Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, "there has been a sense of fear about being a Muslim" in America, said Fariha Khan, associate director of the Asian American Studies program who teaches a class on Muslim identity in the United States.
For the last eight years under President George W. Bush, the USA PATRIOT Act - which carried the threat of wiretapping, random questioning and searches at airports - made life "a nightmare."
Obama's election and his first few weeks in office have offered many promises for America's Muslim community - promises that have raised expectations and leave many waiting to see how they will unfold.
The waiting started early. During the campaign, Khan said, she was disappointed with his response to being called a Muslim.
"I waited anxiously for him to say something," she said. And she is also "still waiting" for Obama to comment on the situation in Gaza.
A number of students see Obama as reaching out to the Muslim world. Notably, Obama chose to do his first televised interview as President on Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language news channel based in the United Arab Emirates.
College senior Amanda El-Dakhakhni, the former vice chairwoman of the Muslim Students Association, said this "definitely impressed [her]" and that he seemed to be "offering a listening ear that was not done in the last eight years."
However, following the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip, El-Dakhakni said Obama "needs to give a response to the free world."
For her, nothing has changed much day-to-day since Obama took office because Penn's "campus is diverse and open-minded."
College sophomore and MSA communications chairwoman Roxana Moussavian said all minorities should "be cautious of the illusion that one man can lessen all of the hardships that our community is faced with."
She said "a lot of people lost hope in our administration" under Bush, and Obama's recognition of Muslim Americans, such as in his acceptance speech, might "strengthen our confidence in the legitimacy of our community."
This would be a welcome change, since after Sept. 11, Moussavian said, Muslims were faced with a "one of us or one of them" attitude that didn't see Islam as having a role in American society.
She said she "hoped Obama would have responded differently" than Bush did following the attacks.
Khan acknowledged that it will be necessary for both Muslim and non-Muslim attitudes to change.
MSA President Mohammad Zohaib said relations between the U.S. and Islamic countries affect his life here and his family in Pakistan. Obama's approach has been different from the previous regime's, he explained, because he emphasizes diplomacy when dealing with these countries - "in his speeches, at least."
He added that the election of a black man sent a message that "America is a multicultural and tolerant society."
This has "increased respect for America" in Pakistan and elsewhere, Zohaib said.
However, foreign policy needs to cause change "on the ground" for the rhetoric to be taken seriously, he said.
He said he sees the closure of Guantanamo Bay as a "significant step" of that type, but that the whole war on terror needs to focus on "winning hearts and minds, economics and education."
The stability of Islamic countries determines how many students, like him, can afford to come to the U.S. to study.
For him, stability in Kashmir affects his family and ultimately "the money supply to me studying in the U.S.," he said.
But stability is not the only factor. Since after Sept.11, Zohaib said, many applicants to U.S. colleges from Islamic countries decided not to come for fear of discrimination.
"I thought about this before coming," he added.
Zohaib said the opposite has been true, and that "Americans are very accommodating of people from the Muslim world; I have never had a case of discrimination against me."
As for the possibility of a Muslim president in these students' lifetimes?
There's "no harm in hoping," Moussavian said.
