List of presidents of the University of Pennsylvania

The following is a list of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, which began operating in 1751 as a secondary school, the Academy of Philadelphia, and added an institution of higher learning in 1755, the College of Philadelphia .

A 1777 portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

The Rev. John Andrews, D.D., Provost 1810-1813

	Provost [note 1]	Birth–death	Years as provost	Name of institution	Notes
1	The Reverend George Whitefield [note 2]	1714–1770	1740–1749	Unnamed Charity School [note 3]
2	Benjamin Franklin [note 4]	1706–1790	1749–1754	Academy of Philadelphia
3	The Reverend William Smith	1727–1803	1754–1779	College of Philadelphia	American Revolution
4	The Reverend John Ewing	1732–1802	1779–1802	University of Pennsylvania	American Revolution
5	The Reverend William Smith	1751–1820	1802–1806	University of Pennsylvania
6	The Reverend John McDowell	1732–1802	1807–1810	University of Pennsylvania
7	The Reverend John Andrews	1746–1813	1810–1813	University of Pennsylvania
8	The Reverend Frederick Beasley	1777–1845	1813–1828	University of Pennsylvania
9	The Right Reverend William Heathcote DeLancey	1797–1865	1828–1834	University of Pennsylvania
10	The Reverend John Ludlow	1793–1857	1834–1852	University of Pennsylvania
11	The Reverend Henry Vethake	1790–1866	1853–1859	University of Pennsylvania
12	The Reverend Daniel Raynes Goodwin	1811–1890	1860–1868	University of Pennsylvania
13	Charles Janeway Stillé	1819–1899	1868–1880	University of Pennsylvania
14	William Pepper	1843–1898	1881–1894	University of Pennsylvania
15	Charles Custis Harrison	1844–1929	1894–1910	University of Pennsylvania
16	Edgar Fahs Smith	1854–1928	1910–1920	University of Pennsylvania
17	Josiah Harmar Penniman	1868–1940	1923–1930	University of Pennsylvania

No.	Image	Presidents of the University of Pennsylvania	Years as president	Notes
1		Thomas Sovereign Gates	1930–1944
2		George William McClelland	1944–1948
3		Harold Stassen	1948–1953
-		William Hagan DuBarry	1953–1953, Acting President
4		Gaylord Probasco Harnwell	1953–1970
5		Martin Meyerson	1970–1981
6		Sheldon Hackney	1981–1993
-		Claire Fagin	1993–1994, Interim President
7		Judith Rodin	1994–2004
8		Amy Gutmann	2004–2022
-		Wendell Pritchett	2022–2022, Interim President
9		M. Elizabeth Magill	2022–2023	Shortest tenure
-		J. Larry Jameson	2023-Present, President/ Interim President (2023-2025)

Notes

1. Penn became a degree-granting institution of higher learning in 1755. In preparation for this expansion in mission, William Smith was hired in 1754 to become the new provost. Neither George Whitefield nor Benjamin Franklin formally held this title.
2. Benjamin Franklin is the founder of the institution which grew to become the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin first convened a board of trustees for an organizational meeting on November 13, 1749. They opened a secondary school, the Academy of Philadelphia, in 1751. A collegiate charter was obtained for the College of Philadelphia in 1755 and post-secondary instruction began shortly thereafter. It was the College of Philadelphia which ultimately was renamed the University of Pennsylvania in 1791. Penn considered 1749 to be its founding date until 1899, when the board of trustees voted to retroactively revise its founding date to 1740 in order to make the university older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746. The 1740 date was selected because, in that year, a group of Philadelphians joined together to build a large preaching hall for the use of traveling evangelist George Whitefield who toured the American colonies delivering well attended open air sermons. The grand building was erected but, due to a shortage of funding, the interior was not furnished and the hall sat unused until Franklin's group purchased it in 1750. Thus, Whitefield himself was not involved in the school which eventually became Penn, but is listed here as a placeholder to signify the period that the preaching hall raised by his followers sat dormant between 1740 and 1750.
3. As described in more detail in the appended notes, a charity school was planned by followers of George Whitefield but it never opened before the building was purchased by Benjamin Franklin's group in 1750. The structure itself was known as the "New Building" but the associated educational trust itself was never named.
4. Franklin's formal title was president of the board of trustees, first of the "Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania" until the college was founded, and then of the "College, Academy and Charity School of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania."