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Old Posted Jun 13, 2019, 8:06 AM
mja mja is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 477
Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown View Post
Penn is already a jaugernaut, but if it made a few tweaks to its future strategy, I feel like it could be a behemoth.

My wishes.

1. Increase undergraduate enrollment by 500-1,000 students. I know colleges like to cap enrollment to keep their acceptance numbers down, etc, but the reality is the country adds 20-30MM people every ten years. It is my understanding most of the country's most elite institutions (Penn included) haven't increased enrollment in years, at least at the undergraduate level.

Further, to stay competitive as a country, we need MORE people receiving education of this caliber...not fewer.

2. Supercharge the Computer (and Data Science) Departments. It's sort of embarrassing Penn seems to have no interest in competing in this field, but rather seems content to continue to position itself as a feeder school for the NY banks.

3. Adopt more elementary schools in West Philly. Penn has the resources and has proven its model works. Time to add Lea or Powell or schools further west to the Penn Alexander Model. I know this was a part of Jamie Gauthier's platform (in winning Jannie's seat). Get on it.
There have been efforts to get Penn to partner with Lea. Thus far, they've balked at the idea. Drexel is building a new school for Powell at uCity Square and has some level of affiliation with them, so I doubt we see Penn do anything with them. They don't really need to, anyway, Powell is a fairly popular / successful K-4 school as-is.

Also, there is no Penn Alexander model, per se. Teachers are drawn from the same pool as any other district school, curriculum is the same as any other district school. Penn pays to keep class size low and does fund a liaison / coordinator type position, but that's it really. It's not the model that's successful (well, smaller class size definitely helps), it's the Ivy League name that entices well-educated upper middle class families to send their kids there in large numbers that really drives the school's success. In other words, it's marketing.