As new Saint Mary's student body president and vice president Kim Hodges and Kelly Payne prepare for their second Board of Governance (BOG) meeting after the board turnover, outgoing president Susan McIlduff and vice president Maggie Siefert said they are proud of the year they spent as the College's student leaders.
"Maggie and I fulfilled all of our platform goals," McIlduff said. "We ran on the idea of a checklist, and we checked off all of our items with the students' best interest in mind."
Among those goals was the continuance of Heritage Week, an event McIlduff was involved in creating during the 2005-06 school year as vice president, alongside then-president Kelly Mitros.
"Over the past two years there have definitely been some major additions to the week and I only hope that [future administrations] continue to make it a stronger tradition within this great college community," Siefert said. "Heritage week is a great week that allows us to tie together our past with present."
Siefert was also a part of the ongoing Student Academic Council's appraisal of the College's general education requirements, an initiative that Payne will oversee in the upcoming year.
"I hope that through the Student Academic Council, she, with the SAC representatives, will continue to have a powerful voice in the evaluation of the current general education program," Siefert said of Payne. "With the combination of student and faculty input, I definitely see this evaluation making big progress."
McIlduff did not discount the value of her board and the contributions of past student government boards in the success she had. She called her term a "watershed year," saying her administration's success fed off the foundations of past leadership teams.
For McIlduff, the end of her term coincides with the end of her years as a Saint Mary's student. But Siefert, a junior, will continue to serve the College as a student representative as she assumes the role of Elections Commissioner in the Hodges-Payne administration.
Siefert said she did not run for president because she felt that she would not have the time to devote to the office that the student body deserves.
"Next year I will be student teaching and this will be taking up a lot of my time that I will not be able to give to being the Student Body President and for that reason it is not fair for the women of this institution," she said.
She said that even though she will not continue in an executive position next year, she will remain an active leader helping work "toward the betterment of Saint Mary's College."
