Administrators dissatisfied with Penn's 'public good' ranking

Although Penn climbed the moral ladder in the Washington Monthly’s annual “public good” ranking by jumping from 34th place to the 21st this year, many faculty and administrators remained unsatisfied.

“For most national reviews on issues of service and engagement, Penn is ranked at the very top,” said Ira Harkavy, founding director of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, which hosts volunteer and community development opportunities.

Washington Monthly uses three criteria to rank universities: research, community service and social mobility — the recruitment and graduation rate of low-income students.

Although Penn received a cumulative score of only 66 out of 100, “Penn is more engaged than it has ever been,” Harkavy said.

Last year, the Netter Center coordinated 62 Academically Based Community Service courses, taught by 50 faculty and enrolling 1,600 students, ABCS Coordinator Anne Schwieger said. Less than a decade ago, there were only four ABCS courses taught by three professors.

This semester, the Netter Center is introducing a new program — the Moelis Access Science program in computer science. Penn students will go to public schools in West Philadelphia and teach high-school students about computer science, Jean Griffin, a senior lecturer in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, said.

“Students are learning to be consumers, not inventors [of technology],” she said. “Our goal is to bring computer science to these students, especially to women and [minorities].” In the spring, a new ABCS course, CIS 101, will train Penn students with no engineering experience to teach computer science to high-school students.

On the admissions side, Dean of Admissions Eric Furda recognizes that “students from the lowest income strata are under-enrolled at places like Penn.”

To address this problem, admissions officers are making an effort to visit more high schools in urban and low-income areas to recruit students, Furda said.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that many low-income students are the first in their families to apply to college and lack information on Penn’s financial aid to make an informed decision, Director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling said.

“They think they can’t afford Penn, when in fact the loans package can make Penn significantly less expensive than other schools,” he added.

Despite Penn’s efforts, getting more low-income students to apply and enroll at Penn has been “slow,” Furda said.

Assistant Director of the Netter Center Rita Hodges also suggested that Penn could improve its community service projects to “reach the students on a deeper level,” adding that the Netter Center is “constantly trying to improve marketing and raise more money.”

Faculty — particularly those in the Engineering School — need to learn more about the Netter Center’s outreach programs in order to extend their research to the community, Griffin added.

Penn can still become “further engaged” in its community, Harkavy agreed. “The community is still in stress, and the levels of poverty and issues of school performance are certainly not what they should be.”

“We have made great progress at Penn,” he said. “But a lot more needs to be done.”

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