Almost three weeks after Penn's own commencement exercises, University Provost Ron Daniels had the opportunity to participate in another graduation ceremony across the globe.
Last Thursday Daniels delivered a keynote commencement speech at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. It encouraged the graduates to rise as leaders through Israel's current turmoil through "entrepreneurial energy and social responsibility."
And looking to the future and also the fact that IDC was the first private university in Israel, entrepreneurship was a thread that ran throughout Daniels' speech.
"It seemed to me that taking those attributes as a starting point for some of the countries' current challenges was an interesting line on this," Daniels said.
Daniels was invited by the school to speak, citing his own personal research interests in international development and familiarity with the current situation in Israel as motivations for accepting.
Aside from those personal reasons, his trip to Israel also comes during Penn's campaign to become a more active leader in the educational world.
Global engagement is a tenet of the Penn Compact, introduced by University President Amy Gutmann at her inauguration, which is aimed at encouraging the Penn community to lend its resources and participate in international projects.
"It's a very easy thing for us to do, just given how much commitment there is to this kind of vision of the University," Daniels said.
Gutmann herself made official visits to India, China and Singapore in 2005 to promote the agenda.
Daniels pointed to a few programs that point to its success.
He cited the Penn World Scholars Program, designed to help undergraduates from around the world who would otherwise not be able to afford a Penn education, the Distinguished International Visitors Program, which invites professors from outside the United States to come and teach at Penn, and the expanding and streamlining of the study-abroad program as some examples of progress.
"There's obvious concrete goals one could establish," Daniels said. "But I think the over-arching goal is to think in a fairly creative way about the ways in which Penn can engage the world and in doing that make sure students are critical partners with us."
Daniels said that he feels the University has taken big steps but "there's more for us to do, in a nutshell."
While abroad, Daniels also met up with a few friends and taught a class, but said that he didn't have much time for other activities.
He did however, find it interesting to be in Israel during the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War.
He discussed how the war was once perceived as a "triumph for Israel . but [some are] now finding that the long-term legacy is more mixed in terms of the occupation and the continuing challenges of the country."
But if Penn's plan pans out, Daniels hopes Penn will be on the cutting edge in dealing with these challenges.
Note: In an earlier edition of this article, the word "tenant" was misused. The corrected noun is "tenet".
