U. Council set to meet today

Reports on campus safety concerns, minority recruitment and retention, graduate housing issues and library funding and renovations will headline today's University Council meeting at the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall. Council -- composed of 92 students, faculty and staff who meet monthly to advise the president and provost on major issues facing the University -- will convene from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to hear presentations from four committees. The Division of Public Safety will begin the meeting by presenting three current issues of University-wide concern -- the promotion of minorities in the department, women's safety concerns and the notification of family members of University affiliates involved in incidents with the police. Vice President for Public Safety Tom Seamon will present a follow-up report to issues raised at the open forum Council meeting in December concerning women's safety, following the attack of a woman in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall at 3 a.m. last November. Seamon will also present on Public Safety's practices and policies regarding the citation or arrest of Penn faculty, staff or students. Finally, he will elaborate on minority representation by rank among University police, and present statistics of the number of minorities in the department for the past four to five years, according to a staff member. According to City and Regional Planning Professor John Keene, the chairperson of Council's Steering Committee, Seamon will address issues raised out of "the fact that people are concerned about the policies of the [Division] of Public Safety." Biochemistry Professor Phoebe Leboy will present the findings of the Pluralism Committee's report on the status of minorities at Penn and how it can improved. At its October meeting, Council asked the Pluralism Committee to plan the report. And the results and recommendations of the recent graduate housing survey conducted by the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly will be presented to Council by GAPSA Chairperson Doug Hagan, a second-year Wharton graduate student. To close the meeting, Pediatrics Professor Karin McGowan, chairperson of Council's Committee on Libraries, will speak about library funding and the future renovations to the Rosengarten Reserve Room in Van Pelt Library. Last month's Council meeting was cancelled due to a lack of agenda items, the second such meeting to be cut this year.