Cynthia Wong and eleven other Penn freshmen spent the last three months helping to plan an event that brought student leaders from all over the city to Penn this past Friday.
The Campus Philly Leadership Conference, which included a series of workshops and featured a keynote address by Pennsylvania Governor-elect Ed Rendell, was attended by students from 14 different colleges and universities in the area.
"I think it went really well, and we have gotten excellent feedback from everyone," said Wong, a Wharton freshman.
The conference was jointly organized by Jon Herrmann, the general manager of Campus Philly, a non-profit initiative of the City of Philadelphia, and Wong's Wharton Management 100 team, with some help from the Undergraduate Assembly. It included a student networking session, an inter-campus student government meeting, a leadership panel and workshops for public speaking, campus diversity and multi-cultural leadership.
Each participating school was asked to send four students, including the president of its student government organization, one graduate student leader, one campus leader representing students of color and one additional outstanding leader elected by the school. Additional students could attend at a cost of $10 per person.
In his speech, Rendell, who was introduced by University President Judith Rodin, spoke about efforts to keep current college students in the city after they graduate.
Herrmann said that he hopes the conference helped steer students in that direction.
Villanova Student Government Association President Maureen Holland, who attended the conference, said that she thought the networking workshops were great for helping students from different schools work on issues that they have in common.
"I thought it was a great success, and everyone enjoyed themselves," she said.
UA Chairman Seth Schreiberg gave the opening remarks at the student government meeting.
"I thought it went really well," the College senior said. "It was incredible to be there and meet so many talented people."
Schreiberg said that there was "a really strong desire to create a Philly-wide board." He explained that the group divided the approximately 80 schools in the area into six geographic regions that will each meet individually. Penn will be in the University City region, which also includes Drexel and the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. Two students from each of the regions will then meet and form a constitution for an inter-campus Philadelphia board.
Schreiberg said that the group was very interested in setting up a system in which all of the schools can work together on common issues.
According to UA member Aaron Short, a College senior, the first issue that the inter-campus board would like to address is transportation. Schreiberg said that the board's representatives feel SEPTA does not currently serve college students well.
Schreiberg added that he does not think that the inter-campus board will take any control away from each school's respective student governments, but will instead be a place for discussing collaborative projects, brainstorming and finding new ways for individual schools to work together.
"It was just cool to have everyone in the same room... from very different universities, but thinking about what are our similarities,"Short said. "I think it is really critical that students are coming together to deal with issues... in a region that needs our help."
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