Gutmann adjusts to life at Penn

A glance at her right hand reveals a glimmer of red and blue — ruby and sapphire, actually, upon closer observation.

"Oh, my husband," she says, half-sighing, half-chuckling, "I never had an engagement ring; we've been married for 28 years."

But now there's someone new in her life.

"I am now professionally married to Penn," says Amy Gutmann, the new University of Pennsylvania president and former Princeton provost. "Only metaphorically speaking, of course."

Though it's the nearing the end of the business day, Gutmann, known for her boundless energy, seems her usual self, ready to get down to business. "We only have 15 [minutes]," she says — though she ends up being generous and speaking with the reporter for twenty two.

Four months after her inauguration as Penn's president and seven months since taking up her the post in Philadelphia in July, Gutmann discussed the challenges of leading a diverse, urban institution with some 23,000 students and 12 graduate and professional schools.

"It's great," Gutmann said. "I'm having a wonderful beginning, and people have been enormously supportive of the Penn Compact." The compact — a three-pronged vision introduced by Gutmann in her presidential inaugural address — seeks to make a Penn education more accessible, to better integrate the various schools at Penn and to engage Penn better with the outside world, both local and global.

Gutmann has already moved to arrange an executive team to support her longtime goals. Almost immediately after her move to Penn, Gutmann recruited Joann Mitchell, formerly vice provost for administration here, to be her new chief of staff.

After a two-year vacancy in the position, a new vice president for development and alumni relations, John Zeller, has been hired to lead a forthcoming capital campaign. Rebecca Bushnell GS '83 was recently named the new dean of Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. Two other previously open positions on the vice presidential level have also been filled.

In 28 years at Princeton, Gutmann said she learned much that is now helping her, particularly in the area of fundraising, where she described Penn as critically "under-endowed" — a position that inhibits her goal of widening access to a Penn education.

"I learned a lot about how important it is for universities to really make students and alumni feel very closely connected to the place," Gutmann said. "That's something that is in Princeton's DNA and it's also important for me that it's in Penn's DNA. And the product of that as a tradition is being tremendously supportive of giving back to the university at least as much as one got from the university."

Gutmann, who was trained as a political philosopher, said she sees increasing the size of Penn's endowment as a means to fulfill the university's obligation to society — not as a means to attract students who might otherwise choose schools like Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

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"It's a goal that all the Ivy-plus presidents have," she said, referring to the presidents of the group of Ivy League schools plus the University of Chicago, MIT and Stanford.

"It's not a competitive goal, in my mind," she explained. "There's a very small number of institutions of higher education — a few dozen max of the three thousand in this country — that have need-based financial aid. We have to work really hard in keeping these institutions, as tuition room and board rates go up, truly affordable. It's harder for Penn than for Princeton because we have a smaller endowment both absolutely and per capita."

In the shorter term, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia has presented Gutmann with other ways of fulfilling the goals of the Penn Compact — in this case, having Penn "engage locally and globally." Penn's Graduate School of Education has will be helping to rebuild schools in towns and villages affected by the disaster.

Because the compact — a true "tour de force," more than just a strategic plan — has embraced all members of the Penn community, Gutmann is well-poised to effect positive change at Penn, including growing the endowment and engaging locally and globally, argued Mitchell, the president's chief of staff and former deputy at Princeton.

"It's part of Penn tradition to have a really open and deliberative process," she said. "But it also feeds into Amy's background and training ... It's trying to synthesize a broad enough framework, sort as a touchstone to see how new ideas and initiatives fit in, but not so structured that it is really limiting."

In addition to the new set of challenges, Gutmann's move has included more tangible day-today changes, including — perhaps unexpectedly for a university president — dressing up as the Statue of Liberty and painting lockers in a local middle school.

Gutmann opened the president's mansion to students as part of the university's annual Halloween celebrations. For the event, she donned a Lady Liberty outfit, and was joined by her husband, Columbia professor Michael Doyle, who appeared as Uncle Sam.

"I was the Statue of Liberty," Gutmann said laughing, "that was fun. [But] going into something beyond fun, it just makes the university smaller to people and more of a family."

Indeed, as part of her inauguration, Gutmann organized a volunteer-service day, where the university set up a health clinic at a local middle school. After trading in her customary suit and blouse for a very presidential red T-shirt and pair of jeans, Gutmann chipped in and painted a few of the students' lockers.

"Those are the kinds of things [that] makes the community better," she said, "and it's also good for Penn as a university to have a really good relationship with our community." Penn, with some 20,000 employees, is the largest employer in Philadelphia.

Just as Gutmann has taken to Penn and Philadelphia, it seems the university's students have taken to her. Thefacebook.com, an online directory that servers over a hundred colleges nationwide, sports a group dedicated to Gutmann. The group has more than 1,000 members.

The "Guys and Gals for Gutmann" group's profile notes that, "If there is anything that this awesome club can teach us, it's that our university president's life is a precious, precious commodity."

Gutmann, who hadn't heard of the fan club, was thrilled to learn she had such a following. "That's fantastic," she said, laughing.

To Jason Levine, chair of Penn's Undergraduate Assembly, Gutmann's popularity is unsurprising. "Dr. Gutmann has made an effort to reach out to many organizations and get to events," he said. "When she's there, she makes it a point to interact on a one-on-one basis and makes many students feel like they know her well."

"Her warmth and engaging style have captivated students and faculty alike," agreed Mitchell. "They find her really accessible, even though they know in reality to be accessible to 40,000 people on campus is kind of tricky."

Even still, as Gutmann clearly warms to Penn, she has fond memories of her former home.

"Princeton is still a magical place," she said, adding that "Penn is also a magical place ... It's definitely magical in its own way. I wouldn't have left Princeton for some place that wasn't also magical."

So is it fair to say that a daughter of Princeton is now happily married to Penn?

"Yeah ... I can resonate with that."

Includes reporting from The Daily Pennsylvanian and Princetonian Staff Writer Jennifer Epstein.