A conversation with Interim President J. Larry Jameson

What do you think you learned about Penn in the past year that you maybe didn’t know or fully appreciate in your previous roles?

I’m constantly in learning mode. I’ve been on a college campus for all of my adult life—since I was a freshman—and I’m still learning.

In my former role I was executive vice president and dean of the School of Medicine, so I’ve been closely connected with the President’s Office since arriving at Penn and it gave me very good exposure to the breadth of the institution. That said, it’s different to be in the President’s Office every day. Across our 12 schools and our many centers and institutes, we have a wealth of expertise that is staggering. I am inherently curious and eager to continue learning more about our schools, centers, and institutes. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about our faculty’s scholarship and research interests. I regularly meet with students who share their passions inside the classroom and in our community, and engage with staff who are ensuring Penn delivers its mission. It’s also been a privilege to hear from our alums, learn more about their impactful careers, and absorb their Penn reflections and experiences. All of this informs me about what’s meaningful and important for Penn’s direction, and how to perpetuate those experiences moving forward.

Last January, when you did a Q&A with Penn Today, you spoke of how medicine trained you to listen and be empathetic, and to create ‘differential diagnosis.’ Has that played out the way you thought it would in lending itself to the role?

I think everyone who’s in some type of leadership role brings their prior experiences and their professional background into their style of leadership. It’s just very hard to separate those things. In fact, I think to be authentic you really need to welcome personal background into your leadership style. In my case, I’m trained as a physician. But I’m also trained as a scientist, and those components are both complementary and distinct. 

The scientific side of me is very accustomed to brainstorming, crowdsourcing ideas, forming hypotheses and using data to inform decisions. Then, when you discover that the results are different than you expected, it’s time for an adjustment or correction. The physician side of me uses similar skills in that a patient presents with a complaint or symptoms and you quickly develop a list of all the possible diagnoses. Then you perform tests to discriminate among these possibilities and recommend appropriate treatments. If you didn’t make the right diagnosis initially, you back up and do more tests. Medical training also puts you into a mode of being a listener and observer. It's about picking up not just the verbal cues, but the nonverbal ones too—and that skill has definitely come in handy for me.

Finally, I’d say that I need to rely on people with other skillsets. We have a very talented leadership team that complements my style and approach.

The reports from the University Task force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community were released and implementation is underway. What are some of your takeaways from the reports?

These two groups worked very diligently to not only create reports, but to gather input and perspectives broadly from our community. I think a common misperception is that you get these reports, check a box, put them on a shelf, and then you’re done. To me, the exciting part is to not only get the insights of the group but then put them to work. 

Deputy Provost Beth Winkelstein is leading this implementation process, making sure we’ve got timelines and milestones in place. We are actively tracking the progress. Some of the recommendations of these groups were quite distinct. However, it was interesting to me that there was a lot of overlap in the themes the two groups decided to emphasize. For example, each of the groups had a sharp focus on culture, belonging, and they wanted us to go through a process of creating a values statement, which we’ve now done. The Commission did a lot of work on the values statement by way of background, and they gathered input from thousands of people. If you read the details of their report, and the information in the appendices, there’s a lot of richness in what they brought to this topic. 

Each of the groups also sought clarification about some of our policies. University policies are housed in many different places and they can sometimes be technical and ambiguous. To address this, we had a group distill, compile, and update policies as temporary guidelines, following a process Penn has used several times before. The clearer we can be about our values and policies, all the better. At the heart of this, though, the Commission and Task Force were sharply focused on how the University of Pennsylvania can become an even more inclusive community—one that is open minded, respectful, and free from discrimination, where our missions can be carried out by effectively harnessing the talent of our community.

It also seems like this is consistent with the crowdsourcing effort, as you put it, between the listening work of the Task Force and Commission and, say, the Red & Blue Committee.

