Community programmer Waller leaves U.

Todd Waller, director of the University's Program for Student-Community Involvement, is moving on up. Today is his last day at the University. And next week, he will return to non-profit work outside the academic arena, becoming director of training for the Pennsylvania Service Corps, an arm of President Clinton's National Service Program. Since August 1990,Waller has been coordinating projects involving students, schools and community groups in the West Philadelphia area for the University. During that time, he and his staff "slowly built important relationships and partnerships with schools near here," Waller said. The most notable of these is the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, which in its eight-year existence has provided the community with almost 100,000 hours of volunteer tutoring. Under Waller's direction, the University's Program for Student Community Involvement also served as a national model. Last summer, it was one of 16 programs of its kind -- from an applicant pool which included 450 schools -- to be awarded federal funds to continue programming even when the University was not in session. Ira Harkavy, director of the University's Center for Community Partnerships and the Penn Program for Public Service, said last night that Waller made a very important contribution to raising the profile of volunteer service at the University. Waller developed innovative orientation programs for new volunteers and started a series of national conferences on student community service, he added. "Penn will miss him," Harkavy said. "He helped establish a strong base for the future." Waller's new position will be an expansion of the initiatives he instituted at the University. His new agenda, which will consist mostly of consulting, will also involve facilitating workshops in leadership skills and political issues for student volunteers. While Waller said he is looking forward to his new job, his departure from the University is bittersweet. "I leave concerned that decisions made regarding the transition at hand may be made hastily," he said yesterday. "There has been a failure to look at the resumes of a number of highly qualified candidates that would bring a tremendous amount to the students and programs involved." According to Acting Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum, though, that is not the case. "I have asked [Associate Vice Provost for University Life] Larry Moneta, who as direct supervisor of the program will be responsible for naming the acting director, to talk with Todd to elicit his recommendations for potential acting candidates," she said. "[Moneta needs] to also speak with people including Ira Harkavy, Gwen Bryan and students who are actively involved in the program to develop a pool of strong candidates who will assure the continuity of exemplary service to the community," she added. Moneta said he will name an acting director, who will oversee the Program for the remainder of the semester, early next week. Although the acting director will be someone from within the University, the search process will be "full, open and national," he said. "We'll find people who do this for a living, and hopefully find the best person possible," Moneta added. "Absolutely there will be a large contingent of students participating [in the search]."