Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity is not only a public good—it is also very good for Penn. Our quest for eminence depends on great minds that represent a wide array of perspectives and backgrounds.
Across 12 Schools, more than 25,000 students, and more than 4,000 faculty members, we become one university: a wide-ranging, ever-changing community that draws its strength from a multitude of races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, historical traditions, ages, religions, disabilities, veteran status, interests, perspectives, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
President Gutmann’s Statement on Diversity
Understanding and appreciating diversity is foundational for success in today’s world. It is fundamental to the education we provide at Penn and one of our University’s most important priorities.
Read statement on Diversity DACA and Undocumented Student Resources
Penn benefits greatly from the rich diversity of all undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. As part of that commitment to inclusion, Penn provides access and support to undocumented students, including those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) status.
DACA and Undocumented Student Resources Website
35 Years of Service - Greenfield Intercultural Center
For 35 years, the Greenfield Intercultural Center has served as Penn’s resource for enhancing student’s intercultural knowledge, competency, and leadership. The GIC offers experiential courses for credit, signature intercultural programs, and other services related to diversity and intercultural education.
Greenfield Intercultural Center
Supplier Diversity & Inclusion
Fueling Business Growth is tied to a multi-faceted action plan aimed at strengthening relationships, and expanding access to resources, with local, diverse and minority-owned businesses.
Supplier Diversity & Inclusion
Pan-Asian American Community House - 20 Years
For twenty years, the Pan-Asian American Community House has been a hub of academic, personal, and professional growth for Penn students interested in Asian American culture and the Asian American Diaspora. Through advising, leadership development, advocacy, social and cultural programming we expand student access to the University’s resources.
Pan-Asian American Community House
iCommunicate Intercultural Trainings
ISSS (International Student & Scholar Services) offers 3 tracks of iCommunicate trainings. Request a training for your group, office or department. Open to all Penn students, scholars, faculty and staff.
iCommunicate Intercultural Trainings
Penn & Slavery Augmented Reality App
The Penn & Slavery Project's student-developed app takes users on a tour of slavery's legacy at Penn in six stops, each telling a story through an augmented reality (AR) experience. The tour relates to specific locations on Penn's University City Campus.
Penn & Slavery Augmented Reality App
EVENTS
September 10 - December 18, 2022
John E. Dowell: Paths to Freedom presents 26 photographs, an immersive installation, and soundscape by Philadelphia artist John E. Dowell. Staged in cotton fields at night, Dowell’s photographs conjure the spirits of his enslaved ancestors as they sought freedom, imagining the landscape they encountered in that search. As Dowell notes in his artist statement this body of work responds to an auditory apparition, he experienced in 2017 while looking at a cotton field and contemplating his ancestral legacy of slavery: “Would you have had the courage, the strength, the wisdom to break for freedom?”
The largest of Dowell’s meticulously rendered panoramic photographs, Night Before the Run, is monumental in scale, measuring over six feet. The exhibition unfolds as a series of signs and ancestral visions through the darkness towards freedom.
NEWS
Project HOPE
This 2021 President’s Engagement Prize project is working to address the lack of legal and reentry support to incarcerated Philadelphians by serving as the core of an expansive advocacy network.
PROGRAMS
Fueling Business Growth is tied to a multi-faceted action plan aimed at strengthening relationships, and expanding access to resources, with local, diverse and minority-owned businesses.
PROGRAMS
Projects for Progress - Office of Social Equity and Community
An initiative announced in 2020 that supports proposals by teams of students, faculty, and staff designed to promote equity and inclusion and to make a direct impact in Philadelphia.
Diversity at Penn
Penn has a number of policies and initiatives that support its efforts to foster inclusive excellence. Diversity and inclusion related data, progress reports on initiatives, a timeline of selected milestones, and stories about members of the Penn community are available here.
Academic Programs
Academic departments and centers offer research and talks that explore issues related to diversity and inclusion. Additionally, the University’s schools, programs and centers offer programming to educate and support inclusive excellence and the intellectual and interpersonal development of its students, faculty, and staff.
Videos of Diversity
Inclusion and diversity are the focus of a number of videos that illuminate the University’s commitment and the journeys of members of the community.
Administrative Offices and Co-curricular Resources
Students, faculty and staff belong to organizations and affinity groups that provide opportunities to explore dimensions of diversity, share their stories, offer support and mentorship, and educate themselves and others about particular dimensions of inclusion.
Towards Inclusion: Diversity at Penn
ACE Honors Penn President Amy Gutmann with 2015 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award | View Transcript