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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

HPC names Pasquerilla East ‘Hall of the Year’

The Hall Presidents Council (HPC) announced Pasquerilla East Hall as the recipient of the Hall of the Year award at Notre Dame’s Student Leadership Awards Banquet on Thursday night. Walsh Hall won Women's Hall of the Year and Fisher Hall was named Men's Hall of the Year.

hall of the year WEB
Susan Zhu
Susan Zhu


Seamus Quilty, co-president of HPC, said the committee selected the three award recipients after evaluating the dorms’ Rockne event reports, signature events, Hall of the Year presentations, resident testimonials and in-hall events.

“This helped showcase a hall’s identity, engagement of all residents and drive towards developing the residents personally — as residents of the hall community and as people of the community beyond the hall,” he said.

Pasquerilla East Hall introduced a number of programs during the past year designed to help its residents develop personally, Meredith Frasier, co-president of HPC, said.

“[Pasquerilla East] has had an exceptional year, meeting the needs of many residents,” she said. “With this in mind, hall council conducted surveys throughout the year to better understand residents’ wishes. As a result of this input, their two main goals for the year were to increase service opportunities and to increase the variety of the events.”

Mary White, president of Pasquerilla East Hall, said her goal was to reach a large portion of her dorm’s residents.

“I honestly think it’s all due to the commissioners,” White said. “Our goals in the beginning of the year, they really took to heart, and they not only did their two events per semester — they went above and beyond.”

Pasquerilla East hosted a number of events throughout the year for hall residents and members of the Notre Dame community, White said, including a “Women’s Wisdom Dinner,” trivia nights, a “Puppies and Pancakes” event and weekly service opportunities.

“Throughout the year, the leadership in this hall was humble in identifying its areas for growth and then effective in making specific improvements to reach more residents,” Quilty said. “Their organizational structure, second to none, made this possible.”

Quilty said the Women's Hall of the Year, Walsh Hall, planned their year with three core values in mind — creativity, hospitality and fearlessness.

Walsh Hall consistently garnered large turnouts at hall events, Quilty said, including the dorm’s overnight retreat, Harry Potter Week and study abroad dessert crawl.

Walsh president Amy Ackermann said she was proud of the dorm's service and spirituality program over the past year, which involved working working with the Ronald McDonald Family House, the dorm’s new signature charity.

(Editor's note: Amy Ackermann is a photographer for The Observer.)

“I was surprised because we won Hall of the Year last year, and I didn't think it was possible to win twice in a row,” she said. “A lot of the other women's halls had fantastic programming, so I'm really honored that they chose us. I'm so proud of my chairs and commissioners for all of the hard work they did this year.”

Men's Hall of the Year, Fisher Hall, focused on formation this year, in a personal and communal sense, Frasier said.

“To encourage both faith-based and other personal growth, this hall invited guest speakers to enlighten residents, an intitiative that began to honors their hall’s namesake,” she said.

Proceeds from the dorm’s two signature events — a Spikeball tournament and the Fisher Regatta — earned more than $6,000, all of which was donated to St. Adalbert School, the dorm’s signature charity, Frasier said.

Fisher president Cory Jbara said the dorm helped its residents grow by learning to live for others and learning to engage in the process of reflection and development.

“Although these events are great on paper, the tradition in Fisher Hall goes way further,” he said. “Fisher is unique because of its commitment to brotherhood. The men of Fisher are extremely dedicated to living not only as individuals, but also as a community. Together, we have made a great impact on each other and the campus as a whole.”

“Congratulations to these three halls and the remaining 26, each of which deserves genuine acknowledgement,” Frasier said.

All three winning dorms will receive monetary awards from HPC and a Dome Dance next year, Quilty said.

News Editor Katie Galioto contributed to this report.