Professional and Organizational Development

Extending the expertise of Penn Arts and Sciences to you and your workplace

Penn’s Professional and Organizational Development delivers dynamic, applied non-credit programming relevant to today’s global and connected workplace. Through our team, you gain access to the world’s leading experts in the arts and sciences who help you navigate the challenges facing your organization.

We offer customized and open enrollment programming in:

Artificial intelligence
Behavior and decision science
Climate change Impacts
Company culture
Critical thinking
Cross-cultural communication
Cross-organizational collaboration
Effective communication
English language skills
Executive presence and leadership
Grit
Introduction to disaster management
Introduction to team culture

Leadership development
Organizational and institutional power
Organizational email norms
Organizational sustainability
Positive psychology at work
Professional writing fundamentals
Positive psychology
Resilience
Social norms
Team building
Virtual collaborations
Writing with data

These timely topics are all delivered in collaboration with Penn’s renowned faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences. Our flexible non-degree programming can take place on Penn’s campus, at your corporate location, online, or through a combination.

The breadth and depth of our Ivy League content advances individual skills, builds stronger teams, and energizes company performance.

Customizable programming

Our Professional and Organizational Development team collaborates across the University to help create custom online, in-person and hybrid non-credit programming that fuse the humanities, applied sciences and business. Our experts meet with your organization to assess its unique needs. From there, we work with you to craft courses, workshops, lectures, and instruction from our robust portfolio of disciplines.

How we do it

Professional and Organizational Development offers customized development programming that builds upon your company’s goals and strategy. We focus on tools and frameworks that become embedded into your culture.

Our four-step, customer-focused process ensures success:

Understand organizational needs

We assess the following questions to get the full scope of your goals and background: What would your organization like to accomplish? What are your current strengths and competencies? What skills, culture and knowledge are required to accomplish your goals? What obstacles are in your way?

Design program to align with organizational goals

From there, we determine what resources are available at Penn and how they can be integrated and leveraged to respond to the needs outlined above. We work with our esteemed faculty to determine how to translate organizational goals into learning goals.

Implement program with clear objectives

After the plan has been reviewed with your team, we launch innovative solutions with clear and observable learning goals that reinforce the organization’s strategic direction.

Follow-up and consult to reinforce learning

Finishing a course is not the end of your organization’s Penn education. After the programming is completed, we evaluate our effectiveness and identify ways to reinforce and continue learning across your organization.

Open enrollment portfolio

We’ve generated innovative non-degree programming that brings our Ivy League experts to individuals and organizations across the globe. Explore our diverse online and on-campus offerings that can help you and your team gain new skills and enhance workplace performance.

If you are interested in building out a custom program for your organization based on our open enrollment portfolio, please contact us.

Culture-Driven Team Building

Culture-Driven Team Building is an online specialization available via Coursera.org. Penn’s renowned Organizational Dynamics team and the Department of Anthropology developed the program. Participants learn to form, join and lead teams more effectively.

Topics Include:

Understanding and building team culture
Diversity on teams
Conflict resolution
Maximizing team performance
Creating a culture of continuous learning

Visit Coursera.org to enroll today >

Foundations of Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable humans and organizations to flourish. This online five-course specialization, available via Coursera.org, was developed by the “father of positive psychology,” Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman and his colleagues at the Penn Positive Psychology Center. Foundations of Positive Psychology explores the history of positive psychology, as well as applications, interventions and methods used in the field.

Topics include:

Understanding positive psychology
Positive psychology applications
Building character
Grit
Resilience skills

Visit Coursera.org to enroll today >

Penn Technical Boot Camps

Penn Technical Boot Camps, in collaboration with EdX, combine an interactive environment with dynamic curricula taught by experienced instructors. With extensive learner support and a wide array of resources, we provide an education that will help you find a path to success.

Our programs offer:

Market-driven, hands-on training
Experiential and collaborative learning opportunities
Convenient schedules for those who wish to stay at their current job
Career-planning assistance

When you complete a Penn Technical Boot Camp, you earn a robust set of hard and soft skills to help you stand out in today’s market and a certificate of completion showcasing your accomplishment to future employers.

If you are already enrolled in a program and have any questions, please email us at:
penn-pod@sas.upenn.edu.

Spotlight on: Penn Resilience Program

The Penn Resilience Program, developed by Dr. Karen Reivich of the Penn Positive Psychology Center, is evidence-based programming that can build resilience, happiness and well-being. This program equips you and your team with practical skills that increase the ability to bounce back from adversity and to grow and thrive professionally and personally.

Penn has worked with individuals, teams and leadership from a variety of organizations, including the military, professional sports teams, corporations, first responders, government, primary and secondary schools and universities. A unique aspect of this program is the train-the-trainer model, in which instructors guide organizational leaders and management on how to teach resilience skills to their teams.

Our Professional and Organizational Development team can help tailor a resilience workshop, class or programming for your group’s needs.

Topics include:

Self-awareness
Self-regulation
Optimism

Mental agility
Strengths of character
Connection

If you are interested in building out a resilience program for your organization, please contact us.

The Penn difference

The School of Arts and Sciences forms the foundation of the scholarly excellence that has established Penn as one of the world's leading research universities. One of eight private universities known as the Ivy League, Penn consistently ranks among the top ten national universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Recognized as America's first university, Penn remains a world-renowned center for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and serves as a model for research colleges and universities throughout the world. By working with Penn, you benefit from an extraordinary intellectual community of thinkers and doers from one of the greatest centers of learning in the US.

Ben Franklin Statue on Penn campus

Clients

Professional and Organizational Development and the Penn Resilience Program have partnered with the following businesses, non-profits, military teams and institutions to deliver a wide range of programming: