| Ivy Council | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1993 |
| Type | 501c3 Non-Profit |
| Affiliations | All-China Students' Federation |
| Website | www.ivycouncil.org |
The Ivy Council is a 501c3 Federal Tax-Exempt Organization of student government leaders, student organization leaders, and students at large from the colleges and universities of the Ivy League. The Council was established in 1993 by members of the Ivy League student governments in order to facilitate effective communication between the student governments of their respective institutions and to provide a unified voice for the Ivy League student governments. Since then, the Ivy Council has expanded the scope of its activity both nationally and internationally with programs such as the Ivy Leadership Summit and student-exchange opportunities in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.[1]
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Founded in 1993 as a way to collaborate and exchange ideas on common student life issues at their respective school, student government leaders set the stage for the Ivy Council that exists today. In 1997, in response to the complexities of running a loose federation of organizations over seven states, a defining structure was created. The Ivy Council draws its membership from the Brown University Undergraduate Council of Students, Columbia University (in particular the Columbia College Student Council, the Columbia Engineering Student Council, and the Columbia General Studies Student Council), the Cornell University Student Assembly, the Dartmouth College Student Assembly, the Harvard University Undergraduate Council, the University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Assembly, the Princeton University Undergraduate Student Government, and the Yale College Council.[2]
The Ivy Council is not a party to, nor is it in any way adjunct to, the Ivy Group Agreement of 1954. The Ivy Council is in no way adjunct to the council of college and university Presidents known as the Council of Ivy Group Presidents. The positions taken and statements made by the Ivy Council are only representative of the undergraduate students of the eight Ivy League schools. They are not in any way taken nor made on behalf of the Ivy League itself, nor its member institutions themselves as distinct corporate entities.[2]
The Ivy Council organizes three different activities throughout an academic year. First, the Ivy Council hosts semi-annual conferences where student leaders gather to research and seek solutions to issues of the day at their schools, across the Ivy League, or to student populations as a whole. Recent issue topics have included affirmative action in admissions, post-season football, the drug free provisions in higher education legislation, climate neutrality and fuel emissions.
Ivy Council Conferences are important learning experiences for everyone who attends. Each gets to enjoy the vastly different physical environments of the host schools, while taking from the depth of expertise that is shared among participants.
Delegates and observers arrive at the Conference site on Friday night. A grand gathering takes place at the opening. The weekend that follows provides more formalized events that encourage the sharing of ideas, while providing social events to help build lasting relationships. On Saturday, the attendees get down to business, spending many hours in discussion sections. Topics are determined in advance by the Steering Committee; past topics have covered a wide range of issues facing higher education, including academic affairs, alcohol use and abuse and socially aware university investment and divestment. Each school comes prepared with researched information about how each issue is addressed on its campus. All benefit from hearing other perspectives and new ideas; solutions are developed as a result. Session minutes are combined with that background information and a conference booklet is created and distributed to each delegation. This provides each student government with a tool for further addressing the issues discussed. Moreover, Conference materials are posted online in the Student Government Forum and Policy Database to encourage further discussion and archived information sharing. Such documents are accessible to all Ivy League students, not just Ivy student government leaders and members.
Ivy Leadership Summit (ILS) is an annual two-day conference hosted by the Ivy Council to bring together students from the eight Ivy League universities along with leaders from the business, government, academics, and non-profit sectors of society. The conference is usually held in February and its location is rotated each year through the campuses of the schools in the Ivy League.
ILS was originally created to promote the exchange of ideas between students of the Ivy League and today’s leaders on subjects of public policy such as affirmative action and ethics in science and technology. The first ILS was held at Yale University in 2000 and had the topic of “Integrity and Ethics.” Eighty participants were selected from a pool of applicants throughout the Ivy League. The main activities of the conference were keynote speakers, panels, and roundtable discussions. Since then, Ivy Council has held six conferences each with their own topics of discussion. Past speakers have included Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO of Forbes magazine; Nasreen Berwari, Iraqi Minister of Municipalities and General Works; Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the UN’s Millennium Development; Theodore Roosevelt IV, Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and prominent environmentalist; and Dov Zakheim, US Undersecretary of Defense. The list of past summits is listed below according to year, topic, and school:
More About Ivy Council's The Ivy Leadership Summit
Third, the Ivy Community Outreach Projects (IvyCORPS) serves as the community service arm of the Ivy Council. Whether it is by sponsoring teams for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, connecting student groups together to support clean-up after Hurricane Katrina, or on an Ivy League wide day of community service, IvyCORPS brings together students, faculty, alumni, and staff to increase volunteerism, strengthen school and community ties, and foster life-long connections with service groups.[1]
This year, the Ivy Council has partnered with the African Medical Research Foundation. Already, the two groups have created a unique summer program in which the top Ivy League students will be selected to travel to Uganda and conduct medical research as well as fundraise money for further research through a variety of unique programs.
In May-June 2008, two dozen student government leaders and student journalists traveled to Beijing, Wuhan, and Shanghai for the first ever Ivy League student delegation through mainland China.[3] The American students held a dialogue with their Chinese peers on international student relations at Peking University, and met with Chinese leaders.[4] Currently, the Ivy-China program is in its second year, and has brought a delegation of 8 Chinese students from the top universities in China, who visited the Ivy League Universities and continued with the goal of international cultural exchange.
In addition to the student delegates from each of the member schools, the Ivy Council also maintains an Executive Board for day-to-day operations and a Board of Governors for fiscal management and long-term sustenance of the organization. The Executive Board and the Head Delegates of the eight member schools form the Steering Board. Head Delegates are the only members of the Steering Board with the power to vote as they are entrusted to represent their respective schools in the interim between meetings of the Legislative Council.
The current Executive Board consists of:
| Position | Name | School |
|---|---|---|
| President | Kathy Bui | Brown University |
| Vice President for Internal Affairs | Molly Patterson | Yale University |
| Vice President for External Affairs | Irene Nemesio | Brown University |
| Vice President for Policy | Stephen Stolzenberg | Princeton University |
| Vice President for Finance | Nicholas Judson | Dartmouth College |
| Vice President for Communications | Alexander Tsu | Dartmouth College |
| Vice President for Communications | Jennifer Zhu | Harvard University |
The current Head Delegates are:
| School | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| Brown University | Stephanie Pak | |
| Columbia University | Arvin Ahmadi | |
| Cornell University | Stephen Breedon | Jennifer Kay |
| Dartmouth College | Alesy Iturrey | |
| Harvard College | Teddy Tiab | |
| Princeton University | Mianna Chen | |
| University of Pennsylvania | Brian Delgado | |
| Yale University | Lucy Chen | Naicheng Wangyu |
The Governor Emeritus of the Board of Governors is Raghav Chopra of Yale University, the Vice Chairman is Derek Berlin of Yale University, the Chief Financial Officer is Soren Bech of Yale University and the Chief Communications Officer is Bing Chen of the University of Pennsylvania.