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Following Big Donation, Penn to Rename Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Major to Politics, Philosophy, and Economics

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Graphic by Elias Rappaport; Photo by WikiCommons / CC BY 2.0; Photo by 401(K) 2012 / CC BY-SA 2.0; Photo by Ken Teegardin / CC BY-SA 2.0

After a recent multi-million dollar donation by James Politics, PPE is getting a major name change.

After years of placing philosophy first in its three-pronged list, PPE is relegating it to the second P slot. The change isn’t cheap as Penn will have to spend $15 million to remove every sign that says PPE around the school, replacing it with signs that say PPE.

The administration originally considered other names, but settled on PPE after a long Board of Directors meeting.

“We didn’t expect much debate, but it was almost impossible to hear my colleagues speak with those archaeologists outside yelling about freeing all the fossils at Penn,” said board member Davis Vanderwall.

Remington Von Carpenter, a long-time board member, discussed other possible names that they considered. “Initially we considered dropping the P for philosophy altogether,” he said. “But then we realized the major would be called P.E. and we didn’t want people to declare the major just to learn there’s no kickball or gaga offered.”

Jessica Xu (C ‘21) was livid at the change. “This whole process has been an absolute nightmare,” she said. “PPE held such a prestigious reputation. With the change, PPE sounds like any other generic acronym.”

A petition has already begun to change the name back, but most believe the students are unlikely to see a change.

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