Zach Fuchs | Take charge of your education

Today marks the beginning of SCUE's annual Education Week. For two decades, students have used this week as a time to reflect beyond requirements and recruiting, deciding for themselves what it means to be an active learner at Penn.

During a semester in France, I saw my classmates physically barricade their university for four weeks: occupying the buildings, shutting down debate and scuffling with riot police to show their dissatisfaction with the government's university reform proposal.

When the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education formed in 1965 to push a student-centered agenda, students were similarly disenfranchised.

Respect for tradition stifled innovation in education. As cultural norms underwent a seismic transformation throughout the nation, SCUE published a provocative White Paper that stirred campuses nationwide with its powerful message: Take Charge of Your Education.

Such movements are the product of disempowerment. Today, we are privileged to attend a world-class University whose administration reaches out to students.

But we cannot become complacent, and we must never stop challenging the status quo.

Penn is resource-rich but information-poor. That's why SCUE works to improve tools that we use to make informed curricular decisions, from pre-major advising to Penn Course Review.

As we register for classes, we have access to the syllabi of only 12 percent of courses offered. SEAS reacted to our Syllabi Online Proposal by creating an online repository, and it's time for the College to follow suit.

The University's decentralized structure also leaves us unaware of dozens of campus events each day. You read The Daily Pennsylvanian story and wish you could have known earlier! Imagine a University calendar, open to all departments and student groups. You could click: Athletic, Political, Cultural, Academic. It's a simple project that would create a tangible shift in Penn's culture towards intellectual community and unity across boundaries.

Active education is a pillar of the SCUE agenda. The etymology of "education", from the Latin ducere ("to lead") would suggest traditional notions of the student as object, being led down a predetermined path. SCUE's Problem-Solving Learning (PSL) initiative provides a counterpoint.

Students and faculty are collaborating to solve problems that don't come with answers in the back of the book.

For example, undergraduates interested in health and nutrition partnered with faculty and the Netter Center's Penn Programs for Public Service to address the problem of inadequate health in urban areas. Penn's Engineers Without Borders are contributing the University's intellectual capital to basic community needs in Honduras, in Cameroon and even in Philadelphia.

Both groups have expressed interest in creating more course opportunities within the curriculum, and SCUE hopes to build a program in sustainable development that bridges the PSL model with formal theory.

Knowledge creation is the university's ultimate obligation to society, and we believe that problem-solving and undergraduate research can be Penn's comparative advantage.

To urge the Provost to fund more endeavors like these, five PSL collaborative clusters will contribute to SCUE's Teach-In on Friday.

SCUE functions as a branch of Penn Student Government, yet we draw inspiration from our activist history. With Education Week 2008 serving as a catalyst, SCUE aims to return to its roots.

Your voice matters, and we seek your ideas. The Web of Conversations on Tuesday evening will gather students at campus cafés to think critically about the deficiencies and opportunities before us.

We challenge you to take charge of your education. Visit us at www.scue.org.

Let's push all stakeholders to make Penn the most innovative learning environment that it can be.

Zach Fuchs is chairman of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and a College and Wharton Junior.

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