Several years ago, the Seton Catholic student government decided to eliminate the traditional positions of student council president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary in order to replace them with a council of six equal student representatives. Each year, student candidates nominate themselves, deliver speeches, and are the subject of a dual-voting system. The three winners of the popular vote are elected to the council and then the senior members of the council jointly decide the other three members who will make up next year’s council.

This year we have seven student students who are running for a seat on the council. But who are they and what ideas do they propose for the upcoming school year? Read on to learn more about each candidate, whether incumbent or first-time candidate, and get an idea of what each one has to offer Seton if elected to next year’s council.

Lucy Atkins

As an extracurricular multiplayer, Lucy Atkins hopes her well-rounded social and leadership skills will ensure a promising campaign for student council. For her, building a communication bridge between the council and students, especially as a welcoming hand for our emergent high schoolers, is a top priority. “[I want] to get rid of the intimidation effect,” Lucy says. There’s no secret that there is a big gap between the high school and middle school, and not just because they happen to be a floor apart from each other. Because the student council is made up of upperclassmen, Lucy says that they just don’t seem approachable enough to the middle schoolers. “We don’t have a lot of socialization between the middle school and the high school and even between grades,” she says. To bridge said gap, she plans to open up communication with a more down-to-earth strategy; and in turn, to take this past year’s efforts to integrate the middle school with the rest of the student body even further. “We need to talk to each other as more of a community,” she says. 

Additionally, to foreshadow her upcoming speech on Tuesday, she plans to reveal the dress code as her campaign’s tent pole, alongside showcasing underappreciated sports and other Seton programs like band and chorus. To encourage students to stay in dress code throughout the week, Lucy proposes a Spirit Day Friday where students can wear Seton apparel and “drop” the formal uniform. She also proposes combining this weekly dress-down with the sponsor system that takes in donations for specific causes, making sure to keep up a monthly alternate. “If you choose to dress down during [a sponsored] month, you would bring in [donations] like canned goods depending on what the sponsor is,” Lucy says. In exchange, students would turn in their formal uniform attire for the day. 

When asked about the dress code proposal for the incoming 2023-2024 school year, Lucy praised its changes saying that a lot of “the draw” of Seton centers around appearance. But even though the student council has played advocate for student concern and input in the past, they’re pretty much left out of the conversation when it comes to enforcing, or reforming the dress code. Still, it will definitely be interesting to see how our student council will handle students’ reactions to the new dress code being implemented next year as it will most likely breed mixed responses. Regardless, if elected, Lucy will try to find different ways to get student concern through to the administration. 

As a first-time candidate, Lucy is excited and prepared to participate in tomorrow’s speech round and be given the shot to shed light on her proposal for communication and compromise to better your “day-to-day experience at Seton.”

Alexandra Back

Alexandra Back is a sophomore here at SCC, and is making her first run for Student Council. In addition to being an honors student, she is a star member of the varsity soccer, basketball, and lacrosse teams. Being an athlete, (especially a multisport athlete), Alexandra has developed critical skills that she believes would make her a strong Student Council member. She told us, “For basketball this year, we had a couple middle schoolers on the team, and I think that helped me learn a lot about patience and leadership.” Alexandra is also a member of the Academic Challenge team and Key Club, where she participates in numerous volunteering opportunities.

Even outside of school activities, Alexandra has learned important values through her summer job, life-guarding and teaching children how to swim, where she’s been able to develop leadership, communication, and initiative skills even more.

Alexandra has some new ideas she’d like to bring to the table if elected: “This year’s student council has done a great job, but I believe we can expand on their work even more.”

She hopes to address and improve several aspects of the SCC community. One of these is to bring students of different ages together, specifically bridging the gap between middle schoolers and high schoolers. This feat was attempted this year with the Senior Buddy system but ultimately had little effect. “Middle schoolers are going to be in high school eventually, so they should fit in and be incorporated more into our community,” she explained. As a member of Key Club, Alexandra has partaken in numerous volunteering opportunities, and wishes to develop the charity aspect of our education even more. “Expanding the organizations we donate to would be nice,”

Alexandra believes that if elected, she’d work well with fellow student council members and administration to represent the student body and achieve their goals. “I know the other candidates pretty well; I’ve gone to school with them for years, played sports with them, and I think that would help a lot with how we’d work with each other.” She believes that  “bouncing ideas off of administration and working with them to see what they want, and being able to compromise,” would represent the will of students well.

In regards to the will of the student body, Alexandra would work to improve how students can communicate their ideas and opinions: “Making it known you can come up to a student council member and ask them something would be good. Then knowing that the student council may bring your concerns to administration would give students more of a voice.”

Alexandra has a message for the voters as they cast their ballots: “I will be able to make a change, and be someone for you to look up to and easily talk to,”

Roger Brooks

Following a loss last year which taught him a lot, Roger Brooks is bouncing back and is excited about his junior campaign as a student council member. Roger is an extremely hard worker with experience in Science Olympiad, Academic Challenge, Key Club, and as a House Prefect. Besides those activities, Roger has amassed 400 hours of community service and has worked at an ice cream shop for three years. Roger believes that all of this experience has made him well-prepared to represent his peers as a member of student council.

