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The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Penn is a member of the Ivy League and also one of the Colonial Colleges.
Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology.
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Encyclopedia
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Penn is a member of the Ivy League and also one of the Colonial Colleges.
Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple "faculties" (e.g., theology, classics, medicine) into one institution. Penn is today one of the largest private universities in the nation, offering a very broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. Penn is particularly well known for its business school, law school and its biomedical teaching and research capabilities.
About 4,500 professors serve nearly 10,000 full-time undergraduate and 10,000 graduate and professional students.
In FY2007, Penn's academic research programs undertook more than $787 million in research, involving some 4,200 faculty, 870 postdoctoral fellows, 3,800 graduate students, and 5,400 support staff. Much of the funding is provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for biomedical research.
Penn tops the Ivy League in annual spending, with a projected 2007 budget of $5.18 billion. In 2007, it ranked fourth among U.S. universities in fundraising, bringing in about $392.4 million in private support.
Penn is incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. The university is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities.
History
In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the evangelist George Whitefield. Designed and built by Edmund Woolley, it was the largest building in the city and it was also planned to serve as a charity school. The fundraising, however, fell short and although the building was erected, the plans for both a chapel and the charity school were suspended. In the fall of 1749, eager to create a college to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia." However, according to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first drew up a proposal for establishing the academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution." 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 merely 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 Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the Board of Trustees (November 13, 1749) the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from Independence Hall was offered without cost by James Logan, its owner, the Trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, which was still vacant, would be an even better site. On February 1, 1750 the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. 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, although it lasted only a few years.
For its date of founding, the University uses 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself" (the charity school mentioned above) during its existence.
The institution was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Rev. William Smith's loyalist tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a University of the State of Pennsylvania. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791 the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into the University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees. These three schools were part of the same institution and were overseen by the same board of Trustees.
Penn has three claims to being the first university in the United States, according to university archive director Mark Frazier Lloyd: the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer "undergraduate" and professional education; the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University"; and existing colleges were established as seminaries.
After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse in West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City.
Heads of the University of Pennsylvania
Additional historical facts of the University of Pennsylvania
One President of the United States (William Henry Harrison); nine signers of the Declaration of Independence (Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Benjamin Rush, George Clymer, Robert Morris, George Ross, Francis Hopkinson, Thomas McKean, and William Paca); eleven signers of the Constitution (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Wilson, Thomas Mifflin, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, Rufus King, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, and Hugh Williamson); and three United States Supreme Court justices (William Brennan, Owen J. Roberts, and James Wilson) are associated with the University.
Penn's educational innovations include: the nation's first medical school in 1765; 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 school of veterinary medicine; and the home of ENIAC, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946. Penn is also home to the oldest Psychology department in North America and where the American Medical Association was founded.
Motto
Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace’s III.24 (Book 3, Ode 24), quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] mores?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When a wag pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals [are] useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless").
Colors
The official school colors are red with hex value 990000, and blue with hex value 011F5B. In printed materials they are PMS 201 red and PMS
288 blue.
Academics
Undergraduate programs
The University of Pennsylvania has four undergraduate schools:* The School of Arts & Sciences
The College of Arts & Sciences is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences, which also contains the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, Penn's division for non-traditional undergraduate and graduate students.
Penn has a strong focus on interdisciplinary learning and research. It emphasizes joint degree programs, unique majors and academic flexibility. Penn's One University policy allows undergraduates access to courses at all of Penn's undergraduate and graduate schools, except the medical and dental schools.
Undergraduate students at Penn may also take courses at area colleges participating in the Quaker consortium, including Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr.
Graduate and professional schools
The following schools offer graduate programs:* Annenberg School for Communication
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. Undergraduate programs include:
Dual Degree programs which lead to the same multiple degrees without participation in the specific above programs are also available. Unlike joint-degree programs, "dual degree" students fulfill requirements of both programs independently without involvement of another program. Specialized Dual Degree programs include Liberal Studies and Technology as well as a Computer and Cognitive Science Program. Both programs award a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and a degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
For graduate programs, there are many formalized joint degree graduate programs such as a joint J.D./MBA. Penn is also the 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, and the Executive Master's in Technology Management Program.
