Pennsylvania Balances Actuality Against Hope of Valued Learning

On page seven of the University of Pennsylvania's freshman handbook, a high-minded quote from Ben Franklin, the founder of the University, appears: "The instruction of youth is one of those employments which to the public are most useful; it ought therefore to be esteemed among the most honorable. Its successful exercise does not, however, always meet with the reward it merits, except in the satisfaction of having contributed to the forming of virtuous and able men for the service of their country."

Noble sentiments, these. Thus it seems incongruous, to say the least, when one finds three pages later the following "Freshman Regulations:"

"1. 'Dinks' and buttons will be worn daily until 7 p.m...

"2. There will be no regulations on weekends, except for the Saturday football games when 'dink' and button regulations will be strictly enforced."

"Dinks" are ludicrous beanies that rarely fit and are greatly unbecoming to the freshman. Regulation number four tries to justify the wearing of the caps: "The purpose...is to instill the true spirit of Pennsylvania into the Class of '63.'

These two facets of life at Penn--the Franklin ideal and the largely self-styled "spirit of Pennsylvania"--show at once both the best and worst of the Philadelphia university. On the one hand there is the recognition of the value of learning as shown in the laudable efforts of president Gaylord P. Harnwell to raise the school's standards. On the other, many students refuse to grow up; this immaturity, born in the undergraduate body and often unwittingly cultivated by the faculty and administration, makes the University of Pennsylvania seem at times like high school revisited.

In direct contrast to the University's theoretical stand in favor of individuality, initiative, student responsibility, and the right to individual expression, the Administration assumes an often stifling concern for the welfare and conduct of Penn students. It is highly unlikely that students at any other Ivy League institution received a letter this summer from the president stating, "...it has been my custom to write a letter calling attention to certain qualities which we feel the University may properly expect of its students. Foremost among these are honesty, self-reliance, a high standard of personal conduct, and a concern for the name of the University in its relationship with the community in which it is situated ... we expect our students to exhibit becoming conduct at all times, to be courteous in all their relations with other people, and to show a careful regard for property belonging to others."

Yet, President Harnwell sent a copy containing these admonitions to every Penn student last September. As one student put it, "This letter is known in Penn circles as the 'On Being Good' letter. It is evidence of the administration's opinion of the level of maturity of the students. It even looks like evidence of a policy to keep that level low."

Nearly everywhere, differences between the University's stated policy and actual practice--a perpetual falling-short, a hypocrisy of ideals--become evident. The Deans paint a picture of a system of campus life that seems both infallible and utopian, but harsh reality reveals an embarrassing similarity between Penn's methods of guaranteeing the right kind of environment and the technique used in the more successful Eastern finishing schools.

One outstanding exception to the weaknesses of many aspects of the University is President Harnwell's Survey. This revolutionary report, designed to investigate and revamp every facility of the University, has already produced heartening results. Nearly every official office at Penn displays prominently the fat, red-bound notebooks that contain the Survey's findings to date. Although Harnwell still has a long way to go if he wants to make Penn's College of Arts and Sciences equal to those of the top-ranked institutions, he has at least raised the level of instruction in many of the other undergraduate colleges.

The twelve colleges give Harnwell much room to apply his theories. In addition to the Arts and Sciences school and its women's counterpart, Harnwell presides over the School of Chemical Engineering, the School of Civil Engineering, the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, the School of Mechanical Engineering, the School of Metallurgical Engineering, the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, the School of Education, the School of Fine Arts, the School of Nursing, and the School of Allied Medical Professions.

Wharton has, for a long time, served as Penn's focal point, both in sheer number and in outlook; and it is in the business school that the next major changes initiated by the Survey will probably take place. In the past five years, however, more emphasis has been placed on the College of Arts and Sciences. This fall, for the first time, freshmen in the College outnumber Wharton matriculatants, and Admissions Director Robert H. Pitt II predicts that the balance of the entire University will eventually shift toward Arts and Sciences.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of the desire to improve is shown by the growth of independent study programs in the junior and senior years. Under the careful direction of Dr. E. Sculley Bradley, vice-Provost for undergraduate studies, the College's English department has established a plan for individual research with only two formal course requirements--a regular class in Junior year and a senior seminar in the major field. Bradley foresees a continuation of the trend toward independent work, and other departments are working to formalize programs similar to that for English concentrators.

