THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2014
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SFS cuts work-study for RAs, tells students mid-semester
Penn’s SFS Director said he regrets how students were notified HUIZHONG WU Staff Writer
On Oct. 1, John, a Nursing junior, was told by a supervisor that he had almost exhausted his work-study grant. When he started working about a month earlier, he had a work-study grant of $3,800. For a student to earn that much money over a period of
a month, he would have had to have been paid $47.50 an hour for 20 hours of work per week. What had actually happened to John was that his workstudy grant had been cut due to a policy change authorized by Student Financial Services that affected residential advisors. The change, which was enacted this semester, drastically reduced the work-study grant for RAs who receive financial aid. John, an RA in the Quad, reached out to SFS personally to figure out where his work-
study money had gone. In response, he received a scanned letter from the office which said that because RAs receive “two special benefits,” his “campus job and summer savings expectations have been eliminated.” The benefits were first, “free housing with a value of $8,688, the median room charge,” and second, a “credit toward your university board contract with a value of $2,261.” What that actually meant for John was that his employer could not pay him from a
work-study budget anymore. But what he could not understand was why SFS told him this in October. “I was confused as to why they would tell me this a month into the semester,” John said, because “they know the list of RAs going into school year.” RAs are generally hired in the spring before the next academic year. “We care deeply about the welfare of all Penn students, and sincerely regret how students were notified,” SFS Director Joel Carstens said in an
PHOTO FEATURE
email statement from Oct. 29 sent by an SFS spokesperson. Representatives from SFS originally declined to be interviewed for this story, but sent the statement after a representative could not be reached in time for an interview on Wednesday. According to SFS, to comply with the federal government’s regulations, Penn needed to reduce several RAs’ federal work-study grantsso that the students’ total aid SEE RA WORK STUDY PAGE 5
PENNOVATION
CARRYING THE WEIGHT TOGETHER
Penn, Drexel follow parallel paths in promoting innovation
Penn students joined others across the country in carrying mattresses and pillows in protest of sexual assault and in support of Emma Sulkowicz , a junior at Columbia University. Sulkowicz made national headlines when she began carrying a mattress around campus as a work of performance art in protest of Columbia’s handling of her sexual assault.
Penn to break ground on South Bank Pennovation Center tomorrow SOPHIA WITTE Staff Writer
As Penn prepares for the ceremonial groundbreaking of the Pennovation Center on Friday, Drexel University’s Innovation Neighborhood is still searching for a master developer. Both universities are pushing to become incubators of commercial enterprise and educational advancement. Since purchasing a 23-acre site on Grays Ferry Avenue in 2010, Penn has been working to develop the Pennovation Center — a three-story, 52,000-square-foot complex that will serve as a hub for research and business ventures. In addition to the ceremonial groundbreaking on Friday, Penn President Amy Gutmann will host a series of “Pennovation Talks” at the South Bank campus. “The Center will bring toSEE PENNOVATION PAGE 8
ERICA LOUIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The comp sci conundrum: Too many people, too little space
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peers,” Brown said. “About 40 percent of our students take an introductory computer science class, and compared to Princeton at 60 percent and Harvard at about 50 percent, we have room to grow.” CIS 120 will be capped at 199 students this spring, which is expected to fill up during pre-registration and to have a wait list, due to a limit on the amount of space. With around 350 students currently enrolled in CIS 110, this poses a problem for non-majors who want to continue their education in this field. CIS lecturer Stephanie Weirich, who will be teaching CIS 120 in the spring, is still confident that
STANFOR D
90%
*CIS 110 & CIS 120
PRIN CE T
60%
HA
While more and more Penn students enroll in entry-level computer science classes, the Computer and Information Science department is struggling to find the resources to keep up. Penn has seen a major increase in the number of students who want to take computer science classes, especially entry-level courses CIS 110 and 120, but has not found the faculty or space to enable all noncomputer science majors to take the classes they want. This increase in computer science enrollment is not new, nor is it unique to Penn. At Stanford University, computer science is
the number one major, and 90 percent of undergrads take at least one computer science class. In a job market where having knowledge of computer science has become increasingly attractive, students are seeing the benefits of basic computer science in their summer job searches, CIS Department Chair Sampath Kannan said. “They see that computer science is not just an academic discipline, it also is important for day to day life,” he added. Computer science lecturer Benedict Brown explained that Penn is actually falling behind its Ivy counterparts in terms of the percentage of students who take an introductory computer science class. “We are below a number of our
COMPUTER SCIENCE
COURSES ACROSS SELECT UNIVERSITIES
ON
EMILY OFFIT Staff Writer
INTRODUCTORY
D AR RV
50%
40%
of Penn students take an introductory computer science class* before they graduate
PENN STUDENTS IN
CIS 110
SEE COMPSCI PAGE 7
ONLINE AT THEDP.COM
400
number of students who took CIS 110 in 2012 (spring, summer and fall semesters)
number of students expected to take CIS 110 in 2014 (spring, summer and fall semesters)
600
Graphic by Sarah Tang/ Design Assistant
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