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(01/26/96 10:00am)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and we feel fine -- but you as readers shouldn't necessarily feel the same way. After a year of daily deadlines and aggressive reporting on the University community, the 111th Board of Managers and Editors will hand over the reigns of power to its successors at a gala affair tomorrow night at the University Museum. The entire DP staff will also mark the 111th anniversary of one of the University's longest running traditions. As an independent newspaper with no financial or editorial ties to the University administration, the DP perpetually seeks to be the watchdog for the entire Penn community -- to guarantee that whatever happens on campus does not go on in secret. Year after year, the outgoing editors and managers of the newspaper pass on to their successors a desire to be the best in the business and a fervent mistrust of anything done to students without their knowing about it. The 112th board members, who were elected to their positions by the outgoing board in December, said they are dedicated to preserving the hard-hitting journalistic traditions of the newspaper as well as adding their own innovations along the way. Leading the 23-member board will be College junior Adam Mark, a native of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Having served as photography editor for the past year, Mark has a keen knowledge of the workings of the newspaper and of the challenges facing it in the upcoming year. He is also the first photography editor in DP recent history to ascend to the position of executive editor. Described as "talented," "smart," "stubborn" and "talkative," Mark will serve as president and CEO of the corporation and has final authority for all business and editorial decisions. He said he wants to concentrate on long-term planning and the quality of the product during his tenure. "I'd like to improve the quality of writing and reporting and coverage," Mark said last night. "Readers can expect a more in-depth look at issues affecting the University. And I think people can look out for color in the paper within the next two years." College junior Kara Blond, a native of Rockville, Md., will serve as managing editor. Holding the DP's purse strings will be Business Manager Peter Levine, a College junior from Manhattan. Blond covered the Engineering/Wharton/Nursing and College/Admissions beats before serving as associate editor this past year. And Levine brings with him experience as both a sales representative and sales manager. "They're very crafty, very dedicated and very versatile," Mark said. Other members of the Editorial Board are: Editorial Page Editor Lisa Levenson, Assistant Managing Editor Amy Lipman, Associate Editor Randi Feigenbaum, 34th Street Editor-in-Chief Jason Giardino, 34th Street Managing Editor Jamie Phares, Sports Editors Eric Goldstein and Jeff Wieland, Photo Editors Evelyn Hockstein and Laura Dwyer, Weekly Pennsylvanian Editor Heidi Korn, Art Editor Mike DeMarco, Internet Editor Maury Apple, Copy Editor Mike Madden and Associate Sports Editor Mike Hasday. Rounding out the Business Board are: Finance Manager Ian Drummond, Associate Business Manager Richard Acosta, Sales Manager Joanna Newman, Production Manager Marla Danziger, Credit Manager Tagar Olson and Marketing Manager Mike Kopelman.
(09/01/95 9:00am)
Seamon to leave Phila. Police Deputy Philadelphia Police Commissioner Thomas Seamon was named managing director of the Division of Public Safety last week after a three-month search. He will replace University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich, who resigned in April to pursue other career options. Seamon will begin his work at the University on September 25. A 26-year Philadelphia Police veteran, Seamon currently holds the number two spot with the department. He is responsible for the direct command of 5,000 personnel within the patrol, special patrol, detective and civil affairs bureau. Executive Vice President John Fry, who led the search for Kuprevich's replacement, called Seamon an ideal choice. "I think he walks a good line between someone that is obviously a police person and has grown up in that environment and someone that really has a good sense of working with various constituencies and respecting them," he said. Fry said he read more than 120 applications for the position and consulted with former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Tucker to formulate his goals for the search. The search was narrowed down to 12 candidates in July. And The Summer Pennsylvanian reported last month that Seamon and Rutgers University-Camden Chief of Police Gene Dooley were the two finalists for the position. Seamon, 48, said he is prepared for the challenges that await him at the University and is not worried about moving from the fourth largest police department in the country to a campus force that has about 80 officers. "I think my whole career in some respects has prepared me for the job at Penn," he said. "The Penn security apparatus, police department and private security systems could be a model for the whole region." Prior to becoming deputy police commissioner, Seamon was a patrol officer, inspector and chief inspector with the city. He was also acting police commissioner when then-commissioner Willie Williams left his post in 1992. During his tenure with the Philadelphia Police, Seamon helped develop the department's community policing strategy and problem-oriented philosophy. He created the Career Services Division to aid in career development for officers and helped establish initiatives between police and private security, specifically the Center City District. Paul Levy, an urban studies lecturer and executive director of the Center City District, said Seamon was instrumental in improving security downtown. "He is innovative and open to doing things in a different way," Levy said. "He has the respect of people within the police department and also the respect of people in the business community." Although Seamon does not officially begin his position until the end of September, he said he plans to meet with officers, University officials and student groups before then to become better informed of University policies and procedures. While the transition to University life seems daunting, he stressed that he is not a newcomer to academic environments. He currently teaches a course in law enforcement management at St. Joseph's University Graduate School and he was administrative lieutenant for the city's Police Academy. Kuprevich, who will remain in his post until Seamon starts, was on vacation this week and unavailable for comment.
(05/19/95 9:00am)
Fifty years after graduating from the University, Lillian Brunner is preparing to meet many of her classmates for the first time this weekend. The reason for this delayed meeting is not that Brunner was shy when she attended the University or that she was a commuter student. Rather, in 1945, campus life, like all other aspects of society, had become encompassed by the magnitude of World War II. As Brunner and the Class of 1945 gather on campus to celebrate their 50th reunion, they will at last try to bring a sense of normalcy to a class that was anything but normal. "Our class was limited in many regards," Brunner said earlier this week. "There wasn't built into it the sense of unity that I'm sure classes today have." Class President Leon King said this feeling of cohesion was not important to students who wanted to complete college before heading out to war. Students attended classes year-round so they could graduate within three years. And the University held three graduation ceremonies in 1945 for students who had to leave campus to help with the war effort. For many in the Class of 1945, though, the somber realities of war did not wait until graduation. Three credits shy of graduation, Joseph Etris Jr. departed for the battleship North Carolina in the Pacific in July 1945. After serving as a junior turret officer on the main battery of the ship, he returned to campus to finish his requirements for graduation. Despite his actual graduation date -- September 1946 -- he considers himself a member of the Class of 1945. Unlike Etris, Selma Bernstein did not fight on the front lines in the war. But she, too, participated in the war effort. While on campus, Bernstein spent hours raising money to be donated to the government's "war chest." And in the evenings, she and her sorority sisters headed to Fort Dix to dance with soldiers preparing to leave for combat overseas. The war was more than a struggle against fascism and oppression for Bernstein. Hardly a day went by that she did not think about her two younger brothers who were stationed on the front lines -- in Africa and in the the Admiralty Islands in the Pacific. "I remember getting letters from them with all these black lines," she said. "We didn't know very much about what was going on -- they were all censored." Like Bernstein, Elaine Rothschild's involvement with the war was also intensely personal. As a volunteer with the Red Cross, Rothschild's job was to translate messages from French into English about the fate of servicemen in the war. Nineteen years old at the time, she had the unenviable task of telling family members that their loved ones died in battle. Even on campus, Rothschild could not escape the ugly reminders of the atrocities of war. "The campus was filled with servicemen coming and going, and it was very depressing," she said. "We would say goodbye to someone and find out six months later that the person was killed. "It was not any kind of campus life that you guys know about," she added. "We were really cheated out of college life in those days." To Etris, classmates who died were unfortunate, but expected, casualties of war. "War is war, and it's hell," he said. "It's real bullets and real lives. "You knew that somebody wasn't going to make it," he added. "You felt really terrible, but you accepted it." Not only did war cause changes to students' routines, but the University as a whole adapted as well. Since the size of the student body shrunk considerably during the war, many courses were consolidated and condensed as a result. And because junior faculty members were drafted, full professors were conscripted for classroom duty. The courses these professors taught were often geared toward topics of war. For instance, postwar planning, flight mapping and assault strategy were popular at the time. According to Howard Golden, another member of the class, the University was also forced to accommodate the onslaught of servicemen being sent to campus. "They took over the dormitories and they took over most of the fraternity houses," Golden said. "There were more of them than there were civilians." When World War II ended, members of the Class of 1945 were left planning for their futures and coping with their losses. During this painful process, classmates never really got to know each other. "I felt that we lost something," Bernstein said. "I don't think I have the long-lasting memories that someone who went to college 10 years later would have." And this lack of class cohesion has been a problem for the reunion planning committee, King admits. "I met more people planning for the 50th anniversary than I knew on campus," he said. "There was only one person on the committee that I knew in college and only a handful that I attended class with." But Golden does not hold any grudges against the University because of his experience. "It wasn't the fault of the University -- it was the war."
