Philadelphia, PA—The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the Wharton-Netter Center-Community Partnership, established with an anonymous $3.16 million gift.
The goal of the Wharton-Netter Center-Community Partnership is to create an effective model for University-assisted community development that can be replicated in other cities nationally and throughout the world. The Partnership combines the resources and analytical strength of the Wharton School with the Barbara and Edward Netter Center’s long history of working to connect Penn’s academic mission with the needs of its surrounding neighborhoods. The Partnership will work collaboratively with the West Philadelphia community and institutional partners to generate and implement programs in social impact that involve Wharton and other Penn students and faculty in curricular, co-curricular, and research activities.
“The Penn Compact—our vision to propel the University from excellence to eminence—is informed by three principles: increasing access, integrating knowledge, and engaging locally and globally,” said University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann. “By building upon the considerable interdisciplinary expertise of the Wharton School and the Netter Center, we hope to strengthen the model for community partnerships in West Philadelphia and eventually facilitate growth for communities around the country.”
“We are deeply grateful for this gift,” stated Wharton School Dean Thomas S. Robertson. “The Wharton-Netter Center-Community Partnership will stand as a dramatic example of the potential for business to enact positive change on both local and global levels.”
Leonard Lodish, Wharton’s Vice Dean for Social Impact, was excited “to leverage Wharton’s business and management competencies with other Penn resources to make a difference first in West Philadelphia and ultimately much more broadly.”
Ira Harkavy, the director of the Netter Center, emphasized that “this program will highlight how democratic, comprehensive university-community partnerships can powerfully advance research and learning, as well as the quality of life in communities.”
Founded in 1992, the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships is Penn’s primary vehicle for bringing to bear the broad range of human knowledge needed to solve the complex, comprehensive, and interconnected problems of American cities and communities so that West Philadelphia (Penn’s local geographic community), Philadelphia, the University itself, and society benefit. Its models of academically based community service and university-assisted community schools have been replicated across the United States and around the world.
About the Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 4,900 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 85,000 graduates.
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Contact: Peter Winicov
+1-215.746.6471
mailto: winicov@wharton.upenn.edu
