page_title: University of Pennsylvania
section_title: Seal
hierarchical_section_title: University of Pennsylvania / History / Seal
caption_attribution_description: English: Seal of the Philadelphia Academy (University of Pennsylvania) in 1757
context_page_description: The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. The University claims a founding date of 1740 and is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum.
  Penn has four undergraduate schools as well as twelve graduate and professional schools. Among its graduate and professional schools are the first school of medicine in North America and the first collegiate business school. Penn is also home to the first "student union" building and organization, the first double-decker college football stadium, and Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 2019, the university had an endowment of $14.65 billion, the sixth-largest endowment of all colleges in the United States, as well as a research budget of $1.02 billion. The university's athletics program, the Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.
context_section_description: The official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation. A request for one was first recorded in a meeting of the trustees in 1753 during which some of the Trustees "desired to get a Common Seal engraved for the Use of [the] Corporation". However, it was not until a meeting in 1756 that "a public Seal for the College with a proper device and Motto" was requested to be engraved in silver. The most recent design, a modified version of the original seal, was approved in 1932, adopted a year later and is still used for much of the same purposes as the original.
  The outer ring of the current seal is inscribed with "Universitas Pennsylvaniensis", the Latin name of the University of Pennsylvania. The inside contains seven stacked books on a desk with the titles of subjects of the trivium and a modified quadrivium, components of a classical education: Theolog[ia], Astronom[ia], Philosoph[ia], Mathemat[ica], Logica, Rhetorica and Grammatica. Between the books and the outer ring is the Latin motto of the University, "Leges Sine Moribus Vanae".
caption: 1757 Seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
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