University of Pennsylvania

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.

Penn identifies as the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this representation is challenged by Princeton and Columbia since the College of Philadelphia was not chartered or commence classes until 1755 and the first board of trustees was not convened until 1749, arguably making it the sixth or fifth-oldest.

[17] The university's athletics program, the Penn Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of NCAA Division I's Ivy League conference.

Cabinet Secretaries, 46 governors, 28 State Supreme Court justices, 36 living undergraduate billionaires (the largest number of any U.S. college or university),[21] and five Medal of Honor recipients.

[22][23] In 1740, a group of Philadelphians organized to erect a great preaching hall for George Whitefield, a traveling Anglican evangelist,[24] which was designed and constructed by Edmund Woolley.

[34] In 2010, in its first significant expansion across the Schuylkill River, Penn purchased 23 acres (9.3 ha) at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, the then site of DuPont's Marshall Research Labs.

The rest of the site, known as South Bank, 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," according to a March 2017 university statement.

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.

[40] 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.

[65] 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.

Du Bois, Fisher Hassenfeld, Gregory, Gutmann, Harnwell, Harrison, Hill College House, Kings Court English, Lauder, Riepe, Rodin, Stouffer, and Ware.

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.

[138][139] Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that Penn's undergraduate alumni earned the 5th highest salaries (taking into account the cost of education and other factors[140]), which was 2nd in Ivy League behind Princeton.

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,[165] the Penn effect (the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones) and the "Wharton Model"[166] developed by Nobel-laureate Lawrence Klein to measure and forecast economic activity.

[168] More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the genes for fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation; spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, a disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting; Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet and limbs;[168] and genetically engineered T cells used to treat lymphoblastic leukemia and refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma.

[180] The university's social pressure surrounding academic perfection, extreme competitiveness, and nonguaranteed readmission have created what is known as "Penn Face": students put on a façade of confidence and happiness while enduring mental turmoil.

[212] Penn Masala, formed in 1996, is world's oldest[213][214] and premier[215][216] South Asian a cappella group based in an American university, which has performed for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Henry Kissinger, Ban Ki-moon, Farooq Abdullah, Imran Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, A.R.

[230] Jewish Life on campus is centered at Penn branch of Hillel International,[231][176] which inspires students to explore Judaism, creates patterns of Jewish living that can be sustained after graduation, provides religious communities, promotes educational initiatives, social justice projects, social and cultural opportunities, and groups focusing on Israel education and politics, and hosts a Kosher Penn approved dining hall (supervised by the Community Kashrus of Greater Philadelphia).

Thomas "Tom" J. Hagan, OSFS, who worked in the Newman Center and founded Haiti-based non-profit Hands Together;[235] and James Martin SJ (Wharton School undergraduate class of 1982[236]).

[266] Penn made its only (and the Ivy League's second) Final Four appearance in 1979, where the Quakers lost to Magic Johnson-led Michigan State in Salt Lake City.

Members of Penn crew team, rowers Sidney Jellinek, Eddie Mitchell, and coxswain, John G. Kennedy, won the bronze medal for the United States at 1924 Olympics.

The 1955 Men's Heavyweight 8, coached by Joe Burk, became one of only four American university crews in history to win the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta.

A member of that team, Janusz Hooker (Wharton School class of 1992)[295] won the bronze medal in Men's Quadruple Sculls for Australia at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Any time except Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a squad of 25 men may be seen running through the hardest kind of practice after which they may divide into two teams and play a hard game.

Once a week, captain CC Walton, ('11), dental, who hails from New Zealand, gives the enthusiastic players a blackboard talk in which he explains the intricacies of the game in detail.

In their inaugural appearance in the tournament, the Penn men's rugby team won the Shield Competition, beating local Big Five rival, Temple University, 17–12 in the final.

[321] The Penn Law Rugby team (1985 through 1993) counts among its alumni Walter Joseph Jay Clayton, III[322] Penn Law class of 1993, and chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from May 4, 2017, until December 23, 2020, Raymond Hulser, former Chief of Public Integrity Section of United States Department of Justice[323] (who also was hired by DOJ special counsel Jack Smith to investigate the mishandling by former President Donald J. Trump of certain top secret documents),[324] and Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart[325] who approved the search of Mar-a-Lago, the residence of current U.S. president Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida.

[326] Undergraduate Penn Rugby Alumni include (1) Conor Lamb (Penn College class of 2006 and Penn Law class of 2009), who played for undergraduate team, and, as of 2021, is a member of United States House of Representatives, elected originally to Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, since 2019 is a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district and (2) Argentina's richest person,[327] Marcos Galperin (Wharton Undergraduate Class of 1994), a premier player on the 1992 Ivy League Tournament championship team,[328] who founded Mercado Libre,[329] an online marketplace dedicated to e-commerce and online auction, which, as of 2016,[330] is the most popular e-commerce site in South America by number of visitors.