Academic Medical Center and Biomedical Research Complex
Penn's health-related programs — including the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Dental Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine, and programs in bioengineering (School of Engineering) and health management (the Wharton School) - are among the university's strongest academic components. The combination of intellectual breadth, research funding (each of the health sciences schools ranks in the top 5 in annual NIH funding), clinical resources and overall scale ranks Penn with only a small handful of peer universities in the U.S.
The size of Penn's biomedical research organization, however, adds a very capital intensive component to the university's operations, and introduces revenue instability due to changing government regulations, reduced Federal funding for research, and Medicaid/Medicare program changes. This is a primary reason highlighted in bond rating agencies' views on Penn's overall financial rating, which ranks one notch below its academic peers. Penn has worked to address these issues by pooling its schools (as well as several hospitals and clinical practices) into the University of Pennsylvania Health System, thereby pooling resources for greater efficiencies and research impact.
Admissions selectivity
Penn is one of the most selective universities in the United States. For the Class of 2012 entering in fall 2008, the university received 22,935 applications and admitted 16.95 percent of the applicants, 99% of whom were in the top 10% of their high school classes. 63% of the admitted applicants matriculated. In 2007, Penn's acceptance rate was 15.9%, with 96% of incoming freshmen ranked in the top 10% of their high school classes. In comparison, Columbia and Brown had 93% and 91% of their freshman classes, respectively, composed from the top 10% percent of their high school classes. The College of Arts and Sciences had an acceptance rate of about 11%. In the last 5 years, Penn has received 18,000–20,000 applications for each freshman class, has admitted on average 17 percent of applications and saw about 65 percent of admitted applicants matriculate. Further, Penn consistently ranks among the 10 toughest schools to get into, according to the Princeton Review. The Atlantic also ranked Penn among the 10 most selective schools in the country.
At the graduate level, Penn's admissions rates, like most universities', vary considerably based on school and program. Based on admission statistics from U.S. News and World Report, Penn's most selective programs include its law school, the health care schools (medicine, dental medicine, nursing), and its business school.
Rankings
U.S. News & World Report ranked Penn #6 (tied with California Institute of Technology) for undergraduate education in 2009 rankings, fourth in the Ivy League behind Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Penn was ranked #4 by U.S. News in 2005 and sixth in 2006.
In 2008, the British Times Higher Education magazine ranked Penn 11th in the world and 7th among U.S. universities. In 2007, Penn placed 15th on the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities. The Center for Measuring University Performance ranks Penn in its top cluster of research universities in the nation, tied with Columbia, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. In 2007, The Washington Monthly ranked Penn 17th overall, and 4th among private institutions behind Cornell, Stanford and MIT, on its list of 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.
Undergraduate programs
In the humanities and arts, well-regarded departments include African American Studies, anthropology, art history, biology, communications, demography, English, economics, French, history, political science, psychology, sociology, Spanish and urban studies. At the undergraduate level, Wharton, Penn's business school, and Penn's nursing school have maintained their #1, 2 or 3 rankings since U.S. News began reviewing such programs. In the School of Engineering, top departments are bioengineering (typically ranked in the top 5 by U.S. News), mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and nanotechnology. The school is also strong in some areas of computer science and artificial intelligence.
Graduate and professional programs
Penn's graduate schools are among the most distinguished schools in their fields. Penn's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is generally regarded as one of the top schools in the nation (see 1995 rankings by the National Research Council). A study updated the NRC rankings and adjusted them for faculty size and also factored out reputational surveys (saying that such surveys were lagging indicators of academic quality). That study, "The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era", ranked Penn's arts, humanities and sciences departments seventh in the US.
Among its professional schools, the schools of business (Wharton School), architecture and urban planning (School of Design), communications (Annenberg School for Communication), medicine (School of Medicine), dentistry (School of Dental Medicine), nursing and veterinary medicine rank in the top five nationally (see U.S. News, National Research Council, Planetizen, DesignIntelligence magazines). Penn's law school is ranked seventh and the social work and education schools are ranked in the top twelve (U.S. News).
Awards and honors
Many Penn affiliates have won Nobel Prizes in various fields. In the eleven years including 1997 to 2007, nine Penn affiliates have won Nobel Prizes, of whom 4 are current faculty members and 2 are alumni.