(05/19/95 9:00am)
As Senior Week draws to a close and alumni begin arriving on campus for a weekend of reunions and parties, the administration, faculty and staff gleefully prepare to add the Class of 1995 to the growing roster of University graduates. When it comes to tradition, there is nothing like Alumni Weekend and Commencement. Anyone who attends these two events can no doubt sense the tradition which so many students and alumni equate with Penn. But as the years pass, the origins of these traditions have been forgotten. The celebrations of today hardly resemble those held 50, or as recently as 25, years ago on campus. For their part, administrators have done little to educate students about the meaning behind traditions and rituals at Penn. But students have also turned what traditions remain into a time to get drunk and escape from academic responsibilities. Take Hey Day and Spring Fling, for example. These two popular traditions are meaningless to most students. And that is a real shame. For me, one of the best parts about Hey Day this year was the opportunity to gather for only the second time as a class and feel a sense of accomplishment for completing three years of my undergraduate education. As I took bites out of friends' hats and banged canes with classmates, I wondered how long these traditions have been in place. I decided to do a little research to find out about this and other Penn traditions. What I discovered was that each of the many popular events on campus have evolved a lot since they were introduced. Hey Day, for example, took its current shape in 1931, replacing Straw Hat Day and Class Day, which merged in 1916. Juniors originally used their canes to make an arch through which the president would leave his office on his way to College Green to pronounce them seniors. But traditions changed, and the day turned into a fit of raucousness and drunkenness. After students dropped and poured beer on former President Sheldon Hackney in 1990, the president became less involved, out of fear for his own safety. What students see as the biggest Hey Day "tradition" -- biting each other's styrofoam hats -- isn't even a part of the longstanding history of the celebratory day. In fact, one student began the trend only six years ago, and it quickly caught on. Members of the Classes of 1945 and 1970, who are here celebrating reunions this weekend, would probably be confused by all the styrofoam chewing going on. While many of the Hey Day traditions remain the same -- juniors still march to Junior Balcony and the president continues to address the group -- drunkenness has changed the spirit of the event. The administration, which used to look forward to the rites of spring in Spring Fling or Hey Day, now dread the two events and are forced to make contingency plans in case of injury or property damage. This is of little importance to today's students. To them, it doesn't really matter whether the tradition began in 1881 or 1981. What seems to be important is that it is a bonding experience for the whole class. But this unifying experience cannot compare to the class cohesion students had 100 years ago. One tradition of the past calls for members of the freshman and sophomore classes to engage in pants fights. In a quest to find out which class was superior, each group would race to see which could rip the pants off of the other the fastest. The class which lost its pants the fastest lost the battle. And there was no better opportunity to get to know your classmates than Commencement exercises in the years around the turn of the century. At that time, the Commencement procession travelled from 34th and Walnut streets -- the site of the new West Philadelphia campus -- to the Academy of Music at Broad and Locust streets. The Trustees, Provost and faculty rode in horse-drawn carriages for the 20 blocks, while the graduating seniors marched close behind. This is a far cry from today's Locust Walk march to Franklin Field, which offers neither a 20-block walk nor the opportunity to bond with fellow graduates. While it is impossible for tradition to remain stagnant throughout the decades, students and campus historians should do what they can to tell students about traditions of the past, in hopes that students will try to emulate them and create rituals of their own. When seniors gather on Franklin Field Monday to take part in Commencement exercises, they should take a moment to think about those who have graduated before them and the traditions they created at this University. Because if tradition is lost, an important piece of Penn history will vanish with it.
(01/23/95 10:00am)
With a change in title comes added responsibility. Responsibility to report the news to the University and community in a clear, honest and objective manner. Responsibility to provide a forum for free expression of ideas and issues. Responsibility to be the best we can be. A year-and-a-half has elapsed since the confiscation of the DP. Since then, we, as a staff, have looked inward -- at ways to improve ourselves -- and looked outward -- at our relationship with the surrounding community. Inside the walls of the DP, we have debated the responsibilities and consequences of free speech. We have steadfastly stood as ardent defenders of this freedom and promoted it as the sole means to having a productive dialogue about difficult issues affecting this campus. At the same time, we have re-evaluated our responsibility to the community. Our staff worked with The Vision to produce two series that were informative and worthwhile on all fronts. And our Saturday School program taught local youth about writing, photography and production through a six-week course this fall. The culmination was an eight-page supplement, fully produced by the participants, that accompanied the DP at the end of last semester. Still, there is much to be accomplished. We are eager to build on the diversity we have worked so hard to create in the newsroom. In addition, we are committed to being proactive in finding solutions to issues before they become problems. It has become a tradition over the course of the last several years for the executive editor of the paper to write a bi-weekly column that touches on serious, and sometimes light-hearted, issues. But I wanted to take this opportunity to explain to you, our readers, why I have decided not to take a column for the upcoming semester. The DP is truly at the crossroads of a new era. We are working diligently to put the newspaper on-line beginning in September. Doing so will allow students, parents, alumni and others interested in the University to access the DP each day from anywhere in the world. It will provide more opportunities to hear comments on articles, editorials and columns. It will allow anyone to access our archive system. The benefits of this move are limitless, but the planning is comprehensive and promises to be time-intensive. As executive editor, I will be a leading figure in this endeavor and welcome suggestions. Another area of emphasis will be The Weekly Pennsylvanian, which many of you have probably never seen. Sent to parent and alumni subscribers, the Weekly gives readers a look at the best of Penn. Along with providing them with the top stories of the week, I want to offer more stories of direct interest and act on the feedback we receive. But most importantly, I am going to spend this semester trying to find out what you -- students, faculty, staff, administrators -- want out of the DP. I will be seeking your input at various points during this semester on issues and ideas that concern you. The DP will be holding forums, sometimes with other organizations, to examine not only our coverage, but other issues facing the University and the nation. This column serves as a hello, not a goodbye. You will be hearing from me again. When there is an issue that must be addressed, I will not hide behind a veil, but instead will offer my honest opinion to open an avenue of thoughtful dialogue. The DP is placing higher priorities on reporting the news accurately and offering a no-holds-barred discussion of the issues (as you read above in our Where We Stand editorial). This year promises to be one of progress and change; of triumphs and failures. We will not be perfect -- it is impossible. But rather than ignoring when we make a mistake, we will now actively seek to become part of the solution. Join the DP or express your opinion through another means. But, above all, it is impossible to communicate your views unless you speak up. Charles Ornstein is a junior psychology and history major from Farmington Hills, Mich., and Executive Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
(11/12/94 10:00am)
