U. takes lead on Ivy Council

Three Princeton students were named to the 17-person executive board of the Ivy Council — an organization of student government leaders formed to facilitate idea sharing among Ivy League schools — during the group's annual spring conference earlier this year.

The students' participation in a council meeting last Saturday marked the first time that more than one Princeton student has served on the board, which they said was a sign of Princeton's growing involvement in Ivy Council affairs.

Jennifer Mickel '07, the first Princetonian to serve as the council's president, joins Lauren Barnett '08 and Carol Wang '07 on the board. Barnett serves as the vice president for communications while Wang is a co-chair of IvyCORPS, the arm of the group that deals with community service projects.

"It's great to see that our peer institutions trust Princeton and respect what we've done in the Ivy Council so far," Mickel said. "I think that the Ivy Council is a really important organization that provides a useful service for participating schools, and it's great to see that Princeton is one of the schools at the helm."

The Ivy Council's primary objective is to encourage discussion over policy issues in which Ivy League student governments are currently involved. Member schools alternate in hosting biannual conferences, one during the fall and one during the spring, to allow student leaders from different schools to meet and engage in dialogue with one another. The fall conference will be held at Princeton this November.

"I think that getting students together from across the Ivy League is unbelievably beneficial for Princeton," Barnett said. "It's really interesting to hear how other schools deal with the same issues that we deal with. Princeton does a lot of things very well, but that's not to say we can't learn from other schools."

In past years the USG has reexamined its mail and dining services policies based on recommendations from participants of Ivy Council conferences. Other schools, in turn, have looked to Princeton for help in improving their academic advising systems and student groups, which, do not enjoy the same independence on some campuses as those at Princeton.

The Ivy Council, which was founded in 1993, also sponsors the Ivy Leadership Summit, an annual conference that emphasizes public policy. The summit is open to any student in the Ivy League willing to apply. This academic year, the conference's title is "The Impending Energy Crisis: Analyzing the Problem and Debating the Solutions," and is scheduled for early 2007.

"The Ivy Leadership Summit allows us to engage in different issues with different people and get out of our Princeton bubble," Mickel said. "It's refreshing to hear about issues on other campuses that may have been overlooked here, and it's also interesting to meet students from other academic institutions who have approached similar issues with a different emphasis."

Efforts are underway to make the Ivy Council more relevant to student life by strengthening ties between the council and student groups across the Ivy League.

"I consider the Ivy Council to be very valuable, as it allows Princeton students to see and experience what life at other schools is like," Mickel said. "I think I finally appreciate what it means to be in an academic league, with people whose experiences are so similar and yet so different."

"It has certainly enriched my college experience, personally and academically."