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We invite you to experience Penn’s dynamic community through a selection of in-person and online programs.

In-person programs.

Penn Information Sessions: Admissions staff will lead a discussion of the academic landscape and opportunities available to students. Then current students will lead you on a campus tour while sharing their personal experiences about life at Penn.

Wharton Information Sessions: Join current student Wharton Ambassadors to learn more about the Wharton experience both inside and outside the classroom, including the curriculum, co-curricular opportunities, and campus resources. Presenters will speak from their own experiences and will leave plenty of time for questions.

Wharton Coffee Chats: High school juniors and seniors have the opportunity to have a conversation with a current Wharton student in an informal setting. Learn more about life on campus and gain firsthand insight on what it means to be a Wharton student. Coffee Chats immediately follow Wharton in-person information sessions on select dates.

Registration is required for all in-person programs. You can select the Wharton options when you register for a campus visit . Note that the fall-semester Wharton sessions are typically posted in September and spring sessions in January. No in-person sessions are offered in the summer.

Campus Tours

Student-Led Campus Tours: Current Penn students will give you a first-hand glimpse into life on campus while touring you around Penn’s home in West Philadelphia. Registration is required .

Self-Guided Campus Tour: Download the Adora Experiences app or text  Tour UPenn  to  58052 to explore Penn’s campus at your own pace. You can also follow along through a  printable self-guided tour .

Please note that Wharton does not offer a separate tour.

Virtual Options

Wharton Virtual Information Sessions: Join current students to learn more about the Wharton experience both inside and outside the classroom. This session will give you an overview of the curriculum, co-curricular opportunities, and resources. The students will share their personal stories and allow time to answer your questions. Note that the fall semester sessions are typically posted in September, spring sessions in January, and summer sessions in May. Register for a Wharton virtual information session .

Penn Admissions Virtual Information Sessions: Penn Admissions staff will lead you in a live discussion on the academic landscape at Penn and the numerous opportunities available to students. This session will also provide insight on the application process and how best to prepare. Register for an information session.

Student-Led Virtual Tours: Current students will share their insider’s take on life at Penn via our virtual campus tour. Even if you’ve already taken a tour of campus, this interactive experience will highlight new aspects of campus life. Register for a student-led virtual tour

• Campus Visits and Information Sessions

Interested in learning more about Penn's College of Arts and Sciences? 

• Take a tour of this site for an introduction to academic life in the College.
• View the College Brochure .

Led by enthusiastic volunteers, the  College Cognoscenti  give presentations to families in small groups about what it means to be at Penn from an academic and co-curricular perspective. Independent of undergraduate admissions, the Cognoscenti are a great resource for prospective students to learn about the curriculum, student research experiences and other academic details specific to Penn's College of Arts and Sciences.  Register for a virtual presentation here. In-person information sessions can also be registered for through the Undergraduate Admissions website .

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions offers prospective students and their supporters a variety of resources to learn more about Penn and the admissions process, including virtual tours and in-person information sessions.   Visit the Undergraduate Admissions website to learn more.

Learn more about the College curriculum, advising, support and opportunities by taking our website tour.

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Quaker Campus Visits

We look forward to welcoming you to campus! This page will serve as a useful resource as you plan your April trip to Penn.

Quaker Campus Visit Schedule

An Admissions Officer and current students will also be available for any questions throughout the day.

Day of Contact Information

Additional details regarding your visit are included below. If you have any questions, please call us at 215-898-7507 during office hours Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. ET.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Each registered student is limited to one guest (two total visitors per party). Guests are required to be listed on the student's registration form.

Student residence halls and dining halls are closed to guests at this time. Penn does offer a virtual campus tour and a self-guided virtual tour that will allow you to see residence halls and dining facilities on campus. View our Tours and Information Sessions webpage for information on both options.

If you are visiting campus or live nearby, you can drop into the Student Service Center located in the lobby of the Franklin Building (3451 Walnut Street). No appointments are required. You can also reach us via email at [email protected] or via phone at 215-898-1988.

