Over the summer, Patrick Lee, Sofie Stitt, Nicole Baumann and the rest of Notre Dame Student Government were hard at work for the student body.
Lee, the student body president, explained that he stayed in South Bend to plan for the year and build relationships with administrators, other staff members and cabinet directors.
“I never count the hours, so it’s hard to tabulate, but [my work] was a lot of meeting with administrators, trying to build relationships and paving the way for our initiatives to follow. I think, also, the great majority of the time was spent meeting with Nicole and our directors,” Lee said.
Baumann, the chief of staff, said she came back to the University for the whole month of August to help Lee with planning and organization for the coming school year after spending the first part of the summer in Los Angeles working with non-profit organizations.
“With Patrick, that was a lot of strategizing for the year,” she said.
Stitt, the vice president, was in Chicago completing a finance internship, but she said she contributed to the summer work virtually.
Lee said the 17 department directors each have five to fine goals for the year, which are outlined on the Student Government progress tracker. The website is set up so interested students can click on each department and scroll through all of the goals. Lee said more information can be found by contacting each department.
Lee explained that one of the main goals of the progress tracker is to combat voter apathy.
“The number one thing that we encountered in our election was voter apathy. A lot of times, people don’t know what Student Government is and what we do,” he said. “Now, we have made sure that if anybody ever asks that question, they can reference this extensive guide and immediately know what’s going on.”
Lee, Stitt and Baumann all expressed excitement about the new progress tracker, saying it will help keep the cabinet on track.
“We think that the progress tracker goes a long way for both accountability and transparency, which are really two of our highest values,” Lee said.
Baumann, who described the tracker as a “holistic view,” also noted that the tracker and goals may change throughout the year.
“[The executive cabinet members] are always looking for new ideas from their department chairs, as well as from the student body,” she said.
Currently, the organization has finished 15 out of the 90 goals outlined, making them 16.5% of the way to completion.
Many of the completed projects were oriented toward new student engagement, such as “Football 101” for international students and “Flick on the Field” at the end of the first week of classes.
Two major improvements to student life occurred in the residence and dining halls.
Safety after parietals was a massive change to Notre Dame student life that was implemented this fall after three years in the works. The final push was brought about by Lane Obringer, director of gender relations, Title IX and women’s initiatives.
The new rules state that if a student feels unsafe in a dorm environment past parietals, they can leave without fear of repercussions, Baumann said.
Lee said he was happy about finishing a movement started by previous departments and about how they collaborated with administrators.
“Certainly credit to the previous administrations, but it’s been our approach since we took office that the administrators that we worked with on safety after parietals, and as well as most administrators, actually share goals with our organization,” Lee explained. “We approached those conversations at first with a cooperative mindset, as opposed to an adversarial mindset.”
Stitt emphasized that, although the cabinet has completed the initiative, they will continue to promote those resources to the student body.
Another one of the campaign’s main goals was to bring back healthier options for students in dining halls. The cabinet accomplished this by not only bringing back vegan and vegetarian options for every meal and carving stations on Thursday, but also by changing the dining hall hours to be open until 8 p.m. on weekends.
Coming up, Baumann said she is excited about bringing back the Sustainability Cup, Race Relations Week in October and the suicide memorial prayer service, among various other programs in the works.
Some of the goals for the cabinet won’t be completed until the end of their term, such as Pridefest 2023 and Back the Bend.
Baumann noted that this year, Back the Bend will hopefully be a national endeavor, with alumni clubs joining throughout the country.
The leadership team also said they are working toward better communication in the coming year. They will start to implement better social media engagement and a podcast called “Pod, Country, Notre Dame.”
Stitt said they encourage interested students, especially first-years and transfers, to get involved in Student Government by coming to their weekly coffee chats and reaching out to department directors.
“We’re just really excited for [everyone] to be here. We cannot wait to serve them this year,” Stitt said. “We really just encourage [new students] to get involved on campus, whether that’s with student government or with clubs or intramural sports or in the dorm.”
Lee, echoing Stitt’s sentiment, called for any interested students to bring them ideas.
“I think I can speak for the three of us in saying there’s really nothing that we wouldn’t do for the student body,” Lee said. “If anybody wants to see anything or they have any ideas, come chat and we’ll make it happen.”
Contact Bella Laufenberg at ilaufenb@nd.edu.