EDITORIAL: Making the best of less-than-ideal

The Community Service Residential Program is still alive, but it would benefit from better space. Still, administrators should not give up their efforts to secure a space on Locust Walk where the CSRP and service activies could be combined. In the past, we have recommended the use of sites such as the former Phi Sigma Kappa house, after it serves out its term as a temporary student center. Most important, though, is that the facility have ample common space and a visible location. In the meantime, however, the CSRP is doing better than expected. With so many new members, a good many of them new to Penn, the CSRP certainly had its work cut out for it. And, hence, it hasn't been involved in any major service initiatives as of yet. But many of its members have had previous experience with community service, and they all seem to possess a great deal of enthusiasm. And where the high-rise facilities are not conducive for traditional CSRP programs, such as coffee houses to benefit charities and a haunted house for neighborhood children, the new Civic House is a welcome addition. The student-initiated center has become a hub for all campus community service activities, and should succeed in making such activities more visible to students and those they benefit. Hopefully a team effort between CSRP and Civic House will, for now, provide students with the same sort of service opportunities they've had in the past. But a reunion of the residential and programmatic aspects of the CSRP should remain the goal.