When the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement opened in February 2018, then-Vice President Joe Biden laid out his hopes that it would serve as a “gathering place” that could foster the exchange of ideas for years to come. But seven years later — after an exit from the Oval Office and amid a drastically different political landscape, the center’s presence has all but disappeared.

The fate of the Penn Biden Center has mirrored Biden’s shifting path from public office to private life — and back again. First launched by then-Penn President Amy Gutmann, the center’s establishment appeared to position Penn as a focal point of Biden’s postpolitical career. 

After Biden began campaigning for the presidency, the center experienced a sharp decline in external-facing activity, a period marked by partisan controversies, and an eventual restructuring under a new initiative.

“Penn Washington is now the physical and programmatic home for the University of Pennsylvania’s engagement in the nation’s capital,” Penn Washington Executive Director Celeste Wallander wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “The Penn Biden Center is now one component of this broader entity.”

A spokesperson for Biden did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

Biden’s early ties to Penn

The former president’s personal involvement with Penn preceded the center’s establishment and any official appointments. His late son Beau Biden graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1991. Several of Joe Biden’s grandchildren would go on to attend the University. 

Biden spoke at the School of Social Policy & Practice’s graduation ceremony in 2010 while vice president and again at Penn’s 2013 Commencement, during which he also received an honorary degree.

“I was asked why I wore a Penn tie [to the ceremony]. My answer is, I earned it,” he said during the speech.

After months of speculation about a possible Penn appointment after his vice presidency, Biden was formally named as a Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor in February 2017. The University simultaneously announced the establishment of the Penn Biden Center.

“The Penn Biden Center and I will be engaging with Penn’s wonderful students while partnering with its eminent faculty and global centers to convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and impact the national debate about how America can continue to lead in the 21st century,” Biden said.

At the time, Gutmann praised Biden’s “unsurpassed understanding of diplomacy and far-ranging grasp of world issues” and called him “an ideal fit” to further Penn’s global engagement.

Establishing the center

In March 2017, the center underwent a soft opening and began offering semesterlong internships for students around the same time. It also co-hosted former Mexican President Felipe Calderón for the inaugural Penn Biden Leaders Dialogue later that October.

The center formally opened at 101 Constitution Ave. in Washington in February 2018. The ribbon-cutting event featured a panel discussion between Biden, Gutmann, and 1967 College graduate and longtime NBC News anchor Andrea Mitchell.

“At Penn, I look forward to building on the work that has been a central pillar of my career in public office: promoting and protecting the post-WWII international order that keeps the United States safe and strong,” Biden said in a 2018 statement following the center’s announcement.

For 14 months, Biden used the center as his primary office and employed several of his closest confidants, including future Secretary of State Antony Blinken and personal adviser Steve Ricchetti. During that time, Biden’s involvement at the center consisted primarily of campus speaking engagements; he never taught any classes.

During this period, the center also published several articles about foreign policy. Many of them were written by Biden himself and other center staff — including individuals who would come to hold foreign policy roles under the Biden presidency. 

The first major policy project undertaken by the center was a 2018 report on democratic vitality in the United States published alongside the George W. Bush Institute and Freedom House. Additionally, the center partnered with the School of Arts and Sciences and Embassy of Japan to sponsor the Kakehashi Project, a weeklong cultural exchange program in Japan for Penn students.

During this time, Biden made several public appearances at Penn — including a forum alongside former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and a talk about his 2017 book titled “Promise Me, Dad.”

Columbia University professor of international relations Michael Doyle — Gutmann’s husband — described the forum with Bush as “an extraordinary occasion.”

“It was even cordial despite all of their differences,” Doyle added. “I was floored by the quality of that debate, and so were the students.”

According to Doyle, Biden also participated in private events at Penn, such as a meeting between Biden and the University Board of Trustees during which he “answered every question at incredible length.”

“[He was] at the top of his game, articulate, well-informed, inspiring, taking questions,” Doyle said.

Biden’s campaign for president

In April 2019, Biden announced his presidential run. Five days later, Gutmann announced that Biden would be taking an “unpaid leave of absence” from his work at Penn and the center.

At the time, the center’s communication director wrote that “the Penn Biden Center will continue to advance the values that have formed the core of our mission since we opened.”

“We will remain active in shaping the debate around important foreign policy issues and fostering a new generation of leaders,” the statement read.

Shortly after, Blinken and Ricchetti also left their positions at the center to join Biden’s presidential campaign. During this period, the only visible output from the center was in the form of articles published on the website’s “News and Insights” page. 

Throughout his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden alluded to his involvement with Penn, often asserting he was a “professor [and] teacher” at the University.

After Biden’s victory and inauguration, the center continued to maintain its commitment to “carry on its mission of conducting original research, analysis, and commentary.” 

It stated it would “remain completely independent of the Biden administration.”

Later that year, Biden tapped Gutmann as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany and former Chair of the Board of Trustees and 1981 University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School graduate David Cohen as the next U.S. ambassador to Canada.

During the presidency 

For the four years of Biden’s presidency, the center did not produce any public policy projects. 

The center’s final managing director, Michael Carpenter, departed in November 2021 to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. By January 2022, the center’s site only listed three employees.

Despite its inactivity, the center was a source of significant controversy for both the Biden administration and Penn. 

In 2021, Republican lawmakers alleged that the University had failed to properly disclose millions of dollars in donations from Chinese entities to the center. Two years later, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability revisited the same line of questioning toward Gutmann’s successor, former Penn President Liz Magill.

“The University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017 there have been three unsolicited gifts, from two donors, which combined [to a total of] $1,100. Both donors are Americans,” a University spokesperson told the DP at the time. 

In October 2022, classified documents dating to Biden’s vice presidency were found at the center. 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump — who was facing his own investigations related to improperly filed government documents — released a video criticizing both the center and Biden’s involvement.

“At the very same moment my ultrasecure Mar-a-Lago home was raided by the FBI, Joe Biden was harboring classified documents in his China-funded Penn center”, Trump said in the video.

The controversy would ultimately lead to a special counsel investigation by the Department of Justice, which published its findings in February 2024 — 10 months after Biden announced a controversial reelection bid for a second term.

In the report, DOJ Special Counsel Robert Hur referred to Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and declined to press charges against the then-president.

The report added to mounting concerns over Biden’s age, which came to a head in June 2024 after a pivotal debate against Trump. A month later, Biden withdrew from the presidential race.

The center, restructured

Following the end of his reelection campaign, Biden expressed interest in reengaging with the center after leaving office.

“There’s so many other things I want to do in terms of the Biden Institute at Penn on foreign policy and the Biden Institute in Delaware on domestic policy, to keep the things going that we started,” Biden said.

In June 2024, then-Interim Penn President Larry Jameson announced the launch of Penn Washington, an umbrella program joining the newly launched Franklin Initiative with the Penn Biden Center. According to Jameson, Penn Washington would serve as a “physical and programmatic home for the University of Pennsylvania’s engagement in the nation’s capital.”

Despite limited activity in recent years, Biden has continued to suggest future involvement with the University — including floating the idea of housing his presidential library on Penn’s campus.

In September 2025, however, Biden’s office announced that his library would instead be built at the University of Delaware. A Penn spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that the University “was never asked or in conversations about hosting the library.”

According to internet archives, the center’s former website redirected to the primary Penn Washington webpage beginning in October 2024.

This fall, the center reappeared on Penn Washington’s website under a banner that reads, “Here you will find future Global Programs initiatives and events.”

“Future programming in development,” the site read at the time of publication.