They eat in the dining halls, play games on College Green and ride bikes on Locust Walk. No, they're not students, faculty or staff members -- but their parents are.
Inside several of Penn's 11 college houses are dorms that don't look like dorms at all. Some are two stories high and complete with their own private staircases, some have more than one bathroom and most of them are filled with just as many toys as academic textbooks. These are the dorms that house Penn faculty members and their families.
A friend around every corner
Eight-year-old Sebatian (Sebi) Santiago-Rivas has lived in the same place for his entire life -- a two-story, two-bedroom home filled with impressive artifacts from his family's treks around the globe.
Yet his spacious and eclectic home is surrounded by Penn students also living on the third floor of Kings Court College House.
Over the past eight years, "I think that Penn has been his playground," says Sebi's mother, Associate Faculty Master Marta Rivas-Olmeda, who is married to Faculty Master Jorge Santiago-Aviles. "One time, I remember a parent passed by and asked me, "Is he a famous child or something?' [because of the attention he receives all over campus,] and I said, "No, he just lives in one of the college houses.'"
In fact, Sebi is so popular in the University community that he is often greeted warmly by people he doesn't actually know.
"I feel like every single student is my older brother or sister in this entire place," he says. "I feel like everybody knows me, and everybody likes to have fun with me or watch me doing stuff, but I don't really know them."
But despite perceived stardom, Sebi -- who journeys by trolley with his mother most days to the Friends Select School in the Philadelphia Museum District -- says he still feels "exactly like everyone else I know from my school."
But while most of his friends are excited to see Sebi's home and meet his college student neighbors, some are apprehensive about it, he says.
"From time to time, [some of my friends] might be a little uncomfortable here because they see all these students and they're like, "Oh my God. I don't know all these people. There are so many people staring at me. I'm new here. Aah!'"
For Sebi, though, living with college students is just a part of everyday life -- a part that often leads to new friendships.
"There's so many students around that almost each day I find a new one that I turn into a new friend," he says. However, Sebi has had to learn to cope with losing these friends, as well.
"It's kind of sad, because the thing is I make a new friend, then he leaves, then I make another one, then he leaves," Sebi says.
And even if some of his friends don't keep in touch, most of them leave a mark on Sebi's life.
"I feel like, out of the students in my class, I'm actually learning more than I learn in school, because a lot of the students [in the dorm] are just talking about stuff that I just learn," he says.
Yet Marta quickly adds that, even though her son is in an adult environment, "he's still a child. He still has a child's imagination."
And Marta says she and her husband have no regrets about their son's upbringing.
"For us, it's been great here, and I think raising him here has been fantastic," Marta says. "We have a fantastic time, we have a lot of fun and we learn a lot from students. I think [Sebi] has experienced diversity since the day he was born. For him, this is how the world is supposed to be, with people of all places, colors and ethnicities."
'I miss having a backyard'
Every Wednesday night at 10 p.m., Stouffer College House Faculty Master Philip Nichols and his wife Amy host a study break for the students who live in their dorm. Amy bakes fresh cookies, and the couple fling open their door to Stoufferites looking for food, fun and a break from their books.
However, three guests whose bedtimes used to keep them from attending these study breaks stand out from the others -- Amy and Philip's children: Tanner, 11, Hilyard (Hily), 9, and Browning (Brownie), 8.
"The college students are fun to talk with," says Brownie, who is perched on Tanner's lap on the family's comfortable sofa. "They make really good jokes, and they're really nice. They understand when we make mistakes, like sometimes we make a lot of noise or bump into them."
Both Brownie and Hily say that their two-story, four-bedroom apartment in Stouffer is "better" than a traditional house because, "We're living in the same building as, like, two million friends," Hily says.
But before renovations this summer, their apartment did not have the spacious, open feel it does now.
Hily describes the family's pre-renovated living arrangement as "small and cramped," since the five of them shared a one-story, two-bedroom space.
However, Amy admits that the family's home is still rather unusual.
"I miss having a backyard," she says, "but ... we consider campus our yard. It's just different."
