Penn Trustees Approve Design for Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics

The Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics has received final design approval from the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees. The project, which incorporates the rehabilitation of the existing West Philadelphia Title and Trust Company building at 36th and Walnut Streets with a significant addition to its north, is in the first stages of construction. It will house the Departments of Political Science and Economics in Penn Arts and Sciences, with courses critical to some of the School’s most popular majors, including economics, political science, international relations, and the interdisciplinary philosophy, politics and economics program.

Six academic and research centers will also be relocated to the new building. These include the Center for Advanced Study of India; Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics; Center for the Study of Contemporary China; Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism; Penn Institute for Economic Research; and the new Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies.

“The Perelman Center will help the School achieve a key priority reuniting the department of political science under one roof and putting both economics and political science faculty members in close proximity to their related research centers, graduate students, and undergraduates,” said Dean Steven J. Fluharty. “At a time when great issues that intertwine politics and economics are central to research and teaching in both disciplines, a wide range of productive synergies is likely to result.”

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