Tracing Penn’s unbroken line of innovation in service to society.
By President J. Larry Jameson
This fall has been a highly productive semester at Penn, with many achievements and milestones to celebrate. In my meetings with students, faculty, and staff, and while engaging with our alumni and friends at home and abroad, I am also seeing and hearing people’s excitement about Penn’s missions and momentum. Like me, they are eager to discuss what is next and how Penn can lead while honoring our distinctive history.
In August, at the Kislak Center, I had an excellent opportunity to get up close and personal with an exhibit on Penn’s formation, structure, and mission during the American Revolution. Guided by Penn Libraries experts, I examined colonial-era artifacts including pamphlets, maps, manuscripts, a full-scale recreation of a coffee house, and one of the exhibit’s centerpieces: Penn’s 1755 charter.
I thought of the people over the centuries who had stood as close as I was to the document: Benjamin Franklin, early trustees, colonial governors, generations of our faculty, students, staff, and archivists. I looked around at our library, with its advanced facilities, and out over College Green, where we were getting campus ready for new and returning students and the new academic year. Our past and future, interconnected. It was a powerful moment.
In my last column, I discussed our strategic planning initiative, Penn Forward. Today, I want to highlight just a few examples of how Penn’s future is already taking shape.
In an applause-worthy act of commitment to the arts, Penn Trustee Julie Beren Platt C’79 and her husband, Marc E. Platt C’79, recently made a visionary gift to name the new Platt Student Performing Arts Center, currently under construction and rising rapidly at 33rd Street and Woodland Walk. The crown jewel of the Center will be the 325-seat Edward W. Kane Theatre, named for the generosity of former Penn Trustee Ed Kane C’71 and his wife, Marty.
Thanks to another historic gift, this from Bruce I. Jacobs G’79 GrW’86, Wharton launched its first new degree program in half a century: the Dr. Bruce I. Jacobs Master of Science in Quantitative Finance. It combines Wharton’s intellectual and academic heft and offers a rigorous, data-intensive curriculum with practical experience and exposure to industry leaders. It also positions Penn to lead in an increasingly important and rapidly changing field.
In September, I helped cut the ribbon for Penn Medicine’s reimagined facility at 3600 Civic Center Boulevard. As our epicenter for autoimmune disease research, 3600 Civic Center will bring together researchers in the Colton Center for Autoimmunity and a truly impressive range of expertise—from vaccinology to epidemiology to healthcare innovation.
Innovative new facilities and programs help position Penn to lead, but where I see our future most powerfully is in the exceptional contributions of our students, faculty, staff, and of course our global alumni.
During Family Weekend in October, for example, I joined four fourth-year undergraduate students onstage for a deep dive into their Penn journeys. We talked about discovering their passions and finding community at Penn while navigating classes, clubs, and the city of Philadelphia.
I could not begin to cover their incredibly impressive Penn stories. They have worked closely with rockstar faculty on original research; spent the summer caring for patients in our hospital’s Emergency Department; led in student government; served as members of Kite and Key and mentors to newer students; volunteered with our Penn Forward initiative; and this does not even scratch the surface!
We also recently celebrated another Penn Rhodes Scholar, Florence Onyiuke C’26 W’26, who joins a distinguished tradition of Penn scholars committed to making a difference in the world.
As this issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette arrives in mailboxes and inboxes, the United States, Philadelphia, and Penn are commemorating the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. No other university was nearer the epicenter of the American Revolution, intellectually or in physical proximity. Consider that eight Penn affiliated leaders, including Benjamin Franklin, signed the Declaration of Independence; 12 signed the US Constitution. Penn’s facilities at that time at Fourth Street and Arch Street were just a few blocks from Independence Hall.
Penn’s pioneering endures—in our academic missions, our campus, and the contributions of our students, faculty, alumni, and staff. During my Kislak Center visit, Penn’s past felt immediate and our future, imminent, linked by an unbroken line of innovation in service to society. Together, through Penn’s 300th anniversary and beyond it, we will keep that line strong.
