WELCOME BACK: In Brief

community service University officials appointed Ira Harkavy as director of the new Center for Community Partnerships in June. Harkavy, vice dean of the college and director of the Penn Program for Public Service, was named the director of the center, which will be run through the president's office. Harkavy, who has long had University-wide plans for community service, will now be able to coordinate all of the University's community activities through one office. "One of my first tasks at the Center will be to create a 'map' of all that's going on in community service at Penn, so that these programs can work in concert more efficiently," Harkavy said. "With the map in hand, I will be actively looking for new areas where the University's intellectual resources can help solve Philadelphia's problems." President Sheldon Hackney first announced the formation of the center in 1990, during the 250th Anniversary. More than 4,000 Penn faculty, staff and students are involved with community service, ranging from tutoring public school children to advising small businesses. -- Alec Shwartz Penntrex changes billing procedure Penntrex has abandoned the system of three-digit roommate identifcation codes, or RIDs, in favor of new six-digit private authorization codes, or PACs, which will allow Penntrex to bill students individually for their own long distance calls. One student in each dorm room must still sign on as the student of record to pay for certain services which cannot be itemized. These include the monthly line charge, voicemail, operator-assisted calls and collect calls. But Penntrex manager Darien Yamin said he believes the new system will make billing smoother for both students and Penntrex. He said long distance calls are the single biggest part of each phone bill, meaning the student of record will have to collect less money each month. Previously, the entire bill appeared on the student of record's bursar bill. Now, only the basic costs and his or her long distance charges will appear there. The other roommates' long distance charges will appear on their own bursar bills. Yamin said Penntrex adopted the new system partly as a result of complaints from students and parents about the difficulty in collecting money. -- Scott Calvert