[346] Penn alumni in business, finance and investment banking include Warren Buffett[note 9] (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway), Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal, Tesla, OpenAI and Neuralink, founder of SpaceX, The Boring Company and xAI), Sundar Pichai (CEO of Alphabet and Google), Frank Quattrone (founder of Qatalyst Partners), Peter Lynch (former manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund), and other high-profile figures on Wall Street.

Cope and Stewardson , the primary architects for Penn's campus, were Penn professors who designed this Quadrangle dormitory in a Collegiate Gothic style. This image, taken in 2007, includes a replica of a non operational 1920s trolley car, similar to version that used to run down Locust Street , and now forms part of an entrance to SEPTA 's 37th Street subway station
Penn's main artery, Locust Walk, a pedestrian artery traversing six blocks from 40th Street to 35th Street in University City , in March 2024
Van Pelt Library , Penn's main library building
Penn's first standalone library, built in 1891 and designed by Frank Furness , c. 1915
The interior of the School of Design 's library
King Solomon , cast in 1968 based on instructions by the widow of artist Alexander Archipenko , now located on Penn's campus
The Covenant , designed by artist Alexander Liberman and installed at Penn in 1975
Jerusalem , a stabile created in 1976 by Alex "Sandy" Calder , located between Penn's School of Design and the Furness Fine Arts Library
The Love sculpture in 2006
The Statue of Benjamin Franklin , honoring the university's founder, in front of College Hall on Penn's main campus [ 62 ]
Young Ben Franklin (at about age 17) Statue on Penn Campus in front of Franklin Field [ 64 ]
Photo of sculpture of Edgar Fahs Smith
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Warden Garden
The Upper Quad Gate to the first dormitory primarily built in the 20th Century, which forms the lower part of Memorial Tower and honors veterans of the Spanish–American War
The 1757 seal of the academy and College of Philadelphia
Updated seal of the University of Pennsylvania with present name of school in Latin
Smith Walk with a view of Towne Building and the Engineering Quad
ENIAC , the first general-purpose electronic computer, founded at Penn in 1946
The Philomathean Society Presidential Library, named after former U.S. president and Penn Med alumnus William Henry Harrison
Penn Electric Racing unveiled REV8 on March 31, 2023, in front of the Statue of Benjamin Franklin in front of College Hall .
Penn Glee Club's 1915–1916 academic year membership photo
The University of Pennsylvania Band at the 2019 homecoming game
Penn Masala performs in the Blue Room of the White House in October 2009 on invitation from President Barack Obama .
The Mask and Wig clubhouse
1843 photo of Penn's Cricket team at its first "grounds" across the Delaware River in New Jersey
A baseball program for Penn's baseball game against Georgetown , c. 1901
1907-1908 Penn Quakers basketball team in photo that appeared in Spalding's Official A.A.U. basketball guide (September 1907). [ 265 ]
Penn's 1887 Cricket Team, which won the Intercollegiate Cricket Association , the de facto national championship, displaying the trophy granted to winner (held in front row by person wearing white hat)
Chuck Bednarik , also known as Concrete Charlie, was a three-time All-American at Penn who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame , the first player selected in the 1949 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles , where he went on to win the 1960 NFL Championship and was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame .
University of Pennsylvania Hockey team in front of photo of College Hall in 1896–97, its first season of existence, featuring George Orton , future winner of gold medal in the 1900 Summer Olympics in 2500 meter steeplechase (top row, second from the end of the right side) and who was the first disabled person to compete in the Olympics
The University of Pennsylvania men's track team was the 1907 IC4A point winner. Left to right: Guy Haskins, R.C. Folwell, T.R. Moffitt, John Baxter Taylor, Jr. , the first black athlete in the U.S. to win a gold medal in the Olympics, [ 283 ] Nathaniel Cartmell , and J.D. Whitham (seated).
Penn's eight-oared crew in 1901, the first foreign crew to reach the final of the Grand Challenge Cup [ 287 ] at Henley Royal Regatta
John Heisman , a University of Pennsylvania Law School class of 1892 alumnus and rugby football player, posing at Penn in 1891 holding an elongated ellipsoidal rugby ball and gestures resembling the famed "Heisman Pose" associated with the Heisman Trophy , named in his honor [ 297 ]
Penn's Franklin Field, in photograph taken shortly after completion of the upper deck in 1925
Penn's Palestra is often referred to as the Cathedral of College Basketball. [ 335 ]
Penn's three rowing teams use Number 11 Boathouse Row as their headquarters.
In 1952, in presence of then Penn President Harold Stassen Penn installed (near corner of 33rd Street and Smith Walk ) "War Memorial Flagpole" (aka "All Wars Memorial to Penn Alumni"), which honors Penn faculty, students, and alumni who died in military service. [ 358 ]