Campus Construction

Please be advised: due to ongoing construction on campus, some routes to the Admissions Visitor Center will not be accessible during your visit. Please consult the below map to plan your route. We advise arriving an extra five minutes early in order to navigate to the building.

At this time, the most direct routes to Claudia Cohen Hall are available when entering through 36 th St. and Spruce St., or 36 th St. and Walnut St. For those requiring wheelchair accessibility, we recommend entering via 36th St. and Spruce St.

Please note, the Visit Center is not accessible via the Penn Commons, and there are longer detours for those entering via 34 th street.

Undergraduate

College of Arts & Sciences

The wharton school, school of engineering and applied science, school of nursing.

Undergraduate Programs

Penn’s undergraduate students have the opportunity to pursue 90 majors across four schools. They also often engage across disciplines, forging new paths in research and scholarship.

Dual Degree

Supported by dedicated faculty advisers, students may pursue more than one Penn degree, still graduate in four years, and enjoy an active life beyond the classroom.

University Catalog

Find detailed information about traditional undergraduate programs at Penn as well as important academic policies and resources.

A-Z Listing of Programs

Discover programs offered for academic credit. Interested users can narrow results by academic level and school.

What every first-year needs to know: Student tour guides offer tips, advice

A half-dozen student tour guides share a few things they wish they’d known as they started at Penn.

Undergraduate Facts

Interested in attending.

APPLY TO PENN

Undergraduate Admissions

The college application process is a meaningful journey that encourages you to reflect on yourself, your community, and your interests. Your voice matters, and we can’t wait to hear your story.

Undergraduate Aid Program

Penn is the largest university with a program that enables eligible undergraduates to receive grant-based financial aid packages for eight semesters. The program applies to traditional, dependent students in the four undergraduate schools, who are pursuing their first baccalaureate degree.

President’s Innovation Prize

President’s Innovation Prize awards a graduating Penn senior, or a team of graduating seniors, to envision and implement an innovative, commercial venture that makes a positive difference in the world.

President’s Engagement Prize

Competitively awarded on an annual basis, the President’s Engagement Prizes empower Penn seniors to design and undertake local, national, or global engagement projects during the first year after they graduate.

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Admissions and Tours

Prospective students apply for admission to the College of Arts & Sciences and select Architecture as a possible undergraduate major during the application process. Portfolios are not required. Learn more

Applicants who wish to visit the undergraduate program in architecture should contact the program at least two weeks in advance in order to schedule an appointment with an Applicant Advisor. Send requests by email to  [email protected] . Prior to meeting with an Applicant Advisor, applicants are required to attend an Information Session scheduled online through the Office of Admissions.  Learn more

Students attending other universities interested in the Major in Architecture should apply through the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and select the College of Arts & Sciences.  Learn more

Upon acceptance into the College of Arts & Sciences, transfer students should contact the program for guidance about the design studio equivalency review process.

• Why Penn Engineering?
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Visit Penn Engineering

There’s nothing quite like being on Penn’s campus and experiencing it for yourself. There’s a lot to see here, so we offer set times and schedules for taking a tour.

We also recommend that you take the time to look around Philadelphia. It’s a beautiful city, full of history and culture, parks, sporting events, festivals, and amazing restaurants – with something for every taste.

Engineering Tours*

Penn Engineering offers a student-led tour of the engineering facilities for prospective undergraduate students. Tours are offered weekdays only (dates posted below) at 3:30 p.m. and leave from the Office of Academic Services (OAS) at 109 Towne Building. Note: we do not offer weekend engineering tours.

Visitors should enter the engineering quad through the Levine Hall Lobby.  Note: the engineering buildings are only accessible via penn card access however there will be a guard available on tour dates starting at 3pm at the Levine Lobby access only .

Engineering Tours – Spring 2024

Engineering tours will be held on the following dates:

Monday, 2/12

Monday, 2/19

Monday, 2/26

Thurs, 3/14

Thurs, 3/21

Thurs, 3/28

Thurs, 4/18

*Advance registration is required.  Please take a look at the above dates and register through the Office of Admissions using the button below. Walk-in visitors cannot be accommodated.

Additional Information

Faculty visits, engineering class visits.

