Proposals draw mixed reaction

Last week's unveiling of new teaching and learning initiatives by University President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow has provoked both reflection and reaction from faculty members. Some professors, who likely will be affected by the proposed changes, said they do not know very much about the report, entitled "Implementing a 21st Century Undergraduate Education." The proposal centers around the creation of connections between curriculum and academic issues, research, university life and residences, in what some consider an extension of the "One University" concept. Rodin aims to have the new system in place by 1997, when members of the Class of 2001 will be freshmen. Immediate implementation costs will be paid with income from an $8 million trust bequeathed to the University by John Merriam, a 1931 Wharton graduate. English Professor Peter Conn said while he is pleased with the "speed and vigor" with which the administration has approached the issue of undergraduate education, he is disappointed by the lack of attention given to community service initiatives in the new plan. "Penn has, for several years, played a leading role in the design of courses that combine academic study and community service," he said. "Penn faculty and students have enriched their own teaching and learning, and have collaborated usefully with public schools and community organizations, in a set of exciting and productive courses." Characterizing these advances as "institutionally distinctive," Conn said their absence from Rodin and Chodorow's plan threatens to limit the University's imagination and vision in the future. Mathematics Professor and Undergraduate Chairperson Dennis DeTurck said he thinks the new initiatives represent "the right way to go." "It sounds like what we've been interested in doing all along," he said. "[But] for all the talk, there hasn't been a lot of interaction between academic things and residences or fraternities. "It's hard to get it rolling because there hasn't been an obvious way to get it supported from the center," DeTurck added. "If this is something faculty and students see as a good thing and want to do?that this might happen is really exciting." Art History Professor and Graduate Chairperson David Brownlee, who also chairs the Committee on Undergraduate Education, said although he does not know much about Rodin and Chodorow's plan, he thinks it is a "very, very intelligent" plan that makes good use of the lessons the University has learned over the past decade. "People coming from the outside can bring [new ideas] to energize an institution," he said. "[The plan] also pushes us a little harder than we might have done on our own." "The major themes are things we've talked about at Penn for a long time," Brownlee added. "It's a realistic timetable depending on what it is they do -- you could probably do an awful lot on that timetable, but we don't know what it is they're going to do." While the timetable may have to be shifted to accommodate consultation with faculty members and physical changes on campus, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Rescorla said there is no reason to be pessimistic about the plan's implementation date. "It's really good to have a president and provost who see this as one of their main goals," he said.