GUEST COLUMNIST: A different 'feel' of life in dormitories

David Brownlee, Guest Columnist David Brownlee, Guest ColumnistMy grandfather was at Penn almost a century ago, a member of the Class of 1906. This was a "hot" school then, whose energy came from its many centers -- including the University Museum (which was launching its Egyptian and Greek excavations), the Architecture Department (where the Frenchman Paul Cret had just been hired to impart the latest teachings of the Ÿcole des Beaux-Arts), and the pioneering program in chemical engineering (then young but now the oldest in the country) -- where my grandfather earned his degree. Penn's new system of twelve college houses has been shaped by what we are, what works for us and what today's students have said they prefer. It preserves the existing variety of residential options -- both the many architectural types and the different kinds and levels of programming -- and supports this variety on a simple armature that makes everything accessible to every student. At the same time, it adds, throughout the system, essential academic services and the infrastructure to sustain the academic and non-academic activities that college house residents themselves will initiate. We will continue to be a big place that is energized by its smaller centers -- and now with a much larger role for undergraduates in directing what goes on. Most obviously, the variety of choices offered by the twelve college houses will be architectural. Students may choose simple bedrooms with a shared bath down the hall, or have the relative privacy of apartments. They can live in skyscrapers with sunset views, or at ground level, close to the food trucks. They can have suites; they can have singles. They can select historic buildings, buildings designed by famous architects, air-conditioned buildings, wall-to-wall carpeting, or wood floors. And combinations of all the above. The different "feel" of life in our various residences will continue, and that is an enriching aspect of the system. The high rises and the Quadrangle will have new features, but they will still be very dissimilar -- and attractively dissimilar -- places. What will change is that residents of the Quad (predominantly freshmen, who will still choose to live there) will be introduced to the life of the University by graduate students and the upperclassmen who also select that living option. The high rises will see change, too, and since Penn has worried about these buildings since they were built, I want to say more about them. Today, we have to deal with the facts about the high rises: they are not temporary, and they cannot be transformed into something radically unlike the skyscraper apartment houses that they are. Some like living in apartments on campus, but others have quite reasonably lamented the lack of community feeling. Happily, as college houses, they can satisfy both. The high rises have two great untapped potentials: they have abundant common space -- including stunning top-floor lounges and, starting next year, their own dining rooms -- and they are inhabited by some of the brightest undergraduates in the nation. The present Living-Learning programs in the high rises demonstrate what can be done when such a population is given some support in using the available space. That is the kind of community that will be created for the groups of freshman who choose to live in the high rises, and the college house infrastructure (faculty, graduate students, House council, House office and budget) will also be there to support the projects -- modest and grand -- of other resident groups. Of course, for those who want privacy, the high rises will continue to function as they do today. But don't you imagine even those people will make a call or two to an Information Technology Advisors for computer advice, ask in the house office about help for a friend who's weathering an emotional crisis, attend a moonlight concert on the top floor or be pleased when their parents receive a personal invitation from the master to attend a reception for seniors? Beyond selecting the type of building in which to live, students next year will have many other choices, including whether or not to live where there is a residential theme. Today's distinctive college house themes and the present Living-Learning programs will continue, but that will leave the majority of residential space "unthematic," which is what most people want. Essential to activating this variety of residential choices -- and making them a new source of energy at Penn -- is giving students the untrammelled freedom to choose among them. Students in any year may choose to live in any of the twelve college houses, knowing they will find in each of them a point of access to essential services. They may transfer among the college houses or move off campus or into a fraternity or sorority -- taking their ouse affiliations with them. Beyond simply choosing what they want, students will have an enormous opportunity (a responsibility, too) to shape the twelve college houses. The houses will become different not only by virtue of their architecture and the academic programming that is (or is not) attached to them. They will be principally distinguished by what their student residents make them. And so next year we'll continue to do what we've done well at Penn, and we'll do more of it. We'll come together to accomplish things and drift apart to think, we'll work and we'll play, and we'll celebrate the variety of our choices and the freedom we have to choose. The college houses will help keep Penn a hot school whose warmth comes from its roots.