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Notre Dame —

 

We hope you all enjoyed a great winter break! We're thrilled to be back under the dome with you and are looking forward to an incredible semester together.

 

This semester started off strong with Walk the Walk Week, a series of events commemorating the awe-inspiring, important life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We in student government applaud the many incredible campus groups that worked so hard to successfully carry out the events, and we are grateful for the chance to have collaborated on such an important initiative through our Department of Diversity and Inclusion. We hope that the discussions had will help compel all of us to better live out Dr. King's vision.

 

As our administration moves into its final months, we are working to effect serious, tangible change on several of our key policy goals. In addition, we're continuing to collaborate with the widest range of campus groups possible across a broad range of events.

 

Every year, clubs request tens of thousands of dollars more than the Club Coordination Council (CCC) is able to give them. Clubs and student groups help empower Domers to pursue their interests, effect change on campus and form the bedrock of much of student life. To that end, we will be presenting the Senate with a constitutional amendment to raise the CCC's budget, a step toward ensuring financial support for student groups across campus. 

 

We're also going to be concentrating our focus on two large-scale issues that impact far too many on campus: cost of living and dorm maintenance. In both cases, we are committed to amplifying your voices directly to the administration, clearly representing your experience to those at the highest levels of our university. Over these final months, we'll be directing multiple departments of our executive cabinet to direct their focus to improving living conditions and lowering campus costs. We've begun to work in conjunction with the Senate, Hall Presidents' Council and others across campus to pursue our goal of tangible improvement. As we undertake this initiative, we look forward to an interactive process that depends on hearing your stories, problems and suggestions.

 

We were proud to give both the College Democrats and College Republicans civic engagement grants. We felt this was in keeping with our commitment to bipartisan leadership, and with seemingly more young adults interested in politics than ever before, it's crucial to enable our students to take part in the process. On that note, we applaud all those who recently took part in the marches in Washington and are impressed by the organization of the student groups that facilitated these events.

 

Additionally, we were proud to collaborate with the Center for Social Concerns on the recent Social Concerns Fair, and our Community Outreach and Engagement Department looks forward to continuing its work by playing a large role in the Annual Back the Bend event in April. 

 

As always, we're working to improve communication between student government and the student body. More people are engaging with student government on social media than ever before, and by a large margin. We're looking forward to continuing our constituent lunches, visiting more hall councils and meeting more and more of you as our administration moves into its last months. 

 

All the best to each of you — stay warm, and Go Irish. 

 

Best,

 

Gates, Corey, and Bri