Correction appended
Ivy League student representatives discussed housing policies, career services, disciplinary action and academic advising this weekend at the Ivy Council fall conference. An estimated total of 45 delegates from all Ivy League institutions except Harvard University attended the event, which Dartmouth hosted for the first time since 2005.
While the conference's location generally rotates, it has not been held at Dartmouth recently because of the College's location and the cost of transportation.
Ivy Council, which includes student representatives from each Ivy League institution, meets twice each year to share policies and discuss Ivy League-wide issues. The conference is intended to allow representatives to communicate about the strengths and weaknesses of their respective institutions, according to fall conference co-chair Sarah Cashdollar '13. The goal is to identify issues and discuss solutions, she said.
"A lot of times those other schools have already tackled [these problems]," Ivy Council President Harris Li, a member of Brown University's Class of 2011, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "It's their way of getting ideas, brainstorming with other people who have a different approach or view of the issue."
Columbia University's policy liaison Ryan Cho, a member of the Class of 2013, said he had been looking forward to discussions about disciplinary procedures.
"Columbia's is kind of vague, and we're learning from other institutions," he said.
Students on the council's disciplinary action committee said the consequences of alcohol possession and consumption at their respective colleges and universities are unclear, Brown policy liaison Rachel Hunter, a member of the Class of 2012, said in a presentation during the wrap-up portion of the conference.
Brown students attributed this confusion to the ambiguous wording of their institution's policies, Hunter said.
"That's a goal to work toward, to have very clear policies," Hunter said in her presentation.
Students also discussed their desire to institute gender-neutral housing.
Brown has consistently provided gender-neutral housing for its students, while Cornell University recently designated one or two buildings for gender-neutral dorm assignments. Dartmouth implemented a gender-neutral housing program in Fall 2007. Princeton University will designate gender-neutral dorms for the first time for the upcoming Spring term, Cho said.
Delegates agreed that their institutions need to improve career services and pre-professional advising, Cho said. Members of the career services committee shared their institutions' methods of distributing career-related information to students.
Brown and Dartmouth send specific career-related e-mails to each member of each class, while Columbia e-mails information to the entire student body, according to Cho, who presented the career services topic discussion in the wrap-up session.
Representatives also discussed academic requirements.
Strict academic credit requirements, especially in the engineering field, impede students' ability to travel abroad, Yale University policy liaison Don Li, a member of the Class of 2013, said.
"Most schools are committed to [studying abroad], but policies don't allow for it," Li said.
The institutions could offer required major courses in both the fall and spring or offer summer research programs to do projects abroad, delegates said.
Delegates concluded that they should strive to improve academic advising at their universities, including working to better match advisers with advisees by having students complete academic interest forms.
"The discussions about residential advisers made me appreciate Dartmouth's UGAs and their roles as mentors," Cashdollar said.
The Ivy Council fall conference coincided with the Ivies' student government presidents' meeting, which also took place on Dartmouth's campus. The presidents discussed ways to improve interactions and relations between student governments and' Ivy Councils, according to Dartmouth Ivy Council President James Cart '10.
"The most exciting part of it was that people got to come and see Dartmouth and experience a lot of different sides of it," Cart said.
Student Body President Frances Vernon '10 could not be reached for comment by press time.
