Trustees to mull dorm renovations

The borad's agenda also includes dinner tonight with students and administrators in all 12 college houses. They've financed Sansom Common, outsourced facilities management to Trammell Crow Co. and lent their names to everything from the Perelman Quadrangle to the Vagelos Scholars program. Members of the University Board of Trustees, Penn's decision-making body, returned to campus yesterday for three days of meetings with a packed agenda of food, folks and funding. The Trustees hold full meetings three times a year, once each during the fall, winter and summer. A top priority of the Trustees is a proposal for renovating all University residences, a 10-year plan that administrators said in April could cost about $200 million. The issue will be discussed at a closed, joint meeting this afternoon of three committees: Facilities and Campus Planning, Neighborhood Initiatives and Student Life. Details of the plan are scheduled to be released to the media tomorrow. "[The meeting] will include a description of what we think we need to do and what we will need to take care of it," University President Judith Rodin said. Vice President for Finance Kathy Engebretson said that she expects the discussion to be "pretty detailed" as administrators describe the project on a "dorm-by-dorm" basis. In celebration of the University's new college house system, several dozen Trustees will be dining tonight with students and administrators from each of the 12 college houses. Eschewing the finer dining to which they may be more accustomed, the Trustees will eat in each of the four University dining halls and the new facility in the basement of Harrison House, formerly High Rise South. "The Trustees want to be a part of [the college house system]," said Board of Trustees Chairperson Roy Vagelos, who will be having dinner and dessert in Hill College House. The Trustees have already begun addressing weightier issues, as this week's sessions kicked off last night with a meeting of the University's Investment Board, which manages Penn's $2.7 billion endowment. University officials confirmed last month that Penn's endowment -- which once topped $3 billion -- fell about 10 percent this summer from its July peak in the wake of recent stock market volatility. The endowment is invested primarily in U.S. and international stocks. Meetings of different Trustee committees will continue through today and tomorrow, with a number of high-profile items on the agenda. Also on the list of capital improvements to be voted on are the Hamilton Square project, which includes a new multiscreen movie theater from actor-director-producer Robert Redford's Sundance Cinemas and an adjacent community center; and renovations to the Law School's Silverman Hall, to be funded from part of Law alumnus and University Trustee Henry Silverman's $15 million gift to the school in February. On the academic side, tomorrow's meeting of the Trustees' Academic Policy Committee will focus on Penn's numerous interdisciplinary and cross-school degree programs. Interim Provost Michael Wachter, School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston, College Dean Richard Beeman and Graduate School of Fine Arts Dean Gary Hack are scheduled to speak at the session. Besides the college house dinners, Trustees will get other breaks from committee meetings. In addition to tours of the new Barnes & Noble University Bookstore, the renovated Van Pelt Library and the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Trustees will spend much of the morning and afternoon today at the Veterinary School's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa. Trustees will discuss issues related to the school and also attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony for two new buildings at the large-animal center, located about 30 miles west of campus in Chester County.