Former VP Joe Biden officially joins Penn

Penn President Amy Gutmann confirmed today the rumor about former vice president Joe Biden: he’s joining the Philly-based university as a professor.

Biden, who has been named the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, will head a D.C.-based research center on foreign policy that will bear his name and the University’s: the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which is slated to open in 2017.

In addition, Biden will have an office on Penn’s campus right here in Philadelphia, from which he will hold joint appointments in the Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Arts and Sciences, with a “secondary affiliation” to the Wharton School.

President Amy Gutmann announces Vice President @JoeBiden named the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professorhttps://t.co/Bkx3OOlhDm pic.twitter.com/Gi39UFA9di

— Penn (@Penn) February 7, 2017

“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 press release. “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.”

In the same statment, Gutmann referred to Biden as a “one of the greatest statesmen of our times” and said the former senator was an ideal fit to boost Penn’s role as a “global agenda-setter.”

And now, enter the conflict (ish): as our sister site Technical.ly Delaware reports, Biden also announced today he’ll be joining the University of Delaware, where he’ll serve as founding chair of the Biden Domestic Policy Institute. As reported Joey Davidson writes, the University confirmed Biden would work directly on UD campus.

This means that, in addition to splitting his time between D.C. and Philly, Biden will also be taking a few trips to the First State. Might he still become a champion for Philly’s health IT companies as we had hoped?

Either way, welcome to Philly, Joe.