Penn president Amy Gutmann tipped as next US envoy to Germany

Amy Gutmann, the long-time president of the University of Pennsylvania, was expected to be named by the Biden administration to serve as US ambassador to Germany, the German news site Der Spiegel reported.

Professor Gutmann, head of the Ivy League institution since 2004, had been widely expected to find a position within the Biden administration given the close association she and Penn have built with President Joe Biden in recent years.

Her current contract expires next year, which will make her Penn’s longest-serving president. She was among the candidates publicly floated after Mr Biden’s election as possible US secretary of education, though that post rarely goes to a higher education specialist.

Neither the White House nor the university confirmed the report of the ambassadorial appointment, which Der Spiegel attributed to unnamed US government sources.

Professor Gutmann, 71, a professor of political science who came to Penn after serving as provost at Princeton University, would be the first woman to serve as the US ambassador to Europe’s largest nation.

At Penn, she has built a national reputation in areas that include ethics and democracy, including service throughout the Obama administration as chair of its Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

Yet she faced criticism for her own handling of matters that include strained racial and community relations in Philadelphia, and ethical issues in science. She also has been the highest-paid Ivy League president, opting against taking a pay cut during the pandemic.

She has recalled her late father, Kurt Gutmann, describing his success in 1934, while a college student in his early twenties, in convincing his Jewish family to flee Germany after anticipating the dire implications of community behaviours that included a boycott of their family-run store.

If confirmed by the US Senate, Professor Gutmann would replace Robin Quinville, who has been serving on an acting basis since the resignation last June of Richard Grenell, a political strategist and Trump ally widely criticised in Germany for an abrasive style.

The expected appointment of Professor Gutmann as ambassador would cap a relationship with Mr Biden highlighted by his appointment in 2017 – shortly after he left the White House as vice-president – to head the newly created Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

That centre gave Mr Biden the title of presidential practice professor, some $900,000 (£650,000) in salary since 2017, and a base from which to organise some of his political allies. They include Antony Blinken, the centre’s one-time managing director, who now serves as US secretary of state. In return, it gave Penn top-level political access and slate of world leaders to speak on campus.

As US vice-president, Mr Biden delivered the commencement address at Penn in 2013 and attended the graduation in 2016 of his granddaughter Naomi.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com