Penn President Amy Gutmann Advances Learning Beyond the Classroom

February 5, 2010

Amy Gutmann, Penn President, with (L to R) GAPSA Chair Corbett Brown, Vice Chair Lee Solomon and Vice Chair for Research Students Henry Friedman.

When Penn's Making History campaign was launched in 2007, Amy Gutmann's first words were: "At Penn, we know that history doesn't just happen; it is made."

Now, three years later, we know that history is made by deciding where and when to act, and once again, our University is in the right place at the right time.

Earlier this week, Penn President Amy Gutmann announced that the $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation's Academic Leadership award -- which she received last September in recognition of Penn's leadership in interdisciplinary education -- will go toward new student research, grad student support, and internships.

Her timing and placement couldn't have been better. The funds, which support learning beyond the campus and the classroom, are a "precious resource, when resources are particularly scarce," Gutmann said.

The funding also supports a profoundly significant Campaign priority: programs and research, so central to Penn's unique broad-based, interdisciplinary approach to research and teaching. With collaborations taking place among faculty and students from its 12 schools and more than 160 centers and institutes, Penn has been a center of curricular innovation throughout its history and offers one of the most well-rounded intellectual environments anywhere.

February 4, 2010 The first-ever Undergraduate Research Symposium was held by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships at Houston Hall last night, where undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty discussed and presented a diverse array of over 50 projects to other students looking to take their studies beyond the classroom.

How the funds will be distributed

$200,000 of the award will expand and strengthen the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program, a summer research opportunity under the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) -- a move that Wharton sophomore and Student Committee for Undergraduate Education Chair Charles Gray calls "pivotal." Currently, CURF funds provide summer support to students after their freshman year to conduct research in close collaboration with a faculty member; the new CURF funds will allow 10 rising juniors each year for the next five years to do the same.

“We are especially enthusiastic about increasing support for rising juniors," said Gutmann, "since that is the time when many students focus their academic passions and develop a stronger interest in research.”

Another $200,000 will be directed to the Graduate and Professioinal Student Assembly to fund critical meeting and conference expenses. GAPSA's funds will allow graduates to "see the trends in research and in practice, and to present their own research among their peers," according to GAPSA Chair and Nursing and doctoral student Corbett Brown.

"This infusion of funds could not come at a more important and appropriate time for our graduate students," said Vice Provost for Education Andrew Binns. "While many Penn schools and programs, as well as GAPSA, already provide travel support to students, the economic downturn has created challenges for travel budgets across campus. In an especially tight job market, attending conferences and meetings, building professional networks and enhancing presentation skills and experience become even more important."

The remaining $100,00 will support opportunities for Penn students to intern at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in Washington -- another timely move: Gutmann was appointed chair of the commission by U.S.President Barack Obama last November.

 

 

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