Public service Penn-style

The summer months find most Penn students' minds and bodies far from West Philadelphia.

But for 20 Penn students, the communities that lie beyond the west end of campus have become the focus of their summertime energies.

These students are part of the academically-based service course and internship called "Penn-West Philadelphia as an Experiment in Progress."

"[The internship] makes you look at West Philadelphia as a real entity more so than anything else... it becomes a multidimensional idea, not just a negative," said College Junior Dan Shu, one of three student coordinators of the program.

This summer, the class focuses on developing strategies for collaboration between colleges and universities and community schools.

Participants spend the first six weeks of the program in a seminar researching and discussing issues surrounding the relationship between Penn and West Philadelphia.

During the final six weeks, the students focus on their roles in the Public Service Internship program -- run through the University's Center for Community Partnerships -- to implement the solutions they developed in the program's seminar.

In addition to studying, learning and working together, the students spend the summer living under the same roof in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity's house.

"This is not education in a vacuum," said Shu, who himself was an intern in the program last summer.

The students grapple with issues ranging from teen pregnancy in public schools to the self awareness of African-American children.

The group's final projects will most likely involve working with Sulzberger Middle School, the Program in Universities, Communities of Faith, Schools and Neighborhood Organizations (PUCFSN) or the Urban Nutrition Initiative, Shu said.

College sophomore Kimberly Noble said she will address the literacy and motivation of African American children in her project.

"The current state of urban public education, especially for African Americans in urban areas, really isn't working for some reason," Noble said. "There is a problem and we need to look at it and we need to fix it. We need to look at the way we teach kids."

Noble, who wants to become an educator, is not alone in this pursuit.

"There are a number students interested in schooling," said Ira Harkavy, the director of the Center for Community Partnerships.

"They may end up focusing on global issues that manifest themselves locally," Harkavy noted.

Harkavy, also the Associate Vice President of the University, said he thinks that holding the course over the summer benefits students because they have time to devote their full personal and intellectual attention to their projects without concern for other courses.

Students said that the shared living space also enhances the experience of the program.

"It's a basis for developing a sense of community," College senior Salena Jones said.

Some also said that living together makes it much easier to work together, providing a basis for the collaborative learning aspect of the course.

But to many participants, the most important part of the program is the tangible change that comes out of the interns' summer projects.

In the past, summer interns have done work that has long outlasted their internship. For example, PUCFSN Associate Coordinator Peter Gutherie is a 1998 summer internship program participant.

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