Ivy Council members meet at Dartmouth

At its first full-body meeting earlier this month, the Ivy Council drafted new resolutions for some old Ivy League problems. Four Undergraduate Assembly representatives took part in Ivy Council's biannual meeting to discuss issues important to all eight Ivy League institutions. College junior Lance Rogers, the the UA vice president for external affairs, College sophomore Laurie Moldawer and College freshmen Larry Kamin and Tal Golomb attended the meeting. The delegates discussed three central ideas that will be central to this year's council agenda -- academic affairs, empowerment and identity. Council members passed several resolutions at the end of the parliamentary meeting. The council approved a letter written collectively by members of all eight schools that addresses the importance of a student center at the University. Ironically, Rogers said, the entire meeting was held at Dartmouth College's "brand new and state-of-the-art" Colis Hall student center. According to Rogers, the letter is due to be presented to University President Judith Rodin at an upcoming University Council meeting. Another major idea that resulted from the council gathering was a simultaneous satellite broadcast of a nationally recognized speaker to all eight Ivy League schools. "Delegates from Brown University have researched to see if all facilities are capable of doing this," he said. "It seems feasible." Moldawer, who participated in a financial aid discussion, said the council is also pushing to insure that all Ivy League schools are implementing need-blind policies. "Our goal is to lobby for all Ivy schools to be need blind in actuality, and not just on paper," she said. The parliamentary portion of the council meeting encountered some difficulty toward the beginning of discussions. Ivy Council President and Princeton senior Justin Beckelman lost control of the group when Robert's Rules of Orders ceased to be followed, resulting in parliamentary procedure breakdown. "There was a half-hour when things were inefficient and nothing got accomplished," Kamin said. "Lance had to take over as parliamentarian. It was chaos." The council was formed to provide a forum for inter-scholastic discussion of relevant issues among Ivy League schools, Rogers said. At last year's UA budget meeting, representatives denied the council delegates' request for funding. The trend continued when the budget committee again recommended to deny the Ivy Council's contingency request at a meeting held earlier this year. Despite the committee's recommendations, the UA body voted to allocate to the delegates the amount of money they requested. UA Chairperson and Wharton junior Dan Debicella said he believes that although the group holds potential for progress, money allotted to the council might be better spent on student organizations at the University. "I'm personally still of the opinion that Penn students would prefer to see money spent on Penn activities," he said. When told that several other schools' delegates had been given substantial funding by their respective student governments, Debicella said the limited funds of student organizations on campus must be taken into account. "Rather than fund Ivy Council...it is a question of where is the money better spent," he said. "I think that it's a big step most students on this campus aren't ready [for] -- to see the UA spend money that way."