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 NROTC