Dartmouth's Ivy Council delegation traveled to the annual Ivy Leadership Summit at Columbia University this weekend to discuss leadership in the current globalized world.
In accordance with this year's theme of "Free Trade, Free Press, Free Society: Leadership in the Age of Globalization," field specialists and speakers fostered discussion aimed at increasing students' awareness about globalization and its effects.
"I think everyone learned a lot at the conference. Specifically it taught us to look at globalization in a way we wouldn't have done before," Jiamin Chen '06 said.
Chen, the College's delegation leader, led 19 Dartmouth students who were accepted as Summit participants through an application process. According to Ivy Council's mission, each Ivy League school's delegation represents the goals of their respective student governments. The students collaborate to address agendas, issues and ideas shared by each campus.
"As Ivy League students, we are going to deal with issues such as globalization in the future so we use Ivy Council as a research tool to see what other schools are doing and eventually we bring that back to Dartmouth," Student Assembly Vice-President Jeffrey Coleman '08 said.
Coleman participated in Ivy Council's fall conference at Cornell University where students discussed a range of common campus issues such as the Reserve Officer Training Corps and rising textbook prices.
"Ivy Council allows students to get together, talk to one another and network, which is the most amazing natural thing about the program," Chen said.
On Saturday, participants attended a wide variety of activities and discussions such as a panel on the environmental effect of globalization and current changes occurring in India and China.
"The featured panels were the most beneficial because that is were the bulk of information we gained came from. There was a labor expert, journalist and other specialists," Chen said.
Dartmouth's delegation consisted of members of each Dartmouth class, but had more representatives from the freshman class than from any other.
Ivy Council has faced a change in membership over the past year as old members have left and countless freshmen have joined the organization.
"The majority of the '06 Class abandoned Student Assembly and Ivy Council because they have been too busy, which is understandable," Coleman said. "And the freshmen don't totally understand everything, which makes it difficult, but I think the '09s are willing to do their homework, learn and present themselves well."
Ivy Council members represent different organizations on campus and a large number of active members are not currently involved in Student Assembly.
"A lot of students who aren't in SA are deeply interested and involved in Ivy Council and enjoy it a lot more," Coleman said.
Ivy Council meets every Wednesday night in the Collis Center at 8:30 p.m.