During the fall and spring terms, many engineering courses are pre-approved for class visits. Check the list of classes open to observation. Please arrive on time and plan to stay for the duration of class to limit any disruption.  Please bring as mask.   Many course instructors require masking.

Helpful Hints

Be sure to check to make sure a tour is offered on your chosen date. Following the online list of available dates for tours is a list of dates when no tours are held.

Tours begin at 3:30 p.m. rain or shine, although severe weather conditions may necessitate cancellation.

Please allow sufficient time to find parking (if needed) and to get to 109 Towne Building. (Please enter via Levine lobby entrance and make your way to Towne.) We ask that you arrive slightly ahead of time to avoid tour delays or interruptions.

Engineering tours last about 45 minutes. (comfortable shoes are recommended). Penn Admissions offers Information Sessions and Campus Tours that give an overview of the entire University. Read more about visiting Penn.

We’re looking forward to your visit and hope you are too. Contact us with questions about admissions or academic programs!

Visit Penn Engineering:

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Alumni returning to campus can enjoy Franklin Fest, the Alumni Picnic, student-led tours to see what's new around campus, and more during this weekend filled with reconnection and reminiscence. 

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Penn's interim president warns pro-Palestinian protesters that they must 'disband their encampment immediately'

J. Larry Jameson cited legal and university policy violations. Protesters said they planned to remain overnight.

Protests over Israel's war against Hamas have spilled onto college campuses in the Philadelphia region and across the country.

Demonstrators on Thursday marched from Center City to the University of Pennsylvania campus, where a small encampment was set up and a student and faculty walkout occurred . 

At Princeton, two students were arrested and about a half-dozen tents were taken down by protesters voluntarily. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges was escorted out of a rally.

Officials at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, as well as Drexel and Temple Universities, have not reported disruptions on their campuses. There was also a  peaceful march at the University of Delaware , and students at Haverford and  Swarthmore set up tents on campus .

Penn campus remains calm for the night

As midnight approached, the pro-Israel counterdemonstration had mostly dispersed and the tensions caused by the Penn president’s vacate order earlier in the night had dissipated.

About a dozen police officers remained on patrol nearby, but demonstrators said they felt assured they would not be forced to leave just yet.

Pro-Israel students also demonstrate, scene on campus still peaceful

A few dozen Jewish and Israeli students at Penn assembled near the protest encampment around 10:45 p.m., where one student began setting up a projector facing the encampment to play footage of the Oct. 7 massacre.

(Later, after some technical difficulties, the pro-Israel group abandoned the idea to project the Hamas attack video, and instead played Israeli music instead on a portable speaker.)

Protesters say will spend the night at encampment despite warning to leave

Pro-Palestinian student activists plan to spend the night in tents on Penn’s campus, despite an order from the university’s interim president to immediately disband the day-old protest encampment, organizers said.

Police presence at the scene was light around 10 p.m. and there was no indication of an imminent sweep.

The interim president at the University of Pennsylvania issued a warning Friday night to the pro-Palestinian protesters on campus that they must "disband their encampment immediately" because of alleged legal and university police violations.

"The encampment itself violates the University’s facilities policies," J. Larry Jameson said in a letter to the Penn community.

Penn’s last president resigned over her handling of pro-Palestinian protest on campus. Now her successor faces a test.

The pro-Palestinian encampments at Philadelphia area campuses remained peaceful this week as tumult has roiled other schools.

Clashes with police and arrests have erupted at Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Southern California, where next month’s main commencement ceremony has been canceled.

Spiritually troubled or peaceful justice seekers? Here’s what Pa. officials are saying about student protesters.

The political divide over the war in Gaza was starkly evident this week in Philadelphia as local officials spoke out about student demonstrations at University of Pennsylvania and other local campuses.

State Rep. Rick Krajewski, whose district includes Penn, as well as Philadelphia State Sen. Nikil Saval and State Rep. Tarik Khan, visited the Penn encampment on Thursday, according to a Daily Pennsylvanian report.

Penn protesters get de-escalation training

Hours after the encampment went up Thursday, a Penn spokesperson said the university would not tolerate protest or speech that violates the university’s policies, disrupts its business, or causes an “intimidating, hostile, or violent environment.”

