Richard Mo: Franklin's lament

Last week, a friendly lunch was cut short when my companion had to rush to Van Pelt.

He had to write a paper on Benjamin Franklin's role as the postmaster of Philadelphia and later as postmaster of the colonies. "I need to do a lot of research since all I really know about him is the whole kite and key thing," he said.

I was surprised to find out that Franklin was once responsible for mail delivery throughout British America. But what astonished me even more was realizing just how little my friend and I, both History majors, knew about the founder of the university that we've come to call home for the last three years.

Still, I'm pretty sure that the two of us are not alone in our ignorance. If every Penn student were polled, the majority of us could probably say not be able to cite much more than that famous experiment. Perhaps only a handful of students studying early American history could talk at length about Franklin's role as a diplomat, scientist, educator, inventor and, of course, postmaster.

Our lack of knowledge about Ben certainly cannot be traced to his obscurity. After all, there are three prominent statues of him on campus, and a football field, a major administrative building and variety of programs named in his honor.

University President Judith Rodin and other administrators diligently toss in mentions of "Ben Franklin" and "Franklin's values" at every convocation and commencement ceremony -- we hear about it literally from the moment we step onto campus until the moment we leave. And every moment in between, we are surrounded by all things Ben.

Yet, at the end of our four years, all we know about Ben is his name and image as a slightly large, spectacled, grandfatherly man in an overcoat. For an institution that prides itself on its history, from having the nation's first collegiate business school and its first computer in ENIAC, we don't know anything substantial about Franklin's accomplishments, significance or values.

Compare our situation with other organizations that pride themselves on their history. It would be almost blasphemous for a McKinsey & Co. consultant not to know the values of James McKinsey, or for a Marine not to recognize the accomplishments of Gen. John Lejeune.

And while I realize that it is not the role of a modern institution of higher education to teach its own history to students, it is sad that Ben Franklin's impressive legacy has been reduced to nothing more than a name and face.

In the marketing textbook familiar to all Wharton students, Charles Lamb writes that "The most important purpose [of branding] is product identification. Branding allows marketers to distinguish their products from all others."

Ben has, in fact, been reduced to a mere marketing tool, something used to distinguish Penn from other elite universities. In an effort to seem unique, we have focused on developing Ben as an image, just as the "swoosh" is to Nike and cow spots are to Gateway.

Our marketing plan has been pretty successful: people do associate Penn with Ben Franklin and visitors flock to take pictures with Ben on the bench. After all, Princeton and Yale cannot claim as a founder a Founding Father.

But the success has come at what cost? Ben has been reduced to an empty shell, such that people, including me, don't know about him as a man and historical figure, but as a commercial symbol used to sell souvenirs and to improve the Penn brand. After three years, I know as much about him as I did when, in third grade, I first learned about his "discovery of electricity."

Some believe that in making Franklin ubiquitous, we are in fact honoring him and his legacy. But we are not honoring Ben when we present him glossed over with a thick Madison Avenue veneer. To truly honor our founder would be to learn about Ben the same way they learn about safety during freshmen orientation, something not likely to happen.

If Ben were alive today, he would undoubtedly take delight in knowing that the university he founded two and a half centuries ago has developed, by all measurable standards, into one of the leading centers of higher education in the U.S. and the world.

But what if he also saw that his institution was using him as a marketing instrument, that people can sit on his lap and take pictures but know nothing about his legacy or values other than the mythical kite and key?

Ben would most certainly not approve.

Richard Mo is a senior History and Economics major from Fresh Meadows, NY.

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