Pennsylvania, University

Pennsylvania, University of

U.S. private university in Philadelphia, a traditional member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1740 as a charity school, it became an academy in 1753, with Benjamin Franklin as president of the first board of trustees. With the founding of the first medical school in North America (1765), it became a university. Today, in addition to its college of arts and sciences and its medical school, it includes a college of general studies and schools of business (the Wharton School), communication (the Annenberg School), education, engineering, fine arts, law, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and social work. Its institutes include the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology and the Phipps Institute of Genetics and Community Diseases. The University Museum (of archaeology and ethnology) is a teaching and research organization.