Penn's Board of Trustees will confirm Liz Magill as the University's ninth president on March 4.
The board is slated to vote on Magill's nomination at its Stated Meeting, which will be held at 11 a.m. on the second day of its Winter Meeting. Immediately following the vote, at 12:10 p.m., the Penn community is invited to welcome Magill with a procession down Locust Walk led by the Penn Band.
The procession will run from "Ben to Ben" — beginning at the statue of Ben on the Bench and concluding at the Ben Franklin statue on College Green. The Trustees, a group of University officers, and Deans from multiple schools and centers will join Magill in the procession, according to an email sent by the Office of the University Secretary Associate Vice President Lizann Boyle Rode. Pom poms will be provided to attendees, the email added.
The event will mark Magill's first public appearance on campus since her nomination as Penn president.
Magill — a longtime legal scholar and the current Provost at the University of Virginia, nominated to replace longtime University leader Amy Gutmann — will be the fourth woman to serve as Penn president. She will begin her term officially on July 1, 2022, taking over for current Interim President and former Provost Wendell Pritchett, who has led the University since Gutmann's departure.
In an interview following the announcement of her nomination as Penn president on Jan. 13, Magill told The Daily Pennsylvanian that she had "admired Penn, like I think most of the world, for a very long time" and was incredibly excited for the opportunity.
"You can’t time these extraordinary opportunities. The process of learning much more deeply about Penn over the course of the search, both spending time with members of the committee and then learning myself about the institution — just every bit of learning — has deepened my admiration and honestly my awe of the institution from its beginning," Magill said.
Magill began her post as provost at the University of Virginia in 2019 after serving as the dean of Stanford Law School since 2012. Before that, she held a variety of titles at the University of Virginia School of Law, including vice dean, across a 15-year tenure. She also clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Magill received her bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1988 and J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.
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