Coverage of Trustees June Stated Meeting |
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At the Annual Stated Meeting of the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees on June 19, Trustee Chair David L. Cohen announced that Ralph Roberts, chairman emeritus of Comcast, W’41, Hon’05, passed away at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at age 95. President Amy Gutmann described Mr. Roberts as “a cherished member of the Penn family” who was always generous with his time and talents; the Roberts Proton Therapy Center was established at Penn (Almanac December 8, 2009). In 2005, he received an honorary degree from Penn.
Memorial resolutions were passed for two trustees, H. Samuel Greenawalt (Almanac April 7, 2015) and Shaun F. O’Malley (Almanac March 17, 2015).
A resolution to amend the statutes of the Trustees specifies new membership and term limits and removes the Special Trustee classification. Another resolution appoints the investment board as fiduciary for defined benefit and retiree medical plans.
Mr. Cohen was re-elected as chair for another year; Andrea Mitchell and David M. Silfen were re-elected as vice chairs for another year.
The Executive Committee was elected: Mr. Cohen, Lee Spelman Doty, Perry Golkin, President Gutmann, Janet Haas, Andrew R. Heyer, Robert M. Levy, Ms. Mitchell, Egbert L. J. Perry, Julie Beren Platt, Andrew S. Rachleff and Mark O. Winkelman. Mr. Silfen was elected to the committee until February 26, 2016.
The following were elected to the Investment Board: Mr. Cohen, Judith Bollinger, Mr. Golkin, President Gutmann, Robert S. Kapito, Mr. Levy, Marc F. McMorris and Mr. Rachleff.
Richard C. Perry and Mr. Rachleff were elected Charter Trustees.
Dr. Haas, Krishna P. Singh and Carol Elizabeth Ware were re-elected as Term Trustees and Michael J. Price and Richard W. Vague were elected as Term Trustees.
In May, Alumni Weekend had a record-breaking attendance with more than 11,570 alumni and guests on campus.
President Gutmann presented a resolution of appreciation for Eduardo Glandt for his four decades at Penn Engineering where he served as the Nemirovsky Family Dean since 1999. He was designated dean emeritus of SEAS.
Then, she presented a resolution to appoint Vijay Kumar as the new engineering dean (Almanac March 17, 2015) and another to appoint Theodore Ruger as the new law dean (Almanac February 24, 2015).
Provost Vincent Price announced that Beth Winkelstein is the new vice provost for education (Almanac May 26, 2015) succeeding Andrew Binns who served for nine years in that role.
Stephen Golding gave the financial report, noting that the FY15 forecast is a strong one, both for the academic component that outperformed budget, and the health system that successfully relocated the Trauma Center to the Penn Presbyterian site in February and signed an agreement with Lancaster General Health. UPHS has also improved the mortality rate, resulting in an increasing number of lives saved. The FY16 budget has an operating surplus due to projected endowment returns but cash is expected to decrease due to planned construction. One project is the renovation of the Larry Robbins House of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at 3537 Locust Walk. It will be expanded and modernized.
Dean of Admissions Eric Furda reported that the Class of 2019—hailing from all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, DC—was selected from the largest pool of applicants in Penn’s history; 10% of 37,268 were accepted with a 65% yield. It includes the third cohort of KIPP scholars. First generation college students represent 12% of the applicants.
Audit and Compliance Committee chair Jay Fishman noted the retirement of May Lee Brown, associate vice president for audit, compliance & privacy as of the end of June.
A master of science in design was approved, allowing the School of Design to offer advanced professional training in architecture to post-graduate students.
Penn’s operating budget for FY16 will be $3.367 billion; the capital plan includes estimated project costs of $434.1 million. $200 million from Penn’s Century Bond program is directed towards energy efficiency upgrades and deferred maintenance including lighing upgrades in dozens of buildings and HVAC improvements in nine major building projects.
The FY16 operating budget and capital budget for UPHS were also approved. UPHS has several large capital projects including the Penn Medicine at Radnor expansion, the Penn Tower demolition, the Penn Hall construction and a practice in Cherry Hill.
Both the Dental School’s Evans Building Centennial renovation project and HVAC upgrade ($37 million) and the Library’s Kislak Special Collections Center renovation phase 3 ($6.2 million) were approved.
Tcera, Inc., a start-up to develop immunotherapies to enhance patients’ immune systems led by Carl June’s team, will be pursued by the Trustees in collaboration with Novartis.
Numerous appointments and reappointments to Penn Medicine, Boards of Overseers and other boards were approved.
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