All 15 AmeriCorps slots may be filled by Fri.

The University will probably fill its 15 allotted positions for the Pennsylvania Service Scholars division of the AmeriCorps program by the deadline Friday, according to Associate Director of the Penn Program for Public Service Amy Cohen. Three more students signed up yesterday to become Pennsylvania Service Scholars. The program offers students financial aid in exchange for 900 hours of community service. The four remaining open positions are expected to be filled by Friday, Cohen said. "I plan to interview and hire the last four by the end of the week," she said. Cohen currently has interviews scheduled with four students interested in the program, and there could be more applicants than slots available. "At this point, I have somewhat over 15 vying for it," she said. College freshman Amber Hsu, who signed up for the program yesterday, said she heard about the program from College Junior Danny Gerber, who is the residential advisor for the Community Service Living-Learning Program. Although she found out about the program earlier this semester, Hsu waited and signed up yesterday, but only because the deadline was approaching. "I think it was just a matter of getting the application done," she said. Hsu is involved with the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps. Along with Gerber, she teaches arts and crafts to four-to-eight-year-old students. She said she eventually hopes to implement her own program. Another student who signed up yesterday was College sophomore Marc Leader. Leader, who learned about the program through the Penn Program for Public Service, said he had been thinking about becoming a Pennsylvania Service Scholar for the past few weeks. Leader is also part of the Community Service Living-Learning Program in which he has already been performing community service. "I was already fairly involved in community service, and the element of financial aid along with service was very attractive to me," Leader said. "One reason I signed up for it is it's a group that's going to be dedicated to meeting the community service movement on campus and perhaps nationally as well." Like Hsu, Leader is involved in WPIC and is WPIC's liaison to local Wilson Elementary School. Cohen said she thinks students heard about the Pennsylvania Service Scholars Program through people involved in the program or those who participate in community service in general, as well as from faculty members. In addition, she said students have also become aware of the program through sources such as the Internet. She explained why WPIC is one of the main organizations in which Pennsylvania Service Scholars are participating. "A lot of them will be working in WPIC programs because the primary focus of the Service Scholars program at the University is going to be around working with the public schools, which they've done quite a lot of and quite well," she said.

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