From the Chair

An Academic Development Center
 
      
"Periodically during its long history the University has found it necessary to debate its purposes, its organization and its intellectual and financial needs."  
Thus began the 1973 report, Pennsylvania: One University (Almanac, January 29, 1973).  That report concluded that "our greatest potential strength and uniqueness lies both in our historic linkage of professional education and the liberal arts and sciences, and in our contemporary advantage of the close physical proximity of our schools on one campus." 

We now stand at the dawn of a new administration and once again we should consider the purposes, the organization and the intellectual and financial needs of the University.  Today, as was true twenty-one years ago, the greatest potential strength and uniqueness of the University is the presence of our professional and liberal arts programs on the same campus.  Penn will prosper, not by imitating another school no matter how prestigious the other school may be, but by building on those strengths that are unique to Penn.

Cooperation between individuals in different schools occurs with great regularity.  Collegiality is strong and all one really needs to do is pick up the phone or send email to communicate with a colleague.  Despite the fact that individual collaboration occurs on a regular basis, that collaboration is seldom institutionalized in a manner that includes other faculty and provides a basis for undergraduate and graduate study.  Among the Centers that have been institutionalized the Laboratory for Research in the Structure of Matter, the Institute for Research on Cognitive Science and the program on The Biological Basis of Behavior contribute significantly to the strength of the University.  In addition, the new programs in Environmental Science and Bioethics have the potential to make a significant contribution to intraschool activities.

The 1973 report called for the creation of an Academic Development Fund (envisioned at that time at $2.5 million per year), two thirds of which would be used to plan initiate, support, or test programs with particular emphasis on projects that strengthen One University.  The needs for this fund were so critical for "the future growth and planning of the University" that the report recommended taxing the individual schools to raise the funds.  Despite the emphasis placed on the Academic Development Fund it has disappeared from view and the funds intended to support it have been used for other purposes.

The need for an Academic Development Fund to serve as a catalyst for intraschool and intradepartmental programs is perhaps even stronger today than it was in 1973.  An ad hoc committee of the Faculty Senate chaired by Harvey Rubin of the School of Medicine has been meeting this year and discussing ways of fostering disciplines that transcend individual schools or departments.  One of the proposals being considered by that committee is the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Center.  This Center would allow the University to explore the possibility of creating new centers and enhancing disciplines that transcend the individual schools and departments.

The Center would be an environment in which faculty from throughout the University interested in a common theme could be brought together to explore the possibility of creating a Center or Institute around that theme.  Each theme or program would last several years during which distinguished faculty from outside the University would be invited to be resident scholars.  The program would be linked to a series of public lectures as well as seminars and special courses open to students from all schools.  During the last year of the program it will be evaluated and a decision will be made on the need for the creation of a new administrative unit and on its ability to continue as part of one or more schools.  Examples of candidates for this program include public policy and certain fields in the molecular basis of medicine.

I call upon the new administration to appoint a faculty committee representative of the academic community to explore plans for the creation and funding of such a center.