Penn is an extremely segmented institution. Our University’s numerous schools, divisions, branches, and offices each operate with significant independence. Each piece of Penn is financially separated and functionally distinct. Arguments are often made about how this bureaucracy can benefit students through specialization, flexibility, and efficiency. However, what goes ignored is how Penn’s bureaucracy does not benefit students equally. In fact, it may go as far as to punish the majority of our undergraduate population.
We brand ourselves as an institution that values collaboration and an interdisciplinary approach to education. All of those things are true, to an extent. Penn students regularly cross-register for classes, pursue interschool minors, or receive dual degrees. But in practice, this collaboration is deeply asymmetrical. The burden of openness falls squarely on the College of Arts and Sciences, while Penn’s specialized schools enjoy the benefits of exclusivity.
Students in the College have limited access to the more specialized schools, while the Wharton School, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and School of Nursing students have unlimited access to the College. Nowhere is this more obvious than the restrictions on campus buildings and spaces. Students outside of Wharton are barred from reserving group study rooms in Huntsman Hall and in the Academic Research Building, two of the nicer and newer buildings at Penn. Yet Wharton students would never be denied reservations for GSRs at the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics or the Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building.
Each of the specialized schools also has courses limited only to students in that school, while the College has no such courses. Wharton and the Engineering School also have their own programs, such as Wharton Research Scholars, Rachleff Scholars Program, or Amy Gutmann Leadership Scholars. These provide undergraduates in select schools exclusive research and educational opportunities. Programs offered for students in the College after the first semester, on the other hand, are open to all students.
These differences in resources are unfair in both principle and practice. First, they give Wharton, Engineering School, and Nursing School students an opportunity to connect and learn alongside others within their school, while students in the College are denied this opportunity. Even worse, they contribute to a sense of exclusivity for each of the specialized schools. The College remains open and accessible to all, with no special priority granted to its own students.
The problem is made worse by the fact that the College is incapable of fostering the same camaraderie as the specialized schools. Housing two-thirds of Penn undergraduates, the College simply has too many students to naturally form a sense of community. The smaller populations of the specialized schools automatically form intimate and supportive communities with ease. And even at a fraction of the College’s size, Wharton still makes a special effort to establish cohorts of students, citing a mission to “create small, cohesive communities for a diverse Wharton undergraduate population.” If this practice is necessary for Wharton, how can the College’s 7,000 students be expected to form a shared identity without institutional support?
The counterargument to this often goes that because the College covers such a wide array of disciplines, each individual department serves as their own community within the school.
But there are two problems with this claim.
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The primary issue is that some popular programs within the College, such as economics, can have around 900 students at a time. Departments this large are no substitute for a 60-person Wharton cohort that even shares a class together freshman fall.
There is also an issue with the notion that students in the College have nothing in common other than lack of enrollment in a specialized school. While all other schools teach from a specific framework, the College embraces the openness of a liberal arts education. According to the College’s own mission, the school “thrives on the diversity of scholars and students whose interests it sustains and whose intellectual goals it unites.” With this in mind, the College should be making a concerted effort to connect students across its many disciplines, all of whom are similar in their pursuit of intellectual discovery. Without their own spaces, courses, or programs, there are no opportunities for College students across majors to collaborate academically.
Students often talk about the College’s perceived lack of cohesion relative to Penn’s specialized schools. But it is rarely highlighted how the University chooses to endorse this perception. Penn’s practice of cross-school collaboration means anyone has access to what the College offers — its buildings, classes, and scholarly or research programs. Penn often frames this arrangement as evidence of a healthy interdisciplinary ecosystem. But collaboration implies reciprocity, and such reciprocity does not exist for College students.
This practice is unacceptable. Either the College should be given its own spaces, courses, and resources, or those of Wharton, the Engineering School, and the Nursing School should be opened to anyone who wishes to access them.
At Penn, it’s glaringly obvious that the College, despite being Penn’s oldest school, is not its crown jewel. The College’s lack of exclusivity and poor sense of community degrades the value of the student experience. Until Penn addresses the structural imbalances baked into its bureaucracy, its commitment to collaboration will simply be a marketing tool.
Editorials represent the majority view of members of The Daily Pennsylvanian Editorial Board, who meet regularly to discuss issues relevant to the Penn community. This body is led by Editorial Board Chair Jack Lakis and is entirely separate from the newsroom. Questions or comments should be directed to letters@thedp.com.
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