Engaging Globally

The Penn Compact, launched at the inauguration of President Amy Gutmann in October 2004, expresses the Penn community's aspiration to move "From Excellence to Eminence." The Compact embraces the notion that a great 21st-century American university engages dynamically with communities all over the world to advance the central values of democracy and to exchange knowledge that improves quality of life for all.

With outstanding international faculty, the largest international contingent of students in the Ivy League, and a strong track record of translating cutting-edge theory into effective practice, Penn is a leader in contributing vital research and on-the-ground support to communities in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Many of our schools and centers collaborate with partner institutions around the world. Penn is now moving forward to nurture these networks and to encourage more innovative, cross-disciplinary solutions to global problems.

During the second year of her presidency, Amy Gutmann made the first official visits by a Penn president to alumni and families in India, China, and Singapore to enlist their support for the University's global agenda. Penn's international alumni are prominently positioned to play vital roles in promoting their nations' growth and progress across many sectors.

To advance the Penn Compact's commitment to global engagement, Penn is launching several initiatives that leverage our global network to enhance opportunities for students to study abroad and to bring additional outstanding international faculty and students to campus. Such exchanges will enhance the entire Penn community's global perspective.

• Penn Advancing Global Progress

• Penn Enhancing Student Opportunities Abroad

• Bringing the World to Penn

• Seeing The World Through Arts And Culture

 

Penn Advancing Global Progress

• Supporting developing communities with research and hands-on experience
• Advising governments and NGOs on policy development
• Leading the way toward integrated responses to global issues

While governments, multinational corporations, and international and nongovernmental organizations are largely responsible for flattening the world socially and economically, constructive global engagement also must occur locally among individuals and communities. Penn is leveraging its vast experience by engaging individual communities, organizations, and governments to promote positive global change.

In Botswana, where 37% of the adult population is infected with HIV, Penn Medicine's doctors and nurses are delivering life-saving AIDS treatments.

They also are training our students and their local counterparts to care for AIDS patients, an initiative that includes Wharton faculty and students. Student interns have described their time in Botswana as a "life-transforming experience."

Penn's Center for Advanced Study of India is the only research center in the United States devoted to the study of contemporary India, where Penn has the strongest ties of any American university. The Wharton School's annual India Economic Forum recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and Wharton's customized executive education programs in that country are models for expansion throughout Asia. 

Penn also is working collaboratively with the Ministry of Education in the People's Republic of China on research focused on the U.S. student loan system. Through its Graduate School of Education, Penn recently launched China's first Doctor of Education programs jointly with Beijing and East China Normal universities. Students will begin studies at these schools and complete them at Penn.

In 2006 Penn helped bring together domestic and foreign policy experts in Washington, D.C., to explore ways to build healthcare workforce capacity in this country and abroad and to tailor policies to specific regional situations.

 

Penn Enhancing Student Opportunities Abroad

• Encouraging students to engage internationally
• Building cultural bridges through study-abroad programs
• Promoting progress through international research projects

Penn ranks first among the Ivy League schools in the number of students studying abroad; in the 2005-06 academic year, 1,850 students received credit toward graduation through academic programs in more than 36 countries. Penn undergraduates also make important contributions to communities by participating in international research projects and internships.

A political science student interested in comparative electoral systems spent summers interning first with a member of the British Parliament and next with the U.S. Mission to the European Union. An anthropology student who studied in Bolivia and Argentina worked with think tanks in those countries and in Peru. She would like to become a specialist in Latin American development.

In 2005 two Penn students were awarded prestigious Rhodes and Marshall scholarships that will send them to Britain for graduate study. The Rhodes scholar spent a summer working as a community development consultant in rural India. While helping villagers obtain bank loans, he saw how small businesses can help build up the local economy. He plans to pursue studies in this burgeoning field of microfinance.

The Marshall scholar plans to apply her travel and study in Japan and Russia as well as her facility in three languages to a career that promotes economic development in Central Asia.

Penn is creating a fund to make important international opportunities like these available to all students who want to participate.

 

Bringing the World to Penn

• Promoting interdisciplinary study that enhances global engagement
• Recruiting promising international students from developing countries
• Bringing global leaders to campus to probe international issues

Penn's global campus does not consist of buildings, centers, and parks. Rather, it defines itself through the pursuit and exchange of ideas that lead to deeper understanding and effective solutions to the pressing global issues of our time. Penn's global campus includes an internationally diverse community of scholars and practitioners who collaborate routinely with distinguished counterparts around the world. The University is launching several new initiatives that will foster an even more dynamic global perspective.

Penn was the first American university to focus on integrating practical and professional training with liberal arts study. Today Penn is building ever more robust models of integrated global teaching, research, and practice across our schools. Outstanding recent examples of cross-disciplinary efforts mounted at Penn include a global conference on women's health, a new master's program in nongovernmental organization management, and the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Penn is establishing competitive funding to encourage more events, projects, and research collaborations that cross geographic and disciplinary boundaries.

Penn was among the first Ivy League schools to enroll international students. Today, our freshman class includes 281 students from 63 countries, the largest percentage of international students among our peers. Penn is planning a new program to identify more outstanding scholars from a geographically, linguistically, and culturally diverse pool of students with strong leadership potential, academic achievement, and financial need. These students will be financially supported throughout their studies with significant help from Penn alumni mentors from their home countries where possible.

Another new program will bring to campus renowned global leaders who have made a significant impact on important issues. Each guest will be invited to remain for a week to deliver lectures, meet with faculty and students, and be integrated into the College House programs.

 

Seeing The World Through Arts And Culture

• Holding a prism to the past at the University Museum
• Nurturing the creative spirit at Annenberg Center
• Showcasing avant-garde international artists at ICA
• Advancing interdisciplinary knowledge at the Morris Arboretum

Civilizations past and present express core values through their artistic and cultural activity. Penn is home to outstanding cultural resources that enhance our understanding of the global human condition and of our natural world.

A globally renowned focal point for scholars of ancient cultures, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology reveals how ancient peoples perceived their role on earth. The Museum integrates its rich collection of artifacts from every continent with themed presentations that allow us to see more deeply into today's world through the prism of past cultures and civilizations.

At the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts culturally diverse theater, music and dance presentations transcend time and place. Ranging from world music to Asian dance troupes to multi-media performances, the Annenberg's year-round parade of performers spices up Penn's campus with a heady international flavor and a deeper appreciation of the global creative spirit.

For more than 40 years, Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art has presented innovative exhibitions of artists, architects, photographers, and designers of international renown. The ICA recently assembled the works of three generations of European and American artists to explore the mythic and art historical significance of Cologne, Germany, which served as the global epicenter of contemporary art in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Morris Arboretum extends our appreciation of the world's ecology with its collection of exotic international plants and through interdisciplinary and scholarly programs. Each year interns from all over the world come to study the complex relationships between plant life and human life. Many of the Arboretum's international interns have gone on to assume key environmental and horticultural leadership positions throughout the world.

Download Penn Engaging Globally Brochure (PDF format)