Reno to keynote safety symposium on campus

The Fels Center announced that Attorney Geneal Janet Reno will visit on Nov. 18. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who earlier this month was reportedly planning a trip to Penn sometime in the near future, will likely do so on November 18 as part of a Justice Department-planned event at the Fels Center of Government, according to an announcement made yesterday by the Fels Center. Reno has been invited to deliver the keynote address at a symposium entitled "Corporate-Community Concerns for Public Safety: The Role of Business in Building and Sustaining Safe Communities." The event will feature a panel discussion with outgoing Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, University President Judith Rodin, Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles and other corporate and community leaders. Though the Justice Department has not officially confirmed the visit, several University officials say Reno is fully expected to attend. Fels Center Director Lawrence Sherman -- a noted criminologist who will serve as moderator for the panel discussion -- says that the University was specifically chosen by the Justice Department, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Mayor's Office, to host the symposium. "The University of Pennsylvania should take great pride for being chosen to host this event," Sherman said. "It shows a lot about the progress we've made in working in the community and fighting crime." Sherman added that symposium will focus mainly on how to reduce violence in urban neighborhoods and how to mobilize corporate and non-profit participation in building safer communities. "The University is already engaged in a whole series of partnerships in West Philadelphia," said Sherman, who also serves as a professor of Sociology and an advisor to Police Commissioner Timoney. "We're looking even more at how to build that and how we can get local corporations to take a bigger role in that partnership." Sherman added that due to space limitations, the audience for the event -- whose location remains as yet unknown -- will be limited to only 250 people. Spaces for undergraduate students will be made available through an online lottery administered by Penn's Civic House. Undergraduates interested in attending should access the World Wide Web site http://www.upenn.edu/civichouse/doj.html during the week of November 1 through November 7 to register for the lottery. Reno's upcoming visit will be her third to the University since assuming the Justice Department's top spot in 1993. That year, she was on hand to dedicate the Law School's Tannenbaum Hall and to receive the University's first Medal for Distinguished Achievement. And in 1998, she gave the main address at the Law School's graduation ceremonies.