Second Continental Congress delegates returned to Philadelphia on learning of the British retreat and by July 7, 1778, acquired a quorum, and thus were able to re-convene Congress on Penn's College of Philadelphia campus (briefly establishing Penn as site of capital of the United States). Such status as capital of the United States is evidenced by letter sent on July 13, 1778, from Josiah Bartlett (a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence) to John Langdon (who was Bartlett's fellow New Hampshire "Founding Father" as Langdon later became a signatory of the United States Constitution):

9th Street campus

In 1801, 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 temporary national capital.

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, and surgeon general of the Continental Army.

Classes were held in the mansion until 1829 when it was demolished. Architect William Strickland designed twin buildings on the same site, College Hall 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

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

In the 1750s, roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging as they came from areas too far to commute including other colonies in the South or the West Indies. 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 (who did not graduate) alumnus Alexander Graydon).

In 1765, the campus was expanded by the opening of the newly completed dormitory run by Ben Franklin's collaborator on study of electricity using electrostatic machines and related technology and Penn Professor and "chief master" Ebenezer Kinnersley. Kinnersley was designated "steward" of the students in the dormitory and he and his wife were given "powers of discipline" over the students and supervised the cleanliness of the students with respect to personal hygiene and washing of the students' dirty clothing. However, even after its construction, many students sought living quarters elsewhere, where they would have more freedom resulting in loss of funds to Penn such that in 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. 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. 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.

Starting in 1849 (with formation of Penn's Eta chapter of Delta Phi (St. Elmo) by five founders and fifteen "initiates", Penn students began to establish chapters of and live in houses rented or owned by fraternities. Since Penn only had limited housing near campus and since students (especially the students at the medical school who) came from all over the country, the students elected to fend for themselves rather than live in housing owned by Penn trustees and good number chose housing by pledging and living in Penn's first fraternities (Delta Phi, Zeta Psi, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Delta Psi). These first fraternities were located in walking distance of 9th and Chestnut (as campus was located from 1800 to 1872 on West side of 9th Street, from Market Street on the North to Chestnut Street on the South). For example, Zeta Psi Fraternity was located at Southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, Delta Phi was located on South side of 11th Street near Chestnut Street, and Delta Psi was located on North side of Chestnut Street, West of 10th Street.
When Penn moved West in 1872 to its "new" campus (centered on the intersection of Woodland Avenue, 36th Street, and Locust Street) so did the fraternities. 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 seventeen fraternities at the university.

From its founding until construction of the Quadrangle Dormitories, which started construction in 1895, the student body did not live in university-owned housing as, with a significant exception in the 18th century (see above content and Wikimedia image of the sketch of first Penn owned dormitory), there was none. Indeed, a significant portion of the undergraduate population commuted from Delaware Valley and a large number of students resided in the Philadelphia area. The medical school (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.

Penn had increasing need for housing in the last decade of 19th century and first decades of the twentieth century due to number of factors including its competition for students with peer institutions and active recruitment of foreign students.

With respect to the desire to compete with peer institutions to attract students from across the nation, such was aptly reported by George Henderson, President of the College Class of 1889 (in his monograph he distributed to his classmates at their 20th reunion), which charted not only Penn's strong growth in acreage and number of buildings over the prior two decades but also the near-quadrupling in the size of the student body, which was accommodated, in part, by building of the Men's Dormitory, the Quadrangle. Henderson argued that building The Quad played a vital role in attracting students, and made an impassioned plea for its expansion:George Henderson, ''Old Penn and Other Universities: A Comparative Study of Twenty Years Progress of The University of Pennsylvania'', (U. of Pa. Class of '89) June 1909 Monograph in Penn Archives for Class of 1889: Box 9, Folder
(PDF)
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With respect to the active recruitment of foreign students, for example, Penn's first director of publicity translated a Penn recruiting brochure into Spanish and circulated approximately 10,000 copies throughout Latin America. The success of such efforts were evident in fall of 1910 when Vice Provost Edgar Fahs Smith (who the following year would start a ten-year tenure as Penn's provost) formally welcomed to Penn students from 40 different nations at an annual party. Vice Provost Fahs spoke about how Penn wanted to "bring together students of different countries and break down misunderstandings existing between them".

