Building on Strength

Over the summer my desk moved a few dozen yards to the east in College Hall, as I made the transition from serving Penn as Senior Vice Provost for Research to Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. The move down the hall was a short one, but viewed through the lens of my long association with Penn, it’s been years in the making. 

Among the people who will be finding this publication in the mailbox, there are many I already know: classmates from my days as a College undergraduate and then later as a graduate student in psychobiology, along with my former students in the Biological Basis of Behavior program. It’s a reminder to me that while I’m new as dean, this community has long been my home.

The past four months have underscored for me what I have known for many years: that Penn Arts and Sciences is an extraordinary place. I have already met with many of our outstanding faculty and had the opportunity to celebrate their considerable accomplishments, such as the MacArthur Foundation prize awarded to my colleague in psychology, Angela Duckworth (see p. 3). We have welcomed another cohort of exceptional undergraduates to the College Class of 2017, and recruited some of the most promising young scholars from across the country and around the world to our doctoral programs.

I have discovered something else exceptional about the School: this is a very busy place. So far this year, our undergraduate programs have continued their efforts to implement assessment plans with the goal of improving curricula and pedagogy. We are deeply engaged in exploring the potential of online learning, through both credit-granting courses offered by the College of Liberal and Professional Studies and the new frontier of massive open online courses we are making available through Penn’s partner, Coursera. We recently marked the formal opening of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, a world-class facility shared with the School of Engineering and Applied Science that will enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and discovery in this cutting-edge field (see p. 2). Soon we will launch construction on the long-awaited Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building. And planning has begun for the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, which will provide a new home for two of our core social science departments at the corner of 36th and Walnut Streets, thanks to the generosity of Ronald O. Perelman.

In addition to all of the events and activities yet to come, we have embarked on a comprehensive strategic planning process that will build on the School’s existing foundation of excellence. Over the course of the year, my primary focus will be to engage with faculty, students, staff, alumni, and colleagues across the University, listening to their perspectives on the School’s strengths and challenges, and using this process to inform a vision for our future. By reflecting priorities that are set by the School as a whole, the plan will be an invaluable tool in guiding us as we continually seek to direct our resources to those areas where we may achieve the maximum impact. The plan will also be an effective way for us to communicate our values and goals to a broader scholarly community, our Penn colleagues, our friends and supporters, and the general public.

In arriving at a shared vision for the School’s future, the process is at least as important as the result. In this process, the faculty, students, alumni, and staff of the School are already proving themselves extraordinary partners. I’m energized by the work being done and the sense of momentum all around me, and I count myself lucky to be back in my original academic home.