University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universities by numerous organizations and scholars. While the university dates its founding to 1740, it was created by Benjamin Franklin and other Philadelphia citizens in 1749. It is a member of the Ivy League.

The university has four undergraduate schools as well as twelve graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the School of Nursing. Among its highly ranked graduate schools are its law school, whose first professor wrote the first draft of the United States Constitution, its medical school, the first in North America, and Wharton, the first collegiate business school. Penn's endowment is US$20.7 billion, putting it amongst the wealthiest academic institutions in the world, and its 2019 research budget was $1.02 billion.

Penn was one of nine colonial colleges chartered before the U.S. 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. The campus, in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, is centered around College Hall, and notable landmarks are Houston Hall, the first modern "student union", and Franklin Field, the first double-decker college football stadium. Penn also is the home of the Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is located 15 miles northwest of the campus, in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. The university's athletics program, the Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

Throughout its existence, Penn alumni, trustees, and/or faculty have included 8 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 7 signers of the U.S. Constitution, 2 Presidents of the United States, 3 Supreme Court justices, 32 U.S. senators, 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 12 U.S. Cabinet Secretaries, 46 governors, and 9 foreign heads of state. Alumni and or faculty include 36 Nobel laureates and 33 Rhodes Scholars. Penn alumni (a) have won 28 Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards, 11 Emmy Awards, and 4 Academy Awards and (b) include one of only 17 people who have earned all 4 awards (an EGOT). In addition, Penn has the greatest number of alumni on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans out of all colleges and has the greatest number of undergraduate billionaire alumni of all colleges, with 64 living billionaires, 28 of whom are alumni of Penn's undergraduate schools. Penn alumni have won 81 Olympic medals (26 of them gold). Two Penn alumni have been NASA astronauts and 5 have been awarded the United States Armed Forces' highest award for gallantry, the Medal of Honor.

History

Origins of the college

The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this is contested by Princeton and Columbia Universities.

In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open-air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time in which it was preached. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well, but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution". However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin (though Peters was one of Penn's founding trustees 749 to 1776
President of board of trustees 756 to 1764 and
Treasurer of board of trustees 769 to 1770 and nothing further was done by Franklin for another six years when he again contacted not just Peters but many others. In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled " Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania", his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia".

Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749—Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, and the College of New Jersey—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 could have become the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith (1727–1803), who became the first provost, and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional 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 on November 13, 1749, the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House (later renamed and famously known since 1776 as " 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.

The original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklin's group to assume their debts and, accordingly, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13, 1751, the "Academy of Philadelphia", using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was chartered on July 13, 1753, by the intentions of the original "New Building" donors, although it lasted only a few years. On June 16, 1755, the " College of Philadelphia" was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution. The first commencement exercises were held on May 17, 1757.

The institution of higher learning was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Reverend William Smith's "Loyalist" tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a "University" (which in 1785 the legislature changed name to 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 a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.

Although Penn began operating as an academy or secondary school in 1751 and obtained its collegiate charter in 1755, it initially designated 1750 as its founding date; this is the year that appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to consider 1749 as its founding date and this year was referenced for over a century, including at the centennial celebration in 1849. In 1899, the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again, this time to 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself". The board of trustees voted in response to a three-year campaign by Penn's General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740 for a number of reasons, including to appear older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746.

First university

The University of Pennsylvania also considers itself as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies. Penn has two claims to being the first university in the United States, according to the former university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd:
: (1) the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both "undergraduate" and professional education ("the 'de facto' position")

: (2) the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University" ("the 'de jure' position").

Original campus

The Academy of Philadelphia, a secondary school for boys, began operations in 1751 in an unused church assembly hall building at 4th and Arch Streets which had sat unfinished and dormant for over a decade. Upon receiving a collegiate charter in 1755, the first classes for the College of Philadelphia were taught in the same building, in many cases to the same boys who had already graduated from The Academy of Philadelphia. When the British abandoned Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, Penn's then only academic building "College Hall" served as temporary meeting site of the Second Continental Congress (from July 2 to July 13, 1778) as the British armed forces extensively damaged many parts of the city including the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), the site in which the Second Continental Congress had convened on May 10, 1775 and had been forced to abandon on December 12, 1776 to escape capture by the British. The Second Continental Congress delegates returned to Philadelphia on learning of the British retreat and by July 7, 1778, acquired a quorum, and thus were able to re-convene Congress on Penn's College of Philadelphia campus (briefly establishing Penn as site of capital of the United States). Such status as capital of the United States is evidenced by letter sent on July 13, 1778, from Josiah Bartlett (a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence) to John Langdon (who was Bartlett's fellow New Hampshire "Founding Father" as Langdon later became a signatory of the United States Constitution):

9th Street campus

In 1801, the university moved to the unused Presidential Mansion at ninth and Market Streets, a building that both George Washington and John Adams had declined to occupy while Philadelphia was the temporary national capital.

Among the classes given in 1807 at this building were those offered by Benjamin Rush, a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice who was also a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress, and surgeon general of the Continental Army.

Classes were held in the mansion until 1829 when it was demolished. Architect William Strickland designed twin buildings on the same site, College Hall and Medical Hall (both 1829–1830), which formed the core of the Ninth Street Campus until Penn's move to West Philadelphia in the 1870s.

