Penn joins city in new public school partnership

The University follows other colleges in funding local schools districts. The University may be bold in its recent pledge to collaborate with the Philadelphia School District on the construction of two public schools -- but it is certainly not alone. Penn is only part of a growing nationwide trend of institutions of higher education making a concerted effort to reach out to surrounding neighborhoods in an attempt to improve the dwindling quality of public education. In fact, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities -- a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization -- did a survey of its more than 900 private institution members which evinces this, according to Association President David Warren. "The study showed that every single one of them had some sort of relationship with the surrounding community," Warren explained. "Whether that involvement be in the arts or recreation or education, institutions of higher education seem to feel that they have a responsibility to the communities that host them." Although Penn may out-distance many of its Ivy League counterparts by way of its proposal in terms of its $700,000 annual contribution, many of these peer institutions have boasted significant community collaboration on a smaller scale for several years now. For instance, Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., makes an voluntary annual contribution of $250,000 to the city school district and it has done so for more than two decades. Cornell's cash contributions help to improve the quality and variety of programs offered to all children in the district and has totalled nearly $2.9 million since its inception in 1975-1976. "We believe the continued excellence of the university and the school district are intertwined and that both are key elements in the economic well-being of the community" Cornell President Hunter Rawlings said in a press release last year. And Yale University in New Haven, Conn., has also demonstrated an ongoing financial and volunteer investment in the neighboring community. At the center of its community involvement is the Yale-New Haven Teachers' Institute which has been running for over 20 years and "just keeps getting stronger and better," according to Gila Reinstein in Yale's Office of Public Affairs. Each year, Yale invites public school teachers to apply for fellowships at the Institute and if selected, they are paired with the a member of the university's standing faculty who is an expert in the public school teacher's specific area of interest. The teachers, who spend the summer conducting intensive research and building a curriculum with the Yale faculty, are also paida stipend for their work. "Oftentimes, the teachers in the New Haven public school system are excellent at imparting knowledge to their students, but they aren't always up to date on the newest developments in the field," Reinstein explained. "The teachers are so excited -- they're getting re-energized in their subject." The collaborative program between Yale and the New Haven public school system has been so "enormously successful" that it has been permanently endowed by the university and will be used as a national model, according to Reinstein. While it may not be at the financial level, most of the other Ivy League schools have extensive community involvement. Warren explained that the widely varying degree of institutional involvement among universities may have a lot to do with location and the condition of the surrounding community. Dartmouth University, for instance -- located in the rural town of Hanover, N.H. -- does not provide financial assistance to the school district on anywhere near the same level which Penn is planning, according to Associate Director of Public Affairs Roland Adams. "The involvement will take on different forms depending on the neighborhood," Warren said. "Of course there will be a difference between Dartmouth's level of contribution and Penn's -- there's a big difference between Hanover, N.H., and West Philadelphia, where they're obviously a greater need for a university's resources." Warren did cite Clark University, in Worcester, Mass., as a school which has entered into a partnership with its contiguous neighborhood on the same scale as that which Penn anticipates. Clark University and the Worcester public school system worked collaboratively to create a small, secondary school on Clark's campus which welcomed its first class of 35 seventh-graders last August. The University Campus School is dedicated to preparing disadvantaged children from the Main South area of Worcester for higher education. The school will add another grade every year until it houses the 7th through 12th grades. And the university has promised to provide graduates who are accepted to Clark with a free college education. The community school's principal Donna Ghize-Rodrigues -- herself a resident of the neighborhood surrounding Clark -- sympathized from West Philadelphia community members about the prospect of Penn's impending involvement in their schools. "The most important thing is that Penn find a good planner, preferably someone who lives in the neighborhood," she advised. "Residents can't feel as though the university is telling them what to do -- it needs to be a grass roots effort." But as someone who has already been through it, Ghize-Rodrigues wished Penn luck on its bold undertaking, noting that "when it works, it really blows you away."