Graduate student union (GSU) expands grants, ups event attendance
This semester, the Notre Dame Graduate Student Union saw a substantial increase in attendance at its events, including its Halloween party, skating and trivia events, GSU president Doug Rice said. Rice said one of the GSU's major recent accomplishments was changing its presentation grant request limit from $200 to $2,000, allowing students to attend and financially cover more conferences than in past years. Rice said the GSU has also started offering a grant encouraging collaboration across disciplines. The GSU will host its annual Christmas party today and is in the process of planning a charity gala for this coming March, Rice said.
- Dan Brombach
Board collaborates with The Shirt, will review expenditures
The Financial Management Board (FMB) spent the semester consulting with student organizations and working with The Shirt Charity Fund, FMB chairman Alexa Shaw said. "[The fund] distributes proceeds from The Shirt to those with extraordinary medical conditions and financial needs," Shaw said. "Financial Management Board also strives to stimulate collaboration within different clubs and organizations through our Collaboration Fund." FMB will prepare next semester's expenditures in the next few weeks, Shaw said. "Our winter spending review and reallocation process and our annual spring allocation will continue to provide funding for student organizations and class councils as they look towards planning exciting programs for the student body in the spring," she said.
- ToriRoeck
Council fosters interaction between residence hall leaders
The Hall Presidents Council (HPC) forged connections between dorm representatives to strengthen its event-planning capacity, co-chair Matthew Lynch said. "We decided to focus on having ways to make the meetings more interactive between dorms," Lynch said. "We spent time during our weekly meetings splitting up into groups based on quads in order to make the meetings more interactive between dorms." This initiative has helped the dorms to collaborate on large-scale events like the Hunger Games Event, Lynch said. HPC continued to improve its selection process for Hall of the Year, Lynch said. "The biggest challenge we have had is finding the perfect and most transparent process," Lynch said.
- Nicole Michels
Club Coordination Council revamps funding allocation process
The Club Coordination Council's (CCC) cardinal task for the fall semester was to improve the allocation process of distributing money to individual clubs, CCC president Hannah Burke said. "The whole council saw a lot of issues with it and saw the need to revamp it," she said. "The allocations will not happen until April, so we still have time." Burke said the CCC has broken down the allocation process into several steps. "All of the deadlines we've set for ourselves have been met," she said.
- Adam Llorens
Senior Class Council seeks feedback, offers transitional programming
Senior Class Council (SCC) focused on opening up communication this semester. "We've really tried to follow through with these goals by opening up the discussion of Senior Week planning to the whole class via a town hall meeting," SCC president Tricia Corbran said. Popular events have included a cooking class in Legends, a "Campus Cuisine" event featuring foods from campus eateries and a "Senior Slump" discussion on life after Notre Dame. Next semester, Corbran said the council will look into continuing with programming focused on transitioning to post-graduate life.
- Mel Flanagan
Junior Class Council organizes events, designs apparel
Junior Class President Lizzie Helpling said the Junior Class Council (JCC) has met its goals for the semester. "JCC set out to program events and activities that would unite the junior class in a way that was accessible to the students," Helpling said. This semester, the council organized a Glow-in-the-Dark Rosary, a pumpkin painting service project, a Halloween ice skating night, a Stanford game tailgate, a trip to Cedar Point and new "bro tanks." Helpling said JCC effectively maintains communication with the junior class through monthly newsletters, which keep students abroad informed and unify the junior class.
- Christian Myers
Sophomore Class Council offers well-rounded programming schedule
Class president Tim Scanlan said the Sophomore Class Council worked to achieve social, spiritual, and service goals this semester by planning events like a block party and a BYU class tailgate. "We're doing an all-year program called the Class Cup which includes events like trivia night, a hot dog eating contest, and a strobe light volleyball tournament last weekend called 'Strobe Set Spike.'" Scanlan said the Council collaborated with Campus Ministry to put together a class Mass and a recurring rosary event. "On the service side, we decided to start a new initiative called 'Take 5,' where the idea is to take five minutes to do something nice," Scanlan said.
- Ann Marie Jakubowski
Freshman Class Council starts off ND years on high note
Class of 2016 president Hugh Phelan has been in office for less than a semester, but he has already organized several impressively attended events with. The Freshman Class Council's hosted the Monster Mosh Halloween dance. FCC also hosted a bonfire on Holy Cross Hill, which Phelan said attracted several hundred students. Currently, Phelan and his council are fundraising for Operation Smile, a charity providing surgeries for children with facial deformities. They are working on "Prayer Partners," a program that matches more than 200 freshmen to pray for each other.
- Maddie Daly
