Letter to the editor
I am delighted to see so many Wheaton undergraduates and alumnae/i engaged in great service projects all over the world. And I wonder whether there is a comparable level of interest and commitment to working to improve the quality of life for the poor in American cities, following the example of Judith Garcia ’13, who was elected to the Chelsea, Mass., City Council and was featured in the spring issue of the Quarterly.
While I was at Wheaton, Professor Richard Robbins’s course in “Urban Sociology” sparked my interest in city planning, which then turned into a challenging career in urban education reform. I hope the Wheaton curriculum is still addressing these issues, as the growing gulf between the rich and the poor is the great domestic challenge of our time, while that gulf is narrowing around the world.
I would be delighted to mentor students interested in internships and jobs in Philadelphia, a booming city for millennials, which also happens to be one of the poorest big cities in America.
—Debra “Debbie” Weiner ’67