Staff Editorial: Not waiting for money

A little more than three years ago, Penn administrators gleefully unveiled a plan that they said would forever change student life on this campus.

The $300 million project was so massive and so ambitious, in fact, that administrators likened its significance to that of Penn's building craze of the early 1970s -- when the University demolished an entire residential neighborhood west of 38th Street, and erected three high rise dormitories, three low rises and a dining hall in its place.

The 1998 plan, they then said, would bring about the renovation of every dormitory on campus. It called for the building of new residence halls in Hamilton Village, for the demolition of the Stouffer Triangle and, most of all, for the fundamental physical changes needed to keep the then-fledgling college house system alive.

The plan met with almost universal praise, from both amenity-conscious students and budget-conscious administrators. But since then, very few of the intended improvements have become reality, and it appears that one crucial factor escaped the attentions of Penn's overzealous campus planners: money.

Specifically, money to pay for the renovations. Money that was expected to come from the profits of the Health System, but never materialized thanks to its unexpected financial losses and the effects of a slowing economy. Money -- crucial money -- that wasn't there in 1998, and doesn't appear to be there now.

The lack of those funds -- and the ensuing failure of the original plan -- is unfortunate. Students who were now supposed to be living in brand-new dormitories are still spending their nights in the same rooms, and amidst the same fundamental infrastructure that housed Penn students a generation ago.

Sadly, there is little that administrators can do in the short-term to rectify that situation or reawaken a renovation plan that now appears to be dead.

But Penn's budget managers would be wise to start exploring smaller, more practical plans to overhaul an aging and increasingly obsolete network of facilities. As those buildings grow older, and as academic leaders proceed with their assessment of the successes and failures of the college house system, the physical demands of this campus will likely demand a full and prompt rejuvenation of those same residence halls.

And that need, and all of the demands it will make of the University and its finances, will likely come soon -- whether or not Penn has the money.

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