The Red & Blue Committee spent about two years gathering input of the entire Penn community. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, and the deans were intensely involved in the process and we now have In Principle and Practice—a broad, flexible framework designed to be decorated with specific ideas over time. It’s a living strategy that provides direction while remaining adaptable to the moment, allowing people to apply it in more specific environments. Now, as schools develop their own strategic plans tailored to their specific missions and community, they are connecting their efforts to In Principle and Practice. This integration makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Another result of the reports is the Office for Religious and Ethnic Inclusion (Title VI). Why was that the right approach for Penn to have this office?

From my perspective, since the 1960s when the Civil Rights Act was passed, we’ve had a legislative framework and mandate to address issues of discrimination, which has continued to evolve with Title VI. However, we still need to cultivate the culture to support it. 

By comparison, Title IX had a more formalized process for implementation, and the principles underlying Title VI have come into focus in the last few years. To me, it was the right time for us to add more structure to support Title VI. We’ve hired a team that is hard at work laying the foundation for its functionality. They’ve been on a listening tour around the Penn community, and they’ve been warmly received. This is one more step toward our goal of eliminating discrimination in all its forms. I think we’ll be a stronger, more effective community when we achieve that goal, and if Penn can lead by not only creating this office here, but by providing an example that will be helpful to other institutions to follow, all the better.

New vice provosts were announced this semester, as well as the creation of the AI Council, which are three major steps forward for In Principle and Practice. How do you see those three coalescing to move the mission of the University forward?

Not unlike the Commission and Task Force, with In Principle and Practice, the secret to its success lies in the implementation. I would identify five big moves, and there are going to be many others.

One is the leadership positions you just mentioned. Michael Mann has been appointed Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action. He’s a national leader in this area, Penn has an enormous amount of activity going on in climate and sustainability, including the recent announcement of the [Action Plan] 4.0 objectives. But to have a high-level leadership position to coordinate and maximize the opportunities is a critical step. The same is true in the arts where Tim Rommen has been appointed Vice Provost for the Arts. Penn has incredible arts programs across a wide range of areas—live arts, our museums, and the Libraries, to name a few. However, their visibility is not as robust as it could be. To address this, we’ve appointed a vice provost dedicated to the arts, whose role is to elevate their profile, enhance coordination, and ensure these programs receive the attention they deserve. 

The third example focuses on democracy, truth, and trust. We’ve launched Penn Washington, which is designed to bring Penn’s scholarly work into the Washington, D.C., environment—a global hub where people gather in our nation’s capital. The goal is to position Penn as a trusted source of truth and information, contributing to policy where appropriate, while also bringing issues arising in that environment back to our scholars. It’s meant to be a reciprocal exchange.

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A fourth example is a coordinated effort in artificial intelligence (AI) that has been led by our Senior Vice Provost for Research Dawn Bonnell, who’s convened leaders in this space from multiple different schools. We’re now making investments in the infrastructure for AI and we’ve just dedicated a building, Amy Gutmann Hall, that will host offices and courses where literally all 12 schools will be involved in a data science building. Every day, I hear about an example of how AI is shaping the future. These examples include what’s happening at Penn, whether it’s drug discovery where three-dimensional shapes of a protein are informing how to design drugs, or how to use AI in our data analytics or to assist with programming. It’s hard to imagine where this will evolve, but like other technological advances, AI is going to be an invaluable tool, and at some point, it will just be part of the fabric of what we do. We want Penn to be a leader.

And the fifth example I would cite is the launch about this time last year of the Institute for RNA Innovation. Penn has long been a leader in the life sciences. Arguably three of the biggest advances in biomedicine in the past quarter-century happened here: gene therapy, engineering the immune system with CAR-T cells, and the RNA platform that was recognized by the Nobel Prize and is just beginning to evolve. This new RNA Institute will bring people together from around the institution to leverage this platform technology. In the new Institute building, we formally combined medical scientists and engineering scientists in the same physical space. Beyond vaccines, where it was applied initially, it’s already being explored for somatic cell engineering for diseases like sickle cell anemia, and other targets that remain to be explored. 

Each of those areas will continue to evolve, and I’m confident new ones will emerge over the next few years.

You mentioned Amy Gutmann Hall. How do you see Amy Gutmann Hall and the Vagelos Lab for Energy Science and Technology contributing to the campus environment?

I think these new facilities are super cool. 

