With new faculty members, a new curriculum and several buildings under construction, one of the country's oldest universities is staying modern, thanks in large part to the new leaders of Penn's largest school.
Rebecca Bushnell, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and Dennis DeTurck, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, started their second semester with high praise from both faculty and students. While their first semester included enacting a new curriculum and construction on campus, the deans now plan to increase undergraduate research and recruit new faculty.
"From where I sit, they're both doing terrific jobs," Political Science Department Chairman Rogers Smith said. "My feeling is, more power to them."
He praised both Bushnell and DeTurck for promoting research opportunities for undergraduates.
"Last semester we tried to increase the number of research internships that we funded for the summertime," DeTurck said, adding that for the first time, a Penn student was able to conduct research at the Globe Theater in London this summer.
In order to promote undergraduate research, DeTurck is trying to make both the Penn community and the outside world aware of student accomplishments.
"We're going to start an electronic journal of undergraduate research," DeTurck said. "It's going to enable us to appreciate the efforts of the students who do it and the faculty who mentor it."
College senior Michelle Chikaonda is enthusiastic about the possibility of increasing research opportunities.
"Research gets students more actively interested in what they're learning," she said.
As undergraduate research grows, so will the Penn faculty.
"The greatest challenge for the upcoming year is recruiting new faculty," Bushnell said. "This is the most important part of my job."
Bushnell welcomed 20 new faculty members this fall. She said the growing faculty is necessary to accomplish research in new interdisciplinary areas, as well as to increase the number of faculty available for teaching and advising.
"We don't have enough people in these areas," Bushnell said.
But with an increasing number of faculty members and a large freshman class, some students say they feel lost in the crowd.
"As a transfer student, I have no idea who these deans are" College junior Taylor DiGravina said. She suggested that Bushnell and DeTurck hold more meetings with students.
Bushnell meets regularly with the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and also teaches an undergraduate English class, though she said she wishes she could teach more. The increased number of professors should also help to increase professor-student contact, Bushnell said.
The college curriculum will also experience an overhaul soon.
Last year, DeTurck focused on changing Penn's undergraduate curriculum requirements to include two new interdisciplinary sectors, called "humanities and social science" and "natural science and mathematics." DeTurck said that redesigning the curriculum has been the biggest challenge he has faced so far in his position.
A cultural-analysis requirement will also be included in the new curriculum, although officials have not yet determined the exact nature of the requirement.
"This was something that had been in the air for a long time," DeTurck said. He feels the new curriculum will help students bring together knowledge from different academic areas.
The cultural analysis requirement is a "response on the part of the faculty to [the belief that] many people feel American students need a more global perspective" he said. Students need to understand that "there are different cultures with roots of their own and, how to compare one to another."
Smith believes that the curriculum will have an impact on education for years to come. "Clearly it's going to be influential, he said."
DeTurck also plans to change the advising systems. The Class of 2010 will be required to write a few paragraphs about their academic goals before registering for classes each semester.
Under Bushnell and DeTurck, several new buildings are scheduled to open. These buildings include the Carolyn Hoff Lynch biology Laboratory which will serve the Biology department, and the new home of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at 34 and Walnut Streets. The newly renovated Fisher-Bennett Hall is also scheduled to reopen.