Penn affiliates awarded the Nobel Prize in the last decade (1997-2007):
| Name | Affiliation with Penn | Nobel Prize |
|---|
| 1.Edmund Phelps | Dept. of Economics during his Nobel-winning research, 1966 - 71 | Economics, 2006 | | 2.Irwin Rose | Medical School | Chemistry, 2004 | | 3.Edward Prescott | Dept. of Economics 1966 - 71 | Economics, 2004 | | 4.Raymond Davis, Jr. | Dept. of Physics | Physics, 2002 | | 5.Hideki Shirakawa | Dept. of Chemistry | Chemistry, 2000 | | 6.Alan J. Heeger | Dept. of Chemistry | Chemistry, 2000 | | 7.Alan Graham MacDiarmid | Dept. of Chemistry | Chemistry, 2000 | | 8.Ahmed Zewail | Dept. of Chemistry (at Caltech), PhD 1970 | Chemistry, 1999 | | 9.Stanley Ben Prusiner | Medicine, BS 1965, MD 1969 | Physiology/Medicine, 1997 | |
Campus
Much of Penn's architecture was designed by the architecture firm of Cope & Stewardson, whose principal architects combined the Gothic architecture of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge with the local landscape to establish the Collegiate Gothic style. The present core campus covers over 269 acres (~1 km˛) in a contiguous area of West Philadelphia's University City district. All of Penn's schools and most of its research institutes are located on this campus. Recent improvements to the surrounding neighborhood include the opening of several restaurants, a large upscale grocery store, and a movie theater on the western edge of campus.
In 2007, Penn acquired about between the campus and the Schuylkill River (the former site of the Philadelphia Civic Center and a nearby site owned by the United States Postal Service). Dubbed the Postal Lands, the site extends from Market Street on the north to Penn's Bower Field on the south. It encompasses the main U.S. Postal Building at 30th and Market Streets (the retail post office at the east end of the building will remain open), the Postal Annex between Chestnut Street and Walnut Street, the Vehicle Maintenance Facility Garage along Chestnut Street and the of surface parking south of Walnut Street. Over the next decade, the site will become the home to educational, research, biomedical, and mixed-use facilities. Penn also plans new connections between the campus and the city, including a pedestrian bridge.
The University also owns the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill in northwestern Philadelphia, the official arboretum of the state of Pennsylvania. Penn also owns the New Bolton Center, the research and large-animal health care center of its Veterinary School. Located near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, 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.
Penn borders Drexel University and is near the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP).
Libraries
Penn's library began in 1750 with a donation of books from cartographer Louis Evans. Twelve years later, then-provost William Smith sailed to England to raise additional funds to increase the collection size. More than 250 years later, it has grown into a system of 15 libraries (13 are on the contiguous campus) with 400 FTE employees and a total operating budget of more than $48 million. The library system holds 5.7 million book and serial volumes. It subscribes to 44,000 print serials and e-journals.
Penn's Libraries, with associated school or subject area:
- Annenberg (School of Communications), located in the Annenberg School
- Biddle (Law), located in the Law School
- Biomedical, located adjacent to the Robert Wood Johnson Pavilion of the Medical School
- Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, located on Walnut Street at Washington Square
- Chemistry, located in the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Building
- Dental
- Engineering
- Fine Arts, located within the Fisher Fine Arts Library, designed by Frank Furness
- Lippincott (Wharton School), located on the second floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center
- Math/Physics/Astronomy, located on the third floor of David Rittenhouse Laboratory
- Museum (Anthropology)
- Rare Books and Manuscripts
- Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center (Humanities and Social Sciences) - location of the David B. Weigle Information Commons
- Lea Library, located within the Van Pelt Library
- Veterinary
- High Density Storage
The University Museum
The University Museum, as it is commonly called, was founded in 1887. During the early twentieth century UPM conducted some of the first and most important archaeological and anthropological expeditions to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, East Asia and South America, thus the collection includes a very large number of antiquities from ancient Egypt and the Middle East. Its most famous object is the goat rearing into the branches of a rosette-leafed plant, from the royal tombs of Ur. The Museum also has a strong collection of Chinese artifacts. Features of its Beaux-Arts building include a dramatic rotunda and gardens that include Egyptian papyrus. UPM's scientific division, MASCA, focuses on the application of modern scientific techniques to aid the interpretation of archaeological contexts.
The Institute of Contemporary Art based on Penn's campus, showcases various exhibitions of art throughout the year.
Residences
- Stouffer College House
- Fisher Hassenfeld College House (formerly Woodland)
- Rodin College House (formerly Hamilton College House)
- Harrison College House
- Harnwell College House
- Hill College House
- DuBois College House
- Gregory College House
- Kings Court English College House
- Ware College House
- Riepe College House (formerly Spruce House)
- Sansom Place East / West
Within the college houses Penn has nearly forty themed residential programs which bring together students with common interests ranging from science and technology (STWING) to world cinema.
Many of the nearby homes on 40-42nd are often rented by undergraduate students moving off campus after freshman year.
Student life
Of those accepted for admission to the Class of 2009, 39.2 percent are Asian, Hispanic, African, or Native American. Women comprise 51.3 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.
The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1813, is the oldest continually-existing student group in the United States. The Daily Pennsylvanian has been published since 1885, and is among the top college papers in the country, regularly winning Pacemaker and CSPA Gold Circle awards. The Pennsylvania Punch Bowl is one of the nation's oldest and most acclaimed humor magazines. The student-run TV station UTV13 is the oldest college TV station in the country. The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club is one of the oldest continually-operating collegiate choruses in the United States, having been founded in 1862. Its best-known and longest-serving director was Bruce Montgomery, who led the club from 1956 until 2000. The Mask and Wig Club is the oldest all-male musical comedy troupe in the country.
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, with the oldest being the , founded in 1899 to cover Science and Technology.
The University of Pennsylvania Band has been a fixture of student life on campus since 1897. The Penn Band performs at football and basketball games as well as University functions throughout the year and has a current membership of approximately 80 students. Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation, and athletic games are: Fight On Pennsylvania.
Penn in fiction and popular culture
- Tom Wolfe's novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, is based in part on the particular collegiate subculture found at Penn. Wolfe researched the novel by talking to students from Penn, and even attended a party at one of Penn's secret societies.
- Much of Jonathan Franzen's novel, The Corrections, takes place in Philadelphia and mentions Penn a number of times. Gary Lambert, one of the main characters, attends Penn as undergraduate.
- The main character's sex fantasy in Jennifer Weiner's novel, Good in Bed, involves a Penn film professor.
- A number of scenes at the beginning of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were filmed in the freshman quad as well as in front of The Castle, a fraternity house and a prominent example of gothic-collegiate architecture.
- A number of scenes from the 1993 Academy Award-winning film Philadelphia were filmed inside the Fisher Fine Arts Library, which doubles as the law school library for the movie.
- A poignant chase scene in M. Night Shyamalan's film Unbreakable starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis features the exterior of Franklin Field.
- In the 2006 film Invincible starring Mark Wahlberg, Franklin Field acted as a substitute for the now razed Veteran's Stadium.
- Dave Eggers's suicidal childhood friend Tom from the novel A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius attends Penn.
- In the popular television show, The Office, Dwight Schrute mentions the Penn football game in order to upset Andy, a Cornell alumnus.
- Penn is often mentioned in the NBC drama, American Dreams. Two of the main characters, Sam and Beth, attend the school. In the second and third seasons, several of the recreations took place at The Lair, a coffee house/student union facility on the University of Pennsylvania campus.
- In an episode of the The Cosby Show titled "Off to the Races" Cliff Huxtable competes in the Penn Relays. Many portions of the episode were filmed at Franklin Field.
- Several It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes have been filmed at Penn.
- In the television series Queer as Folk Ted Schmidt often makes reference to the fact that he is a graduate of the Wharton School.
- In the 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile, Tommy (Topher Grace) is scheduled to attend graduate school at Penn.
- In the 2000 filmThe Skulls, one of the crew teams during the boat race at the beginning of the movie is from Penn.
- In the 2004 Bollywood film Swades, Shahrukh Khan was a student at Penn.
Athletics
The first athletic team at Penn was its cricket team. In the sport of football, Penn first fielded a team against Princeton at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia on November 11, 1876.
Penn's sports teams are called the Quakers. They participate in the Ivy League and Division I (Division I FCS 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 2006).
