University of Pennsylvania
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| University of Pennsylvania | |
| Image:Wikipedia Penn Shield.jpg | |
| Motto | Leges sine Moribus vanae (Laws without morals are in vain) |
| Established | 1740 |
| School type | Private |
| President | Amy Gutmann |
| Location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Campus | Urban, 269 acres (1.1 km²) |
| Enrollment | 10,047 undergraduate, 9,218 graduate |
| Faculty | 4,499 |
| Mascot | Quakers |
| Endowment | $4.44 billion |
| Website | www.upenn.edu |
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn is the nickname used by the university itself; UPenn is also common) is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the fourth oldest institution of higher education in the U.S. and is also a member of the Ivy League. It is home to the nation's first school of medicine, and was also the first institution of higher learning to be officially named a "university."
As one of the Colonial Colleges, Penn has a long history which predates the founding of the United States. Penn is one of the first universities in the nation - following a multidisciplinary model developed by several European academic institutions. Penn was the first major academic institution organized on a non-sectarian basis (although Penn had strong Quaker influences).
The University of Pennsylvania is an important center of academic and biomedical research in the world. Penn has been recognized as a leader in the sciences, the humanities, architecture, engineering and education [1]. It is particularly noted for its graduate and professional programs including Penn's schools of business, law and medicine.
A faculty of about 4,500 professors serves approximately 10,000 undergraduate and 9,000 graduate and professional students. The research community includes 1,000 faculty, 1,000 postdoctoral fellows, 3,000 graduate students, and 5,000 support staff. Penn has the largest budget within the Ivy League, with annual expenditures of $4.25 billion (including a payroll of $2.183 billion).
Penn is one of the country's largest fundraisers; the school ranked third among universities in 2005, raising approximately $400 million. In addition, Penn has one of the largest research programs in the nation, undertaking over $700 million in sponsored research annually (a large part of which is provided by the National Institutes of Health).
Contents |
History
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.
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 three American Colonial colleges that existed at the time -- Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale -- 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 saw an opportunity to open his Academy quickly and inexpensively and in 1751 the Academy, combining his vision with that of the "George Whitefield group", took in its first students. A charity school also was opened in accordance with the intentions of the original "New Building" donors.
Ben 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. The institution was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755, changing its name to University of Pennsylvania in 1791.
Located in downtown Philadelphia for over a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has since remained.
Philadelphia's and Penn's early founding allowed for a number of firsts: Penn is the home of the first university teaching hospital in 1874; the Wharton School, the world's first collegiate school of business, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall, in 1896; the country's second college of veterinary medicine, and the only college to offer the degree 'VMD' instead of 'DVM' for its veterinary graduates, and the home of the ENIAC, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946.
The University of Pennsylvania is one of the nation's only private universities to be named for the state in which it is located (others include the University of Southern California and New York University). Because of this, it is sometimes confused with the Pennsylvania State University (also known as "Penn State"), a public research university whose main campus is located in the geographic center of Pennsylvania in State College.
Selectivity Rankings and Surveys
According to US News & World Report and the Carnegie Foundation, Penn has the eleventh lowest admission rate among all US doctoral institutions, behind Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, MIT, Dartmouth, Washington University in St. Louis, and Georgetown. In 2002, The Atlantic Monthly ranked it as the eighth most selective college in the United States (after MIT, Princeton, Caltech, Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia).
Admitting 20.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2009, Penn has the second highest undergraduate acceptance rate in the Ivy League, behind only Cornell University. This is largely due to the fact that Penn has four undergraduate schools with varying acceptance rates. Typically, the Wharton School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences have lower acceptance rates (around 13% and 17%, respectively) than the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Nursing. Penn's yield (percentage of students who accept offers of admission) for the recently enrolled Class of 2009 is 66% (compare to Harvard - 79%; Princeton - 71%; Stanford - 67%; Yale - 66%; Columbia - 62%; Cornell - 49%).
Since 2001, Penn has been ranked among the top five universities by the annual US News & World Report Best College Survey. In the 2005 and 2006 issues, Penn held the number four spot, after only Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. The undergraduate business program at Penn's Wharton School was rated No. 1.
In 2005, Washington Monthly magazine published a unique ranking that focused on universities' contributions to national service (Research: total research spending, Ph.D.s granted in science and engineering, Community Service: the number of students in ROTC, Peace Corps, etc.; and Social Mobility: percentage of, and support for, Pell grant recipients); Penn ranked ninth overall, and fourth among private institutions (behind MIT, Cornell and Stanford).
