Students lose out due to screw up

What if I offered you a free ride to grad school, and the only catch was that you had to go downtown and fill out some mindless paperwork to claim your prize?

Last weekend, 700 students received that offer.

They were participants in the Fattah Conference for Higher Education, founded by and named after the Democratic congressman who represents Penn's district in Congress. With no strings attached, participants now only need to be accepted to grad programs at 18 Pennsylvania institutions (including dear old Penn) to make this dream a reality.

So what's the problem? Organizers had the money to give away 1,000 scholarships, but they couldn't even fill the seats at the conference. And many of the scholarships that were given out went to students outside Rep. Chaka Fattah's district, which covers West Philadelphia, Center City North Philadelphia and Mount Airy.

Only 20 Penn students were recipients of the gift.

The small number of Penn students is even more embarrassing for the University because Fattah's office is located on 41st and Walnut streets in a Penn-owned building.

Little effort was made to recruit Penn students, who were the real losers in this deal. Instead, college students from across the Eastern Seaboard, from North Carolina to New York, were given the scholarship offer.

With so little physical distance between these organizations and campus, why weren't Penn students heavily recruited? Last I checked, $25 million rarely becomes available overnight, so why not enable more deserving students to receive these funds?

As students at one of the most respected colleges in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Penn students deserved to be flooded with invitations.

The invitations to attend this conference were distributed halfheartedly. To spread the word of this monumental conference, the Educational Advancement Alliance, the group responsible for organizing the conference, merely sent a single invitation to Penn's vice provost for university life.

This invitation was passed down to many minority groups, but the conference was open to everyone, and it should have been marketed to the entire school.

A conference held in Philadelphia -- a city that is working hard to keep university graduates after college -- should reach out first and foremost to local undergraduate students. Only after marketing to local students should organizers reach out to students in other states.

Fattah also has a duty to his constituents, who elected him into office, to keep their interests in mind first.

He has essentially squandered funds on students unaffiliated with Philadelphia that could have gone to Philadelphians. He has become a national political figure, and, in the process, he has not put the interest of his constituents first.

Congressman Fattah has left his constituents behind.

Among those left behind is College junior Rafael Garcia. who receives $40,100 per year in grants and is allotted $3,000 in work-study money.

"I work two jobs for about 30 hours a week total and am a full-time student at Penn. I come from a disadvantaged background, and it would truly have been a remarkable opportunity to have known about that conference, given that my number-one cause for concern about going to law school is finances."

Unfortunately, Garcia and others missed out.

But the blame doesn't lie on the congressman's office or the EAA alone. Penn shares it.

The VPUL's office did not forward information about the conference to the student body, nor did the Office of Career Services.

Instead, there was a general breakdown of communication.

Few students were told of the conference, which has given away scholarship money during six of the 20 conferences that have been held. In addition, the stated purpose of the conference is to increase minority enrollment in Pennsylvania graduate schools, but this leaves the impression that the conference is only open to minorities.

In fact, Wharton and Engineering junior Henry Friedman, who is white, attended the conference and is now eligible for the funds.

The conference addressed an important topic and had the potential to help many people, but its implementation left Fattah's constituents out in the cold.

Stephen Morse is a junior English and history major from Oceanside, N.Y. Morsels of Wisdom appears on Wednesdays.

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