NEWS BRIEFS/Friday, August 30, 1996

U. Archives to receive U. Archives to receive facelift, new home Penn is the first University to have a multi-media, large-scale archive Web site. College junior Steve Friedman designed the page, which has five main categories -- a history of Penn, a photographic journey, descriptions of famous graduates, histories of other universities and information about archives. Friedman also wrote a comprehensive history of the University, along with a timeline and dozens of interesting comments. Director University Archives and Records Mark Lloyd said the most commonly accessed document is the personal papers of Raymond and Sadie Alexander -- a pair of University graduates who were pioneers in the social and political history of Philadelphia. The new archiving center, located beneath the lower north bleachers in Franklin Field, will be 40 percent larger than the University's Record Center at 4015 Walnut Street, which is where the archives were previously stored. A unique climate control system is also being installed in the West End archive rooms, which will ensure the preservation of certain rare documents. --Jaclyn LaPlaca Former Public Safety employee sues Penn Former Public Safety employee Sylvia Canada is suing the University, claiming she was fired because of her sex and race. Canada, a 25-year-old black woman, alleges she was dismissed from her position as a dispatcher without any prior warning. A pre-trial conference has been scheduled for October 24 with Judge Marvin Katz presiding. General Counsel Shelley Green said she could not comment on the lawsuit because of the ongoing litigations, but said the University is looking into the claims and will announce its lawyer for the case soon. Canada became a police officer in the Division of Public Safety in 1977 after serving as a secretary in the Mathematics Department for seven years. She graduated from the Philadelphia Police Academy in 1978. According to the lawsuit, she served as an officer for nine years and "performed all of her duties in a superior manner." Canada argues that, during her time at the University, she was never disciplined or advised that her performance was "less than satisfactory." The lawsuit also states that the University made "no effort to properly secure her service revolver or identification" at the time of her dismissal. Nearly eight months ago, Canada filed a separate claim that alleges she was subject to both racial and sexual discrimination with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the Equal Employment Commission. "There is a separate statute that protects against racial discrimination and that is the basis for the federal court case," said Susan Shinkman, Canada's attorney. --Barbara Green Nat'l Science Foundation gives U. $350,000 grant The University was one of 13 educational institutions to receive a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Earmarked to help establish links to NSF's new "supernet," the funds will be used to develop a new high-speed Internet. This will have potentially large consequences for science, education and ordinary Internet users. The network is expected to be used by dozens of educational institutions for cooperative experiments in science and communication that could reshape the Internet. The result is likely to lead to breakthroughs in multimedia communications and in remote access to very large data collections, NSF officials said. Such technical innovations are expected to soon be used for the commercial Internet. For ordinary users, this might mean high-quality sight and sound links with distant friends, access to expert systems that tap large distant databases to provide medical or business advice, or virtual reality game-playing. -- Kate Khatib U. avoids severe cuts in state budget Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge announced his new state budget on June 28 -- and the University once again avoided severe cutbacks. Legislative leaders came through for the nine private colleges in Philadelphia threatened with major budget cuts. Last month, Ridge proposed cutting direct appropriations for the private institutions in half and eliminating the money all together the following year. Instead, the University will receive the same amount of money as last year. But Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Carol Scheman said the University will never rely on the state funding. "We certainly didn't expect to continue to receive so much money," Scheman said. "Of course we are very pleased." She stressed that the decision to retain private university funding does not just affect Penn. Scheman did give some credit to University, agriculture and farm lobbyists. Three years ago the University faced similar cutbacks, but managed to fight its way back into the budget. Scheman described the University as "very fortunate, especially during recent years." Overall, there were few changes to the fiscal 1997 spending plan, which totals more than $32 billion when federal and other funds are included. --Jaclyn LaPlaca Vet School attempts indoor fish farming The School of Veterinary Medicine is trying to make high-tech indoor fish farming a reality at the defunct Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The Delaware River Port Authority, which operates the four toll bridges connecting Pennsylvania and New Jersey, along with the regional high-speed commuter line, agreed last week to fund a joint venture with the University. If it goes according to plan, the deal would provide the University with $450,000 to use over the next two-and-a-half years for the fish farming venture. "Penn is very excited about the possibility because the proposed program will draw from the Veterinary School, Engineering and Wharton," said Vet School spokesperson Helma Weeks. "Test tanks are scheduled to be installed in the Veterinary School in September." This month, the University will receive $50,000 from the DRPA to perform a three-month feasibility study. If the results indicate that running the farm is profitable, the rest of the money will be used to further implement the project. However, the University and DRPA officials said they intend to sell the business to a private organization as soon as possible. "Our objective is not to get into the fish business, [but] to stimulate development of the technology and keep it in this region," said DRPA chairperson Manual Stamatakis. --Andrew Daniels Financial management system crashes twice Penn's new Financial Management Information System, known as FinMIS, began operating on July 1, with hopes of making the University's financial transactions more efficient and effective. But since the system's installation, FinMIS has crashed twice, the latest problems occurring Tuesday. At that time, the system was down for just over an hour. FinMIS includes a streamlined disbursement process, a new accounting structure, a query database to make the University's corporate data more readily available, and new general applications for purchasing, salary management, budget planning and other financial data. The first crash occurred August 8, and the system was then off-line from August 9 until August 14. "The actual cause of the system failure was a software problem that corrupted system data," said Robin Beck, associate vice president for Information Systems and Computing. Beck stressed that no user data was involved in the crash. While the system was down, a contingency plan was put into place and "essential University activity continued to take place," Beck said, adding that ISC officials did not foresee the problem. Beck said officials assessed the problem once FinMIS was restored and are currently evaluating the situation to improve weaknesses and detect errors. She added that she hoped the reliability of the system would "remain steady" in the future. FinMIS is part of a larger University effort, titled Project Cornerstone, and is primarily designed to cut costs. When the system first went into effect, Associate Comptroller Ken Campbell said more than 750 University employees had extensive training to use it, but noted even then that he was prepared for possible "kinks" in FinMIS. -- Randi Feigenbaum Fire hits High Rise East A short circuit in an air conditioner caused a fire on the 10th floor of High Rise East Wednesday. Firefighters were called to extinguish the blaze. Minimal damage occurred in the unoccupied apartment where the fire began, according to Bernie Dyer, acting deputy chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department. -- Andrea Ahles