In recognition of the end of Steven J. Fluharty’s term as dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, a look at the School’s growth and innovation over 12 years.
In one of his first initiatives as the new dean of the School of Arts & Sciences in 2013, Steven J. Fluharty kicked off a comprehensive planning process involving students, alums, advisors, University administrators, and one-third of the School’s faculty. In 2015, the results of this process were captured in a document that has been guiding the School ever since: Our Foundations and Frontiers: A Strategic Plan for Penn Arts & Sciences.
Steven J. Fluharty, Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience and dean of the School of Arts & Sciences.
(Image: Lisa J. Godfrey)
Foundations and Frontiers prioritized strengthening faculty and education programs—the foundations for excellence in all of the School’s endeavors. In addition, it targeted a series of eight interdisciplinary themes in critically important areas that presented the School’s most promising opportunities to maximize its impact.
The plan has evolved over time but has remained the roadmap guiding the transformation of the School’s people, programs, departments, centers, and buildings in nearly 12 years under Fluharty’s leadership.
Under Fluharty’s leadership, the School recruited 230 faculty members, launched a group mentorship program for junior faculty, and brought in non-standing faculty from professional fields for its Professors of Practice initiative. Leaders from business, government, and the arts have joined Penn Arts & Sciences classrooms to complement the expertise of the School’s standing faculty.
In late 2021, the School launched an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, transformed the graduate student aid package through increased stipends and 12-month fellowships, and added new academic disciplines to keep pace with the current educational and global landscape.
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
From framework to actions: Provost John L. Jackson Jr. talks Penn Forward
In a Q&A, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. explains the relationship between the strategic framework In Principle and Practice and Penn Forward—a new University-wide process and action plan that will advance Penn forward for the next decade and beyond.
