NEWS ANALYSIS: Pilot plan may pose problems

Throughout the semester, administrators have promoted four pilot programs that would present students with opportunities to learn outside the classroom and bring academics into their social and residential lives. But students and faculty members on the planning committees and in the focus groups for these programs have raised several concerns about them. Last year, when the University first initiated efforts to combine academics and residential life, administrators described the project as something that the University had never tried before. And last October, upon first announcing the 21st Century Project, University President Judith Rodin earmarked $1 million in funds for the pilot programs and other temporary initiatives geared toward improving undergraduate education. "We intend to use some of those funds for testing innovations," Rodin said at the time. "This is the moment in which we really need to think about the 21st century and the Penn undergraduate experience in the 21st century." Last spring, the Residential Faculty Council and the Provost's Council on Undergraduate Education proposed systems to accomplish Rodin's goals. They developed ideas such as "virtual colleges" and "collegiate clusters," which would include students on- and off-campus with common interests. The pilot programs, which are in different stages of the implementation process, are attempts to try out some of these ideas. The pilots are scheduled to be in place by next fall. The collegiate planning program, along with the entire 21st Century Project, will be permanently instituted in the fall of 1997. English Professor Robert Lucid, who chairs the collegiate planning effort, said earlier this fall that these programs have a "constituency that wants it, needs it and is waiting for it." And many students are saying the ideas behind the pilot programs are good ones. But some have noted that the pilots are similar to residential college houses and living and learning programs already in existence. For example, the Science and Technology pilot program bears much resemblance to the Science and Technology Wing based in Kings Court/English House. "I am just continuing the normal enhancement of STWing," the program's director, Jorge Santiago-Aviles, said recently. Earlier this fall, Lucid emphasized that the science and technology pilot will place a special emphasis on involving students who live off-campus. "We will use it as a base to reach out to Penn students in West Philadelphia," Lucid said at the time. "It is the project that will show us if we can link up what is now a broken link." But Santiago-Aviles, an electrical engineering professor, said he does not plan to focus on the off-campus community in his development of the Science and Technology pilot program. Instead, he said, he wants to keep a "sense of belonging and intimacy" in the program. Some say the Civic College House pilot program also overlaps with the currently existing Community Service Living-Learning Program. In response to those concerns, English Professor Peter Conn, who is directing the Civic College House project next year, is quick to point out the academic component of the new pilot -- which does not exist in the Castle. But College sophomore Elizabeth Theoharis said most Castle residents do take service-learning courses or other community service related classes because of their interest in the subject matter. The Center for Advanced Undergraduate Study and Exploration, also known as CAUSE, does not face that same issue, since currently there is no place on campus for students doing research to congregate. But CAUSE still does not have a definitive location and specific criteria for admission into the program have yet to be determined. The fourth pilot program -- known as the Writers House -- also does not have any precedent at the University. Although the premise for collegiate planning has always been combining academics and the residences, students and faculty will not be living in the Writers House, which will be located in the chaplain's former residence. Other issues involving the Writers House are still on the table, ranging from its relationship with the Philomathean Society to renovations that must be made to its location. Everyone directly associated with any of the four pilot programs has expressed nothing but positive sentiments and excitement about their efforts. But with many practical and theoretical issues still unresolved, administrators, faculty and students are very aware of the difficulties they may have to face. The programs could become extremely successful, serving as paradigms for the collegiate planning program's final product. But if the concerns and apparent contradictions raised thus far are not resolved soon, the administration may have to go back to the drawing board next year.

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