Penn leaders-turned-diplomats reflect on American statecraft and foreign policy

In a conversation at Perry World House event on ‘Common Sense Diplomacy,’ Penn President Emerita Amy Gutmann and former trustee chair David L. Cohen shared insights and experiences.

The event, titled “Common Sense Diplomacy,” featured Gutmann, former U.S. ambassador to Germany, and former U.S. ambassador to Canada David L. Cohen, a Penn Carey Law alum, former Comcast executive, and former chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees.

“Perry World House is Penn’s hub for global engagement,” said Perry World House deputy director Michael Weisberg. “But very importantly for today, it is one of the manifestations of Ambassador Gutmann’s vision and strategy to connect Penn to the world and the world to Penn.”

“I like to think of this extraordinary place as the house that Amy and David built,” quipped event moderator Andrea Mitchell about Perry World House, which opened in September 2016 during Gutmann and Cohen’s terms as president and board chair. Mitchell, a Penn alumna and trustee emerita, who founded the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, is chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News.

In their service as ambassadors, Gutmann and Cohen were carrying on the tradition of Penn founder Benjamin Franklin, who served as the fledgling nation’s first ambassador, as minister to France, said President J. Larry Jameson in introducing the pair.