Former Penn provost has ordered the removal of a Confederate leader's statue at Duke

Duke University President and former Penn Provost Vincent Price has taken a stand on the national debate over statues of Confederate leaders, ordering the removal of a statue commemorating Confederate General Robert E. Lee from one of Duke’s most iconic buildings. This came a week after violent protests erupted in Charlottesville, Va. over the planned removal of a statue of Lee from the University of Virginia's campus. 

Cameron Dichter | The danger in honoring monuments

After the recent events in Charlottesville, Va., the status of Confederate statues all across the country has come into question. While many believe that they should be removed for their connection to white supremacy, critics argue that doing so would be to remove a piece of history. Universities have an interest both in preserving history and in upholding modern values so how they choose to handle this issue can serve as a model for the rest of the country. 

Guest Column by five Penn Law professors | Notions of 'bourgeois' cultural superiority are based on bad history

In the recent opinion article “Paying the price for breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture,” published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, law professors Amy Wax and Larry Alexander lament the loss of the “bourgeois cultural hegemony” of the 1950s. They claim that erosion of commitment to marriage, hard work, patriotism, civic-mindedness and respect for authority has produced low male labor force participation, high rates of nonmarital childbearing, subpar educational attainment, an underqualified workforce, substance abuse and rampant urban violence. The downward spiral started in the late 1960s, they argue, with “identity politics” and “multicultural grievance polemics.”

Penn students and administrators condemn the Charlottesville white nationalist rally

Violent protests by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend have ignited outrage and condemnation from across the country, including at Penn.

Amy Lax penn law prof

Amy Wax, Robert Mundheim Professor of Law

Former Penn professor emeritus Elias Burstein has died

Former professor emeritus of physics at Penn Elias Burstein died on June 17 due to heart failure at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Juan Sebastián Pinto | Finding identity and responsibility in the environment

The trail began at the grounds of the Mesa Laboratory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a pink concrete building perched on the slopes of Green Mountain, near Boulder, Colorado. Designed by I. M. Pei (a one-time Penn student and architect of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris) the laboratory’s turrets and windows match the the Flatirons behind it — rare, naked pink rock formations that bolt towards the sky from the hills.

Penn stays silent as other universities respond to Trump's decision to exit Paris climate agreement

Once President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Thursday, various business leaders and university leaders expressed their outrage and concern at the decision. Penn has yet to comment on the issue.

Cancer immunotherapy expert will become the new director of Penn's Abramson Cancer Center in July

Penn Medicine named internationally renowned cancer immunotherapy and translational research expert Robert Vonderheide as the next director of the Abramson Cancer Center earlier this month.

Alumni spotlight: Phillies' chairman David Montgomery shows no signs of slowing down

The year was 1971.

Most Penn students graduate with offers for a full-time job. But what about those who break the mold?

Of 2,085 students surveyed from the Class of 2016, 89 percent secured full-time employment or continued their education at the end of the school year, according to Career Services data.

Philadelphia schools went on lockdown after alleged spotting of murderer

More than 30 Philadelphia schools were placed on lockdown for nearly two hours on Monday afternoon due to an unconfirmed sighting of Steve Stephens, the fugitive who posted a video of himself murdering a man on Facebook.

New program to expand the scope of Wharton's real estate department

This month, the Wharton School welcomed a new program to its Real Estate Department.

Photo by Robert Couse-Baker / CC 2.0

Meet the director of a Penn Med center working to marry health care and social media

Yelp and Twitter may not be the most obvious places to gather information on health care and hospital management, but the director of Penn Medicine’s new Center for Digital Health, Raina Merchant, will do just that. The new center was founded to provide a connection between technology, social media and health care.

Four Penn professors among select few granted prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

After being approved by The Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 173 Guggenheim Fellowships were awarded on April 6 to a diverse group of scholars, artists, and scientists from the United States and Canada.

Guest Column by Thomas Lee | Anti-intellectualism against divestment is dangerous

The exchange of ideas, through testing assumptions and addressing conflicting evidence, is the intellectual core of Penn’s academic mission. In The Daily Pennsylvanian, Taylor Becker extols “free speech and the competition of ideas” along with “intellectual rigor” as crucial to the University. Yet, as Julia Lesko explained in her Feb. 28 column, the University Board of Trustees attempted to extinguish this competition of ideas by rejecting fossil fuel divestment on the basis of a 19-word claim sans data and analysis. More than fundamentally contradicting Penn’s academic stature, this anti-intellectualism by the Board of Trustees has harmed the endowment’s financial returns.

Students question Penn's commitment to mental health based on its short mid-year breaks

Penn students have the shortest combined mid-year breaks in the Ivy League.

Guest Statement by 53 Penn Faculty Members | Statement of faculty support for GET-UP efforts

As faculty members of the University of Pennsylvania, we welcome efforts being made by GET-UP to unionize the graduate student workers in our university. We believe that graduate students have the right to unionize, a right confirmed by the National Labor Relations Board. GET-UP has been active in organizing a union for over a decade now, and while their earlier effort was stymied by the then NLRB, recent NLRB rulings have allowed them to revive their mobilizing drive.

Guest Column by Julia Lesko | Penn should reflect its value for open discourse

Benjamin Franklin argued for the importance of free discourse by noting “that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.” Considering the administration’s opaque decision on fossil fuel divestment, Penn is not living up to its founder’s values.