Former Penn President Amy Gutmann received the Only in America Award in recognition of her contributions to society as a prominent Jewish American figure at the annual gala of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on Wednesday.
The Nov. 5 gala celebrating Gutmann’s career and legacy drew many members of Penn’s central administration and Board of Trustees. Centered on the Jewish American experience, the event featured a cocktail hour, dinner, and program that culminated in Gutmann’s acceptance of the award and remarks.
“Tonight, I want to reflect on what Only in America means, and what the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish history so powerfully embodies,” Gutmann said during her keynote speech. “My Jewish American story has everything to do with the search for freedom and opportunity, belonging and home, L’dor Vador — from generation to generation.”
In August 2024, Gutmann returned to Penn as a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication. This year, she is teaching a course with Sarah Banet-Weiser, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication.
“Penn students are phenomenal,” Gutmann said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian during the gala. “They really do get me up in the morning.”
Other speakers at the event included former Board of Trustees Chair and former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Weitzman Museum President & CEO Dan Tadmor, and 1967 College graduate Andrea Mitchell.
During the cocktail hour, 1999 College graduate John Legend arrived to greet and photograph with Gutmann. The Penn Counterparts, the University’s first co–ed a cappella group, also performed between speeches.
To present Gutmann with the award, many people took to the stage — including 1963 Wharton graduate Stuart Weitzman, Penn President Larry Jameson, Mitchell, and Cohen.
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Multiple speakers highlighted Gutmann’s accomplishments as Penn’s longest-serving president from 2004 to 2022 and as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2022 to 2024.
“[Gutmann] took the helm of a great university, and she raised it, transforming our university into a global leader in education and all of the liberal arts,” Mitchell said. “But also in innovation recognized around the world through breakthroughs on gene therapy and, of course, receiving the Nobel Prize for mRNA and the COVID vaccine.”
Gutmann similarly mentioned the “many wonderful building projects” that occurred during her time as Penn’s president, which she said enabled “life-saving medicine [and] scientific innovation.”
Shapiro also emphasized Gutmann’s contributions to the larger Philadelphia community. He explained that through Gutmann’s work, a “kid in West Philly” has been given a “better, well-funded, more engaged school because that school was in the neighborhood they shared with Penn.”
“I think about the safer streets that those children had, the chance to walk down, the security that mom had knowing that her kid could go out and play,” Shapiro said. “Not only was the University of Pennsylvania there, but Amy gave a damn about those kids in West Philly.”
He continued that Gutmann’s leadership made Penn’s educational opportunities “far more accessible to people who could have never imagined walking through those doors.”
“Driven by her parents’ legacy, Amy has gone on to do some truly remarkable things for the Penn community, for the city of Philadelphia, and for our great Commonwealth,” Shapiro said.
Gutmann was the first in her family to attend college and noted the important role her relatives played in her upbringing.
“Who I am, first and foremost, I owe to my family, especially my parents, Bea and Kurt Gutmann,” Gutmann said. “My family’s story, at its core, is an American story, where the only thing separating a refugee scrap metal dealer and an Ivy League president and U.S. ambassador is — you know it — one generation.”
Gutmann’s father fled Germany in 1934 and settled in the United States, seeking refuge from Nazi persecution.
She spoke about the “full circle moment” of returning to the town in Germany her family had lived in for over 100 years. The town “welcomed” her with “warm spirit” and had taken the time “to confront the past.”
“I was overwhelmed by [the town’s] Museum’s exhibit about the life of my father and his family,” Gutmann said. “They had uncovered long hidden facts — many traumatizing, others uplifting, all edifying. They mounted this exhibit long before they knew, or anybody could have imagined, that the only surviving descendant of the Gutmann family would be their U.S. Ambassador to Germany.”
The event spotlighted the experiences of modern Jewish Americans. Shapiro added that the Weitzman Museum is “one of the only” institutions “dedicated” to telling the story of Jewish Americans.
“When people who are not violent but are spouting things they don’t know on college campuses, and saying things like ‘No Zionists here,’ I tell them I am a Zionist,” Gutmann said. “You would not say that about any other group — being a Zionist means people believe that Israel has a right to exist, no matter whether you agree with what the government does or not.”
She underscored “the demonization of opponents and newcomers to our nation,” adding that “it takes even less than one generation to lose more than we and most Americans dare to imagine.”
“It also takes just one generation to build something humane and extraordinarily wondrous,” Gutmann said. “That’s what this museum does.”
Gutmann expressed gratitude for her family, Penn colleagues, college friends who came to support her, and each gala attendee.
“I am profoundly honored to receive this award,” she said. “I will cherish it as I cherish all of you forever.”
