University of Pennsylvania

or UPenn) is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of founder and first president Benjamin Franklin, who had advocated for an educational institution that trained leaders in academia, commerce, and public service.

The university has 4 undergraduate schools and 12 graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the School of Nursing. Among its graduate schools are its law school, whose first professor, James Wilson, helped write the U.S. Constitution; and its medical school, the first in North America.

In fiscal year 2024, Penn reported in research expenditures, ranking second among U.S. universities in the National Science Foundation's Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey. As of June 30, 2025, Penn's endowment was . The University of Pennsylvania's main campus is in the University City neighborhood of West Philadelphia, centered around College Hall. Campus landmarks include Houston Hall, often described as the first student union building in the United States. Penn's athletic facilities include Franklin Field, which has hosted college football since 1895 and was expanded into a two-tier stadium in 1922. The university's athletics program, the Penn Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of NCAA Division I's Ivy League conference.

Penn alumni, trustees, and faculty include 8 who signed the Declaration of Independence, 7 who signed the U.S. Constitution, 24 members of the Continental Congress, 3 presidents of the United States, 38 Nobel laureates, 9 foreign heads of state, 3 United States Supreme Court justices, at least 4 Supreme Court justices of foreign nations, 32 U.S. senators, 163 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 19 U.S. Cabinet secretaries, 46 governors, 28 state supreme court justices, 36 living undergraduate billionaires, 5 recipients of the Medal of Honor, and over 200 Olympic athletes (43 of whom earned 81 Olympic medals, 26 of them gold). which was designed and constructed by Edmund Woolley. It was the largest building in Philadelphia at the time, and thousands of people attended it to hear Whitefield preach.

In the fall of 1749, Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father and polymath in Philadelphia, circulated a pamphlet, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania," his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia".

On June 16, 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction.

Penn identifies as the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this representation is challenged by Princeton and Columbia since the College of Philadelphia was not chartered or commence classes until 1755 and the first board of trustees was not convened until 1749, arguably making it the sixth or fifth-oldest.

In the 1750s, roughly 40 percent of Penn students needed lodging since they came from areas in the British North American colonies that were too far to commute, or were international students. Before the completion of the construction of the first dormitory in 1765, out of town students were typically placed with guardians in the homes of faculty or in suitable boarding houses. Jonathan and Philip Gayienquitioga, two brothers of the Mohawk Nation, were recruited by Benjamin Franklin to attend the Academy of Philadelphia, making them the first Native Americans at Penn when they enrolled in 1755.

thumb|A 1765 admission ticket to "A Course of Lectures" given by [[John Morgan (physician)|Dr. John Morgan, the founder and first professor of medicine at Penn's Medical School]]

The 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both "undergraduate" and professional education. Moses Levy, the first Jewish student, enrolled in 1769.

In 1765, the campus was expanded by opening of the newly completed dormitory run by Benjamin Franklin's collaborator on the study of electricity using electrostatic machines and related technology and Penn professor and chief master Ebenezer Kinnersley. Kinnersley was designated steward of the students in the dormitory and he and his wife were given disciplinary powers over the students and supervised the cleanliness of the students with respect to personal hygiene and washing of the students' dirty clothing.

Even after its construction, however, many students sought living quarters elsewhere, where they would have more personal freedom, resulting in a loss of funds to the university. In the fall of 1775, Penn's trustees voted to advertise to lease the dormitory to a private family who would board the pupils at lesser cost to Penn. In another attempt to control the off-campus activities of the students, the trustees agreed not to admit any out-of-town student unless he was lodged in a place which they and the faculty considered proper. briefly establishing Penn's campus as one of the early capitals of the United States.

