Biden’s makes dubious claim of having been a ‘full professor’ at the University of Pennsylvania

On Thursday, President Biden gave a speech at North Carolina’s A&T State University which largely centered around his Build Back Better plan.

He made the claim that he was a full professor when talking about how he views students as the future of the country.

"I’ve been to a lot of University campuses. As a matter of fact, for four years, I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and this really is an impressive place with a lot of impressive students."

The reality is it was largely a symbolic title, with locals somewhat unclear why the school was paying Biden in the first place.

Biden made the claim he’s a professor more than once during Thursday's outing. The claim is technically true, as the school’s website lists Biden as the former Benjamin Franklin Presidential Professor of Practice between 2017 and 2021.

Biden also previously served as an adjunct Professor of Law for seventeen years, until retiring in Spring 2008 to join the Obama campaign as his VP.

As for how many times Joe Biden visited the UPenn school grounds, The Daily Pennsylvanian documented a total of nine occasions. But these were for events such as panel discussions, or a promotional effort for his "Promise Me, Dad," memoir.

"It troubles me as a faculty member, that in these times of hyper-inflated student fees and constrained resources allocated to faculty hiring, we are paying someone almost a half million dollars a year to make a few public appearances on campus," complained one UPenn professor to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In that story the paper published how Joe Biden was paid over $900,000 during this timeframe. It came to an end in April 2019 when he took a leave of absence, to devote his time for a presidential campaign.

Other parts of Biden’s speech had him asserting he’s rebuilding America’s economy around a "Made in America" mindset. He also reiterated previous claims that Democrats are "lowering the deficit, not increasing it." While the President acknowledged current challenges like inflation and high gas prices, Joe once again blamed Russia’s Vladimir Putin for an inflation hike that began accelerating long before the invasion of Ukraine.

"God bless you all," Biden said in conclusion, before putting his hand out to give a handshake. The problem with that being there was nobody nearby to accept it.

As the New York Post pointed out last week, UPenn is home to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. A government watchdog group has raised a red flag of concern about the school getting millions of dollars in donations from China. It’s a total of $54.6 million USD from 2014 to June 2019.

While the Penn Biden Center first opened in February 2018, UPenn was rewarded a lump-sum donation of $14.5 million USD a few months later.