Penn leaders discuss engaging community

Chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News Andrea Mitchell led a panel addressing "Creating and Communicating Knowledge in an Unequal World" yesterday as part of University President Amy Gutmann's inaugural five-panel symposium.

How, in the midst of global communication and inequality, can the flow of information enhance democracy and our ties to each other? This issue, which faced Mitchell and a panel of four Penn professors, yielded no simple answer.

Only a few students could be spotted among an audience of alumni and administrators who crammed into Huntsman Hall's auditorium, with overflow attendees watching a real-time videocast in an adjacent classroom.

The question at hand was quite complicated, and while no panelist responded to it directly, all touched upon the issues involved.

Mitchell began by lauding the University's "re-engagement with the city," noting that when she was at Penn, "there was such a town-gown divide" she did not want to be involved on Penn's campus.

This set the tone for much of the discussion; almost every panelist mentioned the importance of community outreach programs. Political Science professor John DiIulio specifically emphasized the importance of the "volunteer spirit" on campus.

In the midst of global inequality, cooperation is emerging. Social Sciences professor Elijah Anderson compared the "cosmopolitan canopy" embodied by Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market to Penn's campus, in which people of all races and ethnic backgrounds interact to foster a feeling of community despite their differences.

Adding to the idea of furthering equality, Computer and Information Science professor Fernando Pereira mentioned how the Internet is allowing people to discuss topics that would normally only appear in pricey scientific journals. He encouraged even more diffusion of information to wider audiences.

Mitchell countered this notion, asserting how this could be dangerous in light of the false information that can be spread around the Internet and citing the doctored picture of presidential candidate John Kerry with Jane Fonda.

While there was no answer to the question, those in attendance felt the symposium was thought-provoking.

"This was the most academic discussion day among alumni events I have seen," alumnus Peter Borchardt said, adding that the day's events were unique to Gutmann's ideas and vision for the University.

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