Since it was difficult to house the international students due to the then socially acceptable and legally permissible racist housing regulations extant in Philadelphia and across the United States, in fall of 1911, The Christian Association at The University of Pennsylvania hired as its first Foreign Mission Secretary, Reverend Alpheus Waldo Stevenson. 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 contiguous to Penn's campus. 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."

The success of efforts to reach out to the international students' was reported in 1921 when the official Penn publicity department reported that of the over 12,000 students at Penn (who came from all 50 states), 253 students came from at least 50 foreign countries and foreign territories, including India, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, " ... every Latin American country, and most of the Oriental and European nations".

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. 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. As an example, into the late 1940s, two-thirds of Penn women students were commuters.

After World War II, Penn began a capital spending program to overhaul its campus, especially student housing. A large number of students migrating to universities under the GI Bill, and the resultant increase in Penn's student population, highlighted that Penn had outgrown previous expansions, which ended during the Depression-era. Nonetheless, in addition to a significant student population from the Delaware Valley, Penn attracted international students from at least 50 countries and from all 50 states as early as the second decade of the 20th century. Referring to the expansion in students (particularly from the Delaware Valley) due to Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (commonly known as the G.I. Bill), Penn Trustee Paul Miller remarked about Penn's undergraduate housing situation in the post World War Two era that: " e bricks-and-mortar Capital Campaign of the Sixties...built the facilities that turned Penn from a commuter school to a residential one...." By 1961, 79% of male undergraduates and 57% of female undergraduates lived on campus.

Controversies

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

In 1965, Penn students learned that the university was sponsoring research projects for the United States' chemical and biological weapons program. According to Herman and Rutman, the revelation that "CB Projects Spicerack and Summit were directly connected with U.S. military activities in Southeast Asia", caused students to petition Penn president Gaylord Harnwell to halt the program, citing the project as being "immoral, inhuman, illegal, and unbefitting of an academic institution". Members of the faculty believed that an academic university should not be performing classified research and voted to re-examine the university agency which was responsible for the project on November 4, 1965.

In 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.

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.

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."

Educational innovations

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; the country's second school of veterinary medicine; and the home of ENIAC, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946. Penn is also home to the oldest continuously functioning psychology department in North America and is where the American Medical Association was founded. In 1921, Penn was also the first university to award a PhD in economics to an African-American woman, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (in economics).

Motto

Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace's III.24 (Book 3, Ode 24), la, quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?, lit=of what avail empty laws without link=no, label=none, cat=no. From 1756 to 1898, the motto read '. When it was pointed out that the motto could be translated as 'Loose women without morals', the university quickly changed the motto to la, literae sine moribus vanae, lit=Letters without morals reuseless, link=no, label=none.
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, la, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae, lit=Laws without morals reuseless, link=no, label=none.

Seal

The official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation. A request for one was first recorded in a meeting of the trustees in 1753 during which some of the Trustees "desired to get a Common Seal engraved for the Use of heCorporation". However, it was not until a meeting in 1756 that "a public Seal for the College with a proper device and Motto" was requested to be engraved in silver. The most recent design, a modified version of the original seal, was approved in 1932, adopted a year later and is still used for much of the same purposes as the original.

The outer ring of the current seal is inscribed with "Universitas Pennsylvaniensis", the Latin name of the University of Pennsylvania. The inside contains seven stacked books on a desk with the titles of subjects of the trivium and a modified quadrivium, components of a classical education: Theolog a Astronom a Philosoph a Mathemat ca Logica, Rhetorica and Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the university, "Leges Sine Moribus Vanae".

Campus

Much of Penn's architecture was designed by the Philadelphia-based architecture firm Cope and Stewardson (same architects who designed Princeton University and a large part of Washington University in St. Louis) 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.

The present core campus covers over 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 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 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.

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, of storefront retail operations, a 9,500-ton chiller module and corresponding extension of the campus chilled water loop, and a 4,000-ton ice storage facility.

In 2010, in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River, Penn purchased 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.

