Delegates from all eight Ivy League schools will convene in Hanover this weekend when Dartmouth hosts the Ivy Council's semi-annual conference.
The Ivy Council, formed in 1993, is an independent, non-profit organization composed of four delegates from each of the Ivy League student governments plus five executives.
The council deals with issues affecting individual campuses and the Ivy League as a whole, and was formed to facilitate communication between different student governments and provide a united Ivy government voice.
Both the president and vice president of external affairs of the council are Dartmouth students -- Scott Jacobs '99 and Dave Gacioch '00. Gacioch will not be present at this weekend's conference because he is not in good academic standing at the College, but he continues to serve as vice president.
Jacobs said this year's council is going beyond the original goal to work on intercampus projects.
"We're becoming a more effective body, working to impact campuses and the communities around our campuses through projects," Jacobs said.
One such project is the council's website, featuring Knowledge Exchange, a database of information about each school in the Ivy League. This allows student groups to compare what is happening at their school with other institutions and use that information to affect change on campus, Jacobs said.
Currently the council is also planning events such as IvyCORPS -- the equivalent of DarCORPS, a campus-wide community service effort -- on all eight campuses and a leadership conference for students from all the schools. The conference, called "Sharing the Torch: Leadership Into the New Millennium," will be held in February in Boston and bring representatives from a range of professional fields and student leaders together.
The council also formed a Board of Governors at its spring meeting which will serve as the council's trustees to oversee financial matters and offer advice on organizational activities. This allowed the council to obtain non-profit status this past summer.
This weekend's conference will be spent in various meetings and breakout sessions planning events and discussing issues. Breakout sessions provide a forum for the delegates to discuss issues on their campuses, share ideas and brainstorm possible solutions.
Breakout sessions will be held Saturday morning in the Rockefeller Center. Council members will discuss community relations, residential life, undergraduate organization funding, curricular diversity and development, council outreach to the university community, social life, academic policies and faculty relations and evaluations.
In addition to the breakout sessions, individual committees will meet. These include the Steering, Executive, Race Relations and Diversity, IvyCORPS, and Women's Resources Committees. The Women's Resources Committee will also distribute a newly published pamphlet about women's resources on each campus.
Saturday afternoon the council will be joined by College President James Wright for an afternoon snack and will also get a chance to sample Dartmouth social life Friday and Saturday nights.
Jorge Miranda '01 is the head delegate for Dartmouth. Case Dorkey '99, Cristina DeVito '01 and Melissa Miranda '01 will also be representing Dartmouth at the conference. Approximately 20 to 30 other Dartmouth students will be involved in putting on the conference in various capacities.
Members of the Ivy Council Steering Committee discussed whether Gacioch should remain vice president even though he is not currently enrolled at Dartmouth. According to the minutes from the committee's meeting in October, members decided Gacioch should keep his position because he would be too hard to replace and had already worked on council projects throughout the spring and summer.