Pro-Palestinian student organizers said they have a look-out network to make sure no one infiltrates the encampment to start trouble. They also spent the first day instructing protesters in the art of peaceful conflict resolution.

Penn encampment aims for a ‘safe space’ for students facing disciplinary threats

Few at the Penn encampment Friday expressed confidence that university leaders would immediately comply with the encampment’s demands to disclose its financial holdings, divest from corporations profiting from the war in Gaza, condemn Israel’s bombing of universities, and provide amnesty to students facing disciplinary measures for pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Beyond the requests for Penn leaders, Herndon said the camp’s goal is to provide a “safe space” for pro-Palestinian activists on campus, which include Jewish, Muslim, Arab and Israeli students.

Medic tents and protest pets: A tour inside Penn’s protest encampment

A black-and-white keffiyeh draped the neck of Ben Franklin’s bronze statue on Friday morning.

Laying in his shadow on Penn’s campus, about 60 pro-Palestinian activists woke up inside tents. They had spent their first night in protest encampment against Penn over the war in Gaza.

'The quicker you take these encampments down, the better,' ex-Philly police commissioner Ramsey says

Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said peaceful protest should be allowed on college campuses, but encampments should not.

“From my experience, the quicker you take these encampments down, the better,” said Ramsey, who served as Philadelphia’s police commissioner from 2008 to 2016 and whose company, 21CP Solutions, recently conducted a safety audit of Temple University’s campus. “They will only grow in size.”

State legislators visited Penn encampment

Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Krajewski, whose district includes Penn, as well as Philadelphia state Sen. Nikil Saval and state Rep. Tarik Khan, visited the Penn encampment on Thursday, according to a  Daily Pennsylvanian report .

Khan said he wanted to make sure students are “able to peacefully protest” and Saval condemned “universities that have called police on their students simply for expressing their voice in protest and right in assembling peacefully,”  according to the report.

Casey pushes for antisemitism bill amid university protests

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) responded to protests on university campuses in the state and across the nation by urging Republicans in Congress to pass an antisemitism bill he introduced two weeks ago.

The bill, backed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, would establish a workable definition of antisemitism that the Department of Education’s Office’s of Civil Rights could use in investigations to determine whether there is a hostile environment on campus, which could result in a withholding of federal funding.Casey said Congress should increase funding for those investigations.

Haverford College encampment intended to disrupt board of managers meeting, organizers said

Haverford College students were occupying 15 tents on a central campus lawn Friday morning, an encampment that student organizers said was formed in solidarity with Gaza and in protest of the college's investments that benefit Israel's military campaign.

The protest's timing is also intended to disrupt the college's annual meeting of its board of managers, which takes place on campus this weekend, organizers said.

Haverford College becomes third area college with encampment by pro-Palestinian protesters

A handful of tents have gone up on Founder’s Green at Haverford College. It becomes the third college in our area with an encampment by pro-Palestinian protesters. 

Tents went up earlier this week at Swarthmore College and Thursday night at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Penn will allow encampment protest to continue, as long as it remains peaceful

University of Pennsylvania interim president J. Larry Jameson in an email to the Penn community Friday morning said the university is closely monitoring the encampment that went up Thursday, with an eye toward providing safety for both the Penn community and the protesters.

“Penn has and will continue to support the rights of our community members to protest peacefully and in keeping with University policy,” he wrote. “We will not stand by, however, if protected protest and speech deteriorate into words and actions that violate Penn’s policies, disrupt University business, or contribute to an intimidating or hostile environment on our campus.”

Photos: Scenes from the encampment at Penn

Senate gop dave mccormick calls campus protests 'anti-american'.

At a Thursday night rally, Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Dave McCormick disavowed the campus protests occurring in Pennsylvania and across the country.

At Towne House, a restaurant on Veterans Square in Media, in Delaware County, he repeatedly asked supporters if they could believe what was happening.

