The Key — To Move Forward, Penn Must Look Back
Last week, President Jameson unveiled the first nine priority initiatives emerging from Penn Forward, the university’s new strategic plan. These initiatives, organized under three categories—Build, Discover, and Extend—are intended to set the direction for the university’s future. Penn Forward was introduced last fall as an opportunity for Penn to lead in a moment of uncertainty, with creative strategies to meet the challenges ahead.
However, the initial recommendations fall short of that ambition. Rather than offering new ideas, they largely build on existing programs and structures. Looking forward is essential, but meaningful progress also requires a clear-eyed reassessment of the past. On that front, Penn missed the mark.
The nine initiatives focus on three broad goals. “Build” centers on the student experience, financial aid through the Quaker Commitment, employee healthcare, and administrative efficiency. “Discover” focuses on positioning Penn as a leader in AI and strengthening partnerships to translate Penn’s work into societal impact. “Extend” aims to expand Penn’s reach through lifelong learning, a larger presence in San Francisco, and broader global engagement. Together, these efforts emphasize access, operational efficiency, and institutional reach.
These are important areas. But they are also mostly familiar ones, and they do not fully reflect the scale of the challenges Penn set out to address.
Penn is not alone in confronting questions about leadership and public trust. Peer institutions are taking a more direct approach by examining where they have fallen short and proposing concrete reforms. Across the Ivy League, skepticism about the value of a degree has grown, driven in part by concerns over grade inflation and academic rigor. Penn acknowledges these pressures, yet its response through Penn Forward addresses them only indirectly.
By contrast, Harvard and Yale have engaged these issues more directly. Harvard is advancing a proposal to curb its grade inflation, evidenced by the fact that 79% of Harvard’s undergraduate grades awarded are in the A range. Last week, Yale released a comprehensive report on trust in higher education, the result of a year-long faculty effort charted by the university’s president. It culminated in a set of clear and specific recommendations for Yale.
Some of Yale’s proposals overlap with Penn Forward, including a focus on addressing affordability, access, institutional efficiency, and global impact. But Yale also confronts some of the most challenging questions head-on: grading reform, admissions transparency, and a renewed commitment to free speech and academic freedom. Penn’s current plan does not.
This contrast highlights a broader concern. Penn set out to lead with bold and innovative thinking. Instead, the first set of initiatives reflects an incremental approach that avoids some of the most consequential questions facing higher education.
Penn Forward should continue. But to meet its stated goals, it must go further. That means confronting the issues that have defined this moment, including academic standards, the role of AI in the classroom, admissions transparency, and freedom of expression. Without engaging these core challenges directly, Penn risks falling short of the leadership it set out to provide.
The Almanac
Curated highlights from this week’s Penn news
Budget cuts confirmed across Penn for fiscal year 2027
On Wednesday, Provost John Jackson and EVP Mark Dingfield updated the Penn community on FY2027 budgets, confirming that schools and centers will need to continue containing and cutting costs.
This follows a January announcement that FY2027 budgets should include a 4% reduction across the board. For FY2026, Penn had already implemented 5% cuts to non-compensation expenses. This week’s message warned that the compounded reductions may lead to decreases in staff, programming, and services.
So what? Penn’s leadership is signaling a more cautious financial posture, even as recent reports suggest the university’s finances are stronger than expected. The tension is clear, as Penn is choosing to act conservatively now to reduce the risk of being unprepared for future shocks. With higher endowment taxes taking effect this summer and the White House’s federal budget proposal threatening the nearly $1 billion in annual federal funding Penn receives, the risks are real. How Penn balances financial discipline with its academic mission will be a defining question in the years ahead.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas defends Penn investigation amid appeal
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Andrea Lucas (CAS ‘08) defended the agency’s strategy in federal civil rights investigations during The Brandeis Center Conference: Anti-Semitism, Civil Rights, and the Law at Harvard last week.
While Lucas declined to comment directly on the investigation into potential antisemitic employment practices at Penn due to ongoing litigation, she emphasized that “there is no other way to protect victims of harassment or discrimination unless you collect information about them.”
The EEOC investigation began in November 2023, when Lucas launched a commissioner-led inquiry that led to litigation over a subpoena for the names and contact information of Jewish employees, including faculty, staff, and student workers. Last month, a federal district judge ruled that Penn must comply. The university has since appealed and requested a stay to delay enforcement.
Despite ongoing unity from the Penn community arguing that the subpoena should not be enforced based on First Amendment and privacy concerns, Lucas argued that the information on Jewish employees is critical to allow the EEOC to enforce civil rights laws. “I have reason to believe there are victims there, but I may not know all of them,” Lucas said last week, despite the fact that throughout the public, high-profile investigation, no victims have come forward.
So what? The case highlights a growing tension between civil rights enforcement and concerns around privacy, free assembly, and freedom of religion. The outcome of Penn’s appeal could set an important precedent in how federal agencies request sensitive identity-based information and how universities and other employers respond.
College faculty approve new first-year curriculum
The faculty of Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences approved a new undergraduate curriculum, set to begin with the Class of 2031, following four years of development and two years of review and iteration.
The new curriculum has three components: “Foundations” courses, revised and less restrictive distribution requirements, and more flexible electives. Foundations, piloted this year with a small group of students, includes four seminars: a writing seminar, first-year seminar, Kite (a humanities-based course), and Key (a quantitative science course).
In recent weeks, the curriculum approval process drew criticism from some faculty members who urged colleagues to abstain from the vote, arguing that non-tenure-track faculty were excluded from the shared governance development process and the vote. Other faculty members took issue with the claim that non-tenure-track faculty were not included in the process and the rationale for abstaining, arguing that the curriculum should be approved “on the merits.”
So what? With approval secured, focus now shifts to implementation and outcomes. Planned reviews at one, three, and five years will test whether the changes improve student learning and advance Penn's academic priorities.
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