The American Council on Education (ACE) honored Penn President Amy Gutmann with the 2015 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award. The award is given annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions and demonstrated sustained commitment to diversity in higher education.

The award is named for Reginald Wilson, senior scholar emeritus at ACE and founding director of the Council's Office of Minority Concerns, and was presented at ACE’s 97th Annual Meeting on March 17. ACE is the major coordinating body for all of the nation’s higher education institutions.

“It is a privilege to present the 2015 Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award to Amy Gutmann, whose vision and leadership at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere has shown her dedication to increasing access to higher education to all students,” says ACE President Molly Corbett Broad. “She has worked tirelessly to assist students in pursuing their dream of a college degree.”

Gutmann became Penn’s eighth president in 2004 and has been an outspoken advocate for increased access to higher education, leading Penn to become the largest university in the United States to establish an all-grant policy for all undergraduate students who qualify for financial aid. In 2011, Gutmann launched the university’s $100 million Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence in partnership with Penn’s provost and the deans of the university’s 12 schools, which has further strengthened Penn’s eminent faculty.

Gutmann is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Professor of Communication at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication. She has published widely on the value of and the importance of access to higher education.

Previous Reginald Wilson Diversity Leadership Award winners since 2008 include (titles reflect status at time of the award): Charlene M. Dukes, president of Prince George’s Community College; Johnnetta B. Cole, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art and former president of Spelman College and Bennett College; and James M. Rosser, president of California State University, Los Angeles.