University announces Law Professor as inaugural director of Perry World House

The University announced that Law School professor William Burke-While will be the inaugural director of the upcoming Perry World House.

Burke-White plans to shape the initiative — scheduled to open at Locust Walk and 38th street in January 2016 — into an international hub. He sees the House as a place to connect different facets of Penn’s international relations research as well as expose the University to global discussions.

“[The] World House will be able to create connections and cross-fertilize ideas around the University,” Burke-White said, “not by offering degrees or becoming a pure public policy school, but in terms of a place to convene conversations and link the global and the policy world together.”

Burke-White said that he plans to embark on a ”‘listening tour” around the University to take the pulse of current international pursuits in order to transform the World House into a useful resource.

“I want World House to be a catalyzer and help bring the extraordinary academic knowledge that Penn has to bear on serious global challenges of all sorts,” Burke-White said.

He also described several important tasks that World House will strive to achieve. It will serve as the first physical location on Penn’s campus to connect international professors, students and researchers. The house will also host visiting scholars from all over the world.

“It will be a kind of gateway to Penn for the world,” Burke-White said.

Additionally, every year World House will hold conferences, in which Penn scholars and students will join with international experts to discuss different issues ranging from global health to environmental issues.

“It’ll be a place to think through and develop public policy approaches to major public issues. There’s a whole variety of major activities that could go on — we might even hold an international music or film symposium,” Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Ezekiel Emanuel, who was also involved in the World House’s development, said. “It’s going to be a wonderfully beautiful and attractive space — there’s no limit to the kinds of things that we can do in it.”

Burke-White hopes to apply his extensive background in foreign affairs, which “cuts across many different countries and regions,” as director of the World House. Currently a professor at the Law School, he hopes to supplement the initiative’s “think-tank policy” with his experience working in policy planning for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He’s also worked for other organizations including the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“With his real world policy experience in Washington D.C. and proven academic credentials, Professor Burke-White is well positioned to ensure that Perry World House both expands UPenn’s global profile and becomes a center of excellence for the University,” professor of political science Michael C. Horowitz, who was also involved in the creation of the Perry World House, wrote in an email statement.

Currently, Burke-White encourages students and faculty to get involved in the creation of World House and take advantage of the many resources that it will provide, as he views global issues as an important factor in a variety of disciplines.

“Whatever area of academic work one is interested in today, international elements have become and are continuing to become more important. Whether that’s in business, philosophy, history, law or medicine,” he said. “Consider my office door open to anyone who has an interest in World House.”

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