EDITORIAL & OPINION: New arrival on Locust Walk

The decision to use the FIJI house for academic purposes will provide lasting benefits or the entire University. And while the University has been overwhelmed with the alcohol policy review that followed Tobin's death, the question of the recently vacated FIJI house remained present in the background. A pressing task for the University was to find a new tenant for the house. Now due to its choice this week, a silver lining peeked out from behind the controversy and confusion that has shadowed Tobin's death and the surrounding events. We applaud the decision to hand the former FIJI house over to the School of Arts and Sciences for academic pursuits. Penn is often times accused of being a primarily anti-intellectual or pre-professional school. By housing a major academic facility in the heart of campus, administrators are indicating a commitment to the University's intellectual needs and priorities. This decision will be particularly helpful to the new academic venture, the Humanities Forum. It will have a greater chance of popularity and success operating out of a central campus building than out of Bennett Hall. We hope that students will utilize the two valuable centers of teaching and research over the upcoming years. The house is, after all, a building that most students pass every day while walking to class. The University is currently trying to change student attitudes towards both the low brow and the high -- altering the alcohol policy to curb drinking and increasing scholarly opportunities on campus. We hope Penn finds success in both endeavors and that students can be open-minded to the various changes on campus. The University is clearly going through a period of transition. Most of all, we want to look at Penn in several years time and see a thriving social and academic campus -- a campus that is the direct result of today's ideas and developments.