In 1779, not trusting then provost William Smith's Loyalist tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a university, and in 1785 the legislature changed name to University of the State of Pennsylvania. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. The 1779 charter represented the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of "University". In 1791, the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution serving on the new board of trustees.

thumb|An 1807 admission ticket to a lecture by Penn Professor Dr. [[Benjamin Rush]]

Among the classes given in 1807 at this building were those offered by Benjamin Rush, a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice who was also a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress, and surgeon general of the Continental Army.

thumb|A engraving of [[Benjamin Rush, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania]]

Classes were held in the mansion until 1829 when it was demolished. Architect William Strickland designed twin buildings on the same site, College Hall and Medical Hall (both 1829–1830), which formed the core of the Ninth Street Campus.

thumb|The Ninth Street Campus, located on the west side of Ninth Street between [[Market Street (Philadelphia)|Market and Chestnut Streets, featuring Medical Hall (on left) and College Hall (on right), both built between 1829 and 1830]]

Joseph M. Urquiola, School of Medicine class of 1829, was the first Latino, and Auxencio Maria Pena, School of Medicine class of 1836, was the first South American to graduate from Penn.

In 1849, following formation of Penn's Eta chapter of Delta Phi by five founders and 15 initiates, Penn students began to establish residential fraternity houses. Since Penn only had limited housing near campus and since students, especially those at the medical school, came from all over the country, the students elected to fend for themselves rather than live in housing owned by Penn trustees. A number chose housing by pledging and living in Penn's first fraternities, which included Delta Phi, Zeta Psi, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Delta Psi. These first fraternities were located within walking distance of 9th and Chestnut Street since the campus was located from 1800 to 1872 on the west side of Ninth Street, from Market Street on the north to Chestnut Street on the south. Zeta Psi Fraternity was located at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, Delta Phi was located on the south side of 11th Street near Chestnut Street, and Delta Psi was located on the north side of Chestnut Street, west of 10th Street.

thumb|An illustration of [[College Hall (University of Pennsylvania)|Penn's College Hall from a pocket guide to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876]]

After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse in West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City. The new campus and its associated fraternities centered on the intersection of Woodland Avenue, 36th Street, and Locust Street. Among the first fraternities to build near the new campus were Phi Delta Theta in 1883 and Psi Upsilon in 1891. By 1891, there were at least 17 fraternities at the university.

Penn hosted the nation's first university teaching hospital in 1874; the Wharton School, the world's first collegiate business school, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall, in 1896; and the only school of veterinary medicine in the United States that originated directly from its medical school, in 1884.

Tosui Imadate (今立吐酔) was the first person of Asian descent to graduate from Penn (College Class of 1879).

William Adger, James Brister, and Nathan Francis Mossell in 1879 were the first African Americans to enroll at Penn. Adger was the first African American to graduate from the college at Penn (1883), and when Brister graduated from the School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental) (class of 1881), he was the first African American to earn a degree at Penn.

Lewis Baxter Moore, brother in law of two other Penn alumni who broke the color barrier by being among the first of their race to graduate from Penn degree granting programs, Nathan Francis Mossell (medicine) and Aaron Albert Mossell II (law), was the first African American to earn a PhD in 1896.

The first women enrolled at Penn were two graduate students at Penn's Towne Scientific School, medical doctors Gertrude Klein Pierce, MD, Anna Lockhart Flanigen, MD, who were admitted in October 1876 as "special students" to study chemistry. In 1878 they were awarded certificates of proficiency in chemistry (finishing second and third in their class) and continued their postgraduate studies in organic chemistry with professor (later provost) Edgar Fahs Smith. In 1880, Mary Alice Bennett and Anna H. Johnson were the first women to enroll in a Penn degree-granting program. Bennett was the first woman to receive a degree from Penn, which was a PhD.

thumb|A postcard showing the area inside the Upper Quad section of [[Quadrangle Dormitories (University of Pennsylvania)|The Quad Dormitories looking North to Memorial Tower]]

From its founding until construction of the Quadrangle Dormitories, which started construction in 1895, the university largely lacked university-owned housing with the exception of a significant part of the 18th century. A significant portion of the undergraduate population commuted from Delaware Valley locations, and a large number of students resided in the Philadelphia area. The medical school, then with roughly half the students, was a significant exception to this trend as it attracted a more geographically diverse population of students.

George Henderson, president of the class of 1889, wrote in his monograph distributed to his classmates at their 20th reunion that Penn's strong growth in acreage and number of buildings it constructed over the prior two decades (along with a near-quadrupling in the size of the student body) was accommodated by building The Quad. Henderson argued that building The Quad was influential in attracting students, and he appealed for it to be expanded: