The University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees is currently seeking its next president, an appointment that will affect all of us, not just those affiliated with the city’s Ivy League institution. That’s because Penn, for good (we hope), and sometimes for ill, has enormous visibility and influence on several important facets of Philadelphia: education, of course, but also health, civics, safety and neighborhood development.

This moment in higher ed in the U.S. is unlike any other. Universities are under attack by the federal government; infighting is rampant; student populations are declining, along with the tuition money they bring in; AI is disrupting how teachers teach and students learn, in ways we can’t yet predict. Penn’s purview is enormous, as is the job of Penn’s president, overseeing not just the academic institution, but also its hospital, research arms, real estate holdings and artistic venues.

Since Amy Gutmann ended her 18-year run as Penn’s president in 2022, the institution has had two leaders: Liz Magill, who served from July 2022 to December 2023, when she stepped down after a poor performance during a kangaroo court Congressional hearing related to accusations of campus anti-semitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel; and J. Larry Jameson, who took Penn’s top job on an interim basis after Magill (who is now the dean of Georgetown Law School) resigned. Jameson has been an excellent choice for Penn President during this rocky transitional period. He has listened carefully to Penn’s broad range of constituents, made wise decisions, and brought calm and stability to a university under extraordinary threat from the federal government.

Too many higher education institutions are fixated on ChatGPT, Claude and their capacity to take tests for students and write (dull) essays. The task goes far, far beyond that.

As the 19-member search committee works to hire a new president by the end of 2026, I hope it considers some fundamental principles, including that Penn’s new president must be able to communicate self-evident truths (e.g., democracy requires educated voters), while at the same time undertaking bold and necessary reforms, like affordability and access.

Here, some important values to consider when looking for Jameson’s replacement — and some people who embody those values — who, it should be noted, were not consulted for and had no idea they were included in this post.

Cooperation among Greater Philadelphia higher education institutions

I’ve called before for a higher ed revolution, starting with an unprecedented regional higher ed constitutional convention in Philadelphia. PHENND (the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development), a consortium of 30 colleges and universities in Greater Philadelphia based at Penn’s Netter Center, comes about as close as anything to region-wide cooperation. But leadership would make a huge difference in influencing the 100 or so local institutions to work together for the good of all.

Here’s a radical idea I’ve also previously floated: What about Penn admissions finding a way to cooperate with a few other Philadelphia colleges and universities to offer accelerated admission to Philadelphia applicants rejected by Penn to better-matched colleges and universities in the region?

Barbara J. Wilson

President, University of Iowa

Dr. Wilson was executive vice president of the University of Illinois when I was president of Governors State University, a small public Chicago-area institution in the shadow of University of Illinois’ three campuses. She values inter-institutional cooperation over competition.

Dr. Wilson invited Governors State and other Chicago-area regional publics to join the University of Illinois at recruiting events in the area. Her focus was on helping students find the right fit for them, not on competition among the universities. Through her leadership, the University of Illinois invested its own resources in highlighting the strengths of its sister universities. Now, as the leader of the University of Iowa since 2021, she focuses on students in an exemplary way.

Commitment to Greater Philadelphia

Judith Rodin, Penn President from 1994 to 2004, was particularly successful in establishing a strong partnership between Penn and Philadelphia. Among other Philadelphia-based efforts, President Rodin launched the West Philadelphia Initiative, an award-winning program to revitalize Penn’s neighborhood. While President Gutmann focused more on Penn’s international footprint with the Penn Compact, in 2020 Gutmann pledged to give $100 million for the renovation of Philadelphia public schools.

Penn has noted that the Class of 2030 includes the largest group of admitted students from Philadelphia. Penn has a special responsibility to help prepare Philadelphia public school students for admission to Penn. Penn is doing some of that in cooperation with Heights Philadelphia in the College App Classroom. President Rodin and I were Philly kids with scholarships to Penn. There should be many, many more of us today.

Don’t overlook internal candidates. They know the university and the city:

John L. Jackson, Jr.

Provost, University of Pennsylvania

Jackson, who has held the chief academic role at Penn for three years, supports a new partnership with the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP), the CCP Entrepreneurship Academy. The partnership is no-cost, lasts 10 sessions, and is a cohort-based learning experience for existing and emerging West Philadelphia business owners who are seeking to improve their business skills.