1,454 hope to arrive in fall More than 1,450 high school seniors applied for early decision into the University's Class of 1998, Admissions Dean Lee Stetson said yesterday. The 1,454 applications received as of Wednesday mark a five-percent increase over the 1,386 early decision applications which the Admissions Office received last year, Stetson said. And although applications were postmarked by November 1, the office is still in the process of tallying the applications. Stetson said he expects the increase will ultimately be between six and seven percent. "It's once again an indication that students and parents are willing to make a commitment to Penn as a first choice," Stetson said. "They are eliminating other schools and saying they really want Penn." Early decision is a binding application process that requires admitted students to attend the University, barring financial aid difficulties. On average, 48 to 50 percent of early decision applicants are accepted, Stetson said. Forty percent are deferred to the regular admission pool and 10 percent are rejected. Stetson said this year's figures are significant because it comes at a time when the demographic base of 18-year-olds in the country is decreasing. To admissions officers who travelled and saw prospective students on campus, the increase cannot come as a total surprise. Stetson said admissions officers have seen more students than usual during their national travels and more students have visited campus this fall. Interim President Claire Fagin said yesterday she considers the increase "extraordinary," and the "best news" she had heard all day. "It sends a very positive message," Fagin said. "It gives our faculty a lift, it gives our staff a lift, it gives our students a lift and it gives me a lift. It is a very, very upbeat message." Stetson said the number of women applying for admission to the class of 1998 increased by 19 percent, from 570 last year to 677. The number of male applicants did not change. Applications to the College of Arts and Sciences jumped 12 percent, from 844 last year to 946 this year. The Engineering School followed suit with seven percent more applicants, but the Wharton School saw its pool drop by 14 percent. The number of applicants to the Nursing School remained the same. Stetson said the number of Asian students seeking admission increased slightly, while the number of African-American, Hispanic and Mexican-American applicants was the same as last year. States showing the largest increases this year are Ohio, whose pool increased by 30 percent, Pennsylvania with a 15 percent increase and New York and New Jersey, each with two percent jumps. Discussions about the size of next year's class are currently being held between the four undergraduate schools and the Admissions Office, but Stetson said he anticipates that fewer students will be accepted when the discussions wrap up in January. "We're still in the planning stages for determining class size," Stetson said. "My sense is that there will be a scaling back closer to our normal goal of 2,250 to 2,300 as opposed to 2,400." The Class of 1997, which entered the University this fall, was 85 students larger than administrators had anticipated, with large increases in size for Wharton, Engineering and the College. A smaller class size coupled with an increase in applicants will intensify competition for the spots available. "There will be more competition assuming the pool is as strong as we expect it will be," he said. "The quality of our applicant pool has gradually increased over the last few years." Stetson said he attributes the increase in applicants, in part, to the strengthened image of the University among prospective students and their parents. "Penn is seen as a dynamic place, an academically challenging institution and a school with students who are engaged, involved and enjoy being here," he said. The number of regular decision applications received to date is also markedly higher than received last year at this time, Stetson said. These applications are not due until January 1. Last year, as of November 11, 2,219 applications were received. This year, eight percent more – 2,428 total – have arrived.
(09/02/94 9:00am)
A fifth-year Mathematics graduate student was murdered Monday night near 48th and Pine streets, Philadelphia and University Police officials said earlier this week. Al-Moez Alimohamed, 27, was shot once in the chest after five men robbed him of a small amount of money and personal belongings at about 11:20 p.m. Monday, Philadelphia Police Sergeant Paul Musi said Tuesday. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. A funeral for Alimohamed will be held today in Vancouver, Canada, where his family resides. He was a native of Pakistan. Plainclothes Philadelphia Police officers witnessed the robbery, but were not quick enough to prevent the shooting, Musi said. "It all happened in a matter of seconds," he added. "As [the officers] were going toward them, it all happened." Musi did say, though, that the police immediately arrested four of the assailants. The fifth turned himself into police Tuesday morning. Eighteen-year-old Antoine Saunders, two 15-year-olds and two 16-year-olds have been charged with murder, robbery, theft, receiving stolen property, conspiracy and possession of an instrument of crime, according to Musi. University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich called the murder "an absolute tragedy." Although University Police jurisdiction does not extent to 47th and Pine streets, Kuprevich said officers from his department responded to the crime scene and helped Philadelphia Police guard the area. Alimohamed was described as "friendly" and "outgoing" by faculty members in the Mathematics Department. "It's been really traumatic for all of us that this happened to him," said Wolfgang Ziller, who is chairperson of the Mathematics graduate group. "He was such a nice person and has been doing really well as a grad student lately." In fact, Alimohamed had received a one-year fellowship from the Institute for Research and Cognitive Science for his studies for the upcoming academic year. Former graduate group chairperson Ted Chinburg said Alimohamed was to have received his doctorate degree next June. "He was one of the most energetic graduate students I have ever met,'' Chinburg. "It's a tragedy no matter who it happens to. "In Moaz's case, he was just on the verge of making a name for himself in the field." Assistant Vice Provost for University Life Barbara Cassel said the University has been arranging counseling for Alimohamed's friends and will organize a memorial service for members of his department and his friends at the beginning of this semester. English Professor Eric Cheyfitz, who lives at 46th and Osage streets, said the University must take added precautions in the area. "It strikes me that Penn ought to take a much more active role in gun control generally, and certainly in beefing up security in this area," he said, adding that crime is a nationwide problem. Cheyfitz said he was robbed at gunpoint on 47th Street, between Osage and Larchwood streets, last winter. Still, he said his neighborhood is tight-knit. "People care about each other and they look out for each other," he said. University President Judith Rodin said in a statement, "the safety of our students, both off-campus where this terrible incident occurred, as well as on campus is critically important to the university. "For Penn, there can be no higher priority," she added.
(05/13/94 9:00am)
Engineering junior Horacio Moldonado Rojas died earlier this month after struggling with lung cancer since January. Rojas, a native of Mexico City, Mexico, was an Electrical Engineering major and had been active in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Penn Wharton Mexican Students Association and the Association Internationale Des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales, according to Engineering Vice Dean John Keenan. Associate Engineering Professor Jorge Santiago-Aviles, who taught Rojas in a class on semiconductor physics last year, said he was quiet, yet well-liked by his peers. "I felt that it was extremely unfortunate, not only that he was a promising young man, but because I think he makes a tremendous role model for all the young Latino students at Penn," Santiago said. "He was the no-nonsense guy that worked consistently and knows how to put a group together and work in a group." He added that Rojas and two other Latino students in his class were very close, and hoped to open up a software business in Mexico someday. "He was very important in keeping that group of three very closely knit and working very efficiently," Santiago said. Cora Ingrum, director of the Engineering minority program and advisor of the Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers, said Rojas was "shy," but "friendly." Santiago said although Rojas was shy, he was not introverted. "I like him in particular because even when he was shy, he was the one that invested every day in saying hello," he said. Rojas first became ill at the beginning of this semester. About two weeks after first seeing a doctor, he was diagnosed with cancer. Santiago said Rojas had been active up until the week before his death, writing letters and cards, in both Spanish and English. "When I got the call that Horacio died, I was very touched," Santiago said. "It is very unfortunate." Santiago said Rojas' greatest accomplishment was his effort to keep Latino students in the Engineering School informed. "He was considered in the group to be somewhat of a student leader in his own right, a low-key student leader," he said. "[Rojas] was very able in keeping the group of Latino students in the School of Engineering loosely bound together -- which is an effort considering our Latino population at Penn is relatively heterogenous. "He was himself all the time, in the way that he could be very friendly and very shy at the same time," he added. About 50 students gathered last Friday to pay their respects to Rojas at a Mass in his memory. He will be buried in Mexico.
