Eyesores on the tour

Do tour guides exaggerate? Do some even lie?

An investigation by The Daily Pennsylvanian last week brought up questions about tour guide honesty.

As an Admissions Office ambassador, I wake up early every Sunday morning to meet with prospective students and tag along on tours as an extra person for them to talk to.

In my experience, tour guides (and ambassadors) are generally very honest.

However, the fact remains that a campus tour tries to package Penn into a neat, hour-long presentation. To that end, the average tour starts in the Perelman Quadrangle, then moves to the Quad dormitories before running over to Huntsman Hall and ending at College Green.

There is nothing wrong with packaging Penn. However, in my experience, it's the stop in Huntsman Hall that makes most tour guides and ambassadors squeamish.

In Huntsman (aka the "Death Star"), we gloat over the various aspects that make it a great place to learn, work and hang out.

Most prospective students are wowed by this presentation. Many parents are a bit more skeptical and almost inevitably ask if all classrooms at Penn are like this.

In general, tour guides (and myself) give pretty wordy answers to avoid stating the blunt truth: compared to the glamour of Huntsman, most of the classrooms that are used by College, Engineering and Nursing students on this campus are practically decrepit. Not to mention that Huntsman is barely accessible for most non-Wharton students.

It's time that Penn admitted that we have a major facilities problem.

I've had history classes in Williams Hall, where the temperature is always 10 degrees past uncomfortable, fire alarms are a daily treat and the floors are organized to keep students, not just the mice, in a maze.

I've had English classes in David Rittenhouse Laboratory, where students are subjected to creaky chairs, ancient bathrooms and weird smells.

I've had other classes in Vance Hall, where my sister once saw mice come out of those weird holes in the walls. Vance has been effectively condemned by Wharton and thrown to the College.

I've had economics and history courses in Stiteler Hall, where the nauseatingly wavy walls compete with broken, creaky chairs in trying to make me puke.

The problem is particularly acute for SAS students, who have no centralized area for classes and are spread out across a series of ugly and dysfunctional 1960s-era buildings.

The Wharton School found a series of wealthy alumni -- led by Jon Huntsman -- to centralize the school and bring its facilities into the 21st century.

It's time for the College to get a "Death Star" of its own.

As the largest and most diversified undergraduate school on campus, the College needs to get its alumni leaders and the University's fundraisers together to build the school its own 21st century home.

With the appropriate funds, I think that the solution is obvious: demolish Stiteler Hall and the buildings of the surrounding "Social Science Courtyard."

When the building of Huntsman Hall was announced in 1996, then-President Judith Rodin suggested that Penn not spend any money on these buildings, as we should not waste money on "buildings that perhaps never should have been built in the first place."

Anyone taking a walk through the Social Sciences Quad can see that this suggestion has been heeded. As Penn continues to develop, the time to take action is now.

As an urban campus, Penn should be building up, not out. Huntsman Hall is great because it utilizes multiple floors in an efficient manner to create abundant work and study space. There is even a miniature park!

The Social Sciences Quad takes up roughly the same area as Huntsman Hall, but it mostly consists of squat, outdated buildings housing departments that could use better facilities.

Every undergraduate school at Penn should have a home that is equivalent to Huntsman Hall.

So, when prospective students ask whether all classrooms at Penn are comparable, I'll admit that I stretch the truth a bit. But, it's only because I can't help myself.

I like Penn so much that I'm willing to get up early on Sunday mornings to tell people all about the place. I can't be entirely honest with that one question because I wouldn't want people to not come here simply because most of our classrooms are subpar.

However, the truth remains that they are.

Eric Obenzinger is a junior history major from New York. Quaker Shaker appears on Wednesdays.

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