Callum Makkai | Residences for the rest of us

The jet zoomed past the shiny skyscrapers and over the Delaware River, revealing an awesome panorama. As the plane touched down on the tarmac, a palpable sense of elation overtook my weary soul. It was a relief to have the long journey from Beijing behind me.

From the airport shuttle, I peered out the window as the vehicle weaved back and forth through streets of ramshackle row homes. It was early morning when I arrived at last. Pounding up a gloomy stairwell to my temporary lodging, I sat back on a sunken bed and surveyed the decrepit room, strewn with a stranger's unwanted junk.

That's when my buoyant mood evaporated, and I knew I'd made a hard landing in the City of Brotherly Love.

The lack of temporary housing in West Philly is an unfortunate reality for new arrivals to Penn's graduate and professional programs. "There's a need for transitional space, especially for international students and for students that are coming from far away," said Nikki Thorpe, vice chairwoman of Student Life for the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. "In many cases these students decide to live in Sansom and grow increasingly frustrated when they realize there is more affordable and perhaps higher-quality housing elsewhere."

Sansom Place is Penn's attempt at graduate-student housing. According to GAPSA, the two towers offer about 700 beds for a mere 6.7 percent of our graduate students. Compare these facilities to a school like MIT, which houses a third of its graduate population on campus in five residences for single students and two buildings for those with spouses or families.

Penn has a double standard when it comes to housing. On one hand, the University seems happy to erect on-campus accommodations for undergraduates, but for everybody else, it looks to the private sector to develop options in the surrounding community.

Often these projects involve the University leasing land to a firm that then develops a mixed-use facility like Domus at 34th and Chestnut streets. "What the University is gaining is the ability to build all these buildings very quickly all at once," said Andrew Rennekamp, GAPSA's chairman. "We have different types of land leases, but it's still a very narrow, land-lease focused agenda."

These high-end units are nice, but they're just too expensive for many struggling students.

That's because while Penn has transformed itself into an educational juggernaut, it has taken the neighborhood with it. Local rental rates are rapidly increasing, and graduate students have to move farther and farther away from campus - either eastward or westward - in search of affordable housing.

The result has been a split between those who live in West Philly and those who prefer the amenities of Center City. And there are two ways of looking at Penn's position in this evolving urban geography. Either it divides us or unites us.

As things stand, some graduate students feel they're missing out on the Penn experience because of the dearth of dedicated space for them. "We are hearing that in some cases they feel pretty isolated from the Penn community," said Thorpe. "They want to be united across different disciplines, and they see an opportunity for that in their housing situation."

Penn Connects, the University's ambitious plan to develop its newly acquired land along the Schuylkill River, offers one means of redress. "It's a huge opportunity for the University to expand graduate student housing," Rennekamp told me.

Unfortunately, the University seems to be ignoring graduate students yet again; its plans for a new College House on Hill Field targets undergrads. Penn simply can't afford to pass up this rare chance to build a deeper sense of community among the graduate and professional student population.

A multifunctional living space near the beautiful Schuylkill River for graduate students and visitors? Now that would really help connect Penn graduate students - to each other and to the world.

Callum Makkai is a 2nd year doctoral student in the School of Arts and Sciences, from Halifax, Canada. His e-mail is makkai@dailypennsylvanian.com. Moment of Clarity appears on alternating Thursdays.

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