Give buildings more than a facelift

I saw an advertisement for plastic surgery in The Daily Pennsylvanian once. Seriously. It was advertising the University of Pennsylvania Health System's plastic surgery department. The ad read: "A new year. A new you. We offer treatments that will give you a smoother, sleeker, fresher you."

This was somewhat horrifying. I say "somewhat" because it was running next to a request for an undergraduate egg donor -- but only from 5-feet-11-inch blond females with 1600 SATs.

I suppose the advertising honchos in the Penn Health System thought they were capitalizing on an untapped market. Sure, most students have money for plastic surgery in addition to the $40,000 they are already shelling out for tuition.

Then I realized that students are not the only ones with an image problem. The University has an addiction to superficial improvement that has manifested itself in the campus housing system.

Penn's campus sees more construction than Boston's Big Dig -- those in charge must be petrified of what will happen if the renovations ever stop. I have never walked from one end of the campus to the other without encountering sledgehammers, hardhats, detours and construction workers.

Don't get me wrong -- I am strongly in favor of improving our campus image and renovating old buildings. But while the academic buildings on campus are improved from the inside out, the College House improvements focus on external renovations and never address the real problems. Housing improvements should follow the model set by recent academic building renovations.

The reopening of Fisher-Bennett Hall this month introduced students to new classrooms, sophisticated technology and an overall facelift to the English Department headquarters.

College junior Katie Liberman has a class in the new building and can attest to the difference.

"It's a whole different place," she said. "The old dilapidated building has turned into a state-of-the-art place to take classes."

The pre- and post-renovation differences are not as profound in the high rises. True, I wake up to sunlight streaming through the enormous windows, and one wall in my room is painted orange. But I still have to wait more than 15 minutes for one of the two functioning elevators in Harnwell to arrive.

Admittedly, these waits have spurred some interesting discussions about the elevators. My favorite was some banter about the psychological state of one elevator, which displays different numbers than the floor it is actually on.

"It's emotionally disturbed," one girl said. "It thinks it's in one place, but it's in another."

"Its just trying to find its place in the world," added someone else.

After these somewhat enlightening -- but always long -- elevator rides, I am usually late, and I hardly have a chance to enjoy the new projectors and DVD players in my classrooms.

Housing renovation is an undeniably difficult task, since it is impossible to throw students into the streets to get the job done. After all, the renovations on Fisher-Bennett lasted a year and a half.

To give the University some credit, in 1998 there was a $300 million proposal that included a complete renovation of the high rises. This plan, to close each of the high rises for 15 months at a time, never passed.

Instead, a few years later, the administration settled on an $80-million facelift. The internal renovations were to be completed during the summers when most students vacate the buildings.

The only differences in my post-renovated apartment are a paint job and some new furniture. In my book, these cannot be considered "renovations."

The revamping of academic buildings served as a valuable long-term investment for the University. The same cannot be said of the housing upgrades in the Superblock.

By glossing over the high rises' internal problems with a little bit of plastic surgery, the University is just digging a hole for itself in the future. It won't be long until the untrustworthy pipes, old stoves and dysfunctional elevators will sigh their last breaths. Then, back to the hammering.

If administrators are going to spend time and money "fixing" Superblock, they should do it right. After all, it's what's on the inside that counts.

Anna Hartley is a sophomore comparative literature and French major from Palo Alto, Calif. Penn's Annatomy appears on Tuesdays.

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