Letters to the Editor

Culture classes

To the Editor:

As regards campus controversy over the Cross-Cultural Analysis Requirement, Penn's Faculty of Arts and Sciences would be well-served to stand by its original decision and maintain the specifically international flavor of this addition to the curriculum.

As an institution that exists to educate future leaders, Penn has a vested interest in the global perspective of its students.

Globalization has dramatically exposed the results of intercultural ignorance to terrible effect, and virtually all academic and professional fields now involve an increasingly worldly approach.

This is not to implicitly devalue American inter-cultural relations. Penn and Philadelphia offer a wide array of opportunities for engagement with the complex and exciting web of cultures that continue to define and divide our nation. While not everyone will take advantage of such resources, it remains that they exist in and around our daily sphere of activity.

On the other hand, significantly fewer vehicles of international engagement are available to the average Penn student. The University would make a powerful, forward-looking statement of commitment to the changing global landscape by mandating a minimal level of engagement with distinctly foreign cultures. Perhaps the lessons from such a radical approach could better serve American cultural self-understanding?

Joshua Matz

College junior

Student violence

To the Editor:

I just saw blood spilled on 40th Street tonight. Penn student against Penn student, I heard. I stood in front of the blood-stained sidewalk for a few minutes just thinking about it. Does this make sense to you? That some Penn student left Smokes and had enough of a reason to punch another person hard enough to leave blood on the cars and sidewalk?

I believe that Penn students are abnormally aggressive. This is not generalizing from just this incident. I have seen many in my three and a half years here.

I can simply point to the "Shoutouts" in 34th Street as a symptom of this. When given the stage, students at Penn seem to voice their harshest, most offensive and most embarrassing anecdotes about other students.

And not only do the editors of 34th Street let this fly -- they showcase it. People laugh at it and repeat it to their friends, while others' reputations incur irreparable damage. Who are we as a student body to let this happen? Meaningless fights break out every week over absolutely nothing. This is a recurring ailment of us as a group. Either we participate in it, or accept it as normal.

Either way, it's a problem that must be solved.

Jack Cohen College senior

Be wary of taxes

To the Editor:

Penn students now living off-campus in West Philadelphia, or thinking of doing so in the future, should be wary of the plan by the University City District to create a Neighborhood Improvement District in the area.

As presently proposed, the costs would be borne primarily by owners of rental properties, via a 10 to 12 percent surcharge on their real estate taxes.

This might mean a cost to the provider of housing in a three-unit converted twin or row house of $400 to $500 per year. Perhaps more if the city's new assessment program goes into effect in 2007.

The $400 and $500 come out to $12 to $14 per month per apartment.

The DP article on Dec.8 ("Local group seeks right to tax residents"), quotes David Adelman of Campus Apartments as saying, "Students who rent units from Campus Apartments should not fear rent changes as a result of the district's tax if the plan is approved." Maybe not. But Campus Apartments presently charges among the highest rates in the neighborhood.

And it already claims to be "the largest [voluntary] private contributor to UCD," so its cost of doing business may not change if the "contributions" become mandatory.

But David also says the money given to UCD "hasn't been a factor in how we charge students for rent." This, of course, is twaddle. Campus raised rents last year, like everybody else, to cover the anticipated higher costs of heat, insurance and real-estate taxes.

Anything that increases the cost of doing business in a market where demand exceeds supply gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Or maybe cutbacks in quality (but I doubt whether Campus Apartments wants to give this as a reason).

An NID may, indeed, contribute to the quality of life for Penn affiliates. But the questions of who benefits, what are the costs and how are the cost-benefit trade-offs determined need to be examined and decided. And the issues beg to be aired in the types of forums Penn President Amy Gutmann describes in terms of "deliberative democracy."

Alan Krigman

The author is president of KPF Properties, a University City landlord

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