Penn Undergraduate Assembly - Your Student Government » Mark Pan

UA Internal Election Results

Cynthia Ip — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:40:15 +0000

The UA is pleased to announce the results of our Internal Elections, which took place on April 11th, 2010:

Speaker: G.J. Melendez-Torres, Nursing & Wharton ‘11
The Speaker chairs UA meetings and facilitates all internal business, including serving as a link between the executive and the body and managing the associate member process.

Treasurer: Ryan Houston, Wharton ‘11
The Treasurer is responsible for the UA’s own operational funds, the Student Government Budget that appropriates over $1.9 million for all undergraduate government branches at Penn, as well as the UA’s $20,000 Contingency Fund.

Secretary: Cynthia Ip, College ‘12
The Secretary is responsible for record-keeping, communicating to the student body on the UA’s progress through the website and the press, as well as other administration necessary for our operation.

Melendez-Torres, Houston, and Ip will join President Matt Amalfitano and Vice President Mark Pan to form the UA Executive Board.

Subscribe to the Weekly “Assembly Line”!

Mark Pan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:05:31 +0000

In addition to our all-school emails sent roughly every month, we’ll be sending out a weekly “Assembly Line” newsletter to update you on what Penn student groups have to say, share what the UA is working on, and solicit your feedback.

Check out the latest Assembly Line newsletter here, and subscribe below!

Donate your leftover meals!

awebley — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:03:15 +0000

Many Penn students simply don’t use all, or even many, of the dining hall meals their meal plan gives them. Indeed, the Liberty Meal Plan (the smallest of the compulsory freshman plans) would have you eat at the dining halls 10 times a week to fully use up the whole plan.

UA representative Mark Pan, in conjunction with leaders of More Than Pennies, Circle K, Sigma Alpha Mu, and several other organizations around campus, decided to put those leftover meals to good use: feeding the homeless. Unfortunately, there was considerable resistance to permitting the donation of meals outright – so the UA passed a forceful resolution in favor of meal donation.

Sure enough, a few weeks afterward More Than Pennies was allowed to station volunteers outside of all three dining halls on Wednesday, April 29. The event was publicized by freshman-wide email sent by the UA. After one day, More Than Pennies had 531 students donate 10,300 meals! Simply by donating their spare meals, over 1,000 people in Philadelphia homeless shelters had food.

This fantastic initiative attracted a lot of attention from the local media, featuring in MSNBC’s “Making a Difference” segment on May 23 (check out former UA Representative Grant Dubler around 2:00). Check it out below or here.

Casino Development Examined

awebley — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:03:15 +0000

This semester, reacting to plans announced by the City and other stakeholders to permit Foxwoods to construct a casino near Chinatown, the UA called on Penn to commission a study into the new casino location, similar to the study done by Penn Praxis on the previously announced site of the casino on the waterfront. The UA resolution generated significant press coverage in the local press.

In addition, a task force led by Mark Pan, the UA’s Civic and Community Engagement Director, and Mark Chou of the Living Water Christian Fellowship launched a major multi-partisan panel discussion on the casino development, filling a large Huntsman classroom with curious students.

As the approval process for the proposed Foxwoods casino moves forward, the UA will keep a watch on an issue that has a large impact on the local community, including undergraduates living at Penn.