My own experience has been that it’s easy to underestimate the relationship between structure and function. I saw this play out with the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, where we totally redesigned the delivery of healthcare that the space facilitated. Similarly, the new Patient Pavilion is an internationally recognized example of that, created by a world-renowned architect Norman Foster, with the input of the whole community. Amy Gutmann Hall is focused on sustainability in its design, exemplified by its infrastructure made of wood, not steel, and by the shading on the windows. This building supports climate and sustainability, it supports data science and AI, and it connects the Penn principle of being interwoven and interdisciplinary by bringing faculty from literally every school at Penn into the same space.

I walked into the Vagelos [Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology] (VLEST) for the first time yesterday; it’s totally amazing. Everything about the design is focused on sustainability, as the name implies. One of our faculty members in the Weitzman School was explaining some of the details to me, the way the heating works in the floors, the radiant heat in the ceilings, the way the windows are designed, the shading, the way mechanical systems manage air flow—it’s absolutely state of the art. 

And then there’s the research that will go on there. That area of campus now, with the Singh Center, Amy Gutmann Hall, the Vagelos Lab, and the planned renovation of the David Rittenhouse Laboratories, is being renewed and reinvigorated to be adaptive to the current state of Penn and what we want to work on going forward. At the time the Singh Center opened, nanotechnology was a brand-new field and it was designed to support that, with areas that minimize vibration and allow highly specialized equipment to be placed in it. As we evolve, I think it’s really important to design the structures to support the function of what we want to achieve.

What prompted the new financial aid initiative?

President Gutmann launched an all-grant, no-loan philosophy that we’ve been in the process of implementing and evolving since the day she created it. Penn First Plus has been incredibly impactful by providing greater access and opportunity; we’re going to continue to support that initiative aggressively, including the new facilities we’ve created here in College Hall. This latest initiative, Quaker Commitment, is one more step to make Penn more accessible.  

As we’ve continually reviewed our data, one thing that became apparent was that the affordability of a university education was increasingly challenging for middle-income families that often have more than one child aspiring to go to college, and our goal is to make Penn available to as broad a population as possible. It’s really about access and opportunity and trying to assure that Penn is affordable. The Quaker Commitment also took some explicit steps to make it easier to apply for financial aid, to eliminate consideration of home equity, and we’ll continue to evaluate our options so that this incredible education is available to everyone who meets the criteria to come here. 

This time of year often invites reflection. Is there anything in particular from the past year that’s been on your mind?

I expected students to be amazing, but beyond all my expectations, they are just phenomenally passionate, hardworking, dedicated people. Intense! In a good way. I really feel like the students who are here recognize that this is the opportunity of a lifetime, and they want to take full advantage of it. Whether it’s networking, community service, courses for credit, courses not for credit, the clubs they can sign up for. That’s been really amazing. 

Similarly, I know the medical faculty really well, and could talk all day long about the incredible things many of them are doing, but as I meet faculty in other disciplines, they likewise have an area of expertise where they’re deeply dedicated and are doing incredible research and teaching. But I also note a curiosity about what their colleagues are doing, which is a very special part of the Penn culture. This mindset has this sort of renaissance feel about it that I think allows our faculty to constantly adapt their scholarly work in creative and sometimes groundbreaking ways. There’s a level of excellence among the faculty that draws the students here, and this is a continuous cycle. 

We have hundreds of thousands of alumni, and I’ve only had the chance to meet a fraction of them. But arguably the most important thing Penn does is graduate individuals who go on to change the world. It’s inspiring to meet alumni who are making meaningful contributions to create a better, stronger society.

While it’s hard to quantify, the role of higher education—despite being under intense scrutiny in recent years due to the cost of education and other factors—has been undeniably transformative. When we talk about the value of higher education, we need to communicate that value more effectively. Many of the major societal breakthroughs over the decades and centuries have originated at universities. Whether through advancing individual lives, uplifting populations, or driving societal progress, higher education has consistently raised standards of living and deepened our understanding of the world.

As a global university, Penn’s impact is now even more far-reaching, magnifying its contributions on a worldwide scale.