Trustees take up U.'s image

Members of the University Trustees' External Affairs Committee gathered Friday and devoted much of their meeting to discussion of what Interim President Claire Fagin called the University's image "challenge." They remembered public relations casualties from a summer in which the University was trampled by "water buffalo" and trashed with newspapers in all forms of national media. The meeting bore the scars of battle. "We have to get the image and the reality [of the University] much more together than they've been for some time," Fagin said. The meeting took a populist approach, as Trustees watched a video put together by the Annenberg School and UTV in which students were asked what they thought was wrong with the University. Few students in the video segment mentioned racial tensions. Issues addressed by students included safety, diversification of Locust Walk and academic concerns. Following the video presentation, a panel comprised of Wharton freshman Matthew Macarah, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association Chairperson Lynn Edwards and Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Page Editor David Boldt discussed their perceptions of the University. Macarah said while he was not on campus for either the "water buffalo" case or The Daily Pennsylvanian confiscation, it "didn't have a big impact" on his image of the school. "That kind of thing happens everywhere," Macarah said. Boldt said the two incidents made such a huge splash in the national media because they made the University seem out of touch with the "real world." "We tend to see Penn as the Fiji Islands of West Philadelphia," Boldt said. "We know where it is, but we're not sure what goes on there?there's a feeling that the educational elite at Penn have come loose from the mainstream of society." Many Trustees asked panelists what they thought could be done to forward integration between the races, both on the staff of the DP and throughout campus. Edwards, an Annenberg graduate student, said that to suggest that black students are "withdrawing" from integration with other students "is to suggest that there was ever integration in the first place." Boldt, suggesting the University move closer to an "in loco parentis" approach to diversity, received enthusiastic nods and smiles from the Trustees. Edwards voiced disapproval of the idea of randomized housing – that all freshmen would be randomly assigned to dormitory rooms – saying it would "force students into a situation that [they] might not feel comfortable with." "People come here, and they live with, talk with and stay with people from their own group," Trustee Vice Chairperson Gloria Chisum said in agreement. "If diversity is here, and there's no interaction, then [diversity is] a myth," Trustee Ed Anderson said. After the committee had moved on to other business, Committee Chairperson Leonard Lauder brought the discussion back to the issue of the events of the past year. Lauder, saying the University needs good relationships with newspaper editorial boards, denounced former President Sheldon Hackney as someone who "didn't get out of the office, thus drawing the fire of the nation's press last semester. "[Hackney] was a very shy person," Lauder said. "We were paying for years of a private person's unease with the press." That, he said, was the sole reason the "water buffalo" case attracted the nation's attention. "That's the only reason," Lauder said angrily. "These things happen all the time." He had better words for Fagin, which drew applause from fellow Trustees. "[Fagin's] first week of office, she visited the boards of the Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times," he said. "She is a pro-active, outward-looking person."