Student debate housing plan

Tempers flared last night as University students debated the Commission on Strengthening the Community's recommendation on assigned housing for first-year students. Co-sponsored by the United Minorities Council and the Greenfield Intercultural Center, the forum was the first of three planned to address the complex issues involved in implementing such a residential system. It followed a discussion at yesterday's University Council meeting, in which members discussed the Commission's preliminary report. Outlining the report, Commission Chairperson Gloria Chisum, vice chairperson of the University Board of Trustees, stressed the importance of a "common general experience for the first year." "Transition from high school to college is a difficult transition," she said, addressing the advisory body made up of faculty, staff, administrators and students. "One way we can ease the transition?is in assigning housing in the first year." Faculty members appeared to support the concept, while a number of student members spoke out against it. The format of last night's forum permitted panelists representing both sides of the housing issue, who might not have spoken at the Council meeting, equal time to briefly present their views. Chisum was the first speaker. "The educational mission of the University is at the heart of everything that we recommended," she said. "There is no way that, in this day and age, students can expect to live successfully in this world and not know how to live with cultures other than their own," she added. Commission member Samuel Klausner, a Sociology professor, then offered an explanation of his opposition to the assigned housing proposal. "I find that an assigned housing program really turns the civil rights movement on its head," Klausner added, echoing his minority dissent which appeared in the Commission's report. "The effort has been to guarantee people the right to live where they choose to live...this program reduces choice." College sophomore Leo Greenberg, who dealt last semester with the issue of segregation in campus residences in a political science paper, was the third panelist to comment. Greenberg said he believes living-learning programs are the cause of segregation and "exclusivity" on campus, since they discourage communication between different racial, cultural and ethnic groups. UMC Chairperson and College senior Jun Bang, who also spoke at the Council meeting, was the forum's final speaker. "Eliminating the choice of where one lives undermines our basic civil rights," she said. "Students of color should not feel guilty to quench their desire to live and learn about their ethnicity. "Without the expression to live as one wants, then we are creating the kind of homogeneous environment that the Commission has wanted to avoid. "If the University wants to strengthen its whole community, they do not persecute cultures, but celebrate the differences here at Penn and encourage interaction through other means," Bang added. Moderator Karl Otto, a German professor and senior resident in Stouffer College House, then opened the floor to audience members for comment. Many of the over 60 students in attendance were eager to express their thoughts. College senior Jennifer Pogue spoke forcefully about the importance of a student's University residence being a home. "[A dorm] should be a place where you are accepted and tolerated, not a place where you are forced to just blend all together into mainstream culture," she said. Engineering senior Scott Starks, a former resident advisor in the Quadrangle, also spoke about what Chisum characterized as "exclusionary housing patterns" on campus. He attributed them, however, to the different costs of dorm rooms and availability of facilities within residences. Wharton junior Nicole Maloy read from a letter she plans to send the Commission members. "The idea that 'students may not learn how to work with others different from themselves when they remain sheltered in small groups of their own kind throughout their years at the University is unreasonable as justification for [the housing] move," she said. "Most, if not all, of the impact of this idea would be felt by minority students. This is both ironic and wrong," Maloy added. Throughout the forum, Chisum stressed the fact that the Commission's report endorsed the idea of assigned housing, and not randomized housing as many have contended. Yet College sophomore and Commission member Mike Nadel -- who spoke after Chisum and Commission Director Rebecca Bushnell had left due to the weather -- was unable to explain what differentiates the two concepts. "Assigned housing is not random," he said. "As far as what is assigned housing, I think it's pretty clear -- we don't know. No one really knows, and I realize that's a bit of a problem." "The Commission was just charged with making a general recommendation and that will be converted into policy by somebody else." Forum organizer and Wharton senior Alicia Lewis, vice chairperson of the UMC, said afterward that she was happy students attended the forum to voice their opposition to the recommendation. "I hope the Commission will pay attention to what was said and incorporate these suggestions when they make their final recommendations." Bang urged those in attendance to come to the next open forum, which will be held next Tuesday, Feb. 22, at noon in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, room 1206. Daily Pennsylvanian Staff Writer Stephanie Desmon contributed to this article.