One University

Introduction

Dear Members of the University Community:

SCUE’s White Paper 2015 focused on Penn’s One University policy and how to best unify the undergraduate experience. It argued that reforming the general course requirements, expanding NSO, placing greater emphasis on the Penn Reading Project, and stronger academic integrity enforcement would result in greater Penn pride and a stronger community. While much progress has been made in student perceptions of divides between the schools since the 2015 publication, SCUE surveyed 1,753 Penn undergraduates, and only 46 percent of students somewhat agreed that their Penn experience reflects this interconnectedness. Moreover, numerous focus groups revealed disparity across schools, such as the external costs, internship funding, and physical spaces on campus. In this section SCUE discusses various initiatives to improve the situation in this regard.

Sincerely,
Arman D. Ramezani, One University Chair
Class of 2020

Internship Funding

Status Quo

For students seeking funding for underpaid or unpaid internships, access to information and funding itself is decentralized through multiple offices, such as P1P, Career Services, and more. There are funding opportunities for FGLI students such as the Highly Aided Summer Funding and Career Services Summer Funding, but many students are not aware that these opportunities exist. Moreover, Civic House provides funding through the Community Engagement Internship Program, giving students funding to support academic and summer social justice internships.

Problem

Internship experiences are an invaluable component of professional and academic success at Penn. In some industries, last-minute recruiting timelines and underpaid and unpaid internships are the norm, and thus prohibitive for many students to pursue. Many internship funding programs application deadlines are early in the semester, which  means that many students looking for funding when they receive an internship offer are not able to apply for any type of funding.

For example, students pursuing a career in politics and public service recognize that while internships are a vital way to begin building a career, many of these internships operate on last-minute timelines and are often unpaid. Programs such as the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative supported students interested in policy through summer funding, but is now defunded.

Solutions

SCUE recommends that Penn centralizes information about current internship funding sources, and brings together various internship funding programs to study student internship funding needs and demand. The University should seek input from students and student organizations to represent the diverse and equally important careers that Penn students wish to pursue, and aim to provide around 20 additional grants per summer specifically toward funding public-service internship opportunities. While many fields sustain inequity by largely offering underpaid and unpaid internships, Penn has the resources to support students to break into these fields during their time at Penn and after graduation. 

Cultural Space Constraints

Status Quo

Three cultural centers (Makuu, PAACH, and La Casa Latina) currently share the basement of ARCH, but are meant to serve at least a quarter of the Penn undergraduate population. Students who need these spaces and resources feel frustrated that they are relegated to the basement, which can be hard for first years to find and does not give adequate visual representation on campus. Currently, the centers have access to ARCH Room 106 and the Fireside Lounge, but these function more as professional or meeting spaces, and are disjointed from the centers themselves because they are on the first floor. In interviews with representatives from the 6B Minority Coalition, students overwhelmingly prefer community-oriented spaces that only a larger space could provide. While the three cultural houses discussed with the Vice Provost for University Life about expanding within ARCH, these organizations feel that aspects such as separate identities and large spaces can only be provided by independent cultural buildings. Robust cultural space helps students’ academic achievement by helping them feel that they belong at Penn and that Penn is invested in their success. Many feel that they do not belong now because they are “pushed” to the basement, while other interests are given more visibility and space. There is no clear plan to help these three cultural groups get adequate, separate physical space on campus. Additionally, there are limited prayer spaces on campus: The Spiritual and Religious Life Center, Huntsman Hall, and the Christian Association space. 

Problem

Cultural organizations do not get adequate physical spaces on campus, considering their roles in academic community building and student wellbeing.

Solutions

Provide each cultural center its own space on campus.

1. Peer institutions do this already. At Yale, each cultural center has its own house: the African American House, Asian American Cultural Center, La Casa Cultural Fashion, and the Native American Cultural Center. Additionally, each constituent group within the cultural organizations has access to room reservation bookings. SCUE suggests that Penn allocates any space that becomes available or is available on Locust Walk as space for cultural centers and other important resources. For example, when a fraternity on Locust has its charter revoked, their house can be retrofitted to serve as a large, physical space for minority students. An immediate example of such a space is the “Skulls House,” formerly Phi Kappa Sigma, located at 3539 Locust.

2. SCUE recommends a greater dispersion in prayer spaces on campus to be convenient for students, and making sure these spaces conform to cultural/religious practices. For example, restrooms must have sinks for people to be able to wash their feet before prayer. Currently, there is only one sink for this in Houston Hall.
   

Looking forward to 2025

SCUE hopes that by 2025, plans will be in place to provide each of the three cultural centers with separate buildings on campus, if such actions have not already been completed. This step would greatly benefit the students who participate in these organizations and provide them reassurance that Penn is committed to their wellbeing. Furthermore, by 2025 the Body would like to see greater access to prayer spaces as well as necessities for specific religious/cultural practices.

Bathroom Constraints

Status Quo

There has been a slow rollout of all-gender bathrooms within Penn facilities. There are no all-gender restrooms in Penn Park or DRL., At Pottruck, one must walk through a gendered entry to get to a single-use room. In the Nursing School, there is a significantly higher number of females compared to males. Thus, female students travel to up to four floors in order to find open bathroom stalls, while their male counterparts can use the restroom next to the auditorium hall with virtually no wait. The only single-stall bathroom is on the third floor of Fagin Hall.

Problem

For trans and nonbinary students, all-gender bathrooms are necessary for inclusivity. Making bathrooms more accessible for everyone creates a better learning environment. Students who have to go to higher floors or a different building to use the restroom may be losing valuable class time and their concentration in class, which decreases academic performance. Penn needs more all-gender bathrooms. Multi-stall all-gender restrooms are less separate than single-stall bathrooms and are more equalizing.

Solutions

SCUE recommends:

1. The University considers the cost-effectiveness of all-gender bathrooms. In new buildings, the cost would be the same to build all-gender restrooms since there is the same number of fixtures, but it would be more expensive to add all-gender restrooms in existing buildings.

2. The University considers the layout of these bathrooms. All-gender bathrooms should be multi-stall – like the bathrooms in the McNeil Building or the Lauder Institute – with a changing table., LGBT Center Director Erin Cross notes how including all-gender restrooms during the design phase of buildings is cheaper than retrofitting gendered bathrooms.

Looking forward to 2025

As the changes SCUE recommends would foster greater inclusivity and reflects the growing demand for such change on campus, the Body hopes to see action taken by the University to reach 30 percent gender-neutral bathrooms in all Penn buildings by 2025. This ratio would reflect the diversity of campus representation in this respect.