Starting Monday, Penn will honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., with a two-week recognition of his birthday. In honor of the late civil rights leader, classes will be canceled on Monday, and the University community has scheduled dozens of service projects, lectures and discussions to memorialize the civil rights leader.
Monday marks only the second time the University has opted to close its offices for the federal holiday. Although the decision was praised widely throughout campus last year, festivities drew thin crowds because they fell on the Monday before classes resumed following winter break, and many students used the day free from classes as an add-on to winter break.
The University is sponsoring the 2002 Commemorative Symposium on Social Change, entitled "Remembering the Dream, Living the Vision" to honor King.
But this year, as the spring semester has already been set into full swing by a shortened winter break, organizers are confident that students will be more available and eager to participate in the celebration.
"We've been on campus for two weeks, and students are settled in," MLK Executive Planning Committee member Samir Meghelli said. "We're expecting many more students to be involved."
Monday's events will include a kick-off breakfast in W.E.B. DuBois College House with members of the West Philadelphia neighborhood, several community service opportunities and a candlelight vigil and march, which will start at DuBois and finish in Houston Hall.
"Often, his birthday is considered just a day off," Meghelli said. "Hopefully this year, it will be a day on."
And while classes will resume once again on Tuesday, the festivities will nevertheless continue in full force.
Over the next two weeks, events sponsored by a variety of student groups will cover a range of topics and activities, including a video screening of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, a jazz concert and a forum on institutionalized segregation at Penn.
"The program is extensive," said United Minorities Council Co-Vice Chairwoman Darcy Richie, a Daily Pennsylvanian photographer. "People are involved from all corners of campus."
The commemoration officially began last Wednesday with a lecture by History Professor Thomas Sugrue, and will end on Feb. 1 at the Intercultural Performance Gala in the ARCH auditorium.
University officials are actively promoting the events over the next two weeks as a means of campus unity.
"We know we are living through perilous and challenging times," University President Judith Rodin said in a statement. "We need to mobilize our wisdom, our energy and our 'soul force' to meet every challenge, fight injustice and reach higher ground.
"What better way to begin the new year than to participate in the events, programs and community service projects that form the heart of this year's annual observance and celebration of Doctor King's birthday."