Indeed, Penn has functioned as a play space for the children for as long as they can remember.
"They know the campus by heart," Amy says. "When they were little, they liked to bring push toys and play swords into the Quad because it's like a castle."
Amy adds that raising children in a dormitory has a decidedly different feel than raising them elsewhere.
"We used to live in West Philadelphia," she explains. "We loved our neighbors, but I just find the college houses ... like a big commune."
And some students who live in Stouffer say they also enjoy the feel of living with a family so nearby.
"I don't know them very well, but it's really nice to just have them around and have there be the energy of kids," says College junior Christopher Brown, who has lived in Stouffer for two years.
"I think it makes it seem more like home, definitely. They're outside on the patio all the time playing basketball or walking the dog around -- they're definitely visible. It's just really nice to have, and they're really, really cute."
In fact, says Amy, she often sees that her children help put things in perspective for some Stouffer residents.
"We offer one version of life; a way of making people realize what's important," she says, adding that when some students "get very stressed," seeing children at play often helps put things into perspective for them.
But life is not all play for the three boys, who have their own schoolwork to worry about as students at the Germantown Friends Academy -- a daily commute that Amy calls "the only minus that we really have."
Still, even once their homework is complete, Amy is careful not to let her children get out of hand.
"They don't go running through the building when classes are on," she says. "I just don't let them do that."
Safe and sound in their new home
A few months ago, the Horton family -- Ben, Sandra and their 4-year-old daughter, Annabelle -- were living in a large, four-bedroom house in Durham, England.
Seated on an overstuffed, brown leather chair in the family's new and decidedly less spacious two-bedroom home in Harrison College House, Ben, a faculty fellow for Harrison, explains his choice to house his family in a dorm. When he accepted an Earth and Environmental Science professorship at Penn, he thought Harrison would be the best living option.
"It's very safe here," he says. "We wanted primarily for Annabelle to have a safe environment. It's so pedestrianized here, and there's lots of open space."
Ben adds that his daughter often "charges down Locust Walk" on her bicycle -- something that would undoubtedly be more difficult for her to do off campus, he says.
And for Annabelle, it seems the transition from England to America, from traditional house to dormitory, has been quite smooth.
"I like our building," she says. Of her new college friends, she adds, "I like them, too. We play together at our house, because they don't have toys at their houses."
"She's like a little mascot," Ben says. "Obviously, she loves all the attention."
Annabelle attends all of the University events where Ben is involved, he says, and, "If students leave their doors open, she'll pop into their rooms."
"By and large, the reactions have been positive," Sandra adds. "It must be so welcoming for her."
One of these positive reactions comes from College freshman Andrew Sherman, who lives just down the hall from the Hortons.
"Personally, I think it's really cool to have a 4-year-old living on the floor," he says. "Usually, you don't really see a lot of young kids [at a University] -- it's always just people your age. It's kind of cool to have a family down the hall and a young kid that you can play with."
Sherman adds that Annabelle serves as something of a stand-in for his 1- and 3-year-old brother and sister at home.
"I feel like you definitely have to set an example. You always have to watch out, and you always feel like you're responsible to not screw up when she's around," he says. "But it's in a positive way, not negative. She's not a burden."
In the United Kingdom, though, the Hortons' current living situation -- a family housed in a college dormitory -- is actually quite rare, Ben and Sandra say.
"In the U.K., it's abnormal for an academic to have a family. It's just not very family-oriented there," Ben says.
And while Penn is certainly not geared toward the preschool crowd, Sandra points out that the University does offer some child-oriented events, such as swimming lessons and a summer camp.
Right now, Annabelle is enrolled in nursery school at St. Mary's Church "just to make sure she gets to play with kids" in addition to college students, says Sandra. Ben adds that "an important part of growing up is playing with kids."
The only thing that may eventually drive the family out of the dorm is Annabelle's schooling. For now at least, Ben and Sandra say they are pleased with their current living situation.
"My expectations of what it would be like were a lot lower," Sandra says. "Now that we're actually here, I'm very happy. Being on campus makes me feel that I'm part of something -- more so than I would in the suburbs."
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