Race summit delegates have no one-year plan

After two months, the 60 student leaders who attended the $24,000 Penn Student Summit on Race Relations have not directly completed their main goal. Co-organizer and Wharton senior Lawrence Berger said last night that the leaders have not yet formulated a comprehensive one-year plan to deal with the problems of race relations at the University, as was their major goal for the weekend. The summit took place from January 28-30 at the Sugarloaf Executive Conference Center, a compound owned by Temple University. The Offices of the President and the Provost split the total cost of the weekend -- $24,000 -- which was used to pay for the use of Sugarloaf and the cost of facilitators who came from A World of Difference, a division of the Anti-Defamation League. Though some individual students have followed through on the ideas discussed at the summit, at least half have not done anything since the weekend, Berger said. "I've been surprised and disappointed in various student groups," he added. "We thought other people would spread the message, but that's been a lot smaller than we thought." Berger said it is "frustrating" because the group needed more time and more involvement on the part of some of the leaders in order to be completely successful. Though a "set-in-stone" plan has not been developed, nine working groups have been established to discuss and work on issues, co-organizer and College senior Jessica Mennella said. These issues range from the Revlon Center and social get-togethers to an increase in diversified group projects and a University 101 class. On Thursday night, a social party with the theme of "Culture Shock" will be sponsored by the forum participants. The event, which will take place at the Chestnut Cabaret, is intended to unite people of different cultures. "It will bring people from different cultures together as individuals, not as representatives from those cultures," said Undergraduate Assembly member and College junior Dan Schorr. College junior Stephen Houghton, co-chairperson of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance, called the conference a "partial success" and attributed many of its problems to a Daily Pennsylvanian column written by Schorr. Schorr wrote his column about the summit and one of its participants. "[The column] prevented meetings from happening because people had information they did not want to release because they knew confidentiality was non-existent," said Houghton, also a DP columnist. "[Schorr] basically betrayed his responsibility to the summit." He added that there has since been a lack of communication and a breakdown of continuous large group meetings. College senior Jun Bang, United Minorities Council chairperson, also cited Schorr's column as the main reason for the summit's problems, saying that as a result, the group as a whole did not have a "viable future." Schorr responded by arguing that the subject of his column showed the core of the summit's problems. "One of the participants disrupted and undermined the conference," he said. "A lot of people, including myself, felt that students had a right to know why the summit they had paid for was not as successful as it could have been. "To say that discussing the disruption of a race relations summit undermines future progress is inaccurate and false," Schorr added, in direct response to Bang's comments. Schorr said the summit was "not a success, but it was a good first step toward improving race relations." Participants and organizers disagree as to the worth of the summit, in time, effort and money. "This [summit] didn't pay off, but that's not a reason why we can't try again and make it work," Schorr said. "I think it was worth it in that student leaders couldn't really get together and talk before it," Bang said. "But I think the money fact has been overused and blown out of proportion." But Houghton said the summit was not worth the $24,000 price tag. "I question whether it was necessary to travel out to Sugarloaf to deal with these issues," he said. "I loved the food and my T-shirt, but I'd rather see something more come out of the money that was spent." Thursday's social will cost the University $2,500, with $500 coming from the UA, $1,000 from the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life and $1,000 from the Provost's Office, according to UA Chairperson and Wharton sophomore Dan Debicella and acting VPUL Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum.