Ivy politicos gather at Yale U.

As Penn students celebrated winning the Ivy League football title, the Undergraduate Assembly had something else to cheer about. The UA's eighth annual Ivy League Fall Conference, held two weekends ago at Yale University, was, by most estimates, a success. The Ivy Council, a conglomerate of student council delegates from all eight Ivy League schools, convened over the weekend. Nearly 60 students attended to discuss the importance of communication among the schools. Ivy Council President and UA Vice Chairman Mo Saraiya said he thought the conference was tremendously successful. "We had one of the highest participations ever," said Saraiya, an Engineering senior. "I talked to some of the student government presidents at other schools and they are really excited about what the delegates are bringing back to their home schools." Penn sent eight students -- twice the number of delegates from the other schools -- including Saraiya and College sophomore Ethan Kay, who served as Penn's head delegate. Other UA representatives at the conference included UA Treasurer and Engineering junior Mike Krouse and College sophomores Rebecca Tracy, Arshad Hasan, Aaron Short, and Seth Schreiberg. One non-UA member also attended the conference -- College senior Eric Lomazoff, who is studying the UA for his senior thesis. Tracy said she found it helpful to speak with other Ivy League leaders pursuing similar goals for their universities. "I thought it was good to hear what is going on at other schools," she said. "I talked to other representatives and a lot of us seem to be working on the same things." During the main portion of the conference, the delegates broke up into breakout sessions to discuss topics relating to campus life. "The goal is for the delegates to develop some kind of action plan to bring back to the schools which gives them a strong framework to work with when they go home," Saraiya said. Topics for breakout sessions included campus activism, Greek policy and student group funding. Tracy, who attended the Greek policy session and one on student services, said those two sessions were not very helpful. "From what the other delegates were saying, our school seems to be the best one in terms of Greek life and there was very little I could take back from it," Tracy said. But Short said the session he attended, which dealt with relations between student groups, was useful. "It gave us a lot of good ideas how different student groups can relate to each other outside of a funding setting," he said. Overall, Saraiya said the breakout sessions were helpful. "The delegates I have talked to [have] a lot of great new ideas and issues they want to work on," Saraiya said. The Ivy Council will reconvene at Harvard University in February for its second annual Ivy Leaders Summit. Ten students from each school are selected to attend through a vigorous application process, where they will have the opportunity to participate in panel discussions and seminars with Ivy League administrators, professors and alumni.