Becoming Penn by Puckett John L.;Lloyd Mark;

Author:Puckett, John L.;Lloyd, Mark;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

An Echo of In-Ho Oh

Shortly after her arrival in 100 College Hall, Rodin faced the disturbing reality of the urban crisis on Penn’s doorstep. On the night of 29 August 1994, Al-Moez Alimohamed, a PhD candidate in the Mathematics Department, was beaten, robbed, and shot to death at a phone booth near the corner of 48th and Pine streets, eight blocks west of the campus. The perpetrators were five African American youths, one of whom wielded a sawed-off shotgun. In the wake of the killing, Penn Faculty and Staff for Neighborhood Issues (PFSNI) importuned Rodin to “do something now,” “to act immediately on the recommendations PFSNI has been pressing for the past two years.” On behalf of the steering committee, the Penn historian Lynn Lees called on the new president “to make the revitalization of West Philadelphia and University City in particular, the highest priority of the University of Pennsylvania.” PFSNI called for the creation of a “special services district” and a multipronged initiative:

Mr. Alimohamed’s death illustrates tragically the highly dangerous conditions of the neighborhoods west of 40th Street, conditions that spill onto the Penn campus with alarming regularity and diminish the spirit, confidence, and vitality of the University. More police cars, escort vans, and blue-light telephones—while undeniably necessary—are not the answer to University City’s security problems. The solution, we believe, lies in investment—a decisive, strategic financial involvement and engagement of academic resources to assist the revitalization of West Philadelphia. That the West Philadelphia youths who have been charged in the murder of Mr. Alimohamed are residents of an area outside the traditional boundaries of University City underscores, in our judgment, the need for a major community revitalization effort that includes, but extends well beyond, the University’s immediate geographic area.4

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