Penn is Making History -- every day

Penn Begins Academic Year With Fundraising Milestone

Making History: The Campaign for Penn just got closer to its $3.5 billion goal, reaching a new milestone for the new academic year with a total of $2.5 billion raised.

Penn's campaign is also last month's frontrunner, bringing in the largest gain among the 32 American universities seeking to raise $1 billion or more.

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Penn Faring Well in Recession

From WHYY radio here in Philadelphia:

"The recession has taken a toll on businesses and individuals -- but the University of Pennsylvania says the school has fared better than expected. Penn officials say the return on the school's endowment dropped almost 16% in the past fiscal year. The University had budgeted for a larger drop."

> listen [50 sec]

Penn’s Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli says the school’s endowment performed relatively well.

Carnaroli: Many of the illiquid asset classes -- private equity, real estate, natural resources -- really slumped this year, and our allocations to them is less than our peers. We did well this year because of our asset allocation, because we maintained a sizeable portion of the portfolio in treasuries -- 15% -- and because we have a lower allocation to the illiquid asset classes.

With the economy still slumping, Penn is still preparing.

Carnaroli says the university has already saved $44 million dollars by canceling capital projects, reducing internal promotions and overtime, and using video conferencing to limit travel expenses. The goal is to save $58 million this fiscal year.

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Penn Making History with ARRA

First, the good news:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (www.recovery.gov) has just awarded Penn more than $30 million to fund over 100 scientific research projects in robotics, gene therapy, public education, and more -- as part of the largest increase in basic funding in the history of federally funded scientific research.

And now, the really good news:

Assistant professor Katherine Kuchenbecker, one of Penn's youngest and most celebrated rising stars, is slated to receive $500,000 of ARRA money to continue her research.

Why is that really good news? It was an endowed assistant professorship which convinced Katherine to come to Penn in the first place.  [read the full story]

Katherine's story is a terrific illustration of the power and example of investing -- in Penn, its faculty, and, most important, in its unique community of scholars.

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Penn Hits Fundraising Milestone

From the Philadelphia Business Journal:

The University of Pennsylvania said Monday it has hit a major goal in its capital campaign despite a drop off in fund raising in its last fiscal year.

Penn said it has hit the goal of raising 70 percent of the $3.5 billion target of its Making History Campaign, which ends June 30, 2012.

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From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

In keeping with national trends, giving to the University of Pennsylvania was down over fiscal 2008's record-breaking year, but officials were planning for that and were upbeat that the school nonetheless exceeded its target.

Penn took in $440 million for the 2008-09 year ending June 30, down $36 million or 7.5 percent from the year before -- but still its second highest year ever, said John Zeller, Penn's vice president for development and alumni relations.

"The year was very good, given all that was going on in the world," Zeller said. "We are grateful to our donors and alumni and friends and parents for the support they've given us."

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Penn Nursing Science: A Leader for Change in U.S. Healthcare

Penn Nursing is making history -- with a new model of patient care (based on nurse-conducted research) that will impact the nation's healthcare and budget.

      listen to story [5 min 57 sec]

From National Public Radio:

Here's a number that tells you a lot about what's wrong with the American health care system: When older patients get discharged from a hospital, 1 out of 5 of them will go right back within a month. Medicare pays $17 billion a year on these hospital readmissions. And in many cases, coming back should have been avoidable.

Mary Naylor is trying to change that. She started the Transitional Care Model at the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia. A nurse with advanced training in geriatrics is assigned to an elderly patient while he is in the hospital and then follows the patient, with frequent visits and contact, over two or three months to help him manage his own care.

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