(05/13/94 9:00am)
Janice Bellace, vice dean and director of the undergraduate program of the Wharton School, was appointed deputy dean of the school, effective July 1. Bellace will replace Anthony Santomero, who has held the position since 1991. Santomero will return to his research and teaching at the school. As deputy dean, Bellace will be Wharton's chief academic officer and its second highest ranking official, Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity said this week. "It's a great feeling to be appointed deputy dean [as] someone who was an undergraduate at Penn," Bellace said. "It's an odd feeling to be here as a student and then join the faculty. It's a challenge and it's very exciting." Bellace has served as vice dean since 1990 and has spearheaded many of the undergraduate curriculum changes in the school. She said she is most proud of the fact that she has internationalized the Wharton curriculum and worked on the establishment of a dual degree program with the College of Arts and Sciences. The new position of deputy dean will mean less of an opportunity to interact with students, which Bellace says she will regret most. "I will miss having direct contact with many undergraduates, particularly outside of the classroom, because it allows me to really find students with diverse interests who make distinct contributions to the life of the University," she said. "In my new role, I expect my contact with undergraduates will be more limited, although it will still be there." And Bellace has already spelled out her goals for her new position, among them to maintain and improve the level of teaching currently in Wharton. "One of my immediate tasks, of course, will be recruiting -- targeting outstanding faculty candidates --which starts in the fall," she said. "It's a highly competitive market [and] to maintain our position we need to aim at the very top and attract them here. "I will work closely with department chairs and department faculty in identifying such people," Bellace added. Although Bellace is a professor of legal studies and management in Wharton, she will not teach next year. She will still team-teach a seminar on comparative labor law in the Law School, though. Gerrity said he is excited to work more closely with Bellace. "I am just delighted that [Bellace] has been willing to take this position," Gerrity said. "She has demonstrated just extraordinary leadership in her four years as vice dean, and I look forward to her bringing that same caliber of leadership to the whole school." An internal search for a replacement for Bellace has already begun, and Gerrity expects to name a replacement for her in the next two months. "We are in the process of identifying someone who is committed to undergraduate education and who can continue to move forward on some of the initiatives that have been taken, and that has ideas of his or her own about innovations that can be undertaken," Bellace said.
(12/08/93 10:00am)
Early admissions applications up; more students visit campus The Admissions Office is on a roll. Last month, the office announced it had received five percent more early decision applications this year than last. And this week, Admissions Dean Lee Stetson said more perspective students are visiting campus than ever before. To the University, which was worried about a possible backlash over controversies that engulfed campus last spring, the office is the bearer of good news. Interim President Claire Fagin said "it's obvious" what the news coming out of the Admissions Office means. "We are hitting our prime," Fagin said yesterday. "Our reputation is finally getting to the point where it is beginning to match the reality. Over the next couple of years we are going to see further improvement. We are the place to be." The latest figures show that more than 2,250 perspective students visited campus in September and October – an increase of 233 from last year, Stetson said. He added that 300 more students took campus tours in September and October of this year than in the same period last fall. But the 1,454 early decision applications received last month, compared to 1,386 collected last year, are the clearest indications of what officials hope is the University's rising popularity. "It's once again an indication that students and parents are willing to make a commitment to Penn as a first choice," Stetson said last month. "They are eliminating other schools and saying they really want Penn." This increased interest may be due to the overwhelmingly positive impression current University students convey to their peers and community about the University. According to a poll conducted last month by The Daily Pennsylvanian and The Vision, nearly 92 percent of 377 students polled said they were very satisfied or satisfied with their University education. Of those, 99 percent said they would recommend the University to a high school senior. Fagin said student and faculty complaints that cross her desk sometimes make her wary of how the majority of students feel about the University. "It's very, very, very spotty," Fagin said. "When we are talking about 22,000 students, it is inevitable that we will have some complaints. And, at some points, you think that's all that's there." But, she was quick to add, "This is a great place and there is no question about it."
(12/06/93 10:00am)
Adam Robinson is not your typical Wharton graduate. He doesn't work on Wall Street and he's not a financial analyst. Instead, Robinson has embarked on what some might call an impossible course – he tries to teach people how to think. To this end, the 1976 Wharton graduate and co-founder of The Princeton Review recently released a book, What Smart Students Know. "I wrote this [book] on a personal level because I am concerned with education standards," Robinson said last night. "It is really meant to be a wake-up call for students." Tackling issues from "how not to take notes" to "what teachers really look for when grading essays," Robinson introduces a system which he calls CyberLearning – a method of self-empowerment for students. Using a process called dialoguing, Robinson leads readers through a series of questions that they should ask themselves about their readings. After posing 12 seemingly unanswerable questions to his readers, Robinson is quick to provide solutions and offer suggestions to students. "Gradually, by organizing and reorganizing information, and by making connections between the new material and what you always know, you build genuine understanding," the book says. Robinson said students are constantly expected to apply thinking skills which they haven't been taught. While football coaches teach quarterbacks how to pass and piano teachers instruct pupils on the basics of performance, educational institutions don't teach students how to think, Robinson said. "Unfortunately most people don't know what it means to think," he added. "I wrote this book to make tangible what the hard work of thinking involves." Robinson's approach is student-oriented. "What Smart Students Know is a manifesto. It urges you to rebel against those who attempt to spoon-feed you an education and force you to learn their way," Robinson states in the book. While at Wharton, Robinson wasn't thinking about teaching people how to learn or how to take tests. In fact, he planned on a career writing novels and screenplays. After graduating from Oxford University Law School in England, though, Robinson saw an opening and filled it. In 1980, he founded The Princeton Review, a company designed to teach students how to master standardized tests. "By our methodology, kids were shooting up 200 points [on the SAT test]," he said. "It was unheard of. We were doubling in size every two months." In 1988, Robinson sold his interest in The Princeton Review and began his new book. Because the book has just been released, Robinson said it is too early to gauge its success. But he has received endorsements from Ernest Boyer president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and John Jacob, president of the National Urban League. Robinson is not even close to calling it quits. Next up on his agenda: forming a company to transform American education. "Each year, half a trillion dollars is spent on education in this country," he said. "It's big business."
