University of Pennsylvania

In 1740, a group of Philadelphians organized to build a preaching hall for the traveling Anglican evangelist George Whitefield. Designed and constructed by Edmund Woolley, it was the largest building in Philadelphia at the time and drew thousands of attendees. In the fall of 1749, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania," outlining his vision for a "Public Academy of Philadelphia". On June 16, 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, adding undergraduate instruction. Penn identifies as the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, a claim contested by Princeton and Columbia because the College of Philadelphia was not chartered until 1755 and its first board of trustees did not convene until 1749.

In the 1750s, roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging since they came from areas in the British North American colonies that were too far to commute, or were international students. Before the completion of the first dormitory in 1765, out-of-town students were typically placed with faculty or in boarding houses. Jonathan and Philip Gayienquitioga, two brothers of the Mohawk Nation, were recruited by Franklin to attend the Academy of Philadelphia in 1755, making them the first Native Americans at Penn.

The 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both undergraduate and professional education. Moses Levy, the first Jewish student, enrolled in 1769. The first dormitory opened in 1765 under Penn professor Ebenezer Kinnersley, who collaborated with Franklin on studies of electricity. Kinnersley served as steward of the dormitory, with disciplinary authority over the students. Many students still sought housing elsewhere for greater personal freedom, and in 1775 the trustees voted to lease the dormitory to a private family who would board students at lower cost.

When the British were forced out of Philadelphia during the Philadelphia campaign during the American Revolutionary War, College Hall, the college's only building at the time, served as the temporary meeting site of the Second Continental Congress from July 7 to 20, 1778, briefly making Penn's campus one of the early capitals of the United States. …

The University of Pennsylvania's main campus occupies about 299 acres (121 ha) in the University City neighborhood of West Philadelphia and includes the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District. It contains most of the university's schools, research institutes, libraries, residences, and athletic facilities.

Much of the historic core campus was shaped by the Philadelphia firm Cope and Stewardson, whose work helped establish the campus's Collegiate Gothic character. A central pedestrian spine, Locust Walk, connects major academic and residential areas; its conversion to a largely car-free corridor was developed in the mid-20th century and completed in the 1970s.

Penn has expanded and redeveloped facilities beyond the historic core, including the Pennovation complex along the Schuylkill River, which contains flexible workspaces, laboratories, and incubator-style facilities. The Wistar Institute is located adjacent to the campus and collaborates with the university in biomedical research.

Penn maintains the Penn Campus Arboretum, an accredited arboretum encompassing the main campus and associated green spaces. Penn also operates the Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Penn's veterinary school operates the New Bolton Center near Kennett Square, a large-animal hospital and research center.

Penn Libraries is a multi-library system anchored by Van Pelt Library and including specialized libraries and collections across the university, such as the Fisher Fine Arts Library.

Penn is home to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum). The university also supports galleries and an outdoor public-art collection across campus. Notable works installed on or near campus include Simone Leigh's Brick House (2020) and Claes Oldenburg's Split Button (commonly known as The Button).

The campus has more than 40 notable art installations, owing in part to a 1959 Philadelphia ordinance requiring that the total budget for new construction or major renovation projects using governmental resources include one percent for art, in part to alumni donations, and in part to the presence of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

Penn has reevaluated its public art and formed a working group led by Penn Design dean Frederick Steiner and Chief Diversity Officer Joann Mitchell. …

The College of Arts and Sciences is the undergraduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences, which also includes the Graduate Division and the College of Liberal and Professional Studies. The latter houses the Fels Institute of Government, the master's programs in Organizational Dynamics, and the Environmental Studies (MES) program. The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania. Other schools enrolling undergraduates include the School of Nursing and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).

Penn's current (10th) president is J. Larry Jameson.

The University of Pennsylvania Police Department (UPPD) is the largest private police department in Pennsylvania, with 117 members. All officers are sworn municipal police officers and retain general law-enforcement authority while on campus.

The official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation. The trustees first requested a seal in 1753, and a public seal and motto for the college was engraved in silver in 1756. The most recent design, a modified version of the original, was approved in 1932 and adopted a year later.

The outer ring of the current seal is inscribed with "Universitas Pennsylvaniensis", the Latin name of the University of Pennsylvania. The inside contains seven stacked books on a desk with the titles of subjects of the trivium and a modified quadrivium, components of a classical education: Theolog[ia], Astronom[ia], Philosoph[ia], Mathemat[ica], Logica, Rhetorica, and Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto, "Leges Sine Moribus Vanae".

The University of Pennsylvania is organized into twelve schools, including four undergraduate schools and eight graduate and professional schools. Undergraduate students may pursue academic programs across multiple schools through Penn's interdisciplinary and dual-degree programs. Since at least the early 1970s, the university has used the term "One University" in institutional planning materials to describe coordination across its schools.

Students may enroll in courses offered by schools other than their home school, subject to prerequisites and school- or program-specific rules. Under a reciprocal cross-registration arrangement known as the Quaker Consortium, Penn students may take approved courses at Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College.

Penn offers coordinated dual-degree (CDD) programs, which award candidates degrees from multiple schools upon completion of graduation criteria for each, along with program-specific requirements and senior capstone projects. Penn also offers accelerated and interdisciplinary undergraduate programs, including:

Dual-degree programs that lead to the same multiple degrees outside of these specific programs are also available; in such cases, students fulfill the requirements of both programs independently. Specialized dual-degree options include Liberal Studies and Technology and an Artificial Intelligence: Computer and Cognitive Science program, both awarding a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and a degree from SEAS. The Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences allows students to either double major in the sciences or submatriculate and earn both a BA and an MS in four years. The Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER), a joint program of the School of Arts and Sciences and SEAS, leads to dual Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees.

The School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2), originally named the School of Social Work, was founded in 1908 as a graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania. SP2 offers degrees in subfields of social policy and social work, in addition to dual-degree and sub-matriculation programs. …

Penn is classified as an "R1" doctoral university with the highest research activity. A 2016 study estimated Penn's economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2015 at $14.3 billion. Penn reported research expenditures totaling more than $1.9 billion in 2023; the National Science Foundation ranked Penn third among U.S. universities in reported research and development spending that year. In fiscal year 2019, Penn received $582.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Penn's research centers and institutes often span multiple disciplines. In the 2010–2011 academic year, several interdisciplinary centers were created or substantially expanded, including the Center for Health-care Financing, the Center for Global Women's Health at the Nursing School, and the Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. Penn also supports cross-school faculty appointments through the "Penn Integrates Knowledge" program.

Research conducted at Penn has been associated with developments in computing and medicine. During World War II, engineers at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering developed ENIAC, an early electronic general-purpose computer. In oncology, Penn Medicine researchers contributed to the development of CAR T cell therapy; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) in 2017 as the first CAR T-cell immunotherapy approved by the agency.

Penn faculty have been recognized through major scientific awards. In 1972, physicist John Robert Schrieffer, then a professor at Penn, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for work on the theory of superconductivity (BCS theory). In 2000, chemist Alan G. MacDiarmid, then a professor at Penn, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of electrically conductive polymers.