Word: penn
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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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...
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...
...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...
...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...
...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...