West Philadelphia campus

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.

Residential university

In the 1750s, roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging as they came from areas too far to commute including other colonies in the South or the West Indies. Before the completion of the construction of the first dormitory in 1765, out of town students were typically placed with "guardians" in the homes of faculty or in suitable boarding houses (such as the one run by widow Rachel Marks Graydon, mother of Penn College Class of 1775 (who did not graduate) alumnus Alexander Graydon).

In 1765, the campus was expanded by the opening of the newly completed dormitory run by Ben Franklin's collaborator on study of electricity using electrostatic machines and related technology and Penn Professor and "chief master" Ebenezer Kinnersley. Kinnersley was designated "steward" of the students in the dormitory and he and his wife were given "powers of discipline" over the students and supervised the cleanliness of the students with respect to personal hygiene and washing of the students' dirty clothing. However, even after its construction, many students sought living quarters elsewhere, where they would have more freedom resulting in loss of funds to Penn such that in fall of 1775, Penn's trustees voted to advertise to lease the dormitory to a private family who would board the pupils at lesser cost to Penn. In another attempt to control the off-campus activities of the students, the trustees agreed not to admit any out-of-town student unless he was lodged in a place which they and the faculty considered proper. As of 1779, Penn, through its Trustees, owned three houses on Fourth Street, just north of the campus's "New Building" with the largest residence located on the corner of Fourth and Arch Streets.

Starting in 1849 (with formation of Penn's Eta chapter of Delta Phi (St. Elmo) by five founders and fifteen "initiates", Penn students began to establish chapters of and live in houses rented or owned by fraternities. Since Penn only had limited housing near campus and since students (especially the students at the medical school who) came from all over the country, the students elected to fend for themselves rather than live in housing owned by Penn trustees and good number chose housing by pledging and living in Penn's first fraternities ( Delta Phi, Zeta Psi, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Delta Psi). These first fraternities were located in walking distance of 9th and Chestnut (as campus was located from 1800 to 1872 on West side of 9th Street, from Market Street on the North to Chestnut Street on the South). For example, Zeta Psi Fraternity was located at Southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, Delta Phi was located on South side of 11th Street near Chestnut Street, and Delta Psi was located on North side of Chestnut Street, West of 10th Street.
When Penn moved West in 1872 to its "new" campus (centered on the intersection of Woodland Avenue, 36th Street, and Locust Street) so did the fraternities. Among the first fraternities to build near the new campus were Phi Delta Theta in 1883 and Psi Upsilon in 1891. By 1891 there were at least seventeen fraternities at the university.

From its founding until construction of the Quadrangle Dormitories, which started construction in 1895, the student body did not live in university-owned housing as, with a significant exception in the 18th century (see above content and Wikimedia image of the sketch of first Penn owned dormitory), there was none. Indeed, a significant portion of the undergraduate population commuted from Delaware Valley and a large number of students resided in the Philadelphia area. The medical school (with roughly half the students) was a significant exception to this trend as it attracted a more geographically diverse population of students. For example, in the 1850s when Penn's medical school accounted for two-thirds to three-quarters of the student body, over half of the population of the medical school was from the southern part of the United States.

Penn had increasing need for housing in the last decade of 19th century and first decades of the twentieth century due to number of factors including its competition for students with peer institutions and active recruitment of foreign students.

With respect to the desire to compete with peer institutions to attract students from across the nation, such was aptly reported by George Henderson, President of the College Class of 1889 (in his monograph he distributed to his classmates at their 20th reunion), which charted not only Penn's strong growth in acreage and number of buildings over the prior two decades but also the near-quadrupling in the size of the student body, which was accommodated, in part, by building of the Men's Dormitory, the Quadrangle. Henderson argued that building The Quad played a vital role in attracting students, and made an impassioned plea for its expansion:George Henderson, ''Old Penn and Other Universities: A Comparative Study of Twenty Years Progress of The University of Pennsylvania'', (U. of Pa. Class of '89) June 1909 Monograph in Penn Archives for Class of 1889: Box 9, Folder
(PDF)
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With respect to the active recruitment of foreign students, for example, Penn's first director of publicity translated a Penn recruiting brochure into Spanish and circulated approximately 10,000 copies throughout Latin America. The success of such efforts were evident in fall of 1910 when Vice Provost Edgar Fahs Smith (who the following year would start a ten-year tenure as Penn's provost) formally welcomed to Penn students from 40 different nations at an annual party. Vice Provost Fahs spoke about how Penn wanted to "bring together students of different countries and break down misunderstandings existing between them".

Since it was difficult to house the international students due to the then socially acceptable and legally permissible racist housing regulations extant in Philadelphia and across the United States, in fall of 1911, The Christian Association at The University of Pennsylvania hired as its first Foreign Mission Secretary, Reverend Alpheus Waldo Stevenson. By 1912, Stevenson focused almost all his efforts on the foreign students at Penn who needed help finding housing resulting in the Christian Association, buying 3905 Spruce Street contiguous to Penn's campus. By January 1, 1918, 3905 Spruce Street officially opened under the sponsorship of the Christian Association as a Home for Foreign Students, which came to be known as the International Students' House with Reverend Stevenson as its first director. The International S