Rodin takes to the road again

There's no place like home. Actress Judy Garland was the first to say it, but University President Judith Rodin is probably feeling that way about Eisenlohr Hall at the moment. Rodin's fundraising and alumni relations responsibilities kept her on the go in California for three days last week. On Friday, she left campus again for an alumni reception and fundraising dinner in Washington, extending her stay in the nation's capital by one day to accommodate meetings with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and President Clinton's White House safety panel. "I figured since I was in Washington anyway, I would cram in some government business," Rodin quipped. Today, she will be in Harrisburg, testifying before the State Senate Appropriations Committee about the University's Commonwealth funding for fiscal 1996. "They want to get to know me better?give me a chance to tell Penn's story directly," Rodin said. "We do such a tremendous amount for the Commonwealth, far more than we get in those dollars. I'm eager to communicate that." Thursday and Friday, Rodin will be in Miami and Boca Raton, Fla., attending to additional alumni and fundraising commitments. Next week, she's in Boston. This highly charged itinerary is the result of creative scheduling; the President's Office strains to fit a number of off-campus obligations into Rodin's date book whenever possible. Rodin said she spends about 15 percent of an average semester away from campus, adding that she intends to keep this fraction below 20 percent of her time. She said she spent much less time last semester traveling than would be typical of an Ivy League president, since she was still settling into her post and the rhythm of campus life. "In a sense, my schedule reflects the University's priorities," Rodin said, adding that her job requires her to be on-duty seven days a week. She also said she has pushed one trip back until after Commencement, and generally tries to postpone trips until vacation periods or University "downtime." "When it's time that we're in session, I can get in and out in a night, [I go]," Rodin said. "Other than that, I'm here, and then it's incredibly variable because some of it's proactive and some of it's crisis-driven." Now that Rodin has a full complement of senior staff members, including Chief of Staff Stephen Schutt and Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Carol Scheman, it is not as difficult for her to spend time outside West Philadelphia. "When I'm away, I'm on the phone with the office six times a day," she said. "In the beginning, it would have been much harder." But even when she is in town, Rodin must balance the needs of vocal constituencies -- students, faculty, staff, deans and the University's Board of Trustees -- with the demands of city and community relations. "We take our civic partnerships very seriously, it really does rely on my time to some extent," she said, citing the $50 million challenge grant pledged to Philadelphia's public schools by Wallis Annenberg, Walter Annenberg's daughter, as one of the most important of these initiatives.