Wharton School Celebrates 125th Anniversary
First Collegiate Business School Marks Milestone with Worldwide Events

Dec. 14, 2005 — The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is celebrating its 125th anniversary. Starting in January 2006, the Wharton School will begin a 16-month celebration of its founding — and the origin of collegiate business education in the world.

“In 1881, American entrepreneur and industrialist Joseph Wharton had the most radical idea in the history of business: the establishment of the world’s first collegiate school of business at the University of Pennsylvania,” said Wharton School Dean Patrick Harker. “No other single idea – and no single institution – has had such a dramatic, transformational effect on the way business is conducted in the global market.”

Creating the world’s first business school was only the beginning of the Wharton School’s history of leadership. The School has produced Nobel Prize winners, creators and leaders of the world’s top companies, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, ambassadors, heads of state, and the world’s most published and cited business faculty. Wharton has generated groundbreaking theories and best practices that have driven business and economic growth the world over– as well as the people who put that knowledge to work.

Wharton 125, the anniversary celebrations, will launch with three major events:

• Global Alumni Forum in Mumbai, India, January 5-7: The event will be attended by alumni, faculty, students and government and business leaders from throughout Asia and will include speakers such as P. Chidambaram, finance minister of India, and alumnus Anil D. Ambani, chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Enterprises. Offshoring, societal entrepreneurship, the future for investors, and infrastructure are among the topics to be discussed at the forum.
• A kick-off event for faculty, students and staff on the Philadelphia campus, January 18: The Wharton on-campus community will gather to celebrate the 125th anniversary and the School’s place in history as the founder of business education.
• Wharton Economic Summit in New York City, February 1: Senior faculty, alumni, and industry leaders will tackle major topics that impact business around the world. Speakers will include: alumnus Art Collins, chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Inc.; Carl Icahn, chairman of the board and president of Icahn & Co., Inc. and chairman of the board and a director of Starfire Holding corporation; alumnus Martin Lipton, senior partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; alumnus Michael Milken, chairman of FasterCures/The Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions; Wharton Finance Professor Jeremy Siegel; Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments, LLC; and alumnus Mortimer Zuckerman, chairman of the board of directors of the Boston Properties, Inc.

Additional events are planned in more than 20 cities across the globe such as Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and Tokyo. A special 125th anniversary finale event will be held in Philadelphia on April 12-14, 2007. Visit the Wharton 125th website for information on events and the history of the School.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide.