Type | Private |
---|---|
Established | 2018 |
Parent institution | University of Pennsylvania |
Director | Michael Carpenter |
Address | 101 Constitution Ave., N.W. , , , United States |
Website | global.upenn.edu/penn-biden-center |
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement of the University of Pennsylvania is located in Washington, D.C., and is named after Joe Biden, who was a former Vice President and Senator at the time of its founding in 2018, and is the 46th president of the United States. [1] [2] [3]
A think tank, the Penn Biden Center is, per its mission statement, "founded on the principle that a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and interconnected world benefits all Americans." [4] [5] The Penn Center engages foreign policy leaders as well as members of the Penn community on issues which are critical to sustaining the principles of American leadership on the global stage into the 21st century. [6]
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement officially opened on February 8, 2018. [7] [8] The center opened offices in Washington, D.C. The inaugural ceremony was attended by Biden, [9] the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Amy Gutmann, and David Cohen, chairman of Penn's board of trustees. [6] It featured a discussion on global affairs between Biden and veteran NBC News journalist and Penn alumna, Andrea Mitchell. Guests also included former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry, former U.S. national security advisor Susan Rice, former U.S. attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and current and former members of Congress. [7] The managing director of the Penn Biden Center is Michael Carpenter. [10] [11]
Following the victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election, the center issued the following statement: [12]
The Penn Biden Center will carry on its mission of conducting original research, analysis, and commentary on America’s place in the world and the global forces that impact our national security, democratic institutions, and foreign policy. As a research unit within the University of Pennsylvania, the Penn Biden Center will remain completely independent of the Biden administration, and the analysis and opinions of its staff and affiliated scholars will reflect their personal views alone, and not necessarily those of the University of Pennsylvania. The Penn Biden Center does not accept any contributions or gifts. [12]
Between November 2022 and January 2023, President Joe Biden's attorneys found approximately 25 to 30 classified documents in his former office at the Penn Biden Center and in his personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, dating to his vice presidency in the Obama administration. This was immediately reported to the National Archives and Records Administration, which retrieved them. On January 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. The House Judiciary Committee opened a separate investigation. [13] [14]
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It grants degrees at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
The Pennsylvania State University is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855 as Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State was named the state's first land-grant university eight years later, in 1863. Its primary campus, known as Penn State University Park, is located in State College and College Township.
Wilmington station, also known as the Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Railroad Station, is a passenger rail station in Wilmington, Delaware. It serves nine Amtrak train routes and is part of the Northeast Corridor. It also serves SEPTA Regional Rail commuter trains on the Wilmington/Newark Line as well as DART First State local buses and Greyhound Lines intercity buses.
Amy Gutmann is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2022 to 2024. She was previously the president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2004 to 2022, the longest-serving president in the history of the University of Pennsylvania. She currently serves as the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, School of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.–based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, which it regards as being of current strategic importance to the United States. Jamestown publications focus on China, Russia, Eurasia, and global terrorism.
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communication school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990.
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Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States, has family members who are prominent in law, education, activism and politics. Biden's immediate family became the first family of the United States on his inauguration on January 20, 2021. His immediate family circle was also the second family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, when Biden was vice president. Biden's family is mostly descended from the British Isles, with most of their ancestors coming from Ireland and England, and a smaller number descending from the French.
The Joint Baltic American National Committee, Inc. (JBANC) is a non-profit organization that monitors issues affecting Baltic-American communities in the United States and the nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. JBANC functions as the public affairs bureau for its three parent organizations, the Estonian American National Council (EANC), the American Latvian Association, Inc., and the Lithuanian American Council, Inc. (LAC). The organization was founded on April 27, 1961, through a joint proclamation by Estonian National Committee in the U.S.A. Chairman Julius Kangur; American Latvian Association, Inc., in the United States President Peter P. Lejins; and Lithuanian American Council, Inc., President Leonard Simutis.
Joe Biden is an American lawyer and politician who has been the 46th president of the United States since 2021.
Robert Kyoung Hur is an American lawyer appointed by Donald Trump to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland from 2018 to 2021. He previously served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General with the U.S. Department of Justice. Hur oversaw the 2023–2024 investigation into President Joe Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents during Biden's time as vice president.
Elizabeth Marie Allen is an American political advisor who served as under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the Biden administration. She had previously served in his administration as assistant secretary of state for global public affairs. She was White House deputy communications director during the Obama administration. Allen resigned from the State Department on August 2, 2024, to take up a role as chief of staff to Tim Walz, the then-unannounced running mate of Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris.
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020, and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week of November and the inauguration on January 20, Biden's presidential transition was shortened somewhat because the General Services Administration under the outgoing first Trump administration did not recognize Biden as the "apparent winner" until November 23.
Jeffrey Prescott is an American attorney and foreign policy advisor who is currently the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. He previously served as the deputy to the United States ambassador to the United Nations[†] in the Biden administration.
Michael R. Carpenter is an American diplomat who serves as Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council of the Biden Administration, a role he has held since April 2024. Previously he served as United States ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the Biden administration.
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On January 9, 2023, CBS News reported that attorneys for U.S. President Joe Biden discovered classified government documents in his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and in his personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, dating to his time in the United States Senate and his vice presidency in the Obama administration. The number of documents was later revealed to be between 25 and 30. By June 2023, classified documents from Biden's Senate tenure were discovered in materials donated to the University of Delaware.