COLUMN: Act first, avoid reacting later

From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99 From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99Whenever I walk into High Rise South, music greets me in the lobby, the security guards who swipe the cards offer a cheery hello and either the house dean or faculty master seems to be walking around the lobby looking to talk to students. Minus the gross concrete exterior, the lack of energetic men named "Ricky" coordinating swimming aerobics programs and the absence of calypso bands, I live at Club Med. It's too bad everything on campus isn't handled this way. Ordinarily, when Penn faces no obstacles, everything is catalogue-style sunshine; buildings are erected, programs embellished. However, when faced with the unexpected, Penn reacts, and quickly. But moments too late. Too many of Penn's policies are formulated in reaction to tragedies. For a university that prides itself on creating proactive thinkers, it's hard not to wonder at the fact that Penn leans towards being reactive more than anything else. When Michael Tobin died at the FIJI house last year while under the influence of alcohol, Penn reacted swiftly with a new alcohol policy. When Philadelphia resident Benjamin Tencer passed away two weeks ago after being hit by a car while on his bike, the campus buzzed with talk of the need to do more to keep bicyclists safe. I couldn't help but shake my head in appalled disbelief at the idea that a new policy for bike safety should come in reaction to a tragedy. Is it asking too much simply to have problems solved before they produce irreparable consequences? Bike safety on campus has been an important issue for students since at least 1972; one alumnus of that class wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian after Michael Yang's horrible accident, noting that he could remember begging the University to implement bike laws even in his undergraduate years. Similarly, alcohol abuse on campuses across the nation is hardly shocking or unprecedented news. Why does Penn react rather than act first? More importantly, why is Penn proactive only in its traditional capacity as a university concerned with academic and residential issues? The University's lack of attention until it's too late when it comes to more human problems, such as alcohol education and bike safety, has repeatedly had painful consequences. Is someone's untimely and tragic death always going to be necessary to force the University to care about the community's more human problems? Is death the only way to get a response? The very idea of death as a vehicle for change sickens me. Penn has the potential to be a proactive institution. It's been done in the past. Indeed, the University has made leaps and bounds even within the past two years towards becoming more proactive. The current building boom is an example of planning for the future. Also, the creation and improvement of the college house system indicates the University's recognition that the dormitories had previously lacked any sense of community. The answer to the question, "Where should the University innovate?" shouldn't be, "Well, that depends on what the next problem is." The University must anticipate potential problems -- stumbling blocks and tragedies alike -- and prevent them before they happen by striking preemptively. Otherwise, especially in the horrible face of recent death, the University's efforts will inevitably be too little, too late.