University of Pennsylvania

   

Image:PennArms.png

Motto Leges sine Moribus vanae
(Laws without morals are in vain)
Established 1740
School type Private
President Amy Gutmann
Location Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Enrollment 9,917 undergraduate, 8,996 graduate
Faculty 4,499
Campus Urban
Athletics 33 varsity teams
Homepage www.upenn.edu

The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn or UPenn) is a private university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a member of the Ivy League.

In 1749, eager to create a college to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin wrote and circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pensilvania." Unlike the other four American Colonial colleges -- Harvard, William and Mary, Yale and Princeton -- Franklin's new school would not focus on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study became the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum.

Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of the city, the first such non-sectarian board in America, and looked about for the least costly way to build a campus.

In 1740, a group of working class Philadelphians had decided to erect a great preaching hall for the evangelist George Whitefield. It was the largest building in the city, and it was also planned to serve as a charity school for "the instruction of poor children." The fundraising, however, for both the building and the school had fallen short and the plans for both chapel and school were suspended. Franklin saw an opportunity to open his Academy quickly and inexpensively and in 1751 the Academy, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first students. A charity school also was opened in accordance with the intentions of the original "New Building" donors.

The Quadrangle, one of Penn's undergraduate residence halls
Enlarge
The Quadrangle, one of Penn's undergraduate residence halls

The University cites the earlier date as its founding, which enables it to claim to be older than its athletic archrival Princeton. However it is the fifth oldest college and oldest university in the United States.

It holds the latter claim by the virtue of the establishment of its medical school, the first in the American colonies, in 1765. Penn has continued that innovative tradition with the founding of the first university teaching hospital in 1874; the creation of the Wharton School, the world's first collegiate school of business, in 1881; the construction of Houston Hall, the first American student union building, in 1896; and the building of ENIAC, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946.

About Penn

Penn is known as one of America's best universities. A faculty of about 4,500 professors serves about 10,000 undergraduate and 9,000 graduate students; the research community includes 1,000 faculty, 1,000 postdoctoral fellows, 3,000 graduate students, and 5,000 support staff, with a budget of more than half a billion dollars each year. Admissions are among the most selective in the country and Penn consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in surveys. In the US News & World Report Best College 2005 Survey, Penn holds the No. 4 spot, after Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Admission is extremely competitive, and according to The Atlantic Monthly, it is the 8th most selective college in the United States (after MIT, Princeton, Caltech, Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia).

Penn's most notable programs are its School of Veterinary Medicine, Wharton School of business, School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, Law School, Nursing School, Annenberg School for Communication, School of Engineering and Applied Science, School of Education, and School of Social Work. It also contains many well-known departments including English, History, Economics, Philosophy, Computer Science, Biology, and Anthropology. It is also noted for its Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Penn is a national leader in interdisciplinary programs. In addition to numerous cross-disciplinary majors and joint-degree programs, Penn is home to interdisciplinary institutions such as the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies, the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, the Executive Master's in Technology Management Program, the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, and the Jerome Fisher Management and Technology Program.

The first medical school in the United States was founded at Penn in 1765. In 1786 Penn was chartered by the state as the first "university" in America. Penn hosts the country's 2nd college of veterinary medicine, and the only college to offer the degree 'VMD' instead of 'DVM' for its veterinary graduates.

Located in downtown Philadelphia for over a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has remained. The present campus covers over 260 urban acres (1 km²).

The University of Pennsylvania should not be confused with the Pennsylvania State University (commonly referred to as "Penn State"), another research-oriented (but state-related) university with the main campus located in the geographic center of Pennsylvania in State College.

Penn's sports teams are called the Quakers. They participate in the Ivy League and the NCAA's Division I (Division I-AA for football). In recent decades they often have been league champions in football (12 times from 1982 to 2003) and basketball (21 times from 1970 to 2004).

