Opinion Board | Turn it down

If you believe campus brochures, attending class at Penn is something of a transcendent experience.

Wide-eyed students utilize their diverse backgrounds to spar intellectually while a charismatic professor imbues his pupils with the "practical knowledge" they need to become leaders of tomorrow.

Courses routinely fall short of this romantic ideal, but the constant pounding of jackhammers outside classrooms pretty much ensures it.

The University is now entering the second phase of renovations on the School of Nursing's Claire M. Fagin Hall. We applaud the administration for the much-needed renovations to the 35 year old building, but it is unacceptable for the construction to be interrupting classes.

Pat Burke, executive director of finance and administration at the Nursing School, told the DP earlier this year that disruptions to classes in Fagin would be minimal. They're not.

The stop-and-start nature of the booming construction is hardly conducive to a positive learning environment. It impedes students' ability to concentrate and professors' ability to lecture coherently.

Meanwhile, construction on the new $22 million Annenberg Public Policy Center near 36th and Walnut streets is well underway and having a similarly distracting effect on students taking classes in the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall. Frankly, it is disrespectful to professors and it is disrespectful to students.

Classes weren't held at Fagin Hall over the summer for these reasons, but citing course registration concerns, the University opted to hold classes there this semester.

That's not good enough.

Penn should have done a far better job coordinating class times and locations to avoid these problems.

With no end in sight to construction around campus, Penn would do well to consider these issues in the future.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.