The Sum of the Parts?

"I did it! I knocked over the president of the university!" shouted the jubilant senior, raising his can of Schlitz in a toast as the sodden but smiling administrator pulled himself out of the dunking booth.

The place was the Lower Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where two weeks ago students were celebrating the last week of classes and blowing off a little pre-finals pressure at the annual Spring Fling. In the carnival-like atmosphere, filled with strains of rock and the smell of hamburgers and beer, thousands of students relax under the approving eye of the administration. The first impression the outside observer gets is that Penn students take themselves seriously, but not too seriously to preclude a weekend of total chaotic fun.

Although this weekend is certainly atypical of normal life, many students agree with freshman Sarah K Wolf, who thinks "the atmosphere here is fantastic People know when to study, and know when to have fun." Hope R. Kider, a sophomore who transferred from the University of Rochester, says she found at Penn the perfect mix of academics, extracurriculars, and social life.

Yet, first impressions can be deceiving "After Spring Fling, you'll never see these people out again. It's the only weekend many people put down their books," comments Dante A. Goreno, a sophomore in Penn's Wharton School, a business undergraduate and graduate school.

For the outside observer, this seeming paradox becomes the key to understanding Penn. With 9000 students divided among four undergraduate schools, it is not surprising to find that the University of Pennsylvania is an institution of contradictions and contrasts. On one level, the students and the administration seem well satisfied with the university and the direction in which it is going. But underneath lies issues and problems that are only beginning to be addressed.

While Spring Fling has been a fixture at Penn for over 10 years, it has become increasingly valuable as a respite from academic pressure, which both officials and students claim are more prevalent this year than ever before Dr. Sam Fager, director of Penn's student health and counseling services explains that this buildup of stress has become so noticeable recently that it prompted health officials to call for a two-day break from classes in late October to help students to "depressurize." Administrators were interested in the idea, and say they will include the break in the 1984-85 calendar.

"Students are finding Penn to be a more competitive place than it was several years ago, and they get depressed by all that work," Fager says, adding that the increased concern with grades and achievement is due to economic factors such as the high cost of a private education and the difficulty in finding jobs after graduation.

Many students claim that the pressure they feel is due to an excessive amount of grade consciousness and pre-professionalism, problems intensified by the presence of three undergraduate schools--the Wharton School, the Engineering School, and the Nursing School--which prepare their students specifically for a career. Among the students in the College of Arts and Sciences--which includes more than 60 percent of the undergraduate population--there are complaints that the pre-professionalism affects more than just the pre-med or pre-law students.

"There's a definite emphasis on taking courses that will get you a job rather than courses that you'll enjoy," says James R. Ojemann, a senior in the college who plans a government career in national security. "Seventy-five percent of these people don't care what they learn, but what kind of grade they get," he adds.

Pam S. Seidenman, a junior in the college and chair of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, explains that when the Faculty recently proposed the addition of plus minus grading to the present straight letter mark scheme, the majority of students were against it.

"The professors felt it would lead to more accurate grading, but the students argued that it would lead to increased stress and wouldn't make a difference, since grading is really arbitrary anyway and to make it more arbitrary would be a farce." Seidenman says, adding that some students feel that grade competition is already so bad that the plus minus change will not really matter.

It would not be fair to say that all Penn students are caught up in this preoccupation, and certainly the concern for grades and jobs is found on campuses throughout the nation. However, the difference here between Penn and several other Ivy League schools lies in the preprofessional undergraduate schools, and the attitude the administration is only beginning to change.

"Preprofessionalism has been Penn's personality for a long time--excellent preprofessional preparation," explains university president Sheldon Hackney, adding that the challenge now is to combine that with a strong liberal arts education. "The opportunity to do that is better here than anywhere else," Hackney says, "because we have built-in mechanisms for student-faculty interaction across the schools and across disciplinary barriers."

While administrators like to emphasize their "One University" concept--a place where all students can benefit from the resources of the undergraduate schools and the eight graduate schools--the reality is far from the ideal, especially in the case of Wharton.

Wharton began as an independent entity in 1881, the oldest collegiate school of business in the United States. Now absorbed into the University, Wharton retains much of its independence and limits the use of its separate facilities by other university members. Consisting of both undergraduate and graduate divisions, Wharton is regarded as one of the finest business programs in the nation, ranking up with Harvard, Stanford and other top graduate schools.

"If someone asks me where I go, I usually say Wharton... the students want a name for themselves more than Penn," says Goreno. Although the snobbishness, separatism, and preprofessionalism of Wharton students tends to be exaggerated, according to most students--who cite frequent humorous jabs at Wharton and its students in the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper--there is the undercurrent of feeling that the reputation of the rest of the university is not up to par with the caliber of Wharton.

