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Amy Gutmann became the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania in July 2004.
She serves on the board of directors of the Carnegie Corporation and the board of governors of the Partnership for Public Service, the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Council of CEOs.
Gutmann is an award-winning author who has written seven books, edited seven others and published more than 100 articles, essays and book chapters.
Top three all-time favorite reads
*Persuasion by Jane Austen. Austen's final novel explores family dynamics and the social issues of her time.
Why a Regency romance novel?
"I have always been drawn to sharp-eyed social commentary, and Jane Austen captures for me the complexities of love, memory and missed (then recaptured) opportunity.
"I also admire her blend of irreverence, eloquence and wisdom, which is captured so beautifully in her concluding observation: 'When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort. This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be true ...'"
*A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. A largely autobiographical novel tracing the author's life from his birth to his departure from Ireland.
*The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. A series of articles written to generate popular support for the then-proposed Constitution.
More recent reads
*Can Southern Louisiana be Saved? an article by Elizabeth Kolbert published in The New Yorker, Feb. 2, 2006.
*The Case for Contamination, an essay by Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times Magazine, Jan. 1, 2006.
"The essay was adapted from the book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, which shows how the chasms separating cultures and civilizations are much narrower and more easily bridged than we might think."
*The Challenge for Faith-based Initiatives by John DiIulio Jr. in The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 27, 2006. DiIulio is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Web favorites
*NPR.org -- "National Public Radio is a great gateway to history, science, arts and culture, not to mention politics. It's a treasure trove for lifelong learners."
*MRQE.com -- a movie review search engine.
*NYTimes.com -- The New York Times online.
By Earni Young
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