Pro-Palestinian encampment rises at Penn as students and faculty protest over war in Gaza

As campus unrest over Israel’s treatment of Gaza continued to rage at colleges across the country, hundreds of students and faculty in Philadelphia and Princeton took up the cause, staging encampments on area campuses, walking out of classes, and waging lively protests.

At the University of Pennsylvania, students erected about 10 tents on the College Green late Thursday afternoon, as Penn became the latest local campus with an encampment. The group at Penn described itself in a news release as a coalition of Penn students, staff, and faculty, along with other Philadelphia community members and students, and called the effort its “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Some universities negotiate with pro-Palestinian protesters. Others quickly call the police.

The students at Columbia University who inspired pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country dug in at their encampment for the 10th day Friday as administrators and police at campuses from California to Connecticut wrestled with how to address protests that have seen scuffles with police and hundreds of arrests.

Officials at Columbia and some other schools have been negotiating with student protesters who have rebuffed police and doubled down. Other schools have quickly turned to law enforcement to douse demonstrations before they can take hold.

Kyle Rittenhouse, deadly shooter, college speaker? A campus gun-rights tour sparks outrage

Kyle Rittenhouse is not a typical college campus speaker.

In 2020, at the age of 17, he took an AR-15-style rifle to a Black Lives Matter demonstration and fired it, killing two people and injuring a third. Rittenhouse said he pulled the trigger in self-defense and was acquitted of wrongdoing .

He has since penned a book, “Acquitted,” and has set out on a series of college speaking events dubbed the " Rittenhouse Recap ." He is slated to appear Thursday at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Rittenhouse is selling books, and ostensibly promoting the right to bear arms on campus, but he’s also trying to persuade young people to join the conservative movement. The key group behind the appearances, Turning Point USA, is led by the self-described “youth director” of President Donald Trump’s first campaign and a key ally rallying votes for Trump this year.

The group told USA TODAY that it isn’t a nationally organized tour – that its chapters independently requested Rittenhouse. Student chapter leaders told USA TODAY that Rittenhouse is an important conversation starter. “I think sometimes you have to be kind of polarizing to pull a crowd," said Brady Seymour, president of Turning Point USA's chapter at Kent State University in Ohio.

The provocative choice of backing the Rittenhouse tour is par for the course for Turning Point and its local affiliates, which have hosted controversial figures like Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier . But it has stirred up devastating pain and disdain in a man he almost killed.

"He has used every moment to gloat and to make light of taking life," Paul Prediger said, speaking publicly for the first time about what happened in protest of a Rittenhouse speech last week at Kent State. "As if that were not enough, Kyle has embraced and been embraced by those who peddle hateful rhetoric, who believe in nationalism that excludes those who do not look like or think like them, and who have sought to amplify a troubling desire for violence against supposed political, cultural, and religious enemies."

Rittenhouse's message on his campus tour – that students should be allowed to take up arms, including to fend off "these Hamas, Palestinian terrorists" if they invade dormitories – has sparked protests and raised questions about free speech and just how far it should be allowed to go. A similar question helped lead to the resignations of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University , who stepped down amid fierce criticism for equivocating when asked if calls for the genocide of Jews would be allowed on campus.

Rittenhouse, in a statement provided by spokesperson Jillian Anderson, said his campus appearances are not part of an official tour or book-selling venture, and he is reminding students of their rights. "Every American has a constitutional right to bear arms," he said, "and it should not be infringed by a college campus."

Experts say context matters. Tom Ginsburg, a law professor at the University of Chicago and faculty director of the forum on free inquiry and expression, told USA TODAY that federal regulations require colleges and universities to ensure their learning environment is not hostile. Within that framework, some incendiary language could be permitted in a general public space but prohibited if directed at an individual or group.

"That's a key distinction," he said. "Is it said in general, as part of a general demonstration, or is it shouted at a particular group of people who might then reasonably perceive it as being a threat of some kind? And if it's the latter, then it could be punished."

Kyle Rittenhouse says students should carry guns on campus

On the evening of Aug. 25, 2020 , Rittenhouse brought a rifle to the site of intense protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. Amid a scuffle with protesters, Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Prediger.

