Rodin's plan hoped to bring Penn and community closer

As the five-year term covered by the Agenda for Excellence comes to a close, community members are speculating about how much the University has chipped away at its goal of strengthening government and community relations. Through the fifth of the Agenda's nine goals, the University aimed to strengthen government and community relations to enhance its fundamental missions of teaching, research and service. Improvement on the federal level can best be noted by the marked increase in federally sponsored research funding at the University over the past five years -- in Fiscal Year 1995 the University drew $322 million in funds, while that amount increased to $540 million in Fiscal Year 2000. In addition, Penn receives the largest amount of direct state support of any private university in the nation, with the commonwealth appropriation having increased by $5.4 million over the course of the past five years. And according to Vice President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs Carol Scheman, it is unusual for a private university to receive regular appropriations from the commonwealth. "It was not entirely clear, I think, to the commonwealth why the University was getting the funds," Scheman said. "There's a history, a political history, which people interpret in different ways." Penn's relationship with the city has been forwarded by Mayor John Street's administration, which appointed several Penn faculty members to the mayor's transition team, most notably University President Judith Rodin as co-chairwoman. Though some have questioned the appointment of Penn faculty members to city posts, Scheman denies that it is a conflict of interest. "It's a misapprehension of what someone's role is," Scheman said. "The faculty in their role as faculty are not serving institutional interests. John Street is accessing basically for free internationally renowned expertise." As far as community relations -- which historically have been peppered by tension as local residents accuse the University of encroaching on their neighborhood -- are concerned, the University began holding open community meetings the first Thursday of each month in order to gauge the interests of area residents. The Agenda also delineated goals over five fronts -- clean and safe areas and neighborhood services, education, residential and housing, retail development and economic and job development. To further these goals, Penn helped form the University City District, a non-profit partnership between institutions, businesses and community groups, that was established more than three years ago. Penn provides the majority of funding for the special services district and Executive Vice President John Fry serves as chairman of the board. Along with increasing cleanliness and quality of life in the area, the UCD hoped to improve safety, through programs like UC Brite and UC Green and by means of increasing employment of safety officials. "It is a substantially safer, cleaner, more attractive area," said History Department Chairwoman Lynn Lees, an area resident. And UCD Executive Director Paul Steinke spoke of the special services districts' mission for the upcoming years. "What should happen next is that, once we've addressed the quality of life concerns that were holding the neighborhood back, we need to build on gains that were made," Steinke said. From 1996 to 1999, there has been a 33 percent reduction in overall crime activity, an expansion of safety departments and advancements in safety technology. "The model we have here is, police, private security, security technology partners and fire and occupational safety all working, building synergy, to work on areas stated in the Agenda for Excellence," said University Police Chief Maureen Rush, who is also the interim vice president for public safety. Despite all these efforts, some community residents hold a resonating view that the University is not taking into concern the views of all. "There is a large dispute, an ongoing one, about who constitutes the West Philadelphia community," Lees said. "This is a project that is not the University's responsibility. It's one that West Philadelphia residents need to work on," she added, describing the often conflicting interests of area constituents. The University proposed to accomplish its educational aims, primarily via the creation of Penn-assisted pre-K-8 school, which will open to two grades this fall. Ira Harkavy, director of Penn's Center for Community Partnership, said that the next step would be for Penn to create a deeper and broader connection with the neighborhood school initiatives and its curriculum. "We have a long way to go in terms of what possibly could be done. we've done a lot, but we've got a long way to go," Harkavy said. In terms of housing, the University has struck a 30-year, $40 million plan with financing giant Fannie Mae, among others, which would renovate and stabilize multi-family housing. Moreover, Penn is encouraging faculty and staff to live in the surrounding area by providing financial incentives, and up to date over 200 homes have been purchased by University affiliates under this plan. But with the University's increased involvement in the neighborhood's housing stock come inevitable claims of resident displacement. "Its funny how the reaction goes because it's almost as if people would prefer nothing to be done," Vice President for Business Services Leroy Nunery said. "I think they attribute far to much to 'Penn' than they should." Moreover, Rodin's board has developed the visions for Hamilton Square and the improvement of the 40th Street retail corridor. These redevelopment plans are meant to revitalize the neighborhood and then translate into economic and job development for the surrounding community. In the Fiscal Year 2000, the local purchases made from West Philadelphia vendors increased by a margin of $13.8 million since 1994. In addition, West Philadelphia residents were hired to work construction and to staff over half of the new employment positions created by the Sansom Common locales. "To chase them out would do nothing because then we'd be left holding 100 percent of the bag and that's not the way to drive economic climate," Nunery said of local business owners and residents. Nunery emphasized the need to define the University's role regarding residential and commercial development -- and the difficulty of doing so in terms of budgetary constraints, the gradual nature of the process and the conflict between ambition and reality. As the University internally analyzes its own progress, Nunery said that the next step, specifically in terms of Penn's economic development, is to be less ambiguous. Leveraging the often conflicting interests of the University with those of the community can be an arduous task, yet Rodin said that the Agenda strived to create win-win situations. "I actually think that what we've tried to do is reduce the competition across those interests and indicate that they are more aligned, and we did that through this plan in several different ways," Rodin said. Moreover, she emphasized that the University announced during the first year of the Agenda that Penn would expand to the east, as opposed to westward, and that local residents could stop worrying about Penn having knocked things down in the 1960s. "Are there still bumps and tensions, of course. But would I trade at all seven years ago the level of crime and the level of poverty, the level of despair... for what we have now?" Rodin asked. "No, I wouldn't, and I suspect that most of the members of the community wouldn't either."