HUD grant funds community outreach center

The center works to create and restructure courses. University officials have put a recent $400,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to good use in helping the community. The grant -- awarded last September -- was designed to fund community improvement and outreach programs in West Philadelphia. Penn was one of only 15 schools nationwide to receive such funding. The University has used a portion of the grant's funds to create a Community Outreach Partnership Center, which coordinates the University's research and educational resources to assist the surrounding community. The center works to create new University courses and programs -- and restructure existing ones -- which are aimed at fostering community interaction and assistance. Funds from the grant have been used to restructure four current University courses, combining research and fieldwork to benefit the community. Other courses and community outreach programs are in the planning stages. Joann Weeks, director of the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps' Replication Project, explained that the bulk of the grant money has been allocated towards restructuring the community based classes and programs. "A small stipend of the money gets three or four years of benefits," Weeks said. "We sustain our work in West Philadelphia by linking it to courses continuing to be taught." She explained that the center worked with the West Philadelphia Empowerment Zone and the West Philadelphia Partnership to determine how the University could best serve the community, adding that the various courses and programs were established to respond to the community's specific needs. Weeks said the University has used the grant's resources in a variety of ways. The Wharton Small Business Development Center has been offering technical assistance to the West Philadelphia Enterprise Center, while several University professors have been working with the West Philadelphia Partnership to develop an Internet-accessible database about West Philadelphia. Social Work Professor Dennis Culhane received funding from the grant to restructure his "Social Welfare Policy Analysis" course. His students are assessing how local social service agencies meet the needs of the community. Eventually, the students will work with the agencies to help them better meet these needs. "In the past they were doing more policy analysis," Culhane said. "Now they're doing actual work for the community." And Graduate School of Education Professor Rebecca Maynard has developed a new component to her "Contemporary Education Policy" course as part of the grant. Students in her course have been designing field based research projects in the University City High School to evaluate the success of the high school's employment programs. Maynard said her students enjoyed applying their classroom studies to the local community, adding that the course curriculum will continue to focus on the area. And the University's Morris Arboretum plans to establish a new "school-to-work" program with the high school with funds from the grant. William Graham -- who is developing the program in his role as the arboretum's cultural consultant and educator -- said students selected from the high school will go through intensive training to prepare for careers as arborists. He explained that a small group of students recruited for the program will spend a few years working with arborists and taking classes related to the field. "Hopefully they'll leave the program ready for careers in arbortry," Graham said. Other community programs are in the developmental stages. Architecture Professor Alan Levy plans to offer housing maintenance assistance to West Philadelphia homeowners. Levy is considering various workshops and seminars designed to instruct community residents on how to maintain their own homes. "The goal is to involve the community in ways so that they can learn and do things on their own," he said.