ECOnference to be held at Penn

This fall, the term "College Green" will take on a whole new meaning, as over 1,000 student environmentalists descend on Penn's campus for a three-day conference that will educate and organize student environmental activists for the new millennium. ECOnference 2000 -- sponsored by 30 environmental groups, including Campus Ecology, Earth Day 2000, Greenpeace, Ozone Action, Rock the Vote and Free the Planet! -- will draw students from college campuses nationwide to Penn from October 15 through the 17th. Students attending the conference will have the opportunity to hear speakers active in environmental causes, participate in discussion forums about key environmental issues and learn how to organize their own campaigns at their respective campuses. The conference will be hosted by the Penn Environmental Group and based in Irvine Auditorium, according to the group's co-chairperson Kristina Rencic Tuesday. Rencic, a College junior, added that many rooms in buildings throughout campus will be reserved for workshops and panel discussions as well. "Basically all the buildings on campus are going to be opened up," Rencic said. ECOnference 2000's organizers cite the need to campaign for a greener millennium as the motivation behind the conference, and expect the seminar to look towards the upcoming Earth Day and Election Day in 2000. "At the beginning of the modern environmental movement, students were at the forefront and now more than ever, it is our future that is at stake," Andrew MacDonald, one of the conference's organizers, said in a statement released last week. Penn was chosen by ECOnference 2000 to host the event after the Penn Environmental Group submitted an application in March, according to ECOnference 2000 organizer Beka Economopoulos. More than a dozen schools were invited to apply to host the conference, but Penn's prime location in Philadelphia -- the site of the 2000 Republican National Convention -- as well as its success in hosting the Free the Planet conference in 1995 made Penn a smart choice, Economopoulos said Tuesday. "It just seemed that there was a lot of interest on the Penn campus in having [the conference] there," Economopoulos said. "[Penn] did an awesome job in '95 of hosting the Free the Planet conference." Rencic said that hosting the conference will present a challenge for the Penn Environmental Group due to its small membership, but she is optimistic that the event will be beneficial to all those involved. "The reason we wanted to host it is because we do have such a small group on campus, and we want to increase our awareness on campus," Rencic said. "Our name will be out and around campus more." A major focus of the conference is the launching of a job boycott campaign where students will target employers in every job sector that abuse the environment and refuse to work for them. The conference's organizers hope the boycott will pressure "corporate abusers" into meeting environmental guidelines. "The focus [of the conference] will also be on training students how to organize and how to run successful campaigns," Economopoulos added. Rencic said she plans to invite other student groups and performing arts groups to participate in various planning and entertainment aspects of the conference. "I think we'd like to get as many student groups involved as are interested," Rencic said. Tickets to the conference are $25 per student and $50 each for non-students and are available through ECOnference 2000.

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