Can't get enough Van Pelt? UA has it covered

Desperate students trying to cram in an extra hour of studying this week will now be able to do it in Van Pelt Library.

At the request of the Undergraduate Assembly, Carton Rogers - who runs Penn's libraries - decided to keep Van Pelt open until 2 a.m. from yesterday through the end of exams.

Last year, the library extended its hours only during reading days and exams, according to UA Vice Chairman of External Affairs and College junior Jason Karsh.

"This is starting a week earlier as a trial run," Karsh said.

Based on the number of people who utilize the extended hours in Van Pelt, permanent changes to the library schedule may be made.

Also in the UA this week:

n Laundry machines that eat up quarters and dryers that never seem to dry are the UA's next project.

The Laundry Facilities Plan of Action, spearheaded by UA member and College freshman Claire Choi, urges college-house staff to make improvements to "both current and future laundry-facility conditions."

The UA placed sheets where students can make formal complaints in two laundry rooms in Ware College House as a trial run for a potential school-wide laundry complaint system.

n Joining forces with the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, the UA passed a proposal supporting SCUE's attempts to make syllabi for every undergraduate course available online.

We "hope by spring, most tentative syllabi will be ready," said SCUE chairman and Engineering junior Gabe Kopin, who attended last Sunday's UA meeting.

n Students who want to complain about that boring math lecture now have someplace to turn.

A new undergraduate advisory board plans to help professors learn what students themselves want. With members from the UA, SCUE and others appointed by the Nominations and Elections Committee, the advisory board will help TAs and professors "get help regarding all aspects of teaching," according to UA member and College senior Erin Cho.

The board will be run through the Center for Teaching and Learning, a School of Arts and Sciences resource center that educates faculty and staff about teaching.

n The UA welcomed its newest member - College junior Ashish Bhumbla- at its Sunday meeting, congratulating him on his new position.

Bhumbla, who previously worked with the UA as a voting committee member, will now take a place on both the Facilities and Campus Planning and Student Life committees.

Bhumbla replaced College senior Aaron Weissman, who stepped down last month after he missed more than 25 percent of required UA meetings.

Comments (3)

The Housing and Conference Office directed us to review this article. We will have a team of our technicians check out the laundry room as soon as possible. We always do everything in our power to repspond to service calls that are made to us within 24 hours. We can do this because we have at least one tech (sometimes 2 or 3) on or close by to Penn's campus all day long. We do frequent walk thru's of the laundry room but need to rely upon student involvement when there are problems; in other words if you have a problem please tell us or the information center so we can fix it. And, I can be reached during normal business hours to discuss these and any other laundry issues. Thank you John Christian jchristian@macgray.com Branch Manager MacGray Laundry

Mr. Christian, is there a reason why it costs so much to do laundry on campus? At most schools, it's $1.00 a load and sometimes even cheaper than that. Here at Penn, it's $1.25. Sure the extra quarter doesn't seem like much at first glance, but it adds up over the course of a year.

The price of $1.25 is standard in Philly, higher in NYC and other major cities. Most apartments in Philly are now $1.50, higher in NYC, Baltimore and most other major cities. Its really up to each individual school and how much of their energy bill and the cost of maintaining the laundry room they want to recover. Some schools (like my son who attends Dickinson) add the laundry costs into the room/board so laundry be appear to free it really isn't. Obviously MacGray or others in the same business share the money with the school. I hope this answers your question. Oh, our techs spent some time in the Van Pelt laundry today...two problems: the drains are backing up which we have passed along to Penn's physical plant and one of the card operated machines is not working properly which we have passed along to PennCard. Feel free to email me directly at: jchristian@macgray.com John Christian Branch Manager MacGray

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