Letter to the Editor

The spirit of Edward Shils

To the Editor:

Imagine that your professor was not only your teacher, but also your mentor, your friend, your coach on life, your business consultant, your volunteer legal counselor, your faculty and career adviser, a source of financial aid, your relationship guide, your philosophical guru, your hero and your role model.

Imagine that your professor was young enough to have graduated from law school in 1986, but old enough to have lived through the Great Depression and served in France during World War II.

Imagine that your professor had the greatest number of earned degrees in your university's history, yet still found his most valuable time to be that spent advising your fellow classmates and you.

Imagine that your professor had so much to offer of his own life experiences, yet each semester considered it more valuable to expose his students to the life experiences of others.

Today marks a sad but important day for anyone who has had the great fortune of knowing, befriending, working with or being the student of Edward Shils (Wharton '36, SAS '37, SAS '40, Law '86, Law '90, Law '97). But Shils leaves Penn and the Philadelphia community with a very important message. As students and recent Penn graduates, perhaps it is we who can most learn from Shils' legacy and lifelong dedication to young people, as we go out into a difficult world to try to shape and direct positive change:

Tolerance for ambiguity -- Each semester, in his class on leadership, Shils would present his students with his regular lineup of special people and friends: the convicted inner-city offender turned global community leader, the poor car mechanic turned city district attorney, the Holocaust survivor turned chief executive officer, the blind martial arts world champion and many others. Nothing good in life is ever simple, and no true success story is without great struggle, requiring flexibility of mind and spirit to accept, understand and maneuver through the unpredictable circumstances that come our way.

Entrepreneurship -- Entrepreneurship is much more than starting a business. In 1973, Shils founded the Snider Entrepreneurial Center at Wharton, the first of its kind in the world, and served as its director until 1986. Although the center's objective was to help small businesses grow, Shils' understanding of entrepreneurship was much greater. He consistently showed that entrepreneurs, and their spirit, can be found in all realms of life, from government and social service, to the arts and academics. In the end, Shils recognized that the social entrepreneur, able to combine scarce resources in new and exciting ways to respond to opportunities and provide solutions to problems, is often the greatest source of life and vigor in any society.

Civility -- Shils always believed in the socioeconomic value that private enterprise can bring to a community, country and world. Yet, he also recognized that an unchecked economy and society, without "civility," as he more generally termed it, is a danger to all. Commerce is the economic backbone of the majority of global society, yet unrestrained, it is hazardous, as he proved most recently in his nationally acclaimed analysis of the detrimental effect of mega-retail discount chains on communities and small businesses.

On behalf of a Penn community leader and ambassador, husband of a very special wife with three Penn degrees and father and grandfather of five wonderful children and grandchildren, we salute and carry forward the message of Edward Shils.

Paul Bergman

College and Wharton '02

SAS and WHG '04

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