The problem of Penn's image is not new, but it has received considerable attention in the past five years. In 1977, Martin Meyerson, then president of the university, acknowledged that "Students and faculty for years have seen themselves as orphans in the Ivy League and elsewhere." A public relations firm was hired to discover what produced this inferiority complex, and to determine how that poor image would affect the university's ability to attract the best applicants.

Five years later, the median SAT of accepted students rose over 1300, and the entering class of 1987 promises to be more geographically diverse than its predecessors. Although George Koval, acting assistant provost for university life, admits that the admissions office has actively moved to "touch pockets of candidates in other areas of the nation where we might not have touched before," he does not see any concerted effort on the administration's part to improve the public image, nor does he consider it a serious problem.

In fact, although Penn may have the reputation for being "the doormat of the Ivies" and a "safety school," a recent student survey showed that more than 60 percent of the undergraduate population selected Penn as their first choice school. Students continue to wear the popular "NOT PENN STATE" shirts--a reference to public misunderstanding of Penn's Ivy League status, and of the fact that Penn is different from the similarly named football power--but it has become more of a joke than a serious concern.

Phoebe Leboy, past chair of the Faculty Senate, explains that the real problem now is one of "perception versus reality." "Up to the late 1950s, Penn did not have the high academic standards of the other Ivy schools, but then it underwent a large program of capital and academic improvement," Leboy says, adding that the public recognition is now beginning to catch up with the reality of Penn's academic excellence.

Spread over 240 acres across the Schuylkill River from downtown Philadelphia, and isolated from its lower-middle class, predominantly Black neighbors, the single campus is home for all of Penn's graduate and undergraduate schools. The sheer size of the school both physically and in enrollment tends to breed diversity and differences sometimes too much according to some students.

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Amidst the camaraderie of Spring Fling--"it's like one big hugging party," comments a freshman the inevitable problem of the lack of a feeling of unity in the student body remains apparent. The difficulties stem in part not only from the number of people, but from the structure of the system.

"There's more fragmentation here than in most schools due to all the residential problems." explains freshman Andrea Levine. There are a wide variety of housing options, and more than 30 percent of undergraduates live off campus. College Houses--similar to Harvard's House system--and Living and Learning Programs cater to special interests, including health issues, Afro American culture, foreign languages, and the arts. The 80 year-old traditional Quadrangle stands in juxtaposition to the "Superblock"--three high-rise apartment buildings with suites, many of which with their own kitchens--while fraternity houses dot the main walk of the campus.

With students from all four undergraduate schools and all four classes living together, but spread among the different types of residence, there is the contrasting sense of a large community split into many smaller isolated groups, especially among minorities. "You can live here a year and never meet anyone from the floor above," complains one Superblock resident, although most students will quickly defend the openness and friendly atmosphere.

Administrators recognize the problems, and claim to be working to foster increased faculty student and student-student interaction to improve the undergraduate experience.

"It's too big a community to be considered one community," says Mary Spata, assistant Director of Student Life, adding that the challenge now is "to shrink the psychological size of the University, to create more of a sense of unity, to help people find their place."

Among the students themselves, the contrast in opinions about Penn almost makes it seem as if they are discussing different schools.

Missy Cohen, a freshman in the College, calls Penn "a very spirited school, with a very spirited atmosphere." Her classmate, Maryanne C. Wysell, points to exciting, campus-wide event like Spring Fling and this year's Harvard-Pennsylvania football showdown for a stake of the Ivy title (Penn won, 23-21) as times when "it seems as if the whole university is there."

Liz Cooper, a senior in the college and a former chairperson of the Undergraduate Assembly, Penn's student government, sees her school in a different light.

"Penn is not a community--it's a resource center. It's a focused singular environment where people come in and take what they want, and then they leave," Cooper says, adding that if students can find their own niche--she points to the increasing popularity of the college houses and Penn's 30 fraternities and sororities as examples of students seeking a sense of community--"Penn gets smaller, and better."

The average Penn student is only here to get his degree and graduate. Cooper continues, noting that student apathy is so prevalent that in a recent referendum to abolish the Undergraduate Assembly, the referendum passed but was not binding since less than 20 percent of the eligible undergraduates voted.

Although they contrast sharply in their view of Penn and her problem, Cooper, Wysell, Cohen, and many of their fellow students would agree on one thing: they are proud of their school. They don't want to be Harvard or Yale; they want Penn to be the best it can be.

"Ideally, we can have the best of both worlds, says Hackney. "We can be a large, diverse, exciting university with a strong sense of community and support, with each member feeling that he belongs," he added.