Christina Domenico | A better BFS program

I often wonder about the point of many things: "recommended" books for class, bug-eye sunglasses, the food court at 34th and Walnut streets. But my recent ponderings have been about the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program.

The majority of BFS students are mysteriously selected as incoming freshmen and must take at least one Benjamin Franklin seminar per year to graduate with recognition as a scholar. Those who go the extra mile by taking at least seven seminars and completing a research project earn an extra certificate upon graduation.

It sounds great on paper, but where's the real value? Most majors require seminar courses already, most students prefer them to larger classes and anyone can sign up for a Benjamin Franklin seminar (one-third of the classes are reserved for non-BFS students). It really doesn't offer that much beyond the normal Penn experience. Unless you have a penchant for taking as many obscure classes as possible.

Faculty Director Paul Heiney said the program "provides both BFS and the undergraduate community a set of exciting and challenging seminars."

Which it really does, but since you can take those classes whether or not you're in the program, there's little added benefit for those who are.

Linda Wiedmann, associate advisor for BFS, told me that the top five percent of incoming freshmen are selected for the BFS program.

Interested freshmen and sophomores can also apply to BFS, which involves a faculty evaluation, though "not as many as we'd like" do, according to Heiney.

It seems a hassle to go through an application process for a seminar program that offers classes you can already enroll in. That's just asking for more busy work.

College senior Andrew Reich was selected as a BFS before entering Penn. Currently enrolled in his sixth and seventh BFS courses and on track to receive a certificate, he said the program gives him "the opportunity to take classes that I normally wouldn't have taken, classes that don't fall within my majors or my requirements."

While the program, he told me, didn't really impact his overall Penn experience, it did set his academic experience apart. But he recognizes that many students only take what's required, adding that "a lot of people take only four BFS classes because the certificate doesn't really mean a lot."

The events hosted by the BFS Student Activities Committee don't seem to mean a lot to BFS students, either.

Heiney said attendance is fairly low at the events, which include faculty teas and fireside chats. I can't imagine why that is - a tea is both out of date and out of the country. But it's what the students want to hold, and they continue to do so with little support.

Reich told me that due to his extracurriculars, he's never attended any of the events, though they sound interesting to him based on the descriptions. But he also said, "I don't know anyone that goes to them."

With great class offerings, BFS has the potential to have a strong campus presence.

But with low involvement by students outside the classroom - probably due to the fact that they already have hundreds of extracurriculars to take care of - there's little cohesion among the group members.

Heiney called it a "branding problem," saying that "people don't really know what it is."

If the BFS program wants to be a true group on campus rather than an arbitrary label for students who take a few extra seminars, it needs to solve that problem by clearly defining its image.

It can start by creating new events designed to boost student attendance and raise awareness of the program's offerings. Leave the tea to the 19th century and invent new ways to foster professor-student interaction.

One component of a successful academic program already exists, but the program should offer more than just great classes.

Until it does, its true value will remain a big question mark.

Christina Domenico is a College senior from North Wildwood, N.J. Her e-mail is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Wednesdays.

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