University of Pennsylvania - Appointed And Promoted

University Business, March, 2004 by Jean Marie Angelo

APPOINTED AND PROMOTED: The University of Pennsylvania is now the first Ivy League school to have two consecutive women leaders. Amy Gutmann will become president on July 1, when Judith Rodin steps down. Gutmann has held the provost's position at Princeton University since 2001. She began at Princeton as a faculty member in 1976.

Gutmann is reported to be a woman of humble beginnings who fully understands the importance of access to higher education. Her father, a scrap-metal dealer in New York, died when she was in high school. After his death her mother took a job as a school secretary. Given the limited finances, Gutmann, a good student, first set her sights on the state school system, but was persuaded by a family friend to apply to private schools. Her applications yielded a full scholarship to Radcliffe College, where she majored in political science. Such stories happen "only in America," Guttman said, after her introductory speech at Penn. "And I still see the story played out over and over in students I meet," she told the press, adding that shifting focus away from grants and onto student loans is misguided ...