Students eat, talk with College dean

Students disgruntled with the freshman reading project, a lack of seminars or any other aspect of undergraduate education in the College of Arts and Sciences had a rare chance to directly voice their concerns on Thursday to the man in charge. College Dean Richard Beeman met with 15 College undergraduates over dinner at the Faculty Club to discuss the future plans of Penn's largest undergraduate school. The Student Committee on Undergraduate Education sent e-mails to students asking them to submit questions they would ask of Beeman if chosen to participate in the dinner. SCUE members then picked the entries with the most provocative questions from the pool of students. The dinner is the third in a series of "Dinner With the Deans," a program sponsored by SCUE. Previous dinners featured Engineering School Undergraduate Dean John Vohs and Wharton Undergraduate Dean Richard Herring. According to College sophomore Josh Wilkenfeld, who helped organize the event, these dinners create a unique opportunity for undergraduates. "It gives students the chance to discuss questions and concerns that come up and get a definitive answer," he said. The wide range of concerns students discussed with Beeman included the College's relationships with the other three undergraduate schools and the restructuring of the general requirement, which Beeman said he feels needs to be re-evaluated. "We are at the dawn of a new era with whole new areas of knowledge," said Beeman, who is also a professor in Penn's History Department. "It's time to take another look at a new and better brand of education." The discussion continued with a look at the way freshmen are oriented into their new surroundings and the freshman reading project, which received poor reviews from many of the students who attended, including College junior Mike Silver. "After seeing the reaction of past freshman classes to the books, we need a re-evaluation of the reading projects," Silver said. This year's project was Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Beeman also said he was disappointed by the dearth of freshman seminars for incoming students, but said he hopes to increase the current number by about 40 percent. During the dinner, Beeman shared many of his views on the freshman experience, including his plan for an academic course for pre-freshmen, designed to help them adjust to Penn and liberal arts education. "The single most important thing for an incoming liberal arts student is to set tentative goals for themselves," Beeman said, explaining that freshmen need to plan out what they want to achieve during their college years. The course, tentatively titled "Penn 101," may be offered over the Internet, which raised concerns regarding organization and access to such technology. SCUE plans to continue the series with a dinner involving the Nursing School next semester, as well as a forum with all four deans of the undergraduate schools. According to Beeman, the opportunity for this type of interaction is necessary. "It is the most important thing I can do to provide for the intellectual needs of students," said Beeman, who will mark his first anniversary as College dean in January.