Parks and arboreta

In 2007, Penn acquired about between the campus and the Schuylkill River (the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center and a nearby site owned by the United States Postal Service). Dubbed the Postal Lands, the site extends from Market Street on the north to Penn's Bower Field on the south, including the former main regional U.S. Postal Building at 30th and Market Streets, now the regional office for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Over the next decade, the site 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, 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 roughly ''The Penn Campus Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania'' encompasses the entire University City 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, which has been designated as a Tree Campus USA since 2009 and formally recognized as an accredited ArbNet Arboretum since 2017. Penn maintains an interactive website linked to Penn's comprehensive tree inventory, which allows users to explore Penn's entire collection of trees. Penn also owns and operates the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill in northwestern Philadelphia. The Morris Arboretum is also the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

New Bolton Center veterinary campus

Penn also owns the New Bolton Center, the research and large-animal health care center of its veterinary school. ''Note:'' This includes 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.

Libraries

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 15 libraries (13 are on the contiguous campus) with 400 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees and a total operating budget of more than $48 million. The library system has 6.19 million book and serial volumes as well as 4.23 million microform items and 1.11 million e-books. It subscribes to over 68,000 print serials and e-journals.

Penn has the following fifteen libraries located on campus, associated by school or subject area: (1) Annenberg (School of Communications), located in the Annenberg School; (2) Biddle (Law), located in the Law School; (3) Biomedical, located adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School; (4) Chemistry, located in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building; (5) Dental Medicine; (6) Engineering, located on the second floor of the Towne Building in the Engineering School; (7) Fine Arts, located within the Fisher Fine Arts Library; (8) Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, located at 420 Walnut Street, near Independence Hall and Washington Square; (9) Lea Library, located within the Van Pelt Library; (10) Lippincott (Wharton School), located on the second floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center; (11) Math/Physics/Astronomy, located on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory; (12) Museum (Archaeology); (13) Rare Books and Manuscripts; (14) Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center (Humanities and Social Sciences) – location of Weigle Information Commons; (15) Veterinary Medicine, located in Penn Campus (and two libraries located off campus (i) library at New Bolton Center and (ii) a High Density Storage facility).

The Fine Arts Library was built to be Penn's main library (and first to have its own building). The then main library 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.

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.

Art installations

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 (where any governmental resources are used) to include 1% for art (Philadelphia's ordinance created the first such program in the country) to be used to pay for installation of site-specific public art, in part because of many alumni who collect and donate art to Penn, and in part because of the presence of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design on campus.

In 2020, Penn installed ''Brick House'', a monumental work of art (a "critical fabulation" in language used by its creator, Simone Leigh) at the College Green gateway to Penn's campus (near corner of 34th Street and Woodland Walk).
This bronze sculpture, which is high and 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. 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."

The ''Covenant'', better known to the student body as "Dueling Tampons" or "The Tampons", 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 larger-than-life white button, known as '' The Button'' (officially ''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.

In 2019, the Association for Public Art loaned Penn two multi-ton sculptures. The two works are ''Social Consciousness'' (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).

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. 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 re-evaluating all of its public art and has formed a Campus Iconography 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. 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.

The Penn Museum

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

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.

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

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

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. 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 and is named for its benefactor, philanthropist Arthur Ross.

Residences

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. 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, Harnwell, Harrison, Hill College House, Kings Court English, Lauder College House, 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. Fisher Hassenfeld, Ware and Riepe together make up one building called "The Quad".
In 2019, Penn announced the construction of New College House West, which is planned to open in the fall of 2021.
Penn students in Junior or Senior year may live in the 45 sororities and fraternities governed by three student-run governing councils, Interfraternity Council, Intercultural Greek Council, and Panhellenic Council.

Campus police

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.

Academics and interdisciplinary focus

Penn's "One University Policy" allows students to enroll in classes in any of Penn's twelve schools.Meyerson, Martin (January 29, 1973). "Report of the University Development Commission" (PDF). ''upenn.com''. Retrieved June 16, 2018. 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

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.

For the class of 2026, entering in the fall of 2022, the university received 54,588 applications. ''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.

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

Coordinated dual-degree, accelerated, interdisciplinary programs

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
* Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology (M&T)
* Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management (LSM)
* Nursing and Health Care Management (NHCM)
* Roy and Diana Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER)
* Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences (MLS)
* Singh Program in Networked and Social Systems Engineering (NETS)
* Digital Media Design (DMD)
* Computer and Cognitive Science
* Accelerated 7-Year Bio-Dental Program
* Accelerated 6-Year Law and Medicine Program

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. Penn SP2's vision is: "The passionate pursuit of social innovation, impact and justice."

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.

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.

