Officials implementing Commission report

For many seniors, Commencement is a time of nostalgic musing about the past and anxious anticipation for the future. It's the same for Interim President Claire Fagin. When Fagin steps out onto the platform in the middle of Franklin Field on May 19, she will become the first female president of an Ivy League school to graduate a class. It will be a major highlight in Fagin's personal and professional life, as well as in the history of the University. "Graduation for me will be one of the great experiences of my life," Fagin said earlier this semester. "It will be the first time a woman has ever stood on that platform." Fagin, who went on to describe the pageantry and tradition connected with the University's Commencement ceremony as a "mind boggling" and "phenomenal" experience, is working hard to prepare for what may be the crowning symbolic moment in her administration. "I'm a nervous wreck," Fagin admitted earlier this week. "I'm writing and writing and cutting and cutting and adding and adding." While Fagin has another month and a half on the job until President-elect Judith Rodin arrives from Yale to take the helm, Commencement will be the last major address in her year-long tenure as interim president. Over the past year, Fagin has labored to rebuild the University's image -- an image that was left shattered by an onslaught of negative coverage in the national media surrounding the "water buffalo" and Daily Pennsylvanian confiscation incidents. And Fagin has worked hard to try to rebuild a sense of community at the University, another victim of last year's strife. For the most part, Fagin believes she has succeeded. "By and large, the mood has changed on campus and definitely the mood has changed externally," she said. "Our alumni feel good about the University again." Fagin points to her decision to modify the University's much-criticized speech code and her work with key University committees, including the Commission on Strengthening the Community and the Judicial Reform Committee as some of the greatest accomplishments of her year in office. After decades of debate, Fagin's administration was the first to put women on Locust Walk with the Penn Women's Center scheduled to move into the now-vacant Theta Xi fraternity house by the start of the next academic year. Fagin said she has learned that it is hard for one person, even the president, to change an institution as large as the University. She added that she has sometimes been frustrated and disappointed by the pace at which things are accomplished. Fagin said she would like to have seen the plans for the Revlon Center finalized earlier, a final version of the Code of Student Conduct, Academic Integrity and new judicial procedures in place, and a decision on the fate of ROTC on campus by the end of the semester. She acknowledged, though, that all these things were not possible. Still, Fagin said she feels very good about her time in office and hopes several trends began under her administration that will continue in the future. "We need to continue to develop ways of shrinking the psychological size of the University," she said. "And we need to talk more. We need to talk to each other to find out what needs to be done." After stepping down at the end of June, Fagin will take a year off, returning to her research in health care and nursing. She said she will be available to assist Rodin in her transition should she need any help.

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