Two months after a massive tsunami struck Southeast Asia, the University is still formalizing plans to aid the devastated area.
Since President Amy Gutmann pledged a long-term effort to rebuild the educational infrastructure of the region in January, Penn's Tsunami Education Relief Steering Committee has been working to identify relief organizations with which the University can partner.
Led by Graduate School of Education Dean Susan Fuhrman, the committee has selected UNICEF, Ashoka, Operation USA and the International Rescue Committee.
"They're the experts in relief and devastation," committee member and Chemistry graduate student Kevin Jude said of the organizations, which will tell Penn what kind of support is needed.
"We would like to play a brokerage role," Fuhrman said, adding that the committee will report the needs identified by the organizations to the Penn community while also working to ascertain the ability of Penn faculty, staff and students to help.
On a Web site to be launched by the end of next week, the committee will list any opportunities for students to be involved in the effort. The site will include ways to volunteer at home and abroad or even to take a class related to the disaster.
Fuhrman also hopes to organize some sort of multi-week summer programs for students to travel to the devastated area.
While Penn is just beginning to move forward with its aid effort, peer institutions have made much greater progress more quickly. Harvard University, for example, raised over $500,000 in the first month after the disaster.
Committee member Rachel Fersh, a College junior, said that Penn's efforts have taken longer to plan because they are more in-depth.
"It's important to realize that this relief effort ... is going to go on for a decade at least. This is not something that a Band-Aid will cover," Fersh said.
"We're not just throwing money over there. We're actually getting our hands dirty."
Fuhrman's research assistant and third-year GSE doctoral student Simi Wilhelm added, "It's very easy to sit here and say, 'Let's build a school!' It's much deeper than that."
Fuhrman agreed that the University's plan of action will be more of a challenge than if it had simply focused on fundraising.
"I think it's much harder to try to say that we're in this for the long term, beyond the time when people's immediate charitable urges subside," Fuhrman said.
"So trying to think about expertise and not just money is more challenging, but also there's much more potential payoff," she added.
Currently, the committee is drafting mailings to send to both members of the Penn community and officials from other universities outlining Penn's efforts.
"We realize that a lot of people have already given ... and there's no intention to suggest that this is a more worthy effort," Fuhrman said. "We just want to contribute on top of that."
The University has received a $125,000 gift from the Pearson Publishing Group toward its aid efforts.
