When Benjamin Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania in 1749, his objective was to establish an institution dedicated to practical education and the advancement of society.  His vision would make Penn distinct from peer institutions, like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which at the time were affiliated with religious denominations. As such, for many years, no comparable institution existed in North America.

We propose a future for Penn that, while modern in its ambitions, is true to Franklin’s enlightenment values. Many institutions today deliver research and teaching mixed with other social and political agendas, somewhat like the religious agendas of elite Universities of the 1700s.

To recommit to Franklin’s vision, Penn’s sole aim going forward will be to foster excellence in research and education. This aim is in the best long-term interest of all members of society. Penn’s strong focus on academic excellence, curiosity, and innovation has historically attracted scholars and students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Today, as Penn’s competitors struggle to define their mission and lose their focus on this manner of excellence, Penn has a unique opportunity to emerge as a globally leading academic institution in an ever more competitive international landscape.

In this document, we present a summary of a vision for Penn based on a set of common principles that will help it achieve this ambitious goal and stand the test of a turbulent time.

Mission and Scope of the University, Faculty, and Administrators

1. Intellectual diversity and openness of thought.  The University of Pennsylvania’s core mission is the pursuit, enhancement, and dissemination of knowledge and of the free exchange of ideas that is necessary to that goal. All ideas and values, regardless of origin or political nature, can be openly discussed, proposed, criticized, embraced, and rejected.

2. Civil discourse.  The University of Pennsylvania not only tolerates criticism and dissent but encourages and supports it in an environment of open debate. It acknowledges that no party possesses the moral authority to monopolize the truth or censor opponents and that incorrect hypotheses are rejected only by argument and persuasion, logic and evidence, not suppression or ad-hominen attacks. The University actively promotes the ethic of open and civilized debate among students, faculty, staff, and other members of its community.

3. Political neutrality at the level of administration.  The agents of dissent and critical discourse within the university are the individual community members of the University of Pennsylvania. The university serves as the hosting entity for these critics, but it does not act as the critic itself. It will commit itself to institutional neutrality. In their capacity as university representatives, administrators will abstain from commenting on societal and political events absent truly extraordinary circumstances such as threats to the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. Further, administrators will respect the traditional boundaries of academic freedom in research and teaching.

4. Institutional neutrality is vital to foster a sense of inclusion among all University of Pennsylvania community members. Official commentary on societal and political events inevitably alienates individuals within the community who hold differing opinions from the institutional perspective or who, in their research efforts, wish to reexamine common orthodoxies. Beyond its inherent moral value, impartiality is a pragmatic policy. As an institutional principle, this neutrality is balanced by the complete freedom afforded to its faculty and students as individuals, enabling their engagement in political activities and social advocacy outside of the classroom.

5. The University must remain neutral to scientific investigation, respect the scientific method, and strive to include many and varied approaches in its research orientation.

6. Respect and Tolerance.  To effectively fulfill its societal mission, the University of Pennsylvania is committed to cultivating an exceptional environment characterized by intellectual freedom and the defense of its independence from prevailing political trends, emotions, and pressures. To remain true to its commitment to intellectual inquiry, the University wholeheartedly embraces, encourages, and provides a welcoming space for the widest spectrum of perspectives within its community.

Faculty, Administrators, and Staff Hiring Committees

The role of selection committees is to identify individuals who will excel as researchers, educators, staff, and contributors to the intellectual vitality of the University of Pennsylvania. A university that falls short of these expectations risks diminishing its global reputation and, consequently, its ability to draw exceptional faculty and students in the future. Each appointment of a less-than-excellent candidate further compounds the challenge of attracting outstanding faculty and students to the university.

Hence, a steadfast commitment to rigorous and meritocratic selection based on objective and measurable criteria in the appointment process is pivotal for the University’s sustained excellence. No factor such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, or religious associations shall be considered over merit in any decision related to the appointment, advancement, or reappointment of academic, administrative, or support staff at any level. Excellence in research, teaching, and service shall drive every appointment, advancement, reappointment, or hiring decision.

An unconditional commitment to academic excellence will become Penn’s key comparative advantage in the decades to come. As many other universities in Europe and the U.S. compromise their hiring decisions by including other non-academic criteria, Penn will be able to hire outstanding talent that otherwise would have been hard to attract.

Experiences from the twentieth century teach us a clear historical lesson. European and U.S. universities that compromised their academic standards to cater to political trends or the pressures of particular interest groups required decades to reverse the damage done by those practices. Some of those universities have never recovered their previous position in the academic world. Universities that focused on academic excellence and resisted political temptations reaped long-lasting rewards that are still evident today.

Student Admission and Curricula

The University of Pennsylvania had a well-established tradition that positioned it as a preeminent global research university. In that tradition, academic staff were actively involved in research pursuits and students were instilled with a research-oriented mindset, fostering original contributions to significant topics. Across all levels of education, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, the university emphasized the cultivation of students' critical thinking skills and disciplined curiosity. This tradition has faded and must be revived.

To ensure that this historical tradition revives and flourishes:

1. While Penn should aim to have a student body that reflects the enormous richness of ideas and experiences in the U.S. and global society, no factor such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, or religious associations shall be considered in any decision related to student admission and aid. The ability to excel in the abovementioned qualities shall drive every admission decision.

2. Faculty committed to academic excellence must have a supervisory role in the admission process of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Admission policies should prioritize the fair treatment of each individual applicant, and criteria must be objective, transparent, and clearly communicated to all community members.

3. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional curricula must provide students with the skills to be successful citizens in whatever role they choose to pursue. This goal requires curricula based on the pursuit of rigorous training and critical analysis of multiple perspectives rather than inculcation in a particular set of ideas or fashionable trends.

4. A central goal of education is to train students to be critical thinkers, virtuous citizens, and ethical participants in free and open but civilized and respectful debate that produces, refines, and transmits knowledge.

Drafted by members of the Penn Faculty December 2023

¹ The only exceptions to these principles are instances covered in the First Amendment case law. While the University is a private institution, its understanding of the contours of free speech should track First Amendment precedent.