Back in 1998, my employer, the University of Pennsylvania, created a mortgage incentive plan: the idea was and is to encourage Penn-affiliated families (staff and faculty) to choose to live in Penn’s neighborhood rather than the Main Line or South Jersey. I had wanted my family to live in West Philly and this was just indeed the incentive I needed. I was the first Penn person to use the plan; probably that is why the Philadelphia Business Journal came out to the house to do a story on the program featuring my move. If one goal of this project was to induce faculty to be more present on campus and more involved in the life of the university’s neighbors, I think it surely worked in my case. The main force behind this innovative program – and the mortgage incentive system was just one part of it — was Judy Rodin, then president of the university. In the fall of ’06 I invited Judy back to Penn (she’d left to run the Rockefeller Foundation) to give a talk about the urban university. We recorded this talk, and I also produced a podcast about it.
West Philly is home