Trustees take on range of issues

The University Board of Trustees tackles issues from student housing and new construction to campus safety and possible Medicare cuts yesterday.

In six committee meetings at the Inn at Penn, the University's top governing body covered a lot of ground. Some highlights:

- The Facilities and Campus Planning Committee discussed the demolition of the 3900 block of Walnut Street and the student housing and retail planned for the site.

- According to Omar Blaik, who heads Facilities and Real Estate Services, the project will cost $60 million and is set to begin this fall.

- Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli said that, in the past, a majority of the capital-spending budget has gone toward maintenance and that the College House system currently is at the front of the line for facilities funds.

- The Neighborhood Initiatives Committee meeting, chaired by Trustee Gilbert Casellas, focused on issues of safety.

- Criminology professor Larry Sherman, Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush and Vice President for Government and Community Affairs Vanda McMurtry briefed the Committee on campus security measures.

- The Committee also received an update on Operation Safe, an initiative developed after the Jan. 16 shooting of Engineering sophomore Mari Oishi near 38th and Walnut streets.

Oishi was struck in the leg by a stray bullet.

The initiative calls for more security personnel, surveillance cameras and lighting.

- The Academic Policy Committee, chaired by Trustee Deborah Marrow, formulated two new policies affecting graduate students.

- Doctoral students can now be given time off for the birth of a child and remain full-time students while escaping academic and teaching duties for up to eight weeks.

- Doctoral students may also now apply for leaves of absence for a semester or year to have or adopt a child, take care of a child or care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

- Andrew DeVoe, chief financial officer of the Penn Health System, reported to the Finance Committee, chaired by Trustee John Clark, that revenue for the Health System was up $45 million for the first half of the fiscal year and that he expects the performance to continue through next year.

- The committee approved about $271 million in spending, including money for the construction of the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and a program designed to attract and retain faculty members by helping them pay for houses.

- Susan Phillips, a spokeswoman for the Health System, told the External Affairs Committee that proposed Medicare cuts could cost the University $15 million if approved by Congress.

- The School of Nursing adopted a new slogan, "Penn Nursing Science," in an attempt to attract more male students into the field and make Penn's Nursing School stand out among its peers.

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