2023 Cohort
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<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color:#ffffe0;">'''Strategic Priority #9.1 (Emma Lang, Angie Kwon , Olivia Medeiros-Sakimoto 2023): Non-academic community spaces'''</span></span></span>
Most of the community spaces on campus are academic based (ie. most of the lounges that exist are for department students). There are not many opportunities/spaces for students to relax and organize student life around. There should a dedicated prominent space just for student life/engagement where students can develop community rapport without the academic pressure. Currently a student center is being built out of the old Sharples building, and we can strive to truly make it a student space and maximize the space's potential.
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color:#ffffe0;">'''Strategic Priority #9.2 (Emma Lang, Angie Kwon , Branley Mmasi 2023): Utilizing our diversity'''</span></span></span>
Swarthmore has a highly diverse student body, but institutionally and systematically it is still prominently white and upper-middle class. Though this may not be a significant problem on its own, nonetheless it should be rectified and supplemented with other opportunities and offices to ensure true diverse development on campus. There is already the Inclusive Excellence Fellows initiative that works to promote diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, but programs such as this should be advertised to incoming students more publicly and their achievements published to the entire school. The college as a whole should also strive to diversity goals in all departments, including the athletic department, which could benefit from diverse recruitment. The academic departments as well could enhance their programmings for minority students, such as for women in STEM fields, POC in STEM and social science fields, etc.
Although Swarthmore is located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, it still has access to Philadelphia and resources from surrounding communities such as Chester PA. Swarthmore has already established connections with different organizations outside of Swarthmore, but this list is limited. In order to help improve this challenge there should be a increase in partnership between swarthmore, neighboring communities, and community organizations. This partnership will help foster closer relationships, help promote events on Swarthmore and neighboring communities, help spread knowledge on certain issues, and promote networking opportunities. In order to do this, there should be more student involvement in community events, and the reach of current community outreach should be broadened with more technical tools such as a website to browse volunteer organizations that you can access with your swarthmore account.
<br />'''Strategic Priority #9.4 (Branley Mmasi, Olivia Medeiros-Sakimoto, George Fang 2023): Teaching Entrepreneurship in Academics''' We hope to shift the responsibility of teaching entrepreneurship at Swat from school organizations on campus to a specific department that can act as a catalyst, working with the registrar's office to establish an entrepreneurship minor (gaining academic credit for entrepreneurship-related courses). In order to expose more of our community to design thinking, we will ask students to work with professors to determine what they want to learn about entrepreneurship in academics. Additionally, we could host a guest lecture series inviting local local entrepreneurs to share their experiences, challenges, and advice, even assigning real-world projects where students must identify a market need and develop a business plan.
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