Dear members of the Penn community,
I will conclude my service as President of the University of Pennsylvania as planned on June 30, 2027, at the close of the upcoming academic year.
When I accepted the honor of leading Penn, my goal was to help restore stability during unanticipated leadership transitions, refocus our community on Penn’s mission, and strengthen Penn for the future during a challenging time for higher education. With your partnership, resilience, and dedication, we have accomplished these objectives and much more. Penn has tremendous momentum and is exceptionally well positioned for the future. Although I greatly enjoy serving as President, now is the right time for Penn to begin its next chapter under new leadership. Ramanan Raghavendran, Chair of the Board of Trustees, will share additional information about the search process in a separate communication.
When I stepped into the presidential role, I had been at Penn for more than 12 years, serving as Executive Vice President and Dean under three presidents: Amy Gutmann, Wendell Pritchett, and Liz Magill. While that provided me with a broad view of Penn’s scope, there is no substitute for being in this role; serving as President allowed me to learn each day from the people, ideas, and achievements that define this University and its extraordinary breadth. In many respects, I felt kinship with our first-year students who encounter and embrace all that Penn has to offer. While my career has been in academic medicine, it has been illuminating to reacquaint myself with other fields, from poetry to political science, from finance to fine arts.
Penn’s strength has always been—and always will be—our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and supporters. Spending time with so many of you has been a joy and an honor. When I met with Penn Rhodes Scholar Om Gandhi, I asked him why he pursued a new engineering project focused on CAR T cells when his project on pediatric brain cancer was making great progress. His answer: “I’m working on both!” That is Penn student ambition. Religion professor Justin McDaniel took his class on existential despair to Woodland Cemetery late one evening to read together the concluding chapter of Christopher Isherwood’s “A Single Man.” That is experiential learning and will be remembered when these students reflect on their time at Penn. Dr. Jean Bennett believed it might be possible to correct blindness caused by gene defects. This first FDA-approved gene therapy is now a reality for children who had previously never seen their mother’s face. These anecdotes, among countless others, define Penn for me.
I have come to appreciate that Penn’s greatness comes from a culture that encourages people to challenge assumptions, cross boundaries, and pursue knowledge in service to others. In our laboratories, classrooms, and Philadelphia neighborhoods, I have witnessed Penn people fulfill Benjamin Franklin’s vision—using knowledge for the greater good. You have inspired my thinking and leadership and shaped my understanding of what makes this institution so exceptional.
Together, we have built upon a foundation of academic excellence. We have made education more accessible and affordable, witnessed multiple medical breakthroughs, championed recognition of faculty and students, and strengthened a culture of inclusion, collaboration, respect, and thoughtful debate.
The momentum we have built will continue. We have important goals to achieve together in the coming year. Penn Forward has launched an ambitious set of actionable initiatives that will further enhance access, catalyze discovery, and extend our reach, nationally and globally, positioning Penn to lead in a rapidly changing world for years to come. I look forward to continuing that work with you while partnering with the Board of Trustees to ensure a seamless leadership transition.
As I said when I began this role, “Like you, I love Penn.” That will never change. I am confident in the University’s trajectory and grateful for the opportunity to continue serving this remarkable community over the coming year. Thanks to all of you, Penn’s future is extraordinarily bright.
Sincerely,
J. Larry Jameson, MD, Ph.D.
President
University of Pennsylvania