U. Council to host open forum today

The hearing will address minority permanence, safety and playing fields. University Council will hold its annual open forum this afternoon, enabling the University's top advisory body to hear campus leaders express their opinions on some of Penn's most pressing issues. During today's meeting -- scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall -- students, staff and faculty members will discuss issues including athletic field space availability, women's safety on campus, the future of the University's Asian-American community and the naming of Penn's buildings and locales. The meeting, like all Council sessions, is open to the entire University community. Today's forum will also feature a potentially contentious discussion of the 1997-98 year-end report of the Council's Facilities Committee. The report focused on what committee members viewed as a lack of consultation on plans for the new Wharton School building to be built on the site of the former University Bookstore at 38th Street and Locust Walk. The discussion was originally scheduled for last month's meeting, which was canceled because of what University Secretary Rosemary McManus called a lack of agenda items. Council, composed of about 92 faculty, students and staff, meets monthly to advise the president and provost on issues facing the University. After regular status reports from University President Judith Rodin, Interim Provost Michael Wachter and other top administrators, the six open forum speeches -- each limited to three minutes -- will begin at about 4:15 p.m. and will be followed by questions and comments from audience members. "Part of the character of Penn is this opportunity to voice your opinion," McManus said. "It's about participating in the community." Each of the issues to be discussed has recently attracted significant attention around campus. Women's safety on campus was brought to the forefront last month, when a female sophomore was attacked at 3 a.m. by a knife-wielding man in a bathroom in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. A 16-year-old juvenile has been charged with attempted murder, attempted rape and other charges in connection with the assault. Penn's current lack of field space became prominent in September, when the Athletic Department announced its plans to build a 2,000-seat baseball stadium on Murphy Field -- the current playing field of several of Penn's club sports teams. Also, English Professor Eric Cheyfitz, chairperson of Council's Pluralism Committee, will be "raising some issues" about Penn's Asian community -- issues that are particularly pertinent following last month's report by the Asian Pacific American Student Affairs Committee, which was formed by Penn President Judith Rodin. The students issued a report in November. The report -- published in Almanac, the University's journal of record -- asked Penn to "aggressively recruit Asian/Pacific American staff and/or staff with skills in dealing with the issues faced by Asian Pacific American students." United Minorities Council Chairperson Charles Howard, a College junior and member of the Pluralism Committee, said that he will release the specifics of a "project" that he has been working on with Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Bill Conway. Conway, a Wharton junior, said that the project entailed 1,000 or more members of the Penn community joining hands in a line stretching down Locust Walk from 34th Street to 40th Street. Administrators would be invited to speak and participants would contribute money to help raise scholarship funds. "It'd be like a unity thing," Conway said, emphasizing that most of the details for the event, tentatively scheduled for April, have not been set. "[It could be] just cheesy enough to work."