Little-known neighbors

While most people instinctively associate Penn with the Ivy League, the University is also part of another lesser-known academic alliance: the Quaker Consortium.

You should not be too surprised if this is the first time you've heard of the program, despite the fact that it has been around for more than three decades.

The consortium offers students at Penn and three other Philadelphia-area schools -- Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore -- the opportunity to take classes for credit at any of the other schools at no additional cost.

Students looking to augment their studies with classes that may not be available at their home institution have an opportunity to take them elsewhere. Since the various campuses are quite different -- Penn is large with deep roots in the city, whereas the others are small and suburban -- students can experiment with a different learning environment.

And the program has been relatively successful over the years -- at Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore, that is.

At Penn, where promotion for the Quaker Consortium comes in the form of five paragraphs on the College's Web site, students are not getting on the bandwagon.

In 1990, 10 students from Penn headed out of West Philadelphia for a class or two. Not much has changed in 15 years. Today, just five take advantage of the consortium.

At the same time, the program has attracted many more students from the smaller, liberal arts colleges to Penn. Last semester alone, 125 to 150 Bryn Mawr students made the trek into the city.

Penn is certainly an attractive option for students at smaller schools because of its wealth of disciplines, business and medicine among them. But there are plenty of advantages for Penn students to try the program as well, and feedback from participants is generally positive.

Where Penn is missing the boat is in promoting this alliance on its own campus. At the other schools, the consortium gets much more attention.

On top of that, transportation to and from classes is subsidized by the college. Not at Penn. Students here must commute by their own means, on their own dollar.

The Quaker Consortium makes sense for all parties, but not if it is a one-way street. If Penn is going to continue to participate, it should make the most of the program by promoting it to students and making the logistics less of a hassle and an expense.

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