(12/03/93 10:00am)
and CARA TANAMACHI If a group of University students have their way, incoming students may need to take one more requirement before graduating – Racism 101. Students in Afro-American Studies 603, a course focusing on racism in the United States, are circulating a petition that urges the administration to create a required course on racism and cultural diversity. Engineering senior Liesel Nottingham, a coordinator of the project, said she and other students in the class think "it is very important for people to learn about racism." "The idea of a mandatory class came from our professor, [Walter Palmer], but it's not something we're graded on," Nottingham said. "We took it upon ourselves to act on this." So far, she said, they have not planned exactly what the class would focus on. "We really just want to start the debate on having a mandatory class on racism," Nottingham said. "We have no set structure for the class. We just want to start interest [in the idea]." Another project coordinator and class member, Amadee Braxton, said she thinks having a required course on racism would do more than just improve race relations on campus. "This isn't just so Penn will be a better place," the College senior said. "Taking a class like this will have larger social implications. Racism is one of the fundamental issues in contemporary society." Braxton said the group hasn't set a goal for the number of signatures they will collect before submitting the petition to the president's office, faculty members, and student leaders. She said the group hopes to continue soliciting support for the idea through the spring. A course requirement in cultural diversity is not a new phenomenon. Many colleges around the country have been considering the idea. This year, Temple University began mandating that incoming students take a core course dealing with diversity. "There had been talk about it and sentiment among the faculty that something like this was needed for a long time," said Robert Schneider, acting director of Temple's core curriculum. Students have been required to take courses in several areas of the core curriculum for years but in 1991, faculty members "decided that they missed an important aspect," Schneider said. With 14 courses to choose from, the requirement covers the topics of racism, the dynamics of race, and the whole phenomenon of race in American society. And students can choose from a variety of courses, ranging from "The image of the African-American in films from Birth of a Nation to Malcolm X" to "Racial Discrimination Under the Law" to "Minorities in Sports." "We're not pushing the party line," Schneider said. "And this is not sensitivity training. We are including the serious and diverse study of multiculturalism in the general requirement. "This is not designed to get people to think in one particular way," he continued. "Different viewpoints are represented. It's serious stuff and it's more than just emotions." Having heard no major complaints, Schneider said he can see at least 20 courses established for the requirement within a year or two. "This is us," he said of the relevance of the course to Temple. "We're already experiencing the things we're studying. We're just incorporating them into the classroom." Nationally, schools are taking Temple's lead. At Texas A&M;, the faculty senate recently passed a resolution recommending that students be required to take one course focusing on international culture and another on American culture. Texas A&M;, which harbored a long-standing reputation for conservatism, would be the first state college in Texas to have a cultural diversity requirement, if its board of regents decides to make the faculty senate's recommendation law. Reny Henry, executive director of university relations, said if the requirement is put into place, students will be able to choose from about 50 American culture classes and about 300 international culture classes. "We would not have any one course they would [have to] take," he said. "Most of these courses would relate to individual majors." Henry said over 60 percent of the 6,717 students who graduated last year would have fulfilled the proposed requirement. He added that he thinks the proposal is a good one. "We believe we need to give our students a broader education," he said. "Our students need to be able to compete in a more diverse cultural global economy." School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rosemary Stevens said that while she has not looked at what other universities have done specifically, she thinks it would "be very useful" for the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Committee on Undergraduate Education to look carefully at the idea of mandating such a course at the University. "Race is one of the big themes of today, and social class is a second one," Stevens said. "Race is of vital importance to anyone studying contemporary culture, world culture, and U.S. culture." History Professor Alan Kors said, though, that courses in race relations are created in "bad faith." "They don't mean cultural diversity, they mean political indoctrination," he said. Kors added that "real human diversity" extends beyond the University's perspective. "The more the University officially tries to facilitate group relations, the worse, rather than the better, those relations become."
(12/03/93 10:00am)
The national organization of the American Association of University Professors is urging the University to postpone making a decision on the proposed elimination of three departments in the School of Arts and Sciences. In a letter sent to Interim President Claire Fagin, Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson and SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens, the AAUP recommends a "thorough review of the matter" and "meaningful consultation with concerned SAS faculty" before the cutting of the American Civilization, Religious Studies and Regional Science departments takes effect. Stevens would not comment on the letter last night, although she added she has written a response that will appear in next week's Almanac. "This is my first direct contact with the National AAUP on this matter," she said. "It was a proper and courteous letter based on reports the AAUP has received. Some of the reports were not entirely accurate and this will become clear when you see the letter and the response side by side." The National AAUP became involved after both the University Chapter and Pennsylvania Division of the organization sent letters to Stevens about the policy she used in making the cuts. In the AAUP's letter, Associate Secretary B. Robert Kreiser said the AAUP is concerned with long-standing matters concerning academic governing. "Faculty members?complain that the procedures followed by the dean in the SAS restructuring have served to deny them a meaningful role in dealing with academic policy matters," his letter states. Stevens said, though, that faculty have played a meaningful role all along. But she still forwarded her proposals onto the provost relatively unchanged, despite faculty opposition. Stevens said her decisions are in full conformity with the Joint Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, the AAUP-advocated standards. Linda Koons, executive assistant to the provost, said last night that her office is taking the letter very seriously, and is carefully reviewing each of the 100 letters it has received. Lazerson said last month that he will try to release his decision by the end of this month. The University Board of Trustees is then expected to vote on the proposals at their January campus meeting. In the meantime, the Academic Policy and Planning Committee of the Trustees will discuss the cuts at a December 13 campus meeting. Koons said each of the three departments slated for closure will be given time to make presentations to the board at that time. Stevens said she expects her proposal to pass come January. "In large part, we are expecting the recommendations to go forward," she said. "We'll take events one step at a time." When all is said and done, Stevens added, she and the AAUP both want the University and the school to prosper. "We want the partnership between faculty and administrators and trustees to work well and we are all committed to the success of the academic enterprise," Stevens said. "Perhaps we lose sight of this basic sense of agreement when things get too mired down in bureaucratic detail." Her critics would disagree, however, citing that her move undermines a level of collegiality at the University and a loss of sight of the academic mission. Stevens said she doesn't know how she would do things differently if given the opportunity to redesign the process which she used to make her cuts. "I think that any process serves as a learning experience for everyone concerned," she said. "I feel good about the way that our faculty has handled the very, very difficult discussions, maneuvers and decisions."
(12/03/93 10:00am)
Few University students have taken advantage of a federal law which gives them the right to examine their admissions records, Admissions Dean Lee Stetson said last week. Stetson said 175 students have requested to see their application summaries, which include admissions officers' evaluations of them, since the office began making them available in 1990. In that year, Harvard University was ordered by the U.S. Department of Education to open up their admissions records to students. The ruling said all enrolled students had the right to inspect their "educational records" under the Family Educational Records Privacy Act of 1974, better known as the Buckley Amendment. "When the ruling came out, we immediately began to provide the information as requested," Stetson said. "We started to get token interest and then it picked up." Stetson said students have generally requested their forms based on curiosity. "They're just curious," he said. "Curious to see what was said and how it was said." To receive their "reader rating cards" – the application summaries – students must complete a form adhering to the standards set by the Buckley Amendment. Then the application materials are retrieved from storage and, by law, must be delivered to the student within 45 days. Admissions officers' ratings about students are deleted before students are shown their records, Stetson added. In a Daily Pennsylvanian trial of the system, however, the admissions office took over 60 days to retrieve the material. Stetson explained that the material was gathered from storage well before the 45 day limit set by law. He attributed the delay to an office move. While the dean said he doesn't mind giving this information to accepted students, he would be against extending this privilege to rejected students. "It would harm the privacy of the selection process," Stetson said. He added, though, that his office is glad to sit down and talk to rejected students to go over their applications with them. Stetson said he is sure publicity will generate interest in the admissions records. "This story will prompt more interest and this is fine with us," he added. "There is nothing in a student's reader rating card that we would be hesitant to provide." The admissions office maintains records on students for six years, including the year in which they apply.
