The Key — A Strong Start but an Incomplete Foundation
Last month, the faculty of Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences approved a new undergraduate curriculum built around “College Foundations,” a set of four first-year courses designed to strengthen the liberal arts experience at Penn. The program reflects an effort to expose students to different disciplines, learning styles, and peers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests.
But as currently designed, Foundations misses a critical opportunity. It introduces students to new subjects, but it does too little to address what many students need most: the ability to engage openly and constructively with one another.
As part of Foundations, all College first-years will take a writing seminar and a First-Year Seminar of their choosing, both in areas they select and are likely already interested in.
All students will also enroll in “Kite,” a humanities course grounded in qualitative inquiry, and “Key,” a course emphasizing quantitative reasoning. These seminars bring together students from across academic interests and backgrounds. That breadth is a clear strength. Kite and Key expose students to new modes of thinking and reinforce Penn’s commitment to a broad-based, interdisciplinary education.
Yet exposure alone is not enough. A curriculum that is meant to be foundational should teach students to challenge each other's ideas, test their own assumptions, and learn to navigate disagreement. Penn’s own goals for Foundations reflect this, emphasizing “careful reasoning and productive dialogue.”
These are important aims that align with Penn’s stated values of free inquiry and open expression. But without intentional programming, they risk remaining aspirational rather than realized. Creating structured opportunities for students to engage in difficult conversations about the most pressing issues of today would give substance to these goals and demonstrate a stronger institutional commitment to intellectual openness and diversity of thought.
The urgency is highlighted by Penn’s own data. In Penn’s 2024 senior survey, 45% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “I feel free to express my political beliefs on campus.” Even more striking, 67% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “I feel that I can voice my opinion on controversial topics without fear of being unfairly judged.”
If students move through Penn without developing the ability to engage openly across differences, they are missing a core part of what a college education is meant to provide. By bringing together all first-years in the College, Foundations is uniquely positioned for students to build those skills.
Right now, it falls short.
Penn has an opportunity to change that by making structured dialogue around current events and contested topics a core part of Foundations. This could take the form of integrating these conversations into existing Kite and Key seminars or adding an additional Foundations course focused on dialogue and current events. Penn already has resources, such as SNF Paideia, that could support faculty in leading these discussions, or it could look to external models like the Constructive Dialogue Institute for alternative approaches.
In its current form, Foundations establishes a common academic starting point for what College students learn. It should go a step further and also establish a shared expectation for how they engage with one another.
True academic excellence is sustained by an environment of open inquiry, intellectual risk-taking, and academic rigor. By extending Foundations to include a purposeful focus on constructive dialogue about today’s pressing issues, Penn can take a meaningful step toward sustaining that excellence.
The Almanac
Curated highlights from this week’s Penn news
Judge issues stay, delaying EEOC subpoena enforcement at Penn
In 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) opened a commissioner-led investigation into potential antisemitic employment practices at Penn. In November 2025, the EEOC sued Penn for not complying with its subpoena seeking contact information for faculty, staff, and student employees connected to Jewish-related organizations.
So what? Pappert indicated skepticism toward Penn’s appeal, writing that “Penn does not have a strong chance of prevailing on appeal but makes, narrowly, a showing of irreparable harm.” For now, Penn does not need to turn over the requested information. Now the issue moves to the Court of Appeals, a process that could take months. In the meantime, the EEOC’s investigation will continue at Penn, leaving uncertainty for the university and its Jewish community, which has publicly opposed the EEOC’s subpoena.
Yale revises mission statement after issuing report on trust in higher education
On Thursday, Yale unveiled a new, simplified mission statement: “Yale’s core mission is to create, disseminate, and preserve knowledge through research and teaching.”
Last spring, Yale’s president instructed ten faculty members to examine the current state of higher education and the erosion of public trust in Yale and its peers. The committee released its report last month, along with recommendations to strengthen trust and refocus the institution.
The report explicitly called out that for the last ten years, Yale has added a focus on serving and improving the world and its diverse community to the mission, aspects that the faculty called worthy but “not what makes a university a university.” Its recommendation for a revised mission closely matches the adopted mission statement.
So what? As we discussed last week, Yale is taking a critical look inward to address mounting distrust in higher education. Beyond the mission statement, the report also suggests reforms to address grade inflation, technology and AI use, and the protection of free speech and academic freedom on campus. Penn updated its mission statement in the fall of 2024, emphasizing “excellence” alongside “social good.” As Yale looks inward, Penn will likely need to do so as well, reevaluating how it can better convey its value proposition externally and highlight its values and goals within as well.
Penn’s Faculty Senate releases one-pager defining its role
Brown, who began her role last summer, has previously emphasized her goal of making the Senate “more robust and more democratic,” describing its function as a mix of “advisory” and “authority.”
The new one-pager clarifies that the Senate can “advise, discuss, recommend, and request action from the administration.” While its role in administrative decisions is largely advisory, the document emphasizes that faculty retain primary authority over teaching, curriculum, and hiring and tenure decisions for Standing Faculty.
So what? In recent years, the role of faculty governance bodies has come under increased scrutiny across higher education, including at Columbia, where the Faculty Senate lost authority over certain disciplinary actions. At Penn, questions around shared governance resurfaced this spring during revisions to the Open Expression policies, with faculty members pointing out that the administration strayed from established processes for amending the guidelines. Clearly defining roles and responsibilities is a necessary first step in maintaining effective shared governance. The one-pager reinforces the Senate’s advisory role while underscoring that final authority over key institutional decisions remains with the administration.
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