Bradley admits readily that he is far from happy with the present tutorial and advisory system at Penn. "We don't have a tutorial system--it is not consisten with our tradition," he says. But, he adds, "I wish our counselling methods had worked out better. Each incoming freshman gets an academic adviser, who usually becomes his sophomore supervisor as well. The function of the adviser during the first two years is at best loosely defined, and many underclassmen rarely see the men assigned to them. When students begin to concentrate in the junior year, they receive a "major adviser," who works closely with them, planning courses and helping with other academic decisions. The job of major adviser is a difficult one, and there are not enough men to go around. "We are not spending enough money on what is a good system in theory," Bradley laments.

Ultimately, those concerned with the Survey are aiming at increased fluidity in the years of undergraduate and graduate education. "We want to break down the division between the College and grad school," Bradley says. To achieve this end, every student prepares a senior essay, and Honors candidates must complete an ambitious paper, equivalent in depth and difficulty to a Master's thesis.

Furthermore, the College is concerned with raising its standards. At present a B average allows a student to go for Honors degree, and a C- qualifies an undergraduate to enter a major field of study. Honors concentrators who fall below B- level in their work are reclassified as Pass majors, and candidates for a regular degree cannot remain in their major field if their average falls below C-. Students disqualified from concentration must raise their grades to the required level to gain re-admittance. Bradley calls both minimums--especially the C- requirement--"too low," and he is determined to up them soon.

With Pitt as the guiding hand, the University's admissions program has expanded its scope and thoroughness. For decades, Penn was little more than a state college, drawing a huge proportion of its enrollment from Philadelphia and surrounding areas. In relatively recent time, commuters made up 40 per cent of the undergraduate population. Now they number only 17 per cent of the student body, and the decline is due to more than the construction of new dormitories. The University now draws men from a wider geographical range than ever before, thanks to its expended and still growing Admissions Traveling Program. George B. Peters, Dean of Men, will soon leave Philadelphia for a week of canvassing the Kansas City-St. Louis area. Only one of many administration and faculty members who search the country yearly for Penn prospects, he will visit 20 schools and numerous alumni groups in an attempt to attract good students from beyond the limits of the Main Line.

Peters calls Penn, with its conformists and non-conformists, fraternity members and dormitory inhabitants, and foreign and domestic students, "the most complex of the Ivy schools." But certain aspects of the administration's wide-eyed reaction to the off-the-beaten-path undergraduates suggests Penn is not so catholic as it might seem. Dean Pitt, arguing the case for diversity, used for an example, "Rick Cuthbert, our hurdles record-holder. He's a fraternity member, but he lives in a dorm because he wants to meet all sorts of interesting people. He has just met a Chinese boy who is absolutely fascinating." And Willis J. Winn, Dean of the Wharton School, countered charges of harboring organization men by coyly pointing out, "We have some with beards with us, too."

Members of the administration become highly annoyed at the suggestion that Penn, for all its efforts, is still the school of the Ivy look and the organization man. "The 'Ivy League look' is the business--an awful phrase," Pitt maintains. "In fact, Dean Bender of Harvard wrote the Ivy admissions directors a letter offering a bottle of whiskey for the man who could think of a new name." Pitt tries to prove his point by quoting students who usually complain that "there are not enough people like themselves, rather than the reverse." Yet, if the students themselves seem to prefer homogenity to heterogeneity, Pitt's argument loses its validity. Winn asserts that Penn has "less conformity than you'll find in other Ivy colleges," but he nearly defeats his own point when he says "You can't tell a Wharton student from a College man."

