Engaging Undergraduates in Learning and Research

Hundreds of Penn undergraduates will visit the Perelman Center each day as they take courses in Economics and Political Science — two of the University’s most popular majors — along with interdisciplinary majors including International Relations. Faculty in Economics and Political Sciences are among the most celebrated teachers at Penn. They continuously adapt and innovate their courses in order to improve student engagement and learning outcomes.

Innovative undergraduate initiatives like PORES—the Penn Program for Opinion Research and Election Studies—will be leveraged by the Perelman Center’s resources. Access to the building’s state-of-the-art technology spaces and meeting facilities, combined with proximity to faculty mentors like John Lapinsky, founding director of PORES and NBC’s elections unit director, will provide Penn undergraduates with unparalleled opportunities to combine learning with research and engagement.

Award-winning teacher Rebecca Stein, director of the Microeconomic Principles Program, teaches introductory microeconomics to almost a thousand students a year. She has recently developed a new SAIL (Structured Active In-Class Learning) version of the course, allowing students to view lectures outside of class, so that valuable time in the classroom can be spent collaboratively solving economics problems with the instructor, and other students.