U. Council to discuss plan at mtg.

The University Council will discuss portions of the Preliminary Report of the Commission on Strengthening the Community at 4 p.m. today in the McClelland Lounge of the Quadrangle. The status of the Penn Women's Center and its proposed move to the former Theta Xi House on Locust Walk will also be covered at the monthly meeting. "The Women's Center has gotten a lot of letters in the DP [and] one needs to hear all the things that the Women's Center does," said Gerald Porter, chairperson of the Faculty Senate. What many have called the poor state of academic advising will also be a topic of debate at the meeting. Advising recommendations are made in the Commission's report. "The quality of advising is currently uneven in the schools, in undergraduate and graduate programs, and is particularly a problem in the first two undergraduate years," the report states. Porter said the aim of the discussion today is to identify what "academic advising" means to the University community. "It's really a question of what it even means to people," he said. "It might mean very different things to each person." In addition to the monthly reports from Interim President Claire Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson, the meeting will cover the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education's proposed changes to the academic calendar. Primarily, the proposal adds reading days to the end of each semester in next year's calender, to give students more time to prepare for final examinations. "That's something that we could support," Porter said.