Katharine O. Strunk

Dean, Graduate School of Education (GSE) and the George and Diane Weiss professor of education, University of Pennsylvania

Strunk is committed to partnerships with Philadelphia public schools. Under her leadership, GSE has worked with the School District of Philadelphia to support teacher development, leadership pipelines, and evidence-informed practice.

Ethics, character, and courage

John Fry

President, Temple University, and former president, Drexel University and Franklin & Marshall College

At this time of daily diabolical temptations to chip away pieces of presidential souls, character has never been more important. Kudos to Temple President John Fry for walking away from a $55 million gift because of ethical concerns. No equivocation, no hesitation, simply saying no to Christopher M. Barnett’s company, ABA Centers of America, as they undergo federal investigation for money laundering, wire fraud and other offenses.

It would not be neighborly — or even ethical (in my opinion) — for Penn to recruit President Fry, who has been at the helm at Temple only since November 2024. One big problem in presidential leadership is that presidents are too soon lured away from one campus to another. It’s very difficult to move an ambitious agenda forward in less than five years.

It should be noted, every individual mentioned here has demonstrated evidence of character.

Readiness to be a lifelong learner

Penn’s next president must be a fast, efficient learner, open to new ideas. The president should listen carefully to thoughts and reflections from students, faculty, staff, alumni, community leaders, donors, and trustees.

Arthur Levine

President, Brandeis University; former president, Teachers College, Columbia University; former president, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (now the Institute for Citizens & Scholars); former president, Bradford College

A 1970 Brandeis alumnus, Arthur Levine answered the call two-and-a-half years ago to lead his alma mater through rough times. Since assuming the Brandeis presidency, he has been open to new ideas, reorganizing the university and creating a framework for all constituents to focus on students’ needs in the 21st century. Brandeis is becoming a model for connecting the liberal arts to careers, implementing experiential education, and, in short, preparing lifelong learners — in part because the president is himself a lifelong learner.

Bold creativity — and that means more than a conventional commitment to a vision

The new Penn president must be open to learning about a new exciting and dangerous world. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed everything. As AI poses increasing threats, the next Penn president must be prepared to lead the formulation of a strategic framework for what Paul LeBlanc calls “responding with intention rather than panic.” A responsible and creative relationship with AI is a top challenge for the leader of one of the nation’s predominant research universities. Right now too many higher education institutions are fixated on ChatGPT, Claude and their capacity to take tests for students and write (dull) essays. The task goes far, far beyond that.

Paul LeBlanc

Former president, University of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU)

LeBlanc is the personification of bold, pragmatic creativity. As president of SNHU from 2003 to 2024, President LeBlanc led the university’s transformation into the largest nonprofit online provider of higher education in the United States — but always at the highest quality and with an essential human touch. Philadelphia-area students who enroll in SNHU benefit from human advisers who guide them through their courses.

Penn would do well to consider presidential candidates beyond the usual suspects at predictable universities, those “to which we compare ourselves,” a phrase I detested hearing when I was a dean at Brown, and I hope no one is using it anymore.

David K. Wilson

President, Morgan State University

President Wilson has presided over this Baltimore historically Black university since 2010. In 2023, he won the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, administered by Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Last year, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott awarded a historic $63 million gift to Morgan State, and this month, the university announced a collaboration with Google Public Sector to build a strategic framework for an AI-driven research campus.

My final advice to my alma mater is to cast a wide net. Look inside Penn and also search everywhere else, not only at the usual and expected institutions. Hunt carefully and creatively. Please make sure that Penn’s next president is courageous and ready to bravely and ethically lead the university into the second quarter of the 21st century.

Elaine Maimon, Ph.D., is the author of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Her long career in higher education has encompassed top executive positions at Governors State University (IL), University of Alaska Anchorage, and Arizona State University West Campus, as well as distinction as a scholar in rhetoric/composition. Her co-authored book, Writing in the Arts and Sciences, has been designated as a landmark text. Her composition textbook, A Writer’s Resource (McGraw-Hill), is soon to be published in its eighth edition. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.

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