A new organization is seeking to improve life on local college campuses by uniting student leaders throughout the region, and a Penn student is at the helm.
College and Wharton sophomore Tony Inguaggiato is president of the Greater Philadelphia Student Association, whose board of directors was established this past spring.
"Our overall mission is to ... make the Greater Philadelphia region more in tune to students' needs, while also helping to improve life on each of our campuses by co-sponsoring events and sharing best practices," Inguaggiato said.
While pursuing a host of regional initiatives -- including voter registration and mobilization activities and a student leadership conference planned for early 2005 -- GPSA is currently placing great focus on recruitment and marketing efforts.
"It's all about finding those people that want to do a little bit more than just affect their own student population," said Daniel Steinberg, a Drexel University junior and GPSA's director of marketing and recruitment.
The initial idea for the nonprofit organization -- which includes members from Penn, Drexel, Villanova and Temple universities, Camden County College, Ursinus College and the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College -- emerged from a meeting of student leaders at the first annual Campus Philly Student Leadership Conference held in November 2002 at Penn.
Since then, Campus Philly, a group that encourages undergraduates of local schools to remain in Philadelphia after graduation, has been guiding GPSA's development.
Campus Philly Executive Director Jon Herrmann, a 2000 Wharton graduate, has been integral in GPSA's progress, according to Inguaggiato.
"Jon definitely gave us a platform so we could stand up and speak," he said.
Herrmann praised the broad scope of GPSA.
"I think it's important, because there are so many opportunities beyond any one school's campus," Herrmann said.
After the 2002 conference, the idea for GPSA was not wholeheartedly pursued until this past academic year, when Campus Philly hired then-Villanova senior and former Student Government President Maureen Holland to "get the organization rolling ... set the foundation for GPSA," according to Holland.
Now a first-year law student at Temple and GPSA general manager, Holland helped establish the executive board at an initial meeting of interested students in March, but has since stepped back into a solely advisory role.
After creating a constitution for the organization forecasting some future plans, Inguaggiato and a board of about seven other students from throughout the area hit the ground running.
"I basically devoted my summer to helping get this organization off the ground strongly, so that we could move into this year," Inguaggiato said.
Inguaggiato noted that the structure of GPSA was somewhat inspired by that of the Ivy Council, but with a more practical sensibility.
"I looked at the Ivy Council, and I saw an organization that had so much potential. But that potential was somewhat diluted because, besides the ties that Ivy League schools have to each other based on tradition and history, they don't really share the same concerns," he said.
"Instead of focusing on this kind of elite alliance, why don't we work with Drexel? Drexel's a block away," Inguaggiato added.
"We're practically all looking at the same issues," said Sonja Claxton, a Temple junior and GPSA director of board development.
Inguaggiato agrees.
"I think [a regional association of college students] is important, because we all share similar issues within the region. We share similar problems. We share similar strengths," he said.
