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Dr. Amy Gutmann became the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania on July 1, 2004. In her inaugural address, Gutmann launched the Penn Compact, her vision for making Penn[…]

A pivotal moment in her childhood helped Guttman define her Jewish identity.

Amy Gutmann: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and I grew up in a small town – Monroe, New York. I’m very proud of my roots in Brooklyn. And I grew up in a small town that, even though it was only an hour north of New York City, seemed like middle America. I think it shaped me. Well first of all, I think it’s made me understand a cross-section of people and their problems that it’s very hard to get out of books. And the fact that my parents were not native to Monroe – my father wasn’t a native American, he was born in Germany – has made me particularly sensitive to the whole project of integration in the United States, and also to just generally the issue of social justice.

 


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