The idea of a college-house system is that students remain in the same house for all four years of school, and thus, a friendly inter-class atmosphere is fostered. I have little doubt in my mind that the college-house system is indeed the ideal setup for collegiate living; however, it only works well when all students can live in the same place for four years. At Penn, 58 percent of students live on campus. With only 5,818 spots available, it is impossible for the University to accommodate anywhere near the entire student body in a college-house system. Instead, most move off-campus as they move on in school while few others decide to stay, usually in clusters. Yet throwing together a random mix of the classes and completely changing up each hall every year simply does not work to improve campus life.
As Penn is a city school, it is understandable that there are less-than-adequate on-campus living options, and having a true sense of community at a university, with around 10,000 undergraduates is an overwhelming aspiration. It is important that we understand these restrictions and adopt a system which best fits our facilities, as opposed to fantasizing about matching our peers. Freshmen at Harvard and Yale-- both schools with an extremely high concentration of students on campus -- live together in a "yard" for the first year and then join the college-house system thereafter.
As we cannot have a place where all freshmen live together and a sufficient residential-house system, ensuring that there are dorms only for freshmen will develop the best campus atmosphere considering the limitations.
Unfortunately, current facilities do not encourage interaction across classes, but that does not doom the strength of Penn community. Students from various years cross paths through clubs, Greek organizations, sports teams and socializing. Freshman year, it is optimal to have the class of 2,400 living together in Hill, King's Court/English House and the Quad, and perhaps to designate the high rises and other dormitories each to a single upper class.
As poorly designed as the high rises are for a social collegiate atmosphere, they would undoubtedly be a more enjoyable place to live if residents were all sophomores, for example, and people would be less anxious to flee off-campus after one year. Some people may even gather in floor lounges for a change. This would also ensure that some of the friendships made living together during the first year would be preserved, as upperclassmen who wish to remain on campus would be living solely with their peers.
While it is unfortunate that not everyone can live in the Quad freshman year, it is even more regrettable that some freshmen have to live on isolated halls in the high rises just so that sophomores, juniors and seniors can experience living in the Quad.
When friends from home ask me about school, the one shortcoming I admit about Penn is the lack of on-campus community with respect to housing. I hope that one day, as I visit campus as an alumnus, new dormitories will have been built (likely near the Schuylkill) and an effective residential college system will be in place.
However, now is not the best time for the current system. It is better to offer two years of a community to everybody rather than four years of college-house living to less than half of the school. While I have come to cope with the reality of the issue, it is time that the University recognize the shortcomings of the current inter-class "atmosphere." In the interim, as the year kicks off, freshmen living on campus can only make more of an effort to try to get to know their neighbors better. Even if they are three years older.
Mark Littmann is a senior, finance concentrator from New York. Case of the Mondays appears on Mondays.
