Anita L. Allen has been named vice provost for faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, effective July 1.  She is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law in the Penn Law School and professor of philosophy in the School of Arts and Sciences.

The announcement was made today by Provost Vincent Price.

“Anita Allen brings an extraordinary range of experience to this critically important role,” Price said. “She is a distinguished scholar of law and ethics, a seasoned administrator, a vibrant writer and public speaker and a longtime champion of equity and access. I am most grateful to the consultative committee, led by Bob Holthausen of the Wharton School, whose invaluable work -– and conversations with faculty across the university -– helped achieve this exceptional result.”

Allen, an international expert in privacy law and contemporary ethics, is the author of seven books and more than 100 academic articles. These include most recently Unpopular Privacy (Oxford University Press, 2011) and The New Ethics (Hyperion, 2004), named a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year. A widely cited writer, lecturer and media commentator, she has chaired and served on dozens of boards, committees and councils, both nationally and at Penn, including President Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, chaired by Penn President Amy Gutmann. 

She served in 2009-2011 as deputy dean for academic affairs of the Penn Law School, where she has taught since 1998, and previously as associate dean for research and scholarship of the Georgetown University Law Center, where she taught from 1987 to 1998.  Allen has also taught at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh and was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Princeton University, Yale Law School and numerous other schools around the world. 

She earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in philosophy, classics and literature from New College of Florida. 

The vice provost for faculty oversees faculty life and the academic personnel process at Penn, including recruitment, retention and retirement; appointments, tenure and promotions; enhancement of faculty diversity and gender and minority equity; and resolution of individual faculty issues, including grievances.  The vice provost for faculty coordinates the provost’s staff conference and works closely with the deans and chairs of Penn’s 12 schools, as well as with the Faculty Senate, the vice president for human resources, the ombudsman, the affirmative-action officer, diversity search advisors, the provost’s senior advisor for diversity and the Penn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty.