EDITORIAL: Short on space

The University must find a way to allow more student the opportunity to see big-name speakers. Connaissance members planned to sell nearly 900 tickets for their spring speaker over a period of three days. But the 400 tickets available Monday were gone in a little more than a half hour, and the remaining tickets vanished before the 30-minute mark Tuesday. Although the event's organizers may have been surprised by the demand, this scenario is one we've seen repeatedly since the 1,800-seat Irvine Auditorium closed for renovations. When Noam Chomsky spoke in Meyerson Hall in October, the 800-seat auditorium was overflowing, with people sitting in the aisles, in the doorways and on the stage. And when Hillary Clinton came to help celebrate the Trustees Council of Penn Women's 10th anniversary in November, only 350 students could join the Trustees in Zellerbach. Even when Irvine reopens in December, it will only be able to hold 1,250 people.Something must be done to allow more students to attend when big-name speakers come to campus. One entirely feasible solution is to host O'Brien and other popular speakers in the Palestra. Its acoustics may not be the best, but the venue worked well enough when commentator Dick Vitale came to speak in the fall of 1996 -- and 2,000 students were able to attend. We encourage administrators to seriously look into this option for Monday's event. And while nothing can compare to seeing a speaker in person, another idea that has seen success in the past is the use of closed-circuit television. When former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher came to campus in January 1993, she spoke in the University Museum's Harrison Auditorium and closed-circuit television screens were set up in the Annenberg Auditorium. Connaissance members should work with administrators to see if a similar arrangement can be made for next week's event if the Palestra is not available. In addition to these options, UTV should consider arranging to tape O'Brien and other campus speakers and air their speeches later. Penn is fortunate to be able to consistently draw big-name speakers to campus. It is unfortunate that the majority of the University's 20,000 students are consistently unable to take advantage of these opportunities -- especially since the problem seems simple to remedy.