Academics
Penn offers almost 90 majors across its four undergraduate schools. In addition, Penn has a strong focus on interdisciplinary learning and research. It emphasizes joint degree programs, unique majors (e.g., the Biological Basis of Behavior; History and Sociology of Science; Philosophy, Political Science and Economics; Logic, Information and Computation) and academic flexibility. Penn's One University policy allows undergraduates access to courses at all of Penn's undergraduate and graduate schools.
Penn's graduate schools are among the most influential schools in their respective fields. The schools of business (Wharton), architecture (School of Design), communications (Annenberg), medicine, nursing and veterinary medicine rank in the top five nationally (see US News, Gourman Report). Penn's law, social policy and education schools are consistently placed in the Top 10 (US News).
At the undergraduate level, Penn's business and nursing schools have maintained their #1, 2 or 3 rankings since US News began reviewing such programs. The departments of African American literature, anthropology, art history, bioengineering, biology, computer science, English, economics, French, history, political science, psychology, and Spanish are also extremely well regarded.
Undergraduate students at Penn may also take courses at area colleges participating in the Quaker consortium. The member colleges include Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr.
Joint-degree and Interdisciplinary Programs
Penn offers specialized joint-degree programs, which award candidates degrees from multiple schools at the University upon completion of graduation criteria of both schools:
- The Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business
- The Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology
- Nursing and Healthcare Management
Dual Degree programs are also available, although they sometimes lack the flexibility of the Joint-Degree Programs.
In addition to 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, the Roy Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management, and the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology.
Community and Environment
Penn has a diverse student population. About 41.4% of students accepted for admission to the Class of 2008 are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. Women comprise 50.8 percent of all students currently enrolled. A total of 2,440 international students applied for admission to Penn's undergraduate schools for the Class of 2008, and 489 (20%) were accepted. More than 13% of the first year class are international students. Of the international students accepted to the Class of 2008, 15.8% were from Africa and the Middle East, 48.1% from Asia, 0.4% from Australia and the Pacific, 11.7% from Canada and Mexico, 10% from Central/South America and the Caribbean, and 14.1% from Europe. Penn had 4,192 international students enrolled at all levels in Fall 2004.
Penn has been noted for its strong student culture, particularly award-winning a cappella groups, which range from jazz (Counterparts and the all-male Chord on Blues), to traditional groups such as PennSix, Pennchants and Off the Beat to 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. The Philomathean Society, Penn's student literary society, was founded in 1813 and is the oldest continuously-existing collegiate literary society in the United States. Mask and Wig, founded in 1889, is the nation's oldest all-male collegiate musical comedy troupe in the nation, and the Pennsylvania Punch Bowl is one of the nation's oldest humor magazines.
The Daily Pennsylvanian, consistently ranked as one of the best student newspapers in the country, has been published since 1885. The University's Political Science Department is known for publishing a semesterly scholarly journal of undergraduate research called "Sound Politicks." The journal is student-run and is widely noted for the originality and quality of the articles it publishes. It accepts submissions from Penn students year round. There are many such journals across the university.
It is also noted for its Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A direct beneficiary of the many expeditions led by the University's famed anthropology department, the Museum's collection includes a very large number of antiqities from ancient Egypt and the Middle East. The Museum also has a strong collection of Chinese artifacts including one of the largest crystal spheres ever designed, (originally owned by an Empress of China).
Campus
The present core campus covers over 269 acres (1 km²) in a contiguous area of western Philadelphia. All of Penn's schools and most of its research institures are located on this campus. Recent improvements to the surrounding neighborhood includes the opening of several restaurants, a large upscale grocery store, and an art-house movie theater on the western edge of campus. Penn recently acquired approximately 35 acres of land located between the campus and the Schuylkill River (the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center and a nearby 24-acre site owned by the US Postal Service), which will be redeveloped for expanded educational, research and biomedical facilities over the next ten years.
In addition to its properties in west Philadelphia, the University owns the 92 acre Morris Arboretum in northwestern Philadelphia, the official arboretum of the state of Pennsylvania. Penn also owns the 687 acre New Bolton Center, the research and large-animal health care center of its Veterinary School.
Penn borders Drexel University and is near the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP). Also nearby is the University City High School.
