The Blogger Discovers That >1 Person is Murdered Each Day In Philadelphia

The University of Pennsylvania employs a private police force of 100 armed officers to protect students from crime. Others have pointed out to me the high murder rate in Philadelphia, as shown in the map above. If you look at the map, you can see the marked contrast… no one was murdered last year in the 10 square block area south of Market Street and west of the Schuylkill River, where the UPenn campus sits.

When you enter the INSEAD Fontainebleau campus, you see the edge of the Fontainebleau forest peeking through the glass atrium of the Upper Gallery, or the administrative secretary in the marble foyer lobby. At Wharton, you are greeted by security guards behind large desks.

From my bedroom window here in Philadelphia, I see the helicopter pad on the roof of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, a Level 1 Trauma Center and one of the best university teaching hospitals in the U.S.   I am not sure what to make of the odd symbiotic relationship between UPenn and the impoverished, violence ridden neighbourhoods which surround the University.  For medical residents, they provide a steady stream of trauma victims to poke, prod, study, and of course heal.  For students like me in the business school at Wharton, what is our relationship with the community and what is our duty towards its residents? There are some programs at the University to encourage students to come out of the bubble and interact with the surrounding communities.  Sometimes I wish we had more opportunities of this sort in Fontainebleau, to get involved.