In a trial that drew national attention in 2021, Rittenhouse said he shot the men in self-defense after Rosenbaum threatened his life and Prediger pointed a gun at him. Prediger said he thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter. Critics said Rittenhouse had no right to fire his weapon and was illegally acting as a vigilante militia. A jury acquitted him of all five charges he faced, including intentional homicide.

Rittenhouse soon took on celebrity status in right-wing circles where the right to bear arms and use them to defend life and property is sacrosanct. The weekend after his trial, he flew to Florida to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort and to appear on Fox News for an interview with conservative host Tucker Carlson.

At Kent State, Rittenhouse implored students to fight to be allowed to carry guns at school.

"We have these blue boxes that are on the campus – we've all seen them, you push a button, it calls the police, and you get connected to a dispatcher," he said. "How long does it take a cop to show up, though? When somebody is trying to kidnap you or somebody is threatening your life, is that the quickest option to be able to protect yourself?"

He encouraged students to join conservative groups like Turning Point USA and said elected officials don't care about them.

"What makes me really scared, and I get really upset that people, especially young campus students, aren't allowed to carry firearms, just because I'm scared that what happens if these Hamas, Palestinian terrorists come to the U.S. and try to attack us?" Rittenhouse said. "Are we supposed to be left defenseless? Are you supposed to be left defenseless because you're not allowed to have a gun in your dormitory?"

After Prediger – formerly known as Gaige Grosskreutz – criticized his speaking tour, Rittenhouse posted a video clip on X, formerly Twitter. It showed Prediger admitting he pointed a gun in Rittenhouse's direction before being shot. Rittenhouse did not include text in the post.

Students accuse Turning Point of 'hateful actions'

In the days leading up to his arrival at Kent State, demonstrators staged a walkout, organized a vigil, and spray painted "Welcome, killer" on a free-speech landmark. A Change.org petition urging the university and Turning Point USA to cancel Rittenhouse's visit gathered more than 3,700 signatures. The event spurred Prediger to speak out. Hundreds showed up to protest.

"I stand with the students of Kent State University who have had enough," Prediger said.

Students said it was particularly insensitive for the campus to host Rittenhouse and his message about guns on campus given the school's history. On May 4, 1970, four students were gunned down at Kent State when the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd gathered to protest the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Aimée Flores, a representative from the university's Spanish and Latine Student Association, said the organization encouraged students "to learn more about Turning Point USA.... their hateful actions on campus and throughout this whole year, why we don't agree with their actions."

Seymour, the school's Turning Point chapter president, said the event was about "creating conversation." It had no relation to the 1970 killing of protestors, he said.

"In his speech, he talked mostly about having the right to carry on campus, considering students aren't allowed to at Kent State," Seymour said.

"These two stories are completely different and 50 years apart," he said.

Protests at every campus on 'Rittenhouse Recap' tour

Other “Rittenhouse Recap” appearances prompted vocal opposition and protest.

At Western Kentucky University , protesters held a sit-in and march last month. His appearance at East Tennessee State University in February also sparked demonstrations – local press reports show one protester wielding a sign accusing Turning Point of empowering "stochastic terrorism" – the incitement of violence through public demonization of a person or group.

In the days leading up to Rittenhouse's appearance at The University of Memphis in March, the school fielded a barrage of complaints from students, faculty, and community members. Protesters held signs with messages like, “Put Rittenhouse behind bars, not a podium.” Rittenhouse abruptly left the stage after about 30 minutes as protesters shouted him down.

Universities said allowing the events – and the protests – upholds key tenets of American democracy and academic tradition: Free speech and freedom of assembly. Turning Point USA’s chapter at The University of Memphis is a registered student organization, the school said.

"We cannot ban speech because it would go against a core value and because of well-established laws governing free speech on public university campuses,” Kent State said in a statement provided to USA TODAY. “Upholding the First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceful assembly for all, the university has a long history of allowing peaceful dialogue from all points of view, including those whom some may feel are offering different and/or sometimes controversial opinions."

Turning Point has history of booking controversial speakers

Turning Point USA has a track record of booking controversial and provocative figures, placing it at the center of debates over First Amendment rights on college campuses, where it says it has grown to more than 800 chapters since its founding in 2012.

