Announcements

As we approach the final weeks of the current fiscal year, we are writing to update you on the financial challenges presented by COVID-19. Our principal goal is to provide transparency into the fiscal realities and uncertainties we must confront as a community. Last week, the Board of Trustees approved the operating budgets and capital plans for fiscal year 2021 (FY21). We write today to share a summary of the financial information provided to the Board of Trustees.

Earlier this week, the Division’s senior administrators and I met virtually with approximately 30 Black student-athletes at Penn in an honest, collaborative, and impactful dialog regarding their experience as a student-athlete. As a Division, we admit we have not done enough to take an active stand against racism and are firmly committed to becoming an organization that is truly antiracist.

Last week, President Gutmann called on our community to join in grieving the deaths of George Floyd and too many others and to commit to being part of a positive change. I am writing today to reaffirm her call to duty and follow up with additional next steps. 

The University of Pennsylvania frequently examines the role of standardized testing in college admissions, including the SAT and ACT. We see these tests as one piece of a more comprehensive evaluation process that considers individual students in the context of their academic and personal experiences.

Words cannot adequately convey the anger, grief and frustration that we are all experiencing during this difficult time for our city and country. Yet out of our despair, we can also perceive hope.

Once again our nation mourns. The tragic and senseless death of George Floyd is a vivid reminder of the inequalities and unacceptable indignities that so many of our citizens constantly endure. The events in Minneapolis this week should lead everyone to recognize how much more work our society must do to realize liberty and justice for all. As a nation we have much work to do.

With the semester’s end and our moving, bittersweet virtual Commencement for the Class of 2020 only days behind us, we are writing to update you on our planning and preparations for the fall. At this time, predictions for the fall of the pandemic’s progression and our society’s capacities for testing, contact tracing and treatment are sufficiently uncertain that we cannot say with perfect clarity what the fall semester will look like.

Dear Deans J. Larry Jameson, Antonia Villarruel, and Mark Wolff, We, the Deans of schools at the University of Pennsylvania, on behalf of our communities of employees and students, want to thank the Deans and their faculty and staff at the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and School of Dental Medicine for their brave and commendable response to the pandemic. 

As we approach the end of the spring semester, we write to update you with the latest information on our planning and the important elements that will influence the decisions about how we move forward during this pandemic.

As is true for all universities in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant financial impact on the University of Pennsylvania. Penn has experienced a substantial increase in costs to support students in the move from campus to online learning, combined with lost revenue across many areas of the University.