Athletics
Penn's sports teams are called the Quakers. They participate in the Ivy League and Division I (Division I-AA for football) in the NCAA. In recent decades they often have been league champions in football (12 times from 1982 to 2003) and basketball (22 times from 1970 to 2005). Penn made its only Final Four appearance in 1979, where the Quakers lost to the Magic Johnson-led Michigan State Spartans in Salt Lake City. Penn is also part of the Big Five traditional basketball rivalries, along with Temple, Villanova, Saint Joseph's, and La Salle.
Penn's home court, the Palestra, is an arena used for Big Five contests as well as high-school sporting events. The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility. Franklin Field, where the Quakers play football, hosts the annual collegiate track and field event "the Penn Relays," and once was the home field of the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles. It was also the site of the early Army-Navy football games. Franklin Field, the oldest stadium still operating for football games, was also the home to the first commercially-televised football game, and was also the first stadium to sport two tiers. In 2004, Penn Men's Rugby won the EPRU championship.
Traditions
Toast throwing
As a sign of school pride, crowds of Quaker fans perform a unique ritual. After the third quarter of football games, spirited onlookers unite in the singing of "Drink a Highball." In years long past, students would literally make a toast to the success of Penn's athletic teams. During Prohibition, stubborn students insisted on keeping their tradition - since they could not use alcohol, they had no choice but to literally "toast" Penn. As the last line, "Here's a toast to dear old Penn," is sung, the fans send toast hurling through the air onto the sidelines. In another version of the origins of toast throwing, in 1977, current band leader and then drum major, Greer Cheeseman threw the first slice of toast after being inspired while attending a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show where members of the audience throw toast at the screen. In more recent years, some students have become more creative in their choice of projectiles, and it is not rare to see a hail of bagels or donuts, or even a loaf of French bread come flying down from the stands. A continuing myth which has been passed down by the undergraduate admissions department to their guides is that the Penn athletic department owns a toast "Zamboni," created by an Engineering student as a Senior Project. This statement is false. The athletics department has purchased several industrial street sweepers built by Tenant Inc. The latest is a 6400 Rider Sweeper used for cleaning the concourses and track area of the stadium.
Befriending Ben
Penn students show love to the founder of their school, Benjamin Franklin, by paying special attention to the statues and monuments throughout campus. Students and tourists often take pictures sitting on Ben's lap or in other fun and friendly poses.
Goal post tossing
In past years, the Penn Quakers have won the Ivy League championship, sending the jubilant fans into a frenzy. In celebration, the fans ripped down the goal posts and tossed them into the Schuylkill River. This is one Penn tradition that the administration hopes is short-lived.
Econ scream
At midnight on the eve of the first Microeconomics 001 midterm, students ease their frustrations by participating in a campus-wide shout! Some brave students have even been known to streak through the Quad . . .
Class Day and Hey Day
In April, several class traditions are celebrated. Class Day, which began in 1865 to supplement the final graduation exercises, celebrates the progression of all classes and the departure of the seniors. In 1916, this day merged with Straw Hat Day and became the "day of two events." In 1931, Hey Day arose from these two celebrations. On this day, the juniors gather on Hill Field for a picnic, don straw "skimmers" and canes, and march triumphantly through campus. The procession tradition began in 1949. When the procession reaches College Hall, the students make an arch with their canes to greet the President of the University. The outgoing and incoming senior class presidents then give speeches, and the juniors are "officially" declared seniors. In recent years, the current senior class pelts the juniors with shaving cream, chocolate sauce, flour, painful vinegar, and other condiments.
The Сompass
Showcasing their superstitious side, Penn students avoid stepping over the tiled compass on the scenic Locust Walk. Supposedly, the compass serves to guide freshmen through their first year; stepping on will put a student in danger of failing midterms or finals. According to popular myth, the only way for a freshman to reverse the "curse" is to have sex under the sculpture of a button in front of the Van Pelt library.
The Button
It is an oft-proclaimed goal of Penn undergraduates to have sex underneath the large split-button sculpture in front of Van Pelt library sometime before they graduate.
Ivy Day
One of the oldest Penn traditions is Ivy Day, when the graduating class plants ivy by a building, and an "Ivy Stone" is placed on the building to commemorate the occasion. In 1981, the day was officially moved to the Saturday before Commencement. Also on this day, the prestigious Spoon, Bowl, Cane, and Spade awards are given, honoring four senior men; and the Hottel, Harnwell, Goddard, and Brownlee awards are presented to honor four senior women. During the celebration, a noted individual who is chosen by the class gives an address. Recent Ivy Day addresses have been presented by Penn Parent Joan Rivers, former Philadelphia Mayor and current Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, and basketball player Julius Erving
"The Red and Blue"
Penn students have a school anthem (not to be confused with alma mater), "The Red and Blue." The song is sung especially loudly when competing against Ivy school rival, Princeton University, and with different lyrics when competing against Brown University.
