An Exclusive Interview with Penn President Amy Gutmann (Part Two)

Yong Tang: Paying great attention to usefulness may be another important characteristic of Penn. Benjamin Franklin advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology. He thought the courses taught at universities should be practical and useful. Even the motto of Penn is laws without morals are useless. How is that tradition today?

Amy: It is a great question. When Franklin drew up the charter for the first academy university in America, he did not want to be educating only a privileged class for the clergy. He wanted to educate the best and brightest for practical life, for public life and profession. That is where we are doing today even better than what Penn could do back in the 18th century.

We are recruiting students from all over the world. We serve our university with a global perspective. We educate the best and brightest students from all over the world. We are committed to making Penn affordable to those students. So one of my highest priorities is looking for financial aid for students from middle and low-income families. That is the signature of the strength of Penn that teaches useful knowledge as well as knowledge that will give you very broad base in your life.

Yong Tang: But someone said if you pay too much attention to usefulness, a top university could turn out to be a vocational school. How do you think of this danger?

Amy: Right. What I mean by usefulness is very much in keeping with what Franklin meant: it is long-term usefulness. Many of the greatest research happened at Penn will not be immediately applicable but will turn out to be useful in the long run. What Franklin said was we should teach all that is useful. What he meant was we should teach a full range of knowledge. The full range of knowledge is the most useful knowledge you could have because you never know challenges of tomorrow, what exactly the tools you need. What you do know is: the more tools you have, the more likely you are going to be able to be successful and addressing big problems that you will encounter. The usefulness has to be a long term ideal. It is extremely important.

Let me give you another way in which we underline the fact the knowledge we are teaching is for long-term use. All of our students, whether they are from engineering School, Wharton School or Nursing School, are required to take liberal arts courses, courses in humanity and social sciences. You can't only take business courses. You can't take only humanities courses if you are from Art School. That requires students to get a broad base education. Employers are looking for that kind of students because they are the ones to do the best after the college.

Yong Tang: Is that why you have so many top professional schools?

Amy: Yes!

Yong Tang: I know the most famous professional school is Wharton School of Business. Someone says it is the best Business School in the world.

Amy: We think so. We think they are the best. (Laugh).

Yong Tang: Can you tell me what is the most important reason for Wharton to be so successful and influential?

Amy: It is the only undergraduate business school among Ivy League universities. It is one of the reasons why it is so famous. Because it endorses the idea that you should also have a broad based education in order to be excellent in business. It also gets the best faculty. They have fabulous group of faculty members. The eminence of one faculty is critical to the eminence of the whole school.

Yong Tang: Why other Ivy Leagues don't have undergraduate programs in their business schools?

Amy: Probably they didn't seize the idea that Wharton has seized. The idea is that you could educate undergraduates in business and liberal arts together. They don't have to be exclusive. Probably most of other Ivy Leagues think of business as a pure trade. But other Ivy Leagues are moving in that direction today. I was in India recently. I can tell you in India Wharton is a brand name.

Yong Tang: In China too!

Amy: Great! I am very happy about that. (Laugh) We want the University of Penn as a whole to become more and more famous. Wharton certainly has helped us in that regard.

Yong Tang: What are the challenges Wharton is facing today?

Amy: One of the biggest challenges for Wharton is hiring and retaining the best faculty, and also, attracting a talented and diverse student body. Another significant challenge is staying engaged with industry and government on a global scale. It is not only important to create and disseminate knowledge to the world, but equally important to learn from the rest of the world.

Yong Tang: I know students at Penn can easily find their jobs when they graduate. But in China many college students don't know what they are going to do in the future. They also don't know what kind of work they are most capable of. So upon graduation when they are trying to find jobs, they are quite blind minded. How is here at Penn? How to make college students understand themselves better and understand the job market better when they graduate?

Amy: Penn's Office of Career Services provides a wealth of career information. Career Services works with all Penn undergraduates, and most of the University's graduate and professional students. They help students and alumni define their career goals, and take the steps necessary to achieve them. They also work with employers and graduate and professional schools interested in recruiting at Penn.

By Yong Tang, Washington-based correspondent of People's Daily Online