Roger’s work ethic is what he believes sets him apart from other candidates.”I will always try my hardest to advocate for students’ needs and desires. This year I’d like to make my mark on this school and see what I can change for the better. I think I can bring a lot to the table,” he said. Roger will also prioritize bringing more organization to school and events, as he believes that it is an area where the school is lacking.

Roger’s unique blend of maturity, experience, and work ethic makes him a great leader. Leadership, he says, is one of the most important parts of being a student council member. He also values friendliness, approachability, and a hardworking attitude.

Mary Catherine Burtis

Although she would rather wait until speeches to unveil her “big plan,” Mary Catherine is eager and grateful to be given the opportunity to represent her school community. As Mrs. Schmidt’s project helper, Mary Catherine always picks up the extra load when it comes to Seton. If not decorating Christmas trees, or raising school spirits, Mary Catherine’s outstretched hand you will not miss. “I feel I have a lot to offer this school,” she says; and as a candidate, she hopes to encourage more involvement from her fellow students. How? Well, students will just have to wait and see.

What was established is that Mary Catherine plans to expand on the current student council’s efforts, mostly including the fan club branching out to support more sports, to involve students even more in their community. She says that “there’s always room for improvement,” and that doesn’t just apply to this year’s members, but to those who are going to be elected for next year. She realizes “Seton is not perfect,” but, if elected, Mary Catherine will try to listen and involve everyone in the Seton community to strive for a better school environment. “I do appreciate people who want to be the voices of change,” she stated, “and everyone is entitled to their opinion.” 

“I love Seton, and I want people to love Seton as much as I do,” Mary Catherine says. Given her spirited fervor for the school, students should expect to hear more about a collaborative effort to work like a community. Mary Catherine feels she likes and could work well with the other candidates so “hopefully, it all works out,” she says. 

Mary Redmore

The next candidate running for student council is Mary Redmore, a junior, who students might know from various sports and clubs, plays, or Student Council. She’s running for reelection this year, and if she makes it on, it will be her third year as a member of the council.

Why is she running for student council? Her continued passion for the school and want for it to be even better. “I love the people here, I love the teachers, and I wanna make sure that the people who are entering the school after me find it a little better than it was the year before. I just want to improve the school, every year.”

Mary has an advantage over some of her fellow candidates from her previous two years on the council. She has the experience in leadership necessary for the position, both through being on Student Council and being team captain of various sports.

If she is reelected this year, she wants to help make students more heard. “I think people feel like they aren’t listened to,” Mary explained how with dress-downs, dances, or music at dances, students don’t really feel as if they have a say. Either a specific class is asked, or a specific friend group. “That is tough to hear, because it feels like we are leading blindly, like we aren’t paying attention to what the students want. So I think coming into next year, should I get reelected, a big goal is to increase activity and involvement and make people want to be interested and hold student council accountable to do that.” School spirit and engagement are also a huge part of her campaign. She wants to help students feel proud of their school, and engage with it.

A common source of discord every year around elections is the House System. Mary loves the idea of it, but realizes that it needs to be used to it’s full potential. “I think it’s a good way for upperclassmen and underclassmen to get to know each other.” She stressed that it needs to be further used for service. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted student’s ability to go out into our community for service, but as it reaches its end Mary wants to revive that aspect of our House System.

As final words to the reader, Mary doesn’t use it to ask for votes. Instead, she encourages everyone to make the decision best for them. “Vote for the candidate you think will represent you.”

Christian Taber

The next candidate running for student council is Christian Taber, a sophomore, who students might know from the varsity golf team, running service projects in Key Club, brainstorming in the business program, or playing badminton in the gym.

Why is he running for student council? His continued desire to help Seton be the best that it can be. ““I think that there’s some things with the school that we could improve and in turn promote those things to bring in more students for unique opportunities…“In general, improve the whole setup for Seton, just kind of refine the product. Just throw in anything extra benefits that we possibly can for everyone to enjoy.”

Christian has an advantage over some of his fellow candidates from his leadership and time management skills. Back in the Covid quarantine, when no one had anything to do, he spent his time watching and learning from speakers such as Jim Rohn. He focused on bettering his communication, time management, leadership, and money management skills. Christian believes he can use these to help improve the school as a whole. “I’m not perfect on any of these skills, but refining that constantly and being able to learn from mistakes is something I’ll be able to bring to the table.”

If he is elected this year, he wants to bring the community together and boost more moral amongst students. “We know from fan club that students are proud to be Saints, but I feel that there’s so much more outside of the basketball season that we can do to make people remember that we can be proud of this school for so many more reasons.”

A common source of disdain every year around elections is the House System. Christian believes it has fallen off post-Covid, with only a few meetings a year. He stressed that there are s much more that could be done with it, such as community service. Christian stresses the importance of the House System, and how it not only inspires friendly competition but also bonding with