Two weeks ago, a delegation of Brown students attended the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Bogotá, Colombia.
The three students in attendance — the president of the Undergraduate Council of Students and two Ivy Inspire representatives — attended speeches by past Nobel Peace Laureates, attended breakout sessions with the laureates and explored the city of Bogotá for a week.
Ivy Inspire is the new publication for the Ivy Council, an organization that brings together student leaders from the Ivy League. “Getting to know people from these other schools that we don’t get to see on a day-to-day basis is part of what the Ivy Council is all about,” said Ivy Inspire Webmaster Fabrice Guyot-Sionnest ’20, who attended the summit.
The summit is intended to be the main focus of the first edition of Ivy Inspire, which will issue a print publication every semester and regularly update its website with articles about the Ivy Council’s projects. Ivy Inspire “is a way to help Ivy (Council) students come together to better create social change and aid in volunteerism and social work,” said Ivy Inspire Section Head of Student Diplomacy and International Change Kriyana Reddy ’20.
Undergraduate Council of Students President Viet Nguyen ’17 also attended the conference to represent the University and work with student body presidents of other Ivy League schools. “We share ideas about initiatives at our institutions and can go over what worked, what didn’t work and hear feedback,” Nguyen said. He cited Brown’s new initiative to provide free tampons in all gendered bathrooms on campus as an idea that other student body presidents were interested in implementing on their own campuses.
“The general idea (behind Ivy Council) is we talk about individual issues and how each issue is approached at different campuses, and if there’s particularly good policy on one campus, then we can bring it to another’s,” said Brown’s Ivy Council Policy Chair Naveen Srinivasan ’19.
At Brown, the Ivy Council has spent this year focusing on “sexual assault prevention and support for low-income students,” said Brown’s Ivy Council Vice President of Policy Yuki Inaba ’17. The council expects Ivy Inspire to help expand its impact and reach more students. By the end of the year, Ivy Inspire aims to coordinate events that will occur throughout the Ivy League.
Brown’s attendees of the summit hope that Ivy Inspire marks a new focus in the Ivy Council’s initiatives. “Although Ivy Council … doesn’t play a big role in people’s day-to-day life, the goal of this publication is to … hopefully add a more specific and clear direction,” Guyot-Sionnest said.
