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Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

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Some of these resources may exist independently under different programs or as autonomous activities, but there is no formalised means of connecting them and centralising the steps for a mature entrepreneur to scale beyond Swarthmore.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: TriConnect - Peer-to-peer mentoring website TriConnect is a mentoring website that helps students in the Tri-College Consortium (Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr) tap into the untapped network of mentors, aka the amazing students that attend these three esteemed colleges. Students start by creating a profile, listing all of their affiliations (majors, clubs, interests etc.) and what they can offer mentorship in and what they are seeking to be mentored in (i.e. a CS student looking for someone more involved in the Tri-Co entrepreneurship environment). Once a profile is created, they can reach out to other students on the network to set up meals, attend events together etc.

The Impact of “TriConnect”: By creating a platform that directly fosters peer-to-peer mentorship, TriConnect hopes to not only empower <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">individuals,but also shift school culture from one that is hyper-competitive and often cutthroat to one that is more collaborative and supportive. We hope that this will lead to benefits in student mental health and physical well-being, all the while cultivating student entrepreneurship and innovation.<div> </div></div><div>Strategic Priority #4.2 (Cassandra 2018): Landscape Update and Further Collaboration Opportunities</div> <div>There are many different opportunities to get involved with various facets of entrepreneurship on campus. These include organizations such as SWIFT, LaunchDeck, 180 Consulting, and WiCS+. While it is great to have all these existing programs, itis also meansthat entrepreneurship efforts are divided among all these clubs. This, in a sense, heightens the sense of "competition" Michelle addressed last year. As entrepreneurial resources grow on campus, it is critical that we create initiatives to get these groups to work together. </div><div> Student Government Organization Committees Swarthmore's SGO has many committees that handle bringing various student groups together in other to help move the campus community forward as a whole. As entrepreneurship opportunities become a high priority for students on campus, it would be beneficial for SGO to create a Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, which would involve weekly meetings with the leaders of the entrepreneurial groups of campus. </div><div> Cross-Group Peer to Peer Mentorship While Michelle's Peer-to-Peer program focused on resources available to the greater TriCo community, I am interested in fostering collaboration within the institution by establishing a similar mentoring program to connect members across the aforementioned entrepreneurial groups. By doing so, we would be able to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources across these organizations and reduce the existing beauricraticlandscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.66670036315918px; font-weight: bold; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 224);">Strategic Priority #5.1 (Gaeta 2019): Initiate, Collaborate, Educate

As we seek to expand social innovation work and involve our community both on campus and locally with the educational opportunities outlined in our mission,  collaboration with peer schools has unequivocally shown to be a necessary- vital intricacy that can bolster a wide array of program success on our campus. The college encourages communication with both Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College as they have been affiliated for several decades as part of the "Quaker Consortium" or Tri-College Network among our schools. From lab research affiliations to official programs such as the Tri-Co Philly initiative, we feel it is imperative to use the existing relationship with these schools to increase the presence of cross-campus social innovation endeavors. 

To do so, we propose that this collaboration serves as a mechanism to strengthen the prior and current student priorities that are outlined on this page. That is, we acknowledge that collaboration among our colleges is, though indeed important, more appropriately serve as secondary landscape foresight. Nonetheless, the following steps outline our primary next steps to begin these programs fruition.

1. Formal proposal to social engagement/ entrepreneurship stakeholders at each school. This will begin a conversation and introduce the three schools to a shared vested interest in advancing student engagement.

2. Schedule a student interest meeting on each campus to attract students from each school into a setting/forum with possible guest speakers or events that can begin to lay a framework for a relationship among the school's innovators.

3. Follow up and strict deadlines will be a vital component of this mission. We will have a hard deadline for December 15th to achieve step 1 and begin the process of scheduling the events for part 2.

4. Continous community feedback from all three campuses is not to be overlooked throughout this proposal. The most fundamental tenant of this work is giving one another a voice- and- embracing this priority will be at the forefront of this collaboration involving email surveys, classroom engagement, presentations, and similar means of allowing community members to share their opinions on the program.

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