Moving back on campus

The cool kids live off campus. Or so I thought as a freshman living in the Upper Quad. So when two friends asked me to join them in a four-person apartment at 41st and Pine streets, I accepted with little hesitation. I stayed off campus my junior year, living in a house of eight girls a few blocks north. We were thrilled to secure a beautiful house on Beige Block for senior year. But then I changed my mind. My friends were bewildered."You want to live in a college house??" My cheeks slightly warmed, and I looked to the floor while explaining that I would be a member of the Franklin Community, a new living-learning program focused on civic engagement, composed chiefly of upperclassmen and housed in the recently acquired Stouffer Annex (formerly the home of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity). At that point, I wasn't even sure that I was making the right decision. Ask me now, and I'll look you straight in the eye -- I love it. I'll admit, my room is quite a bit smaller than last year's single -- and now I have to share it (luckily with a longtime friend). But I'm not in my room much anyway. I'd rather spend time in the common areas -- our kitchen, dining room or living room -- with the housemates I would have never otherwise met. Those housemates have engaged me in the type of spontaneous, intelligent conversation I sometimes forget can be found at Penn. The type of conversation from which everyone walks away a little more informed, a little more curious and a little more engaged. The type of conversation that occurs best among students who are not well-acquainted, who are beyond the glitter and excitement of freshman year, who are increasingly confident in their academic and extracurricular passions and who come from a diverse array of backgrounds. The type of conversation that pushes everyone a little beyond his comfort zone. Living off-campus had its own benefits: I learned the importance of paying my rent and utility bills on time, I got to know a number of very nice security guards thanks to 898-WALK and I was able to drink alcohol in my living room without fear of reprisal. But I couldn't run home for a quick nap, I made few new acquaintances and I wasn't a part of a broader community. I now realize just what I was missing. Unfortunately, a residential community among non-freshmen is something undervalued by the students on this campus -- my friends are still mystified by my decision. That's largely because it is something undervalued by this University -- as well as its donors. Faculty Director of College Houses Phil Nichols believes that Penn's limited residential community, atypical among our Ivy League peers, has its roots in the University's history as a commuter school. However, the difficulty Penn has in overcoming that history stems from a lack of institutional commitment driven by a relatively small endowment and a limited amount of giving targeted at the College House system. Nichols mentioned that the renaming of Riepe College House last spring was undertaken in honor of the extraordinary unrestricted contributions of Chairman of the University Board of Trustees Jim Riepe, not a specific donation targeted at the College House system. At the end of this calendar year, Riepe will be stepping down as vice chairman of T. Rowe Price, allowing him more time for family and travel, as well as more time to continue his laudable efforts to strengthen this University. Among those efforts should be some serious fundraising targeted at creating a more inclusive College House system, one that will create a vibrant intellectual community for Penn students after freshman year. The need and opportunity for that fundraising is immediate. Penn is currently deciding which private developer it will select to demolish and reconstruct the 3900 block of Walnut Street. The final plans will certainly involve both retail and residential components, about 400 beds according to a source familiar with the deliberations. The chance to help fund (and name) a new college-house addition seems like an attractive opportunity for potential donors, but right now it looks like those beds will be rented as private apartments, rather than as an integrated part of the College House system. Riepe should demonstrate his sincere dedication to this system by working with the University to thoroughly explore whether those beds can be meaningful additions to the system, rather than competition that undermines it. With a stronger and more inclusive College House system, one with more beds and greater resources, perhaps my personal experience would be less of an anomaly.

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