InterFraternity Council President Conor Daly -- the student leader of Penn's twenty-nine fraternity chapters -- has decided to stretch his legs and run for a seat on the Undergraduate Assembly.
If elected, the College junior and Pi Kappa Phi brother will become the first IFC president to hold a UA seat in recent memory.
Daly currently serves on the UA Steering Committee in his capacity as IFC President, but has never held an elected UA position. He said that through his involvement with the UA this year, he noticed a number of issues that he would have liked to address, but was unable to as only a Steering Committee member.
"I felt so strongly about certain issues that it was frustrating to me," Daly said.
Daly ran for a UA seat but was defeated as a sophomore. He said that his extensive involvement in Greek governance has increased his level of preparedness for the position.
"I've gotten a chance to really, from the sidelines, see what this thing is all about," he said. "I'm not done yet with what I want to accomplish while I'm at Penn... I want to break into the student government aspect of it."
UA Chairwoman Dana Hork explained that the most important qualities for a UA candidate are enthusiasm and being willing to make a time commitment.
"Holding a position in another organization is always secondary to having a passion for the issues," Hork said. "Fortunately, all of the candidates running for the UA are demonstrating that passion."
Hork added that "there's a place on the UA for students who have never joined a club to the president of a large organization."
Current UA members include a number of leaders of other student organizations, including the United Minorities Council, the Kite and Key Society and the Dining Advisory Board, as well as two class presidents.
In 1997, the UA elected then-College sophomore and IFC secretary Noah Belinker as its chairman, sparking a wave of accusations that Greeks -- who were elected to 20 of the 25 open UA seats that year -- were trying to take control of the UA.
Although members of the Greek community denied these accusations at the time, many students felt that Greeks wanted to use their influence to provide UA funding to fraternities and sororities.
But Daly said that if elected, his role as IFC President will not affect his ability to carefully assess, explaining that affiliation with a particular organization does not preclude neutrality. He cited Papa Wassa Nduom, a current UA representative and president of the UMC, as an example.
"I think he was able to approach a lot of issues very neutrally," Daly said of Nduom. "I really applaud Chiefy for his efforts to ascertain what's wrong with student government."
Nduom has decided not to run for re-election to the UA, but said that he still plans to be very active in student government issues, especially through his leadership of the UMC.
"I want to look into the history... how we can work on making the system work better as a whole," Nduom said, noting that the UA is not the only venue for change at Penn.
He added that he "wanted to free up [his] spot for new people."
Nduom said that while he doesn't think there would be any conflict of interest if Daly is elected to the UA, UA members who are affiliated to certain organizations risk being "perceived as pursuing only a particular agenda."
He added that there needs to be a general acknowledgement that such an affiliation does not completely define a person.
Daly also stressed that the majority of issues that the UA deals with are not related to the Greek system.
"Being IFC president has allowed me to learn a lot about how Penn runs," Daly said. "I know where I come from... from that kind of solid grounding, I'm much more confident about running for the UA."
College sophomore Jason Levy, a current UA member and sophomore class board president, said he is not concerned that Daly will be strictly Greek-oriented if he wins a position.
"There really has never been a purely Greek issue that came before the body," Levy said.
Levy, who is also a Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother, added that he supports Daly in his decision to run, commenting that "he was really interested in all the issues" during Steering Council meetings.
"He's put a lot of dedication into the UA... I think that he'd work for the interests of all students rather than just for Greeks," Levy said.
"I know in myself that I'm going to be neutral," Daly said. "If people say that I'm going to be biased... they don't understand that there's no opportunity for me to be so."
Daly said that if he is elected, there are several issues that he would like to focus on -- including dining services and minority representation.
"Those are two things that I really could have been involved in," he said, noting that there were several projects that he would have liked to take part in this year.
College sophomore Jerryanne Heath, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. who was elected to the incoming board of the BiCultural Inter-Greek Council -- the umbrella organization for Penn's historically African-American, Asian, and Latino fraternities and sororities -- earlier this week, is also running for a UA seat.
Students will cast their votes for UA seats and class board positions on Penn InTouch beginning April 2. The results will be announced on April 10.
