When President Amy Gutmann came to Penn one year ago, she had a hard act to follow.
Penn's first female president, Judith Rodin, had just finished her wildly successful decade-long tenure when Gutmann took over in 2004. Many credit Rodin with transforming Penn and University City, revitalizing the local community and recruiting top faculty and staff.
As a result, Gutmann inherited an institution very different from the one Rodin came to in 1994.
The Philadelphia of 10 years ago was suffering from 50 years of decline. A slow local economy and high crime rates directly affected Penn, leaving the University ranked No. 12 in the U.S. News & World Report annual college rankings.
Rodin, many say, changed that.
In her inauguration address in 1994, she asked the community to "recommit ourselves to Penn."
And the community responded.
In her first year as president Rodin called for a revamped undergraduate curriculum and a strong commitment to the Philadelphia community. She strengthened the Division of Public Safety and the Penn Police force. Retailers flocked to the University City area.
Penn shot up to the No. 4 spot in U.S. News & World Report.
In her first year, however, Gutmann has outlined a very different set of goals because she faces a different set of challenges.
Gutmann says she has spent her first year working to take Penn "from excellence to eminence," which -- she says repeatedly -- is the purpose of her vision.
The takes the form of the "Penn Compact," a three-pronged plan for the University's future that Gutmann outlined in her inauguration address nearly a year ago.
Rather than devoting the same energy that Rodin did to campus safety or recruiting applicants, Gutmann is instead working to improve financial-aid packages and encourage interdisciplinary study.
She has focused her efforts on raising funds for financial aid, collecting almost $395 million in donations, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations John Zeller said.
That fundraising was the second most suc- cessful in the University's history, only coming in behind the 2002-2003 school year, when the Annenberg Foundation donated $100 million for the Annenberg School for Communication.
Many credit the Penn Compact -- with its short sound bites and lofty goals -- with being the reason donors want to give.
Gutmann herself will say as much.
Gutmann said. "Once you have [a vision], the fundraising follows."
Now that Penn is established as one of the nation's top universities, many see the Penn Compact as the logical next step.
Though the compact itself can be vague, its goals -- increasing student financial aid, encouraging interdisciplinary study and getting Penn involved in both the global and local community -- epitomize the ways top donors and administrators hope to continue the University's upward trajectory.
"How do you capture an institution in sound bites?" Zeller said. "What [Gutmann] has been able to do is put [into words], in a relatively succinct fashion, the fabric and ethos of this institution."