(11/23/93 10:00am)
Editor's note: To add perspective to the planned elimination of three SAS departments, The Daily Pennsylvanian offers a closer look at each department. Today: Regional Science Regional Science Department faculty say their field is not as tricky as its strange name suggests. But with School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rosemary Stevens' highly publicized decision to disband the department and two others effective June 30, many more have been left wondering what the department does and what its role is at the University. Regional Science Chairperson Stephen Gale explained that by taking economics, political science, sociology and geography into account, the department – the only one of its kind in the country – studies regions and why they develop as they do. While economists view events as they relate to the allocation of resources and sociologists view them in terms of different societal groups, regional science looks at the role of location in social interactions and social outcomes, said Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden, a regional science professor. Under Stevens' proposal, now in the hands of Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson, the fate of the department is much less clear than that of the two other departments slated for closure. While the American Civilization and Religious Studies departments are scheduled to be replaced by interdisciplinary programs, Stevens hasn't made the same guarantees for Regional Science. · Although the Regional Science Department has only six faculty members, Gale said its contributions to the University and the field are immeasurable. Known for pioneering the approach to regions, the University is also the home of the leading journal in the field, the Journal of Regional Science, which is produced on campus under the direction of Professor Ronald Miller. "I think that what Regional Science has contributed is that it has established a whole school of intellectual thought in the social sciences," Madden said. "The closing proposal is coming at a time when these ideas are at the forefront of scholarly thought and political issues in the world." A look at the department's graduates and where they work is another indication of its success, Gale said. Graduates have gone on to teach at nationally-known universities as well as Tokyo University, the London School of Economics, the Stockholm School of Economics and Cambridge University. Gale added that all graduates of the program end up with jobs when they complete their studies. In a letter distributed to faculty in September, Stevens stated that since the concept of regional science has not been copied across the country, perhaps a separate program is unnecessary. One suggestion would add Regional Science to the City and Regional Planning Department in the Graduate School of Fine Arts. Regional Science Professor Ralph Ginsburg disagrees with Stevens' conclusions. Ginsburg said his field has practical applications in the world today and can be used to research regional concepts, such as the European Community and the North American Free Trade Agreement. "If you look around the world today, regional problems are increasingly important," he said. "It is clear that in the European Community, the basic economic problems are recognized as regional problems and this is also true for the Pacific Rim countries. "Penn is in a unique position to exploit its comparative advantage in what is an increasingly important area in the social sciences," he added. "Penn is moving away from its comparative advantage rather than building on it." While the department does not house an undergraduate major, it offers undergraduates the opportunity to submatriculate and receive a master's degree before graduation. College junior and submatriculant Hany Abdallah said her decision to enter the field was a career move, which she hopes will eventually land her a job at the United Nations, where many University graduates have ended up. "I can ultimately get my degree," Abdallah said. "But I am worried that I won't be taken that seriously as a regional scientist and someone with specific skills." Gale said regional science graduates are respected internationally as belonging to a field which is all-encompassing. "Predicting migrating trends, looking at impacts of different regional configurations, deciding where to put a fried chicken joint – practical and stupid – the theories come out of regional science," he said.
(11/22/93 10:00am)
Having earned a University degree, many former students find themselves coming back to join the faculty and staff. In their University days, one was a Mayor's Scholar, another was a member of Mask & Wig and still others Daily Pennsylvanian reporters. While their paths probably did not cross as undergraduates at the University, today they all share a common bond. They are among the 2,000 faculty and staff members, out of the University's nearly living 210,000 alumni, who have received their undergraduate degrees at the University. They all have different stories about their undergraduate days and all were led by different motivations to come back to their alma mater. Yet, they all agree that their University has been a major part of their lives. · History Professor Bruce Kuklick was the first person in his family to advance past the 10th grade and go to college. A Philadelphia native, he decided to attend the University because he "thought Penn was the best school there was." "I was swept away that I could study philosophy and take a course in German literature or read Dickens," said Kuklick, the author of a bestseller on the history of baseball, To Everything a Season. Academic success awaited Kuklick at the University. One of the first recipients of the Thouron Fellowship, he attended Oxford University while the University picked up the tab. "All of that first glop of education was provided for by the University," he said. "They did very well by me. I shouldn't complain." After receiving his doctorate in American Civilization at the University, Kuklick went on to teach at Yale University. "I confess, I loath and despise New Haven," he said. "It's the most wretched little city. And to the extent that Yale is a part of it, it's so socially snobbish and conservative as to be moved off the face of the earth." Finally, Kuklick's path led him to the University, where he has been for 20 years. Today he has mixed feelings about the place he calls home. "I have a complicated set of feelings," Kuklick admitted. "On the one hand, it touches deep parts of me to think about the education that this institution has provided for me. I paid nothing and Penn gave me what I still consider to be a terrific education. "On the other hand, there are so many aspects of the way the place is run that just drive me nuts." · Assistant Annenberg School Dean Phyllis Kaniss is another University grad. And for Kaniss, her experience at the University has provided the inspiration for her work today. "It is a wonderful sense of continuity," she said. "I try to relate to and give my students what people gave me as an undergraduate." Kaniss' experience at the University was highlighted by her work as a DP reporter, she said. "I was very involved in the events on campus," said Kaniss, a 1972 graduate. "It was a very explosive time on college campuses, including Penn. "Black students just began to get organized and become more militant and women's groups were activated when I was a student and I reported on them," she added. "I felt like a very central player on campus being one of the major reporters on The Daily Pennsylvanian." Like Kuklick, Kaniss remembers her undergraduate days fondly. Starting out as an English major, her interest shifted during her junior year to regional science, the study of applied economics across geographic regions. In fact, she was the department's first undergraduate major. After receiving her doctorate at Cornell University in regional science, Kaniss returned to the University as a junior lecturer. Slowly, though, she made the shift to communications, where she works today. Comparing the University of yesteryear to the school today, she said much has changed. "Students didn't worry much about careers or what they would do after graduation" when I was an undergraduate, she said. "When I was a student, it was a time of soul searching and a time to think about what you could contribute to the world." But to Kaniss some things haven't changed. She said students are still interested in safety and there is still a fair amount of tension between blacks and whites. She said, for her, the hardest part of her experience was coming back to the University as an employee, instead of as a student. "The first year I was here, I felt very anonymous," she said. "As a student, I was a personality on campus. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. Being an active student is very different from starting as the low man on the totem poll." · Doris and Elton Cochran-Fikes met as undergraduates at the Friars Senior Society Induction Dinner in 1973. Today the two are not only husband and wife, but also University alumni relations director and associate athletic director, respectively. Former Judicial Inquiry Officer and director of the W.E.B. DuBois College House, Elton Cochran-Fikes was a track and field champion as a University undergraduate. "The University is so intertwined in my life," he said. "I met my wife here. I had two stints here as a student and three job stints here. It's been a relationship that began in 1970 that's continued and that's been very positive." His wife, Doris, on the other hand, performed with Penn Players and was a student government representative. She said the University changed quite a bit when she was a student here. While a freshman, the University changed its policy which required women to wear dresses to Sunday night dinner. And as a sophomore, she saw the end of University-imposed curfews for women. "I remember women lining up along Walnut Street to kiss their dates goodnight and running in at 2 a.m. as the curfew came down," she said. She added that it was only during her sophomore year that the University nixed its four-semester physical education requirement, its rule that students had to pass a swimming test to graduate and its policy requiring nearly five credits a semester to graduate. "It sounds like the dark ages," she mused. Immediately after she graduated, Doris Cochran-Fikes took a job in the alumni office as assistant publications director. "It was a strange transition for me because in many ways I was still a student," she said. "I realized, though, that the University was a lot different from the perspective of an employee. I had my best days as an undergraduate after I actually graduated from Penn." While she was an undergraduate, she said, University life for students was somber. "The Vietnam War was upon us," she said. "Women's issues and civil rights issues for blacks were very prominent and everything was very heavy. It was hard as a Penn undergraduate to have fun." For a short time, Elton was in the marines and Doris lived in New York, but they married and returned to Philadelphia. Today, Doris Cochran-Fikes said she can't separate her past experiences from the present. "I feel so much a part of the mission and the tradition and the energy that drives this place and those feelings are enhanced by me being an alumna of the University." Her husband agreed. "I can't imagine being happy and having a more fulfilled social and work life than what I have here at Penn," he said. · Tim Ryan, a 1986 College graduate, tried construction work and waiting tables before coming to the University's Admissions Office. Now the director of planning in the Admissions Office, he didn't know what to expect out of an urban campus, coming from a rural area in southern New Jersey. And it wasn't until he took off two years and returned to school that he saw his future unfold in front of him. Ryan graduated with a triple minor in biology, English and psychology, but had no major. This option has since been eliminated. After serving as director of Advanced Placement and Transfer Credit and head of the Texas office, Ryan was promoted to his current position. "I think I am more impressed and supportive of the place now than I was back then," he said. "I am aware of what it takes to run the place. You have 100 different constituencies that you have to impress and please and sometimes these constituencies are at odds. "I still feel like I'm giving back," Ryan said. "I really feel that I was presented with an opportunity as a student that changed my life." He said when he is travelling on business to promote the University, his passion comes across. "I don't think that it would be the same if I would not have been a student here," he said. "That's a big part of it." · As alumni director, Doris Cochran-Fikes said different desires motivate alumni to pursue different options. "Some people view their experience as a student as something that was a very good time in their life and something that they want to recapture when they come back," she said. "Others see it as a way station on their way to other things and they don't look back." History Professor Michael Zuckerman would agree with Cochran-Fikes' first scenario. A 1961 College graduate, Zuckerman said attending the University gave him the motivation to be a professor and to teach on campus. "I expected to be a lawyer," he said. "My father was a lawyer. I looked at a lot of lawyers and it didn't look like they had lives they loved. But when I looked at my teachers and they looked like they had lives they loved, I decided I was going to be a teacher." An editor of the DP and American Civilization major, Zuckerman said the University has not receded from the effects brought about from the counterculture of the 1960s. "When I was here as a student, it was an overwhelmingly white male university," he said. "Now, it is co-ed and spectacularly diverse. You could walk for weeks on the campus of my undergraduate days and never see a black and never see an Asian and scarcely see foreign students. The place is transformed now." He said many people would give anything to have the opportunity to teach at their alma mater. "It's hard to do," he said. "There probably are a lot of people that would gladly go back to school where they were undergraduates at. I was just very lucky."
(11/17/93 10:00am)
And many have no opinion Student reaction to Interim President Claire Fagin's decision not to suspend Part II of the Racial Harassment Policy was just as divided yesterday as it has been since she announced she would look at the policy two months ago. While some students applauded Fagin's initiative to appoint a committee to come up with a replacement to the controversial Part II, others said her decision was simply a "cop-out." A noticeable number of students, however, said they do not care about the issue or have not followed the debate which has been a source of campus conflict for the last two months. When taken as a whole, student reaction to Fagin's decision tended to be divided along racial lines. "I think it was obviously the right decision on her part," Wharton sophomore Jamal Powell said last night over dinner at the Class of 1920 Commons. "I think she would have faced too much negative slack had she revoked it." Others, like College sophomore Suzy Levinson, disagreed. "I truly believe that people should be able to say what they choose if it doesn't threaten other people," Levinson said. "As little structure as possible should be put into [a policy like this]." One student who would not give her name said she thought Fagin had not done much of anything by issuing her decision. "She made a decision to supplement the policy we have now, but she's putting it off to June 30," she said. "Hasn't she already taken suggestions and opinions from everyone, though? "Isn't that why she postponed her decision in the first place?" she continued. "She really didn't make a decision now. She postponed it again." Another said, "I can't judge her decision because she really didn't make a decision." But Fagin said this was "just not true." "We haven't made a decision as to a new total policy, but we made a decision that we are going to have one," she said last night. "This decision is not going to be put in the hopper for the next academic year. It is going to be concluded before the provost and I are out of our positions." Still, Engineering freshman Chiram Littleton said Fagin's decision was a "cop-out". "It seems like it's kind of a cop-out in a way," he said. "If you say that you're going to solve something and then you put it off until the summertime, you're avoiding the problem. "I think there should be some kind of standard, but I don't know what it is," Littleton added. Engineering sophomore Diallo Crenshaw said eliminating the policy would have created a dangerous void. While he said students generally live up to a standard of civility, he added it is when that decency fails that such a policy would come into play. "There has to be a document in place that says racial harassment won't be tolerated," Crenshaw said. "I don't agree with the wording now, but I agree with the decision to keep it in place until there's something better." College sophomore Melissa Jacobs said that while racially harassing speech is wrong, she disagrees with the idea of a policy that restricts speech. "As soon as you start limiting somebody else's speech, you take something that belongs to them away," she said. "That's not right. Absolutely not. It goes against the First Amendment." But a student who asked not to be identified said the code is needed for protection. "White people have conservative views on racial harassment, but they don't know what it's like to be racially harassed," she said. College sophomore Amy Krissman said the issue is inherently complicated, with no clear-cut answer. "There are so many tactics and so many sides and so many opinions involved that it just becomes so overwhelming," she said. Fagin said Krissman was absolutely right. "Never in my life, in all of my experience, have I ever dealt with an issue as divisive and as emotional as this," she said. "And I have dealt with a lot of issues."