Persons associated with Penn
Nobel prize winners
- Alan MacDiarmid - 2000 Nobel prize in Chemistry
- Raymond Davis - 2002 Nobel prize in Physics for "pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos."
- Christian B. Anfinsen, Nobel prize winner in Chemistry
- Michael S. Brown, Nobel prize winner in Chemistry
- Lawrence Klein - 1980 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (sometimes called the Nobel prize in economics) "for the creation of economic models and their application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies."
Noted alumni
See also: List of University of Pennsylvania people
Some noted University of Pennsylvania alumni include real estate mogul Donald Trump, Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, numerous other past and present U.S. Ambassadors, members of congress, governors, and cabinet members, and corporate leaders. Refer to List of University of Pennsylvania people for a detailed list.
Notable professors
Main article: List of University of Pennsylvania people
Criticism
The university has come under fire several times for First Ammendment Issues. In spite of this, Penn is one of only two Ivy League universities (the other being Dartmouth) to recieve the highest possible free speech rating from the campus watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The Water Buffalo Incident
Perhaps most infamous is the so-called "Water Buffalo Incident." In 1993, Eden Jacobowitz was charged with violating Penn's racial harassment policy. He had shouted "Shut up you water buffalo" out his window to a crowd of mostly black sorority sisters creating a ruckus right outside his dorm. Others had shouted at the crowd, including several who shouted racial epithets, but Jacobowitz would be the only one charged.
Initially Jacobowitz had an advisor assigned to him, who urged him to accept the University's offer of a settlement. The settlement required him to admit to violating the racial harassment policy. He refused and retained another advisor, history professor Alan Kors.
Jacobowitz explained his choice of "water buffalo" as from Hebrew slang, "Behema," used by Jews to refer to a loud, rowdy person. He procured several expert witnesses who attested to this and others, such as Michael Meyers, who gave testimonies that "water buffalo" was not a racial epithet against African-Americans.
Based on evidence that Jacobowitz had called the women "water buffalo" and the university's belief that this was a racial epithet, they proceeded with prosecuting him.
A series of events would bring this to the media's attention. Shortly after Jacobowitz was charged, a group of black students confiscated the Daily Pennsylvanian's full run and allegedly threatened the staff of the newspaper with racial epithets. No students were charged. The lack of response by the University to these events, and the noncommittal response by President Sheldon Hackney, were noticed by various journalists.
Jacobowitz's story was brought to the fore by the media focus on UPenn and on April 23, several days before his hearing, the New York daily the Forward broke his story with the headline "PENNSYLVANIA PREPARING TO BUFFALO A YESHIVA BOY." After the Wall Street Journal picked up the story with an editorial entitled "Buffaloed at Penn," it caught fire. Jacobowitz was interviewed on television several times.
Despite the public outcry and widespread media coverage, the University refused to discuss or explain its actions. The hearing was delayed for another two months while international press commented and criticized UPenn's decisions. Even Gary Trudeau devoted a Sunday's Doonesbury to the Water Buffalo Incident.
Even with repeated requests by Jacobowitz's legal teams to have charges dropped, the University pressed forward. The University's actions during the hearing would later come under some fire when it was revealed that they knowingly charged him with saying racial epithets that the university police investigation had absolved him of. At the hearing the panel decided not to dismiss the charges and issued a gag order to keep proceedings from leaking to the press.
After intense scrutiny by reporters, the University denied issuing a gag order, and Hackney offered Kors a deal in which Jacobowitz would apologize for rudeness and the the University and the plaintiffs would drop the charges. The affair ended when at a press conference the 15 women agreed to drop charges, stating that the media coverage made it unlikely they would get a fair hearing. The University stated there were no charges pending.
See also
- Wistar Institute
- University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
- Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
External links
- University of Pennsylvania's website
- Official Penn athletics site
- The Penn Band
- The Penn Men's Rugby Team
- Graduate Employees Together - UPenn
- The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club
- The Daily Pennsylvanian
- The Mask And Wig Club
- Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania Punch Bowl Humor Magazine
- Fels Institute of Government
- The Water Buffalo Incident (book excerpt)
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Local or Yahoo! Maps
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Satellite image from Google Local or Microsoft Virtual Earth
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