Financial aid tops University Council's agenda

Financial aid, one of Penn's most pressing areas of concern in recent years, will be discussed in detail at today's University Council meeting, the second gathering of the year for the 92-member advisory board to the president and the provost. University President Judith Rodin and Student Financial Services Director William Schilling are scheduled to make a 35-minute presentation on the status of undergraduate financial aid at today's meeting, which will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall. The idea for the presentation arose at last month's Council meeting, when several members requested specific information on how financial aid is allocated to students and exactly what its sources are. Rodin approached Council's steering committee -- headed by Faculty Senate Chairperson John Keene -- with the suggestion that the financial aid presentation happen this month. The "State of the University" address, traditionally scheduled for the October meeting, will be given at next month's meeting instead. "[Rodin] felt that there were so many issues in University Council involving minority students? that it would be a good idea for Council to understand the basic facts of how financial aid is figured," said Keene, a professor of City and Regional Planning. "This is the groundwork for future discussion of what we can do to improve [the financial aid situation], whatever that might be," he added. Penn has typically offered smaller financial aid packages due to its low endowment. At $3.29 billion, the University's endowment is significantly smaller than the endowments of rival institutions like Harvard and Princeton. As a result, Penn takes most of its financial aid payments out of its $1.329 billion academic budget rather than its endowment. Princeton, on the other hand, is able to pay for about 95 percent of its financial aid through endowment income reserved especially for that purpose. "They tell me in the Development Office that that's not usually [the donor's] favorite thing," said Earth and Environmental Science Professor Robert Giegengack, the newly appointed chairperson of Council's Admissions and Financial Aid Committee, in reference to giving money just for financial aid. Five other Council committees -- Communications, Student Affairs, Pluralism, International Programs and Community Relations -- will give 15-minute year-end reports at the meeting. Martin Pring, chairperson of the Communications committee, said he would brief Council on several issues on which his committee has been working in the past year, including a comprehensive review of the University's radio station, WXPN, and an examination of Penn's existing privacy policy. "In the past, when I've presented more general things, I'm sorry to say that I've had rather little feedback from Council on those things," said Pring, a Physiology professor in the Medical School. At its meeting last month, Council formulated its year-long agenda, which will include safety and minority recruitment and retention. Only 38 people attended the meeting last month, a number that Keene said is "par for the course" for Council gatherings. "The problem is a lot of professors have things that come up or they're traveling in a given month," Keene said.

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