(11/15/93 10:00am)
Editor's note: To add perspective to the planned elimination of three SAS departments, The Daily Pennsylvanian offers a closer look at each department. Today: American Civilization Isolating the study of American Civilization can be a challenge in itself. Inherently interdisciplinary in nature, it is not simply the study of history or a look at culture, anthropology or archaeology. Only by combining these areas and adding a methodological approach to the field can one understand the nature of American Civilization, faculty say. "It is essentially the study of a multi-cultural, complex society in all of its historical and contemporary manifestations," Am Civ Undergraduate Chairperson Melvyn Hammarberg said recently. The American Civilization Department could be eliminated, though, if the University's Board of Trustees approves School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rosemary Steven's recommendations to cut three of SAS's 28 departments. To faculty in the department, a field pioneered at the University could see its doom if the cuts are approved, despite Stevens' assurances to the contrary. Stevens maintains that the Am Civ curriculum could be taught more efficiently – and without sacrificing quality – as an interdisciplinary program rather than in an individual department. · Hammarberg, an associate professor, said Am Civ has a long and fulfilling history at the University, beginning in 1937. The second oldest Am Civ program in the country, the department is known nationally for its approach to the field, which centers on material culture – the physical aspects of the society. Murray Murphey, chairperson of the Am Civ Department, pioneered the approach, which he said replaces an earlier history and arts and letters approach. Called the "Penn Approach," the University's model is drawn more from anthropology than from history, arts or letters. "We took the study of the culture, in the anthropological sense of the term, as our primary objective," Murphey said last night. "We had this holistic approach from the very start and over the years, we were the primary department in the country that espoused that approach. "We have developed an ethnographic approach to the study of the culture, both historical and contemporary." Many Am Civ students praise their department, which has come under fire by University officials in recent years. "[Am Civ] is a study of how people relate to one another and how they interact with their environment, as opposed to a 'here's what happened' viewpoint that history classes tend to take," College junior Seth Weinberg said. "Primarily it allows for a lot of diversification," he said. "You select your concentration and you can get an immense amount of help and attention when it is required. The resources are phenomenal in terms of professor accessibility." American Civilization Honors Society Co-President Jill Kotner agreed, saying the strength of the department lies in its size and in the accessibility of the three remaining faculty members. · SAS Associate Dean Richard Beeman, who chaired the 1987 internal review committee that looked at Am Civ, said last night that at most universities, first-rate American studies programs are programs – not departments. "There are lots of good models that we can build on," he said. "I am one hundred percent convinced that one does not need a department to have a wonderful program at Penn." In 1987, he recommended that the department be put into an "academic receivership," taking control of the department out of the hands of its own faculty. The strength of the Am Civ Department at the University, he said, can only be found in faculty across departments. But, Beeman added, the department is not strong as it stands, despite its innovation. "This is a department with a very, very distinguished and distinctive tradition," he said. "It is a department which has carved out a very distinctive niche for itself, but I don't believe the department in its present situation is well positioned to continue that record of distinciton." Stevens plans to reposition the department by replacing it with an interdisciplinary program, much like International Relations and Biological Basis for Behavior. But, Hammarberg said that by the administration's own account, his department is the most efficient. With 700 to 900 students enrolling in Am Civ courses every year, Hammarberg said the department has the highest enrollment per faculty member in SAS. "We're doing more with less resources than anyone else," he said. "We are in that sense the most efficient." Murphey said if the administration is serious about a program, it has to have the resources to make it function. College junior Weinberg said the department's ranking as one of the top two programs in the country is an asset to the University. "This lends credibility to a degree obtained from the department," he said. "Once the department is dissolved, those degrees are going to be worth a dime less."
(11/09/93 10:00am)
Bar shut down after two violations involving minors Students hoping to drink a highball after the football team's victory over the Princeton Tigers were left in the cold when they tried to enter Murphy's Tavern at 43rd and Spruce streets Saturday. The tavern, a favorite among undergraduate students, was ordered to stay closed between November 4 and 12 because of two State Police citations issued last year for selling alcohol to minors, Liquor Control Board Spokeswoman Donna Pinkham said yesterday. The bar was also ordered to pay a $1,500 fine, Pinkham said. Bar owners Joseph Murphy and James Murphy could not be reached for comment, but Joseph Murphy was heard on WXPN-FM Saturday during the football game promising that the bar would reopen soon. The first infraction, which carried a five-day suspension and the $1,500 fine, occurred on July 16 when police caught bartenders serving three minors, Pinkham said. The police citation for December 10 says the bar served alcohol to two minors and that minors frequent it, she added. Harrisburg Administrative Law Judge Tania E. Wright tried the two cases together on June 22. Pinkham said selling to minors is considered a very serious offense. If it happens enough, she added, a bar can be classified as a "nuisance bar" and eventually lose its liquor license. Nearly 200 bars have lost their licenses through this process since the policy was implemented in 1990, she added. The Liquor Control Board, which licenses and regulates bars, will evaluate Murphy's Tavern again when its license expires in October 1994, Pinkham said. "Two citations are not to be taken lightly," she said. "Another in a short period of time would put them in greater risk of losing their license." Palladium co-owner Roger Harmon, whose bar – located at 36th Street and Locust Walk – was raided by Liquor Control Enforcement officials last November, said he didn't know about what had happened until he heard it on WXPN. "I'm sure he's devastated," Harmon said last night. "You try hard, but students want to drink and they go to great lengths to drink. I don't know anyone who didn't drink when they were under 21." Five underage drinkers were cited at the Palladium last November, and Harmon said he has taken measures to ensure that it won't happen again. All bartenders and most bouncers have undergone TIPS training, which teaches them how to detect and deal with underage and excessive drinkers. He said the bar and restaurant has spent a lot of time and money training and talking with police about ways to avoid potentially disastrous situations. "It seems like it has made a difference," he said. "We do the best we can." Murphy's Tavern is expected to re-open this Friday night.
(11/08/93 10:00am)
It can be a professor's worst nightmare. But now, there is help for professors who find themselves berated by criticisms about their courses and insults about their teaching style. The School of Arts and Sciences' Teaching Center offers free-of-charge advice and services to faculty members, in hopes of keeping the conversation about education going and helping professors improve their teaching. "It's not a teaching center in the sense of a building with administrators and desks," College Dean Matthew Santirocco said. "It's rather a center we have pulled together from existing resources to help teachers." Developed by the Committee on Undergraduate Education's subcommittee on teaching evaluation and improvement, the center provides a variety of services from a mentoring program to a videotaping service. The mentoring program pairs faculty members who have won either the University's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching or the SAS Ira Abrams Memorial Award with professors who want advice, Santirocco said. Mentors can help professors do a variety of things, from designing a syllabus to writing exams and improving presentation skills. Associate History Professor Jack Reece, who agreed to serve as a mentor, said the advantages of the program are obvious. "It gives inexperienced teachers the benefit of hearing from teachers who have been around here for awhile," he said. Biology Professor Ingrid Waldron agreed. "We don't know yet how many people will call up their fellow faculty members for helpful hints," she said. "But, at least there are people that they can turn to in case they have any questions or want to discuss any issues about teaching." Teachers who have trouble pinpointing problems can take advantage of the videotaping service which allows them to view a tape of their performance in the classroom. "Obviously, if a professor is having a problem, videotaping and having a mentor can be very helpful," Santirocco said. "But, it's for all teachers, because even great teachers can improve." For this reason, Santirocco created an SAS teaching manual, distributed to all departments and new faculty members, which offers tips on running a good class and grading. During orientation for new faculty members, Santirocco also began a program devoted to teacher training. And programs for Teaching Assistants will continue throughout the year to keep the discussions on teaching alive. Art History Professor David Brownlee said he thinks the idea of a teaching center is "extraordinary." "We have a bunch of people that are very excited about teaching every day of their lives," he said. "And now, we have the possibility of sharing that know-how and experience in a simple straightforward way." Because the program is new, there has been no faculty feedback yet, he added. And because of the confidential nature of the contacts between staff members and mentors, a true measure of the program's success is difficult to attain. Brownlee said the center will challenge all faculty members in the school. "This program has the possibility of being a catalyst for improving teaching for everybody," he said. "The challenge is not to make the really terrible professor OK. The real challenge is to make all of us continue to progress and evolve to meet new circumstances." SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens said she is "thrilled" the center has come to fruition. "This is the kind of collegiality," she said. "Learning from one's peers and sharing problems and directions. Santirocco said the teaching center is just the beginning. "I'm hoping this will provide a model for individual departments to consider what they can do to improve teaching and mentoring," he said. "We'll be successful only when it spreads across the whole college and University. And we have a ways to go."
