The NYU Student Government Global Summit (SGGS) in New York was not cancelled, but merely postponed to December, despite previous rumors. Supposed to happen in October, the summit was postponed because of “logistical problems like booking hotels, speakers, and the venue,” according to sophomore Joanne Chun. Chun, the Director of the Global Affairs Committee, is also the Chair of the NYU Global Students Council. This means Joanne is both in charge of directing the summit and representing NYU Shanghai at the event. The Global Students council holds bi-weekly Skype meetings, during which representatives from New York, Abu Dhabi and Shanghai campuses go over issues pertaining the collaboration between the three campuses. The face-to-face meeting, the SGGS, is held once a year at one of the three NYU campuses. At the summit, representatives discuss ways to improve the Global Network University. In other words, the summit helps to enhance the global aspect of the university through student initiatives. This year, Chun identified several goals for the summit. First of all, in order to clearly outline the role of each campus in the Global Network University and efficiently structure the Global Students Council, the SGGS will ratify a constitution based on the results of the last years’ summit. Chun helped to organize the summit last year in Shanghai, so her experience, as well as the experience of other NYU Shanghai representatives, is important to the success of the summit. The benefits are mutual--the summit is one of the major opportunities for NYU Shanghai to voice its concerns and seek solutions to its problems. Especially significant to NYU Shanghai is the goal of the summit to apply programs not to just New York, but all three campuses. For example, currently only New York students can apply for the Global Pathway scholarship to study away. Therefore, the summit plans to establish study away scholarships for all campuses and look into other ways to make NYU Global Network more affordable. In addition, the summit will continue the discussion on the NYU Global Service Initiative. In the beginning, this community service initiative was a part of the New York campus spirit week, called “Violet 100.” Last year the project was extended to other NYU campuses, including NYU Shanghai. At the same time as other campuses, NYU Shanghai organized a weekend of community service for its students. As Lathika Chandra Mouli noted in her OCA article about the event, the project had a somewhat limited popularity, probably because the weekend of service happened to be during the Spring Festival break. This year, the summit will work on improving the Global Service Initiative, and introduce the collaboration with the NYU Shanghai Deans Service Scholars program.While certainly there is a room for improvement when it comes to coordination between campuses, changes are made every year and members of the Global Affairs Committee at NYU Shanghai are striving to make the global network function better. This article was written by Mira Yoo. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Shanghai Student Government