25 years and still dreaming

Stephen Marmon says it'sStephen Marmon says it'sabout time the UniversityStephen Marmon says it'sabout time the Universityfinds a single identity–Stephen Marmon says it'sabout time the Universityfinds a single identity–and sticks with it. Stephen Marmon says it'sabout time the Universityfinds a single identity–and sticks with it.It was a warm, clear day in the middle of May then also. As we came up Walnut Street and turned onto 37th, I was dismayed at the dinginess, the lack of character of the campus. Harvard, Yale -- even Columbia -- were so much more physically attractive. And as we walked into the small, unimpressive admissions office in Logan Hall, I wondered if I had made a mistake in deciding to come here. As freshmen we spoke of how the University was on the verge of becoming one of the nation's great schools. How in just a few years we would rival Harvard and Stanford, surpass Columbia and Chicago. We knew that we wouldn't see all those changes while we were here and how those who would be freshmen when we graduated would have all the benefits. And now it is five years later and that freshmen class is here. And now they speak of how we verge on greatness and how those who will be freshmen when they graduate will have all the benefits. But will that dream come true even then? For far too long this university has been one of complacency, one in which innovation was looked on as improper, one which always played the follower's role, rather than striking towards new ground. And so the dream of greatness has slipped further and further away into the future and stays unfulfilled. I wrote those words 25 years ago as the opening paragraphs of my farewell column in the 1971 Daily Pennsylvanian commencement issue, and used them again for my farewell column in 1981. Neither time did I expect that those thoughts, and most of the words that follow, would still ring true today. Much has changed at Penn since 1971. The pedestrian walks and landscaped greens are here. Vance Hall now houses the Wharton graduate program on the site where the Crotch (the Campus Corner) once stood. Admissions has a fine office in College Hall. But there have been more than physical changes in the past 25 years. The academic innovations started by President Emeritus Martin Meyerson are in place and working. On the undergraduate level, there is a unified College of Arts and Sciences. We have more talented and diverse students, even with a larger class. There is an array of curriculum choices, from freshman seminars to dual-degree programs. Our professors consistently win MacArthur fellowships and Guggenheim awards; our football and basketball teams have set outstanding records. And the University has successfully completed a $1.4 billion capital campaign, setting a new record for fund-raising in American higher education. So what is the problem? The University still thinks it is, as a DP editorial put it, on "the brink of greatness." We have made much progress in the past 25 years -- but so have our peer institutions. We have put our financial house in order -- only to face the coming hurricane of federal cutbacks. We have, under the leadership of University President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow, set forth a bold plan for the next century. We have done so much -- yet there is one critical thing we have not done. We have not gotten rid of our damnable tradition of self-disparagement. We have not wiped out that ridiculous inferiority complex that so plagues this university. We have not abolished the endless comparisons with the rest of the Ivy League. There is nothing wrong with a university whose students, faculty, staff and alumni always demand greater achievements. There is something wrong with an institution that does not take pride in the accomplishments it has made. We remain on the brink of greatness because we do not realize how exceptional we are. As French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said upon receiving an honorary degree in 1976, this is "the university that introduced multidisciplinary education well before the term was even invented. This is the university that established the nation's first school of medicine, then realized that theory could not be separated from practice and consequently developed the system of the teaching hospital now in general use? the University of Pennsylvania has been a true pioneer, and as we look back today, it is virtually impossible for us to estimate the contribution this institution has made to intellectual development." For 30 years this University has been a keystone of my life. Here I was educated, here I met my best friends, here I met my wife. For 247 years my alma mater has been a special, unique place. It was 90 years ago this month that Ezra Pound, the cantankerous genius who Carl Sandburg described as "the greatest single influence on American poetry," was graduated from the University. In his Cantos he wrote: "Yet to walk with Mozart, Agassiz and Linnaeus 'neath overhanging air, under sun-beat Here they take mind's space." This is, as the signs around campus now proclaim, "Ben Franklin's University." It is the greatest and most enduring creation of that transcendent genius, the man who captured the lightning, who helped create a country and amaze the world. In 1749, not 1740, Ben Franklin founded this institution. He wrote the plan for it, organized the first board of trustees in America for it, was elected its president, hired the first faculty and provost and raised the money to establish it (as well as buying a building for it that was built in 1740). We are indeed a great university, but a career in journalism and communications has convinced me that critical to both our and the outside world's acceptance of this fact is the establishment of a clear identity. The University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Penn, U of P, Upenn (on the Internet) -- we lack definition. One hundred years ago, the College of New Jersey realized it was time to change its name to Princeton. We must take a similar step now. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Franklin -- the First Four. Let us truly celebrate our 250th anniversary in 1999 by adopting, if not for the entire university, at least for the College, the name of that great man who created this school with his call to "serve Mankind, one's country, friends and family." We are ready to grasp our dream; we just need to give it a name.