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| Motto | Leges sine Moribus vanae (Laws without morals are useless) |
|---|---|
| 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 |
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 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 the 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 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.
Penn is known as one of the world'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.
The University of Pennsylvania should not be confused with the Pennsylvania State University (commonly referred to as "Penn State"), another research-oriented (but state-owned) 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. Philomathean, Penn's student literary society, was founded in 1813 and is the oldest continuous existing collegiate literary society in the United States. Mask & Wig, founded in 1889, is the nation's oldest all-male collegiate musical comedy troupe.
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.
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:
Nursing School:
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