Penn has a complex system for regulating undergraduate affairs, which operates under the aegis of Dean Peters. As simply as possible, the organization is as follows: a University Committee on Student Affairs sets policy for the Dean. The Dean's office is responsible to the vice-president for Student Affairs, who works with a Trustee Committee of Student Affairs. The University Committee is chosen by the faculty senate (all those holding the rank of assistant professor or higher), the President, and the Undergraduate Council. In cases which demand disciplinary action, the University Committee of Discipline convenes. This committee consists of five men from the faculty or administration and three students from either the men's or women's Undergraduate Council, dependent upon the gender of the wrongdoer. "In cases that involve both a man and woman," Peters smilingly points out, "we have two separate hearings." The only appeal of the disciplinary committee's decisions must be directed to the President.

The hand of the administration reaches even into the traditional hangout of freedom, the fraternity. Dean Peters last year introduced the novel idea of having a resident adviser in the various frat houses. "Ten fraternities have done this voluntarily; with the great improvement this practice has brought about, we hope it will grow and expand," Peters says. Still, for all its committees and representatives, the Dean's office likes to posture itself as a benevolent despot. Peters explains, "There is a certain number of necessary rules. We try to interfere as little as possible with student affairs."

The same attitude of non-interference extends to the faculty, in practice almost as much as in theory. Individualism never strays far from the minds of the Administration. Bradley concludes the argument for freedom of action and thought with an explanation of the University's ability to attract and hold good men without paying high salaries. "At other places there is always a pattern you have to live in. Penn is very individualistic; if a man does a good job and maintains his contacts, he is safe here."

Still, Bradley says the freedom allowed instructors--"they can teach their courses any way they see fit"--can be bad, as well as good. "If there were more supervision, shabby work would be reduced." To some, this may seem contradictory. Further-more, "If I want to say something radical, I don't have to worry," says Bradley. He conveys the impression of a University based, from the President down to the students, on individualism and responsibility. This view is the one the administration and faculty put forth to the world, and it is probably the one they believe. Yet some flaws are readily apparent.

"Dinks" are one symptom of an acute childishness that affects the student body. These inane freshman beanies do not speak well for a University with a public credo of individualism and dignity. Hypocrisy shows forth in different attitudes toward this custom. Dean Peters describes the requirement--all freshmen must wear dinks--as a sort of harmless, inoffensive jest which is not strictly enforced. Yet freshmen will attest to the violence of the rule's administrators, and only brave or foolish men will defy the kangaroo court which orders them to display their dinks and buttons.

Junior Weekend in Philadelphia gives the students a chance to display their dinks, buttons, or skimmers. The festivities started Thursday with the traditional Cane Walk, in which the juniors parade around the campus wth bought ($1.30) or borrowed canes that symbolize the advancement from a wise fool to an to an upperclassman. A pep rally followed that night. On Friday night the Junir Prom took place, replete with Prom Queen and all the trappings. The fraternities made posters for the Navy football game, and a group of blazered, skimmered Penn humorists trotted out a she-goat with a sign saying, "Betty-Mistress of Bill." Bill, of course, is the justly famed goat. After an unsuccessful attempt at a "freshmen on the field" manuever--an old custom that this year's newcomers have been trying to perpetuate without any notable efficiency--the Penn spectators took up the various Quaker cheers and chants, which freshmen must learn religiously. The entire proceedings resembled the Friday night game back home all too closely.

The near-mimicry of high school carries over into the classroom. Few lecture courses are given in the University's undergraduate program, and virtually none in the Wharton School. There are, in most courses, regular assignments, frequent quizzes, and emphasis on recitation. The degree requirements in the College ask only that the student compile 32 semester credits of a total of 128 in his major field; there are no general examinations. Although students evince great conscientiousness about class attendance--perhaps since the administration permits only six cuts per course per term--intellectual concern does not extend to the dormitories, dining halls, and fraternities. Many intelligent students complain about the lack of intellectual companionship and challenge outside of class. The loud blare of popular music fills the air all day.

In its choice of leaders, the student body looks for the all-American boy. John Jerbasi, president of the Undergraduate Council, is a top NROTC5A campus policeman vainly attempts to restore order as students battle for a piece of the goal posts following last week's game against Navy. In the background, a fraternity poster appears, urging the then-undefeated and untied football team to defeat the Midshipmen. The two teams tied, 22 to 22.