Penn football made many contributions to the sport in its early days. During the 1890s Penn's famed coach George Washington Woodruff introduced the quarternick kick, a forerunner of the forward pass, as well as the place-kick from scrimmage and the delayed pass. In 1894, 1895, 1897 and 1904 Penn was generally regarded the national champion of collegiate football. The achievements of two of Penn's outstanding players from that era—John Heisman and John Outland—are remembered each year with the presentation of the Heisman Trophy to the most outstanding college football player of the year and the Outland Trophy to the most outstanding college football interior lineman of the year.
In addition, each year the Bednarik Award is given to college football's best defensive player. Chuck Bednarik (Class of 1949) was a three-time All-American center/linebacker, and starred on the 1947 team, generally regarded as Penn's all-time finest. In addition to Bednarik, the '47 squad boasted four-time All-American tackle George Savitsky and three time All-American halfback Skip Minisi. All three standouts were subsequently elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, as was their coach, George Munger (a star running back at Penn in the early '30s). Bednarik went on to play for 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, becoming the NFL's last 60-minute man. He was elected to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1969.
Harold Stassen, during his presidency of the institution from 1948 to 1953, attempted to recultivate Penn's heyday of big-time college football, but the effort lacked support and was short-lived.
On November 17, 2002, ESPN College GameDay traveled to Penn to highlight the Harvard-Penn game that day, the first time the popular college football show has visited an Ivy League campus.
Franklin Field is where the Quakers play football, field hockey, lacrosse, sprint football, and track and field (and formerly soccer). It is 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. It is also used by Penn students for recreation, and for intramural and club sports, including touch football and cricket. Franklin Field 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 is featured prominently as the stadium in the M. Night Shyamalan's film Unbreakable, and is also shown in the 2006 film Invincible.
Penn basketball is steeped in tradition. Penn made its only (and the Ivy League's second) Final Four appearance in 1979, where the Quakers lost to the Magic Johnson-led Michigan State Spartans in Salt Lake City. (Dartmouth twice finished second in the tournament in the 1940s, but that was before the beginning of formal League play). Penn is also is one of the teams in the Big Five, along with La Salle, Saint Joseph's, Temple and Villanova. In 2007, the Men's Basketball team won their third consecutive Ivy League title, then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Texas A&M.
Penn's home court, the Palestra, is an arena used for men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, Philadelphia Big 5 basketball, as well as high-school sporting events. The Palestra has hosted more NCAA Tournament basketball games than any other facility.
The Olympic Boycott Games of 1980 were held at the University of Pennsylvania in response to Moscow being the host of the 1980 Summer Olympics (and to the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan). Twenty-nine of the boycotting nations participated in the Boycott Games.
In 2004, Penn Men's Rugby won the EPRU championship.
Notable people
Some noted University of Pennsylvania alumni include the ninth President of the United States, William Henry Harrison, real estate mogul Donald Trump, CEO and investor Warren Buffett, Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, poets Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, American industrialist Jon Huntsman, Sr., Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., philanthropist Walter Annenberg, E. Digby Baltzell who is credited with the acronym WASP, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, the first woman president of Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust, athlete and coach John Heisman, cartoonist Charles Addams, recording artist John Legend, and numerous other past and present U.S. Ambassadors, members of Congress, governors, Cabinet members, corporate leaders, and signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Controversy
The university has come under fire several times in recent years for free speech issues. In spite of this, Penn is one of only two Ivy League universities (the other being Dartmouth College) to receive the highest possible free speech rating from the watchdog group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, founded by noted Penn professor and civil libertarian Alan Charles Kors.
Selected Penn publications
- Daily Pennsylvanian - The independent, student-run newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania
- The Pennsylvania Punch Bowl - Penn's humor magazine, founded in 1889
- "The Soapbox Sociopolitical Magazine" - Penn's primary outlet for student sociopolitical thought
- First Call Magazine - Penn's Undergraduate Magazine
- CUREJ - College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal
- Knowledge@Wharton - online business journal of the Wharton School
- PennScience - undergraduate science research journal
- Res - undergraduate journal of research writing
- Sound Politicks - undergraduate political science journal
- PoliComm - journal of political communication
- Penn Triangle - science and technology magazine, a student-run SEAS publication
- "Penn History Review" - undergraduate history journal
Gallery
See also
External links
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