Penn has been noted for its strong culture, particularly award winning a cappella groups, which range from traditional groups such as Counterparts, Off the Beat, and Penn Masala — the world's premier Hindi group, which has received global acclaim. The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club is the oldest continually-performing collegiate performance group in the United States, having been founded in 1862. Penn Singers is the only collegiate group in the United States to have performed all but one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Philomathean, Penn's student literary society, was founded in 1813 and is the oldest continuous existing collegiate literary society in the United States. Mask and Wig, notoriously subpar at softball, also are mentionable as the oldest performing comedy group, founded in 1889. The Daily Pennsylvanian, consistently ranked as one of the best student newspapers in the country, has been published since 1885.

Famous alumni

Some famous University of Pennsylvania alumni:

There are numerous other past and present U.S. Ambassadors, members of congress, governors, and cabinet members, and corporate leaders.

Notable professors

  • Dr. Christian B. Anfinsen: Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
  • Dr. Baruch Blumberg: Nobel Prize winner in Medicine
  • Dr. Raymond Davis, Jr.: Nobel Prize winner in Physics
  • Dr. Gerald Edelman: Nobel Prize winner in Medicine
  • Dr. Ragnar Granit: Nobel Prize winner in Medicine
  • Dr. Haldan K. Hartline: Nobel Prize winner in Medicine
  • Dr. Robert Hofstadter: Nobel Prize winner in Physics
  • Dr. Lawrence Klein: Nobel Prize winner in Economics
  • Dr. Simon Kuznets: Nobel Prize winner in Economics
  • Dr. J. Robert Schrieffer: Nobel Prize winner in Physics
  • William Labov - professor of linguistics
  • John Bowker (adjunct professor)
  • Jeremy McInerney (Associate Professor) - Classical Studies Department
  • Mitch Marcus - RCA Professor of Artificial Intelligence - Computer Science Department
  • Eugenio Calabi - Thomas A. Scott Professor of Mathematics Emeritus - Mathematics Department
  • Richard Kadison - Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor of Mathematics - Mathematics Department
  • David Harbater - E. Otis Kendall Professor of Mathematics - Mathematics Department
  • Peter J. Freyd - Professor of Mathematics - Mathematics Department
  • David J. Farber - Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy - Computer Science Department
  • Matt Blaze - Associate Professor - Computer Science Department
  • Fernando Pereira - Andrew and Debra Rachleff Professor of Computer Science - Computer Science Department
  • Aravind K. Joshi - Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science - Computer Science Department
  • Francis X. Diebold - W.P. Carey Term Professor in Economics - Economics Department
  • Steven Hahn - Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of History - History Department
  • Peter Stallybrass - Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities - English Department
  • Bruce Kuklick - Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History - History Department
  • Rogers Smith - Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science - Political Science Department
  • Britton Chance
  • Michael Eric Dyson
  • Arthur Caplan
  • Kathleen Hall Jamieson - University of Pennsylvania author and media analyst.
  • Tufuku Zuberi
  • Walter McDougall - Department of History
  • John DiIulio - Department of Political Science

Majors

Penn offers almost 90 majors across its four undergraduate schools:

College of Arts and Sciences:

School of Engineering and Applied Science:

Wharton School of Business:

  • Accounting
  • Actuarial Science
  • Business and Public Policy
  • Entrepreneurship (second concentration only)
  • Environmental Policy and Management
  • Finance
  • Global Analysis (second concentration only)
  • Healthcare Management and Policy
  • Insurance and Risk Management
  • Legal Studies (second concentration only)
  • Management
  • Managing Electronic Commerce (second concentration only)
  • Marketing
  • Marketing and Communication (dual concentration)
  • Operations and Information Management
  • Real Estate
  • Statistics
  • Transportation

Nursing School:

  • Nursing and Health Care Management
  • Nursing and Technology

External links


Ivy League: Brown University | Columbia University | Cornell University | Dartmouth College
Harvard University | University of Pennsylvania | Princeton University | Yale University 		Ivy League

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