Castle/UA conference draws student leaders together

A wide array of organizations were represented at the forum. Each table at the Castle's leadership conference Tuesday night created a brightly-colored fabric quilt square representing their group, but the aim was more than using up the supplies of glue and glitter. Not only did the quilts have University President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow giggling, but the project gave leaders from across campus an opportunity to get to know one another. "We hoped this activity would break the ice and give people the chance to really talk to someone they might have seen at a meeting but hadn't really known before -- and it seems like its been very successful," said College sophomore and Castle resident Adam Barzilay, who helped organize the event. Establishing community among leaders was a central theme of the conference, which was made possible by a "wonderful co-sponsorship between the Castle and the UA," according to Undergraduate Assembly President Tal Golomb. Golomb noted that the two organizations have been working together on the conference since last term. A quick glance at the murals gave evidence of the variety of leaders at the event. The club sports' president glued a dollar bill which denoted the Wharton chief of staff onto a paper rugby player. And Panhellenic Council President Jessica Lennon drew a pink female symbol, while Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education President Nathan Smith, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist, offered a basketball net saying "PACE Jam." Such diversity was essential to the sense of community the conference tried to foster, said College junior Sarah Garlinghouse, a Castle resident. "We really wanted to help build connections between leaders from all parts of Penn, whether that meant the different schools, the different groups of students or the different activities," she said. DP Executive Editor Eric Goldstein, a Wharton junior, and Managing Editor Mike Madden, a College junior, also attended. Rodin, who sat informally on the stage and talked intimately to the audience, focused on community in her keynote address. She explained that -- similar to fabric murals which will soon be combined into one large wall-hanging in the Castle -- the University is like "a patchwork quilt" where the "myriad of groups represented here tonight come together to form not a melting pot, which is often marked by homogeneity, but a mosaic." Continuing with this theme, Rodin said today's university has become a "multiversity" and that campus leaders have had to extend their duties to include "educator, caretaker and, most of all, mediator." Yet such increased responsibility is not often easy, noted Rodin, saying "the leadership climate has changed dramatically since I was a student leader at Penn -- it's become much more difficult." She added that today's leaders must handle "the claims of different groups bumping up and competing with one another [and] the significant erosion of trust in leadership." Because of this, Rodin said today's leaders "must be able to articulate and maintain a vision. Too much of current leadership is visionless." But she reminded the audience that leaders must also "always be in check with reality." In concluding her speech, Rodin paused, looked around the room and said, "Penn has always expressed the desire to produce the leaders of tomorrow. Clearly, though, we have produced the leaders of today."