Dean's Column
By Dean Samuel H. Preston

City of Light

In its influential report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities, the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University notes that "[r]esearch universities are distinctly different from small colleges, and they need to offer an experience that is a clear alternative to the college experience." The commission compared big, research-driven complexes like Penn to cities that extend to undergraduates "unlimited opportunities and attractions."

Chief among the features that distinguish research institutions from small liberal arts colleges is a commitment to creating new knowledge. So fundamental is the research mission that Penn and similar universities make research capability a primary qualification for appointment, promotion, and tenure of faculty. The world-class scholars and scientists in the faculty ranks are a source of enlightenment and pride, and often a cause of fiercely competitive recruitment efforts.

"Universities need to take advantage of the immense resources of their graduate and research programs," the commission urges, "to strengthen the quality of undergraduate education." The synergy among the research activities of faculty, graduate training, and the baccalaureate experience is what makes undergraduate education unique in the College at Penn. Access to an outstanding research faculty and the resources supporting them is without question the greatest benefit of undergraduate education at Penn.

The School of Arts and Sciences strongly encourages undergraduates to take advantage of the diverse opportunities for hands-on scholarship. Many students have the good fortune to participate in the research activities of a faculty member in the course of their undergraduate career, giving them not just front row seats but a player’s part in the drama of knowledge creation.

In the most recent Senior Survey, which queried a random sample of College students from the class of 1999, almost three-quarters of respondents reported doing a significant research project in their major. Of these, 95 percent said the experience was a "very" or "somewhat" important part of their education.

"Inquiry-based learning" is what the Boyer Commission calls it. The research university is better equipped than any other institution of higher education to offer instruction that engages undergraduates in the methods and culture of research, permitting them to enter directly into the world of discovery.

Beyond the research experience itself, a vast network of resources supporting the work of scholarship is available to undergraduates. Penn has one of the oldest academic libraries in the nation. It feeds the University’s research needs in the arts and sciences with a vast collection of printed and digital material. The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories of the Institute for the Advancement of Science and Technology are other examples of resources that add value to the undergraduate experience at Penn.

What we offer students at a research university cannot be duplicated by even the most prestigious liberal arts college. Mentoring in the research environment, extensive libraries, and well equipped laboratories are a few of the unique and important assets of the research university.

In the School of Arts and Sciences, research and teaching are not two disparate things: undergraduates are an integral part of a larger community of learners. Together, faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates share in the act of inquiry, investigation, and discovery–an integrated act of research and teaching that is at the heart of this multifaceted city of light.