In response to student organizations' requests to create additional courses on minority and cultural issues, University officials have been collecting information to assess current offerings and programs.
This process comes as part of a larger effort to promote diversity on campus.
Each of Penn's 12 schools has been asked to report on its individual initiatives to foster diversity within the faculty and student body.
University Provost Robert Barchi said the administration is collecting data "that run from faculty and faculty recruitment to student body to education to staffing."
"We're pulling all of those things together," he added.
University President Judith Rodin commented on the tendency of such information to remain removed from the administration, dispersed instead among the individual schools.
"The knowledge resides in the schools and not the president and provost, who don't set the curriculum," she said.
"It's just that we couldn't do it with the flick of a computer key."
Both Rodin and Barchi said that they are meeting regularly with student leaders of Penn's minority organizations and with directors of the various cultural centers on campus.
College and Engineering senior Dana Nakano, a leader in the newly formed Student Movement for Change, said he has met about once each month with top administrators since November.
"Things have been moving in a way they haven't in the past," Nakano said. "And that's important for us to know."
As part of the ongoing survey, schools have been asked to report on the number of courses they offer concerning cultural or minority issues.
"Because we were asked to be involved," Rodin said, "we wanted to inform ourselves about what courses there are, how many, what they cover and where the gaps are."
Provost Barchi said that the University's survey had found almost 100 undergraduate courses and over 50 graduate courses that relate to ethnic, racial or cultural diversity.
"So we have a very, very broad range of academic offerings on campus," he said. "And actually, one of the things that we've come to understand is that the [offerings] are ... not being used at their capacity by our students."
The Student Movement for Change has been pushing the administration to expand Penn's ethnic studies programs and to step up its minority recruitment and retention efforts.
Barchi cited a number of instances in which the administration helped to promote dialogue among various student groups and University departments regarding minority concerns and issues.
"Part of the resolution for these kinds of issues is discussion," he said.
College junior Carlos Rivera-Anaya, chairman of the United Minorities Council, has also been involved in discussions with the administration.
"It's been an interesting process," he said. "It's had its ups and downs, but I think overall, we're coming out of this content with the relationship we formed with the administration."
Provost Barchi said he supports many of the students' ideas.
"All of our students are going to be citizens in a global environment, and they cannot afford to be parochial in their viewpoints and in their education," he said. "So the issue is, how do you achieve that goal?"
"We think the student groups have brought forward some very good ideas about how we can enhance our efforts and how they can help us enhance those efforts," he added.
Barchi emphasized the University's plans for a campuswide dialogue on race relations and the establishment of a working group of students, faculty and staff to improve efforts to recruit and retain minorities.
