Resident faculty, House Deans, Graduate Associates, and Resident Advisors give Penn students the chance to feel a part of a smaller community within the larger University. Wheel Project services provide core academic support to all twelve College Houses. There is also a dedicated dining facility for each College House. In fall 1997, the University of Pennsylvania rolled out an expansion of the Residential Computing Support Project. A highly successful pilot in two college houses proved that residents helping residents is an effective and efficient way to offer students the computing support they need.
Peers help one another to solve problems and increase their technological skills and awareness.
Because support is given from one community member to another, it is localized, personalized and readily accessible. In 1946, a group of scientists and engineers at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering quietly inaugurated a revolutionary way of managing information. It gave rise to the modern computer industry and would eventually transform people's lives to a degree that even its inventors could not have imagined. In 1996, the University of Pennsylvania and leading organizations in Philadelphia and around the world marked the 50th anniversary of the birth of the information age with eighteen months of exciting programs. The Celebration was served by an Eniac 50th Celebration Committee, with U.S. Vice President Al Gore as its honorary chairperson.