Academic medical center and biomedical research complex

In 2018, the university's nursing school was ranked number one by Quacquarelli Symonds. That year, Quacquarelli Symonds also ranked Penn's school of Veterinary Medicine sixth. 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.

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, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Pennsylvania Hospital, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Hospital, and Princeton Medical Center. Penn Medicine owns and operates the first hospital in the United States, the Pennsylvania Hospital. It is also home to America's first surgical amphitheatre and its first medical library.

The Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia MET DT1811.jpg, The Pennsylvania Hospital as painted by Pavel Svinyin in 1811, alt=
Hamilton Walk at the Perelman School of Medicine.jpg, Perelman School of Medicine, alt=
PennDentalSchool.jpg, Penn School of Dental Medicine, alt=
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.jpg, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (facing northwest towards front entrance), alt=
Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center East Side.jpg, Penn owned Princeton Medical Center, eastern facade, alt=

Research, innovations and discoveries

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

In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn's research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010–2011 academic year alone, five interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing, the Center for Global Women's Health at the Nursing School, the $13 million Morris Arboretum's Horticulture Center, the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. With these additions, Penn now counts 165 research centers hosting a research community of over 4,300 faculty and over 1,100 postdoctoral fellows, 5,500 academic support staff and graduate student trainees. To further assist the advancement of interdisciplinary research President Amy Gutmann established the "Penn Integrates Knowledge" title awarded to selected Penn professors "whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge". These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn's schools.

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). 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.

In most disciplines Penn professors' productivity is among the highest in the nation and first in the fields of epidemiology, business, communication studies, comparative literature, languages, information science, criminal justice and criminology, social sciences and sociology. According to the National Research Council nearly three-quarters of Penn's 41 assessed programs were placed in ranges including the top 10 rankings in their fields, with more than half of these in ranges including the top five rankings in these fields.

Penn's research tradition has historically been complemented by innovations that shaped higher education. In addition to establishing the first medical school, the first university teaching hospital, the first business school, and the first student union, Penn was also the cradle of other significant developments. In 1852, Penn Law was the first law school in the nation to publish a law journal still in existence (then called ''The American Law Register,'' now the '' Penn Law Review'', one of the most cited law journals in the world). Under the deanship of William Draper Lewis, the law school was also one of the first schools to emphasize legal teaching by full-time professors instead of practitioners, a system that is still followed today. The Wharton School was home to several pioneering developments in business education. It established the first research center in a business school in 1921 and the first center for entrepreneurship center in 1973 and it regularly introduced novel curricula for which ''BusinessWeek'' wrote, "Wharton is on the crest of a wave of reinvention and change in management education".

Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. It was here also where the world's first spelling and grammar checkers were created, as well as the popular COBOL programming language. Penn can also boast some of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine. The dialysis machine used as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function was conceived and devised out of a pressure cooker by William Inouye while he was still a student at Penn Med; the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn; the discovery of cancer's link with genes, cognitive therapy, Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), Resistin, the Philadelphia gene (linked to chronic myelogenous leukemia) and the technology behind PET Scans were all discovered by Penn Med researchers. 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; and (d)
genetically engineered T cells used to treat lymphoblastic leukemia and refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma.

Conductive polymer was also developed at Penn by Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, an invention that earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. On faculty since 1965, Ralph L. Brinster developed the scientific basis for in vitro fertilization and the transgenic mouse at Penn and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010. The theory of superconductivity was also partly developed at Penn, by then-faculty member John Robert Schrieffer (along with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper). The university has also contributed major advancements in the fields of economics and management. Among the many discoveries are conjoint analysis, widely used as a predictive tool especially in market research, Simon Kuznets's method of measuring Gross National Product, the Penn effect (the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones) and the "Wharton Model" developed by Nobel-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.

Academic profile and rankings

International partnerships

Students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as 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

'' U.S. News & World Report''s 2022 rankings place Penn seventh among national universities in the United States and Center for World University Rankings' ("CWUR") 2020/2021 survey also ranks Penn as the eighth best university in the world. The Princeton Review included Penn in its Dream Colleges list in 2015. As reported by ''USA Today'', Penn was ranked first in the United States by College Factual for 2015.

In their 2021 edition, Penn was ranked tenth in the nation by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds). In the 2020 edition, Penn was ranked 15th in the world by the ''QS World University Rankings'' 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

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