In late 2016 and early 2017, the group was behind a nationwide campus speaking tour by Milo Yiannopoulos – a former Breitbart writer banned from Twitter for harassment and dropped from the agenda at a Conservative Political Action Conference after videos surfaced of him defending sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and grown men. Yiannopoulos said he was joking and may have used "imprecise language."

In 2019, Turning Point’s Iowa State University chapter claimed partial responsibility for extending a speaking invitation to Fuentes, a white nationalist who has said he wants a "total Aryan victory" and self-identified as a "sexist man," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Last year, representatives of the group confronted, criticized and assaulted an LGBTQ+ instructor at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Turning Point has taken action against members for promoting hate speech. In 2019, the group expelled a member at the University of Nevada Las Vegas after a video surfaced of the student shouting "white power" and using a white supremacist hand sign.

Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, said the Fuentes event was not sanctioned, and a local chapter official was tricked into arranging the appearance. He said that Turning Points has repeatedly denounced white nationalism . Kolvet said that in general, students should be able to hear from controversial speakers. "We do our best to make sure that there's going to be enriching discussion, that the speaker is going to be, I would say, uplifting, inspiring, productive."

He said Turning Point chapters chose Rittenhouse as a speaker. "There just happened to be schools that asked for Kyle because he came out with a book and he made himself available, essentially."

Turning Point touts itself as a key player in conservative politics , as does its founder and president, Charlie Kirk , who told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh 's show in 2019 that he “traveled the country for about 70 days straight carrying Donald Trump Jr.’s bags and getting his Diet Cokes.” In addition to becoming Trump Jr.'s "body man," he took on the role of "youth director of the campaign," Kirk said. Speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2020, he called President Trump the "bodyguard of Western civilization."

Kirk also speaks on college campuses, where his fiery rhetoric has sparked controversy. At a speech last fall at Missouri State University , he said all immigration to the U.S. should be halted, called global warming an "academic distraction," and speculated about how many Hamas sleeper cells might be active in the U.S.

Expert says universities grappling with non-academic provocateurs

Ginsburg stressed that colleges and universities must allow free speech. "It’s pretty clear that their obligation is to make sure that event goes forward and to make sure it's not disrupted," he said. "At the same time, peaceful protest also has a long tradition on campus."  

Ginsburg said an added dimension to their challenges is the more recent phenomenon of campus speakers who intentionally draw negative attention.

"What we're now seeing is that people are sometimes getting invited to campus who aren't necessarily academics. They're not articulating a truly academic point of view," Ginsburg said. "In some cases, we have provocateurs, including some people who actually are seeking to be canceled, seeking to be protested."

He said people like Rittenhouse often capitalize on controversy. "He's certainly part of a media ecosystem in which you do have some of those kind of characters where, if you can get canceled, it ups your follower rate and you can portray yourself as a victim," he said.

To the Turning Point leader at Kent State, it's a tactic the group uses to advance conversation.

"That's the sad reality of how people are," Seymour said. "You kind of have to stir up drama or be a polarizing character for people to end up paying attention to you."

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her by email at [email protected]. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.

April 29, 2024

Rat Neurons Repair Mouse Brains That Lack a Sense of Smell

With an injection of rat cells, mouse brains that were genetically engineered to be unable to smell could detect odors and even track down an Oreo cookie stash

By Claudia Lopez Lloreda

JuanDarien/Getty Images

Chimeras, fictional creatures made up of a combination of body parts from different animals, such as the mythological Minotaur, have captivated thinkers, philosophers and scientists throughout history. In biology, a chimera is any organism made up of cells with different sets of genes . Now researchers have created a unique variety of chimeras in the form of mice with rat neurons that replace lost brain functions. The chimeric mice highlight the adaptability of the brain and raise hopes for studying neurological disease and for developing brain tissues that more closely resemble those of humans for transplantation.

The findings, reported in two studies in Cell this week, show that rat neurons can integrate into mouse brains and develop into missing circuits using a procedure called interspecies blastocyst complementation (IBC) in which researchers inject cells from one species into embryos of another and then implant the embryos into animals of their own species. Researchers had previously used this technique to develop a pancreas and kidneys in mice and rats but not brain tissue.

