While the majority of Dartmouth students reveled in the Winter Carnival festivities, a select few traded Carnival for the Ivy Leadership Summit this weekend at Princeton University. Dartmouth's eight delegates joined over 140 students at the annual Ivy Council-organized conference, which this year was centered on the theme "Health, Economy and the International Community."
During the three-day conference, undergraduates focused on the scientific developments and debates currently impacting the world. Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economics and public affairs professor and writer for The New York Times, delivered the keynote address on "The Economics of Terrorism." Other prominent professionals from government, business and academia also spoke, including John Nelson, president of the American Medical Association, and Tim Ferguson, a senior editor of Forbes Global.
Despite its scientific focus, Jacques Hebert '07, Dartmouth's head delegate, said he found the winter summit "more of a forum for understanding how we will fit into the world after we leave our Ivy League schools."
The conference's main objectives, according to Nick Jennings, a student at Columbia University and the chairman of this year's summit, were to bring Ancient Eight undergraduates closer to each other and to leaders in various fields.
"I believe this event can spark an interest in students and motivate them to pursue avenues they otherwise wouldn't," Jennings said.
Dartmouth's other delegates also praised the conference for encouraging leadership and for raising awareness of important global issues the future will bring. It is this focus on leadership that distinguishes the winter conference from the spring and fall conferences, which center mainly on networking and communication, Hebert said.
"This conference was mainly about leadership and focused on what we, the probable future leaders in the world, will have to confront, especially terrorism and global health," Hebert said.
The conference's featured topics of the economy, communications and world health drew Kay Fukunaga '05 to attend the conference as a delegate.
"I'm taking a class now on economics in developing countries and was fascinated on how I could explore the interceptions of these topics," Fukunaga said.
Conference leaders stressed the responsibility of the delegates to remember world issues in their futures in leadership positions, Fukunaga said. She also said the conference influenced her thinking on her own personal leadership.
"It definitely makes you think of how you as a leader, as you go out into the world, as you graduate, how you can change the way you think. It really plays a role in the way the world operates," Fukanaga said. "There's more to life than profits; they make you think of how you can merge humanitarian and economic principles."
Sacrificing Winter Carnival was a small price to pay for the Dartmouth delegates. Fukunaga characterized the conference as an exceptional opportunity to hear leaders in the forefront of their professions speak about pertinent world issues.
"When you're at Dartmouth you have four chances to go to Winter Carnival and for me, there was one chance to go to the Ivy Summit," she said.
Hebert, too, described the trade-off as worthwhile.
"I was disappointed to miss spending time with my friends but happy to be able to discuss the ideas that were brought up at the conference among my peers at the other Ivy League institutions," Hebert said.
Kirsten Murray '07, Dartmouth's Ivy Leadership Summit liaison, spent much of her time prior to the trip coordinating the event and the application process by which Dartmouth's delegates were picked. According to Murray, the hard work paid off.
"Definitely everyone got a lot out of the summit," she said. "It was a pleasure to meet people from different schools and hear their perspectives, and it was a real privilege to hear lectures from professionals in many fields."
The purpose of Ivy Council conferences is to facilitate discussion of leadership issues among Ivy League students in sessions led by acclaimed leaders in a variety of professions.
