Amy Gutmann, Ph.D.
President, The University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Amy Gutmann became the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania on July 1, 2004. In her inaugural address, Dr. Gutmann launched the Penn Compact, her vision for making Penn both a global leader in teaching, research, and professional practice, and a dynamic agent of social, economic, and civic progress. The Compact's vision has propelled Penn forward in increasing access for the most talented students, regardless of socioeconomic background, recruiting and retaining eminent faculty who will integrate knowledge across multiple disciplines, and making Penn a powerful transformational force throughout the Philadelphia region and the nation and around the globe. In October 2007, she launched “Making History,” a five-year, $3.5 billion campaign that is the largest fundraising effort in Penn’s history.

As Penn's President, Dr. Gutmann has championed equity in higher education, encompassing access for students from middle-income as well as low-income families. During her presidency, Penn first replaced loans with grants for students from families with incomes less than $60,000. In December 2007 Dr. Gutmann announced that Penn will replace loans with grants for all financially eligible undergraduate students.

Dr. Gutmann serves on the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, a committee that advises the FBI on national security issues relating to academia. She also co-convenes the annual U.N. Global Colloquium of University Presidents, which works with the U.N. Secretary General on a range of global issues, including academic freedom, mass migration, international development, and the social responsibilities of universities.

As the CEO of Philadelphia's largest private employer, Dr. Gutmann is a leader in civic and business affairs. She currently is co-chairing the transition team for Philadelphia Mayor-elect Michael Nutter. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and on the Boards of Directors of the Vanguard Corporation, the National Constitution Center, and the Schuylkill River Development Corporation.

An eminent political scientist and philosopher, Dr. Gutmann currently is Professor of Political Science in the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn. She continues to teach, lecture, and write extensively on ethics, justice theory, deliberative democracy, and democratic education. She delivered the 2005 keynote address, “Educating for Citizenship: Locally and Globally,” to the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Dr. Gutmann has authored and edited fifteen books and has published more than 100 articles, essays, and book chapters. Her essays and reviews have appeared in numerous national and international publications, including the New York Times, the New Republic, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Washington Post.

Dr. Gutmann's most recent books include Why Deliberative Democracy? (2004 with Dennis Thompson), Identity in Democracy (2003), Democratic Education (revised edition, 1999), Democracy and Disagreement (1996, with Dennis Thompson and selected by Choice as one of “the outstanding political science books for 1997”), and Color Conscious (1996, with K. Anthony Appiah), which won several honors, including the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights Award for the "outstanding book on the subject of human rights in North America."

Dr. Gutmann has served as president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy and is a founding member of the executive committee of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics.

Prior to her appointment as Penn's President, Dr. Gutmann served as Provost at Princeton University, where she was also the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics.

She was the founding Director of the University Center for Human Values, a multidisciplinary center that sponsors teaching, scholarship and public discussion of ethics and human values. In 1998, Gutmann received the Bertram Mott Award from the American Association of University Professors “in recognition of outstanding achievement towards advancing the goals of higher education.”

Amy Gutmann graduated magna cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College, earned her master's degree in Political Science from the London School of Economics, and her doctorate in Political Science from Harvard University.

In 2003, Gutmann was awarded the Centennial Medal by Harvard University for "graduate alumni who have made exceptional contributions to society.”