U. to review successes and failures

Over the next several months, Penn officials will be conducting an evaluation of the mission statement that has guided the University over the past five years -- a plan dubbed the Agenda for Excellence. The Agenda, a program almost as old as University President Judith Rodin's presidency, was first announced by Rodin and then-Provost Stanley Chodorow in November of 1995. It enumerated nine goals the University should try and achieve in a five-year span. And now, with the five years up, the University will be conducting an extensive review to evaluate to what extent Penn has met each of the goals. "What this would be is now saying, 'OK, we've done it on an annual basis, we keep recalibrating and resetting; let's step back and see everything that we've accomplished, what we haven't done and ask ourselves why,'" Rodin said. The goals included pursuing new research opportunities, integrating new technology into the University and creating greater international involvement for Penn. Once a year since its inception, the plan has come under review to evaluate its progress and set the goals for the upcoming year. But the report to June's meeting of the Board of Trustees will mark the most extensive analysis to date. According to Rodin, this year's report will take a broad look at the entire history of the Agenda. While she said that the Agenda has been very successful, Rodin also noted that analyzing parts that have not been accomplished will help in setting goals for the next five years. "My view is always, you learn more from what you didn't do and probing why than examining what you did do," she said. Though the main report on the Agenda will come in June, the Trustees will see an evaluation of the campus development plan -- one of the largest pieces of the five-year Agenda -- in February. According to Rodin, the campus development plan -- which included the creation of Sansom Common and the new life sciences building -- is an undertaking "that might affect the next 25 years." The June evaluation will be largely based on evaluations given to deans and senior officers about various components of the Agenda. Overall, Rodin said that she was very pleased with the progress of the Agenda. When asked if there was one area that she found particularly successful, she joked, "It's like asking which of your children you love best." However, Rodin did mention one area that she felt still needed work. "One of the goals that we've pushed but not gotten as far along on is being a truly global university," she said. Provost Robert Barchi echoed Rodin's praise of the success of implementing the Agenda. "I think that we probably made more advances in the past six to eight years than in any single period that I've been at Penn," Barchi said. Barchi noted Penn's recent sixth-place ranking in U.S. News and World Report as evidence of the strength of the academic side of the Agenda. He also said that he felt the expansion of research at Penn has been one of the main successes of the Agenda. "The volume of research that our faculty is doing, the quality of research, is exemplified by the Nobel Prize we've won this past year in chemistry," Barchi said. Barchi also said that the improvement of relations between Penn and West Philadelphia and the quality of student life have been hallmarks of the last five years.