Russell Composto talks leading Penn Forward’s Undergraduate Education and Innovation working group

How have you organized this Penn Forward working group and what are some of its guiding principles?

There are two things: One is when I took this role the provost said that this position has the benefit of convening the best and brightest minds across Penn. That’s the best part of this role, that you can convene brilliant students, faculty, and staff around topics that can improve the undergraduate experience for our students. Initially, I had a vision of what I thought the undergraduate experience could look like, but ultimately the end product needs to reflect the vision of the working group as well as ideas from the community that we are collecting. So, I’d say that that’s an important guiding principle.

How I’m trying to lead this group: Because it is made up of representatives from all four undergraduate Schools and several professional Schools, part of the goal is to figure out how to integrate the professional Schools into the undergraduate experience so that we can take advantage of all the great expertise we have at Penn. The professional Schools provide us with an amazing opportunity to provide students with impactful and possibly life-altering experiences.

I also ask the group to think about initiatives that will benefit every student across the four undergraduate Schools—not just how it will benefit students from their School. That’s a challenge at a place like Penn that tends to silo students into the four undergraduate Schools early in their educational journey. I view Penn Forward as an amazing opportunity to knock down some of the walls between them and hopefully allow students to explore beyond their Schools.

Why is this the right team?

The expertise. We were intentional about pulling in people who, for example, have some far-out thoughts on AI but also just use AI more routinely. So, we picked them for their expertise, with someone on the arts side, someone on the humanities side, etc., and we were very intentional about making sure as many disciplines as possible were represented around the table. Standing faculty represent the Schools, as well as a few outstanding staff members who have the pulse of the student body. Importantly, there are two undergraduate student leaders who are providing us with great insight about students’ needs and wants. It’s a great working group who are listening to each other and picking up on common themes. This is a big ask so I really appreciate their thoughtful participation, particularly when we hold in-person meetings.

What do you think distinguishes Penn’s undergraduate experience from our peers? What is exceptional that you think we can build on?

One is being in the city of Philadelphia. There are so many opportunities for our students to get real-world experience, just by being in Philadelphia. For example, the Netter Center does a great job working with the local community, particularly in West Philadelphia, but I think there are more opportunities to tap into that and get our students out of the Penn bubble and into experiential learning. As another example, Civic House, which runs the West Philadelphia tutoring project, is another program ready to grow student opportunities for long-term civic engagement.

Second, Penn is unique in that we have so much expertise co-located on campus or nearby—every field in this small, dense region. You could walk across campus from Engineering to the Vet School in 15 minutes—or less if you walk fast! We’re a compact campus that offers 12 Schools, 200-plus centers, and institutes, and more.

The challenge is, how do we get students to recognize their options? Maybe they want to be a dentist but are studying political science. Perhaps we could have some experience where students have an opportunity to shadow a dental student in the Dental School; it doesn’t have to be a heavy lift for them, but it could give that student insight into career paths early enough for them to make any adjustments in their degree program or extracurricular activities. The earlier we can provide experiences to students, the more motivated they might be to work through the struggles ahead because they have a better understanding of their end goals. 

The interdisciplinary nature of Penn, in particular, seems salient here.

And you can talk about interdisciplinarity being between the four undergraduate Schools, asking all students to have some understanding of finance, or all students to have some understanding of the humanities. Interdisciplinary learning also involves vertically integrated opportunities that match students interests as they move through each year.  And that touches not just teaching but internships, or more experiences that might get you thinking about your career earlier—not that we want them to only be career focused, but we want to give them opportunities. Utilizing the professional Schools to get some of that interdisciplinary learning could be valuable, and that’s one idea that keeps bubbling up in our discussions. 

There are some professional Schools that already have undergraduate programs, like Annenberg and the Weitzman School of Design. For example, undergraduates can major in communications or design, respectively. Can we learn from these programs and expand student offerings?

What does thinking boldly mean to you?

It’s thinking for the best interest of all our students rather than being so discipline-focused. Particularly during the beginning of an undergraduate’s experience at Penn, how do we open their vision, their lens, when we tend to narrow them down? That narrowing gives them focus, which is not terrible, but it also limits their opportunities. We want to get students thinking about these interdisciplinary opportunities at Penn—across all 12 Schools as well as the Centers and Institutes. And it is a challenge, but it’s a good opportunity to do it now.

One other thing I’ll add is that we need to make sure our first-generation, moderate-income students have the same opportunity as everyone else to take advantage of the opportunities across Penn. For many of us Penn can be an overwhelming environment and it takes a while to find one’s path. That’s why we have a Penn First Plus Program that supports these students.  We simply want to make sure students from all backgrounds and experiences have the same opportunities.

It sounds like the group is thinking about it as, ‘This is the undergraduate student stepping on campus the first time: What do they see, where do they go?’

Yes. Although all our students are brilliant in their own way, they are entering Penn with a wider range of educational experiences. For example, whereas some students have been using AI tools through high schools, others might be encountering it for the first time. How do we set the educational levels to impact all these students, so that we excite the students who are a little more advanced and bring up to speed the students coming in with less knowledge about a particular core subject? Penn is not set up to do that right now. An interdisciplinary approach can address some of these discrepancies as well as an enhanced onboarding system.

How are you interacting with other Penn Forward working groups where there might be overlap?

Experiential learning easily crosses over into the Research Strategy and Financing group. For example, can we provide all interested undergraduates with a research opportunity—maybe with faculty from the professional Schools as well as undergraduate Schools? Or maybe with the local community through community-driven projects? We are a research-driving university. Can we really tap into that ethos at the undergraduate level to enhance opportunities beyond the current scope of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships?

There’s also connection with the Access, Affordability, and Value group. Again, the students less likely to ask for research opportunities are the ones coming from under-resourced high schools. They’ve never done research before, and we need to get them in the door.  Similarly, how do we connect them with community engagement opportunities that align with their values?

And on the graduate side, I talk to [Graduate and Professional Training working group chair] Kelly Jordan-Sciutto nearly every day about common initiatives. For example, AI literacy and learning impacts both graduate and undergraduate education. Both sides of the house will need to deal with how we utilize AI properly, intentionally, and without losing the ability to critically think

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Penn Forward is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I think, to evolve the curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania for undergraduates. And if done right, we’ll be setting up current and future students for a successful education that leads to a fulfilling life. I’m thankful that the president and provost are providing the leadership that allows us to make bold changes. Step one is to envision innovative programs and then the next step will be operationalizing these innovations across campus.

But on the AI front, we have to move. We need to try and pilot projects and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work—but we have to try. And with research dollars and graduate education under scrutiny, I think this is a great opportunity to focus our attention on undergraduate education.