The Saint Mary’s College student body elected their new 2024-2025 president and vice president last Thursday. The results were sent last Friday afternoon to students’ emails announcing juniors Ashley Chaveriat and Adare Carmody as student body president and vice president, respectively, for the Student Government Association (SGA).
Chaveriat, majoring in Communication Studies and minoring in Business Administration and Public Relations and Advertising, currently serves as the president for hall improvement for the Residence Hall Association (RHA), the secretary for Saint Mary’s Historians and the secretary for Notre Dame’s Humor Artists (HA). She is also involved in the theater program and volunteers for Beyond the Belle for Darden Elementary School.
Carmody, also majoring in Communication Studies and minoring in Public Relations and Advertising and Political Science, is an resident assistant in Le Mans Hall and serves as the co-chair for events for RHA, the treasurer for the SMC Democrats Club and the senior ambassador for Office of Admissions. She is also a swim coach for Notre Dame’s club swim team.
Chaveriat stated she hadn’t considered running for office until this year when others encouraged her to campaign. After some time of reflection, she believed serving in SGA would allow her to “give back to a school that has given so much” to her.
“As a communication major, I'm not afraid to use my voice and make sure that the student body is able to tell the administration what they want and also the administration is able to tell the student body what they want as well,” Chaveriat said.
Carmody was considering running for office when Chaveriat reached out to her to be her running mate. She felt running together was “a perfect fit” and expressed her wishes to make a positive impact on the student body, just as the student body president her freshman year had.
“I remember my first year here when the president made such an impact during our first week of orientation,” Carmody said. “I remember being like, ‘Oh, this is so inspiring,’ since she was from Georgia, and I’m from Georgia. You can come from so far away and make such a difference.”
Carmody and Chaveriat both stated that at the start of the election process, they had not predetermined who would run for president or vice president, emphasizing that their focus on a “team effort” took precedence over titles.
“We were coming into this being a team effort, being like, ‘We are in this together.’ This is not like one person is doing more than the other,” Carmody said. “In everything we’ve done so far, it’s been well-discussed that we have not made any decisions without the other. We’re communication majors, so we’re really great at communicating.”
Chaveriat and Carmody promoted themselves on a platform corresponding to both of their initials, AC. They campaigned on three major topics they’d like to either change or continue at SMC: achieve community, actively collaborate and advance college.
For their first point, “achieve community,” Chaveriat said she and Carmody want to “lean into” the sisterhood found at Saint Mary’s and bring back a lot of the now-forgotten traditions alumnae celebrated before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In terms of strengthening the connection between Saint Mary’s students, “a huge part of our campaign is not only ensuring that you have the best four years of your life but also the 40 or so years afterwards,” Chaveriat said.
Their second point, “actively collaborate,” refers to Chaveriat and Carmody wanting to allow more dialogue on campus and provide resources to do so for all students to be a part of it.
“There’s been a lot of dialogue on campus. We want to make sure that everyone is compassionate and hearing each other and making sure that people who feel left outside of this sisterhood are embraced and welcomed,” Chaveriat said.
Their last point, “advance college,” alludes to their future efforts in broadening connections between SMC students, alumnae or other successful women.
“One big thing we really wanted to emphasize was advancing careers. With this being a women's college, I think that there are so many opportunities that we’re missing out on when connecting with very powerful women who are out there, even alumni. [We’re] improving the Career Fair, improving Career Crossings, things like that, just really doing our best to get that going,” Carmody said.
Chaveriat and Carmody express deep gratitude for their election to the roles of student body president and vice president, respectively, and eagerly anticipate the start of their terms this fall.
“We’re doing this because … we love everyone, and we just love our Saint Mary’s,” Carmody said. “We just want to make sure that everyone feels like this is a good place to be around, a great space to create a great community.”
