No UC meeting means no talk of Wharton bldg.

Plans for a new Wharton building were top on Council's agenda. and Edward Sherwin For the first time in nearly six years, officials yesterday canceled a University Council meeting, postponing a potentially contentious discussion of the plans for the forthcoming Wharton School building at 38th and Walnut streets. Despite the planned discussion of the Wharton building, University Secretary Rosemary McManus, who handles scheduling for Council and the University Board of Trustees, said yesterday's agenda was not full enough to warrant a meeting. Council, composed of about 92 Penn faculty, staff and students, regularly meets monthly to advise the president and the provost on issues facing the University. The last Council meeting to be canceled was in January 1993. The 1997-'98 year-end report of Council's Facilities Committee -- released Tuesday in Almanac, the University's journal of record -- focused on the new Wharton classroom building and was to be discussed at the session yesterday. Along with the other postponed agenda items, the report will now be discussed at Council's next meeting on December 9. A major point of contention highlighted in the committee report was that the University did not consult the committee on the plans for the new building until the blueprints for the facility were near completion. "The main problem was that [consultation] was somewhat late," Facilities Committee Chairperson Vukan Vuchic said. Vuchic, a Systems Engineering professor, added that his committee was not brought up to speed on plans for the building until May, by which time planning on the project was nearly complete and committee members did not have time to give significant input on the project. Plans for the new $120 million facility have not been released to the public yet, and have thus far only been seen by Penn officials, members of University Council and University Trustees. Wharton Associate Dean Scott Douglas said planning for the new building has "taken a little longer than expected." The University granted Wharton use of the old University Bookstore site in November 1996, and ground will broken next spring in anticipation of the facility's 2001 opening. According to some administrators, the Facilities Committee's complaints are a bit off-base. Vice President for Facilities Services Omar Blaik said that the University does not review construction projects with the Facilities Committee and that Council's focus is supposed to be on long-term planning, rather than immediate facilities concerns. "[Graduate School of Fine Arts] Dean [Gary] Hack felt it would enhance the design if we got different views on the design for the building," Blaik said, explaining why the University even solicited opinions from the Council committee in this rare case. Physiology Professor Martin Pring, who chairs two Council committees, said that while Blaik may technically be correct that the University does not have to consult Council on short-term matters, the committees should still have a voice in such decisions. But School of Social Work Professor Vivian Seltzer, a Council member and former chairperson of the Faculty Senate, disputed Blaik's assertion that the new facility does not fall under the heading of "long-term planning" that requires Council's input. She explained that a major facilities project should not be considered short term. Also, Pring emphasized that using Council only for long-term purposes would signify a "limited view of the role of constituencies on campus."

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