Mark Pan | Getting inTouch with you

Penn is a community of communities. For many of us, our Penn experience is defined by the limited circle of the groups we’re involved in, the majors we choose and the parties we go to. What’s missing is the sense that we are all part of a community of undergraduates at Penn who can achieve much more when working with fellow student groups or in neighborhoods foreign to us.

This week, you’ll read other “vote for me” articles promising a better Penn. One thing that sets me apart is that I think being Undergraduate Assembly Vice President is about more than just establishing relationships with the leaders of groups. It’s about reaching out to communities — both informal student communities and communities in Philadelphia. Hence the slogan “PanInTouch.” I want to make Penn and Philadelphia a more vibrant home for all of us by creating physical spaces to congregate, reaching out to students on a face-to-face level and connecting groups to each other and to University resources.

First, I want to work with UA Steering committee and administrators to create spaces where students and groups can gather. This includes spaces for prayer, international students and performing arts, as well as bolstering hubs such as the ARCH. I also want to build the community through more flexible meal plans for upperclassmen to dine with others, on-campus parties and gatherings, reducing the stigma of West Philadelphia among Penn students and expanding late-night dining west of campus.

Second, I will use the role of VP not just to work with the communities within Penn and UA Steering, but to push the entire UA to engage with individuals on a grassroots level. This starts with knocking on every single freshman door after New Student Orientation, an initiative I headed last year, and continues by empowering UA members with the tools to connect within their own niches.

One of the UA’s greatest accomplishments this year has been shifting its focus from passing flowery-languaged proposals to working directly with students who haven’t had a strong voice at Penn. I will ensure the UA integrates its work with students’ needs — rather than having student needs be shaped by the UA — starting with making meeting content more publicly accessible, encouraging Steering members to author resolutions and put them on our agenda and bolstering follow-up work.

Third, I will connect groups with University resources and with one another. Campus-wide events like Spring Fling are too rare. Whether through mobilizing students for the 2010 census or integrating Athletics’ Quaker Days into residential life, I will identify and develop these connections. I will also reach out to student advocates uninvolved in student government and use UA resources to join forces so that we can maximize tangible change next year.

Of course, this platform is just the beginning: listening to you is core to my job and to my platform’s evolution. A significant portion of the job deals with spontaneous day-to-day decisions, which is why it’s crucial to have a VP with not just a clear principled vision for Penn, but also experience and proven results.

That’s where my background comes in. When my peers and I felt the need for increased low-income student access to Penn, I reached out to the CEO of QuestBridge to successfully help make Penn a partner and later helped make Penn the first Ivy to produce Spanish financial aid materials. When we saw waste, I initiated programs for sustainable bathroom products, donations of leftover Dining Dollars and non-disposable Hillel silverware. When the administration wasn’t listening to high-rise elevator complaints, I helped garner hundreds of signatures to capture the administration’s attention.

I hope to be inTouch with you for details about topics you care about. And please be inTouch so that together, we can strengthen Penn’s tight-knit niches while bonding the larger Penn community.

Mark Pan is a College junior, current UA Communication Director and candidate for UA Vice President. His e-mail address is markpan@sas.upenn.edu.

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