The Key — Reforming Governance, Rebuilding Trust
This week, Penn Today published an interview with Chair of the Board of Trustees Ramanan Raghavendran explaining the board’s recent governance overhaul. The structural changes are important. Equally important is the board’s decision to explain them publicly.
For an institution rebuilding trust after years of scrutiny, transparency about governance may matter just as much as governance itself.
People often don’t pay attention to governance until something goes wrong. That changed at Penn in 2023, when unrest over rising campus antisemitism, former President Liz Magill’s congressional testimony, and the resignations of Magill and Board Chair Scott Bok drew unprecedented attention to how Penn makes decisions and who influences them.
Fairly or unfairly, many came to see Penn’s governance as opaque and at the whims of wealthy alumni. The resulting narrative suggested that institutional decision making was driven by personalities and pressure rather than by clearly defined processes and responsibilities.
Over the past two years, the board has undertaken reforms that may change that perception. When the governance review began in 2024, it was described as a "regular revisiting of our governance procedures." The resulting changes suggest something more significant.
Trustees first focused on the board's "composition," examining who serves on the board, for how long, how trustees are expected to behave, what their roles are, and how the board is led. The latest reforms address the board's structure, reorganizing the committee structure that Raghavendran calls the board’s “governance architecture.” Together, these changes have reduced the board's size, clarified trustee responsibilities, strengthened accountability, and created a governance model that is more agile, disciplined, and transparent.
Now, a simplified scheme of nine committees governs the board’s responsibilities. Three focus on “operations”: Budget and Finance; Audit, Risk and Compliance; and External Affairs. Three focus on “mission”: Education; Research; and Frontiers. And finally, three are in charge of “oversight”: Executive; Governance; and Compensation.
These structural changes are important, holding the potential to improve accountability and engagement across the university. It is also notable that the board decided to explain these changes publicly.
In his recent interview, Raghavendran emphasized transparency as a governing principle. Referring to Penn’s decision to publish its governance architecture, Raghavendran said that “none of this should be a state secret.”
Transparency is critical for Penn’s board, especially as a means to rebuilding trust. By openly discussing its rationale behind reforms, Penn is making governance less opaque and strengthening the legitimacy of the institution within its community.
Another theme running through Raghavendran’s interview was self-examination. He connected the governance review to Penn’s value of self improvement. Strong institutions are willing to evaluate themselves, identify weaknesses, and adapt. Penn’s governance reforms are an example of that process in action.
The reforms themselves position Penn to more smoothly navigate an increasingly uncertain higher education environment with a more focused and accountable governing structure, as does the board’s decision to openly discuss the changes.
Institutions rebuild trust not only through structural change, but through transparency about the reforms themselves. For a university committed to being “imperfect but self-improving,” that openness is an important step forward. Strong governance depends on both good decisions and the willingness to explain them, and Penn is doing both in this case.
The Almanac
Curated highlights from this week’s Penn news
Faculty Senate rejects current draft of Open Expression Guidelines
On Tuesday, Penn’s Faculty Senate voted overwhelming to oppose the proposed Open Expression Guidelines put forward by the Provost’s Office this spring.
The resolution states that the Senate Executive Committee (SEC) rejects both the proposed guidelines and the process used to develop them, arguing that they are "misaligned" with Penn’s values.
The resolution calls on the Provost’s Office to take three actions: reaffirm the independence of the Committee on Open Expression (COE); return responsibility for amending the Open Expression Guidelines to the COE, as outlined in the Faculty Handbook; and publicly release the recommendations of the 2025 Task Force on Open Expression. The resolution passed unanimously, with one abstention.
The vote comes after Penn’s leadership delayed the timeline for publishing the final guidelines from September to mid-November. As we discussed last week, Penn’s administration also plans to release community feedback on the draft and conduct another round of revisions before finalizing the policy.
So what? While Provost Jackson acknowledged last week that complete consensus on new free expression policies is impossible, both the administration’s decision to extend the timeline and the Faculty Senate's resolution reflect a shared recognition that the legitimacy of the process will be critical to the credibility of the final policy.
Penn launches new pre-commercialization grant program
Earlier this month, Penn’s Office of the Chief Innovation Officer (OCIO) announced NextUP, a new grant program supporting ideas with commercial potential. The fund is designed to help faculty founders advance early-stage projects to a point where they can attract industry partners and outside investors.
Applications are due at the end of July, and projects must be led by a Penn faculty member. Selected teams will receive up to $50,000 to support early-stage research and development.
NextUP intends to fund projects at the pre-seed stage, before they are ready for traditional startup investment. The initiative complements StartUP, the OCIO’s $10 million seed fund launched last December for Penn faculty and researchers whose ventures are further along, but often still too early for outside investors, in the commercialization process.
So what? As uncertainty around federal research funding nationwide continues, Penn is expanding internal support for innovation. Unlike many traditional research grants, NextUP explicitly aims to bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial application. If successful, the program could strengthen Penn’s position as a hub for entrepreneurship while helping more university research reach the market.
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