Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Wharton is not the only Penn school expanding its outreach abroad.
The School of Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday that it will be opening a Penn School of Arts and Sciences India Center in Mumbai, India. Planning for the Center will begin in the fall with an expected opening in spring 2018. “I’m very excited to see all the great things that SAS will be able to do at the center,” President Amy Gutmann said in a conference with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
“The Penn SAS India Center will show the world our commitment to the Penn Compact 2020,” Gutmann added. “We are dedicated to engaging with the community on local, national and global levels.” The center will offer a number of opportunities for Penn students, staff and faculty to collaborate with experts in the arts and sciences across the world.
Provost Vincent Price shared Gutmann’s excitement about Penn SAS India Center. “This center will give the School of Arts and Sciences opportunities that we could have never imagined,” Price said, including interactive classrooms in which various experts will teach seminars, state-of-the-art laboratories where researchers may perform studies and vast auditoriums that will bring in the most knowledgeable people in a variety of subjects ranging from cinema to neuroscience.
School of Arts and Sciences Dean Dennis DeTurck shared that the center will begin with a focus on research and professional development, but he hopes Penn SAS India will eventually be able to provide a number of opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students as well. “We saw that Penn Wharton China focused its efforts primarily on professionals, and we would like to avoid that at Penn SAS India,” DeTurck said. “Unlike Wharton, which cares more about MBAs than its undergraduates, here at SAS we value our undergrads as much as we do everyone else.”
“The expansion of Wharton into China began Penn’s efforts to extend its reach globally, and it is flattering to see SAS following our suit,” Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett said, “but I would also like to point out that Wharton was the first school to open a center abroad, and we will not be overshadowed by the SAS India Center.” Garrett believes that Wharton’s platform for expanding its engagement abroad in China was much more warranted than SAS doing the same because the nature of business calls for a more global outreach. “Here at Wharton, we can’t help but question, ‘Does SAS really need this center?’” Garrett said.
“I am very excited to bring the Penn name to India,” DeTurck said, “but I think it is even more important to bring the School of Arts and Sciences name abroad. It is important that people refer to the center by its proper name, Penn School of Arts and Sciences India Center.”
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