The new work is “a big step in the field,” says Andrew Crane, a cell biologist at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved with the two papers. “Both of these studies are answering key questions about how rat cells develop within a mouse.”

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One of the studies, conducted by Jun Wu of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and his colleagues, first sought to identify which genes the researchers needed to excise in order to block the development of specific brain areas. The team used the gene-editing technique CRISPR to quickly create mice without important genes needed for the animals’ development and found that knocking out the gene Hesx1 resulted in mice that lacked an area called the forebrain, which is mostly involved in complex cognitive and sensory processing. A void remained in the brains where the forebrains should have been.

Then the researchers performed IBC by injecting rat stem cells into host embryos of these genetically altered mice to see how they developed. The rat cells matured with the embryos, integrating with the host cells and creating the missing forebrains. The rat cells were capable of sending signals to other neurons when researchers activated them. Although the team also used mouse cells to restore the forebrains, the goal was to see if rat cells could do the same, opening the possibility of combining cell from different animals to create brain tissues. The study is a “technological tour de force,” says Walter Low, neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved with the research.

In parallel, Kristin Baldwin, a neuroscientist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and her colleagues used the same approach to examine how rat cells would populate a mouse brain . (Wu was also a co-author of this study.) In mouse embryos, they injected rat cells that also created functional connections.

Not only could the rat cells integrate into the mouse brains, but they also restored missing functions in mice that lacked the sensory neurons for smell. Without the sense that they use to look for food, the anosmic mice failed to find mini Oreo cookies buried in their bedding. But such mice without olfactory neurons that were injected with rat stem cells burrowed into the bedding to locate the cookies, showing that the donor neurons rescued smell and initiated food-seeking behavior. The mice effectively “perceived the world through the other species’ nose,” Baldwin says.

These studies provide key insights into developmental biology, Low points out. Even though rats typically develop more slowly than mice and rat brains are larger, rat cells timed their development to the pace of cells in their mouse host, taking cues from their environment to grow alongside their neuronal counterparts and mature to the appropriate size.

But not all of growth and development was dictated by the host: when Wu’s team looks at the genes expressed by the cells, they still retained their genetic identity. “There's really intriguing cross talk between extrinsic and intrinsic factors,” he says. These chimeras could further help scientists to study the plasticity of the brain and what critical factors dictate development.

The IBC technique might help researchers develop improved brains tissue for research and, in the long run, transplantation. If this works in animals like non-human primates, the technology could complement animal models of neurological disease, says Bjoern Schwer, molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved with the study.

These papers reveal critical factors for perfecting the technique, revealing the steps needed to synchronize the growth and development of the different cell types. “It’s that synchronization [of the mice and rat cells] that allowed them to integrate beautifully within the brain of the mouse,” Low says. “In the future, if we want to make human organs in a large animal like a pig, we need to synchronize cells’ development so that the cells match one another during the developmental process”.

In their research, Wu and his colleagues observed one possible hitch: as the embryos developed, the contribution of the cells, meaning what percentage of the donor cells were in the forebrain, started dwindling from about 100 percent to 60 percent, suggesting that mouse cells could be outcompeting the donor cells. This lack of control over how many cells were integrated into the embryo and eventually survived led some of the chimeric mice to have more rat neurons in their brain than others. Because of this, “each animal is different,” Baldwin says.

And ultimately, rat and mice genomes are very similar to one another but the technology could become more challenging if species more distantly related than mice and rats are used to make chimeras, as differences in brain physiology and the likelihood of immune reactions increase. Ethical issues also arise when creating a chimera. There are concerns as to whether donor cells from a rat or another species might affect the behavior and cognition in the host animal. “What would it mean if somebody tried to put human cells into a pig embryo [to develop a brain]?” Crane wonders.

The next steps are to refine these techniques and do chimera experiments in larger animals such as pigs to address these questions,Low says. Starting these studies will begin to reveal “the other variables that we’ll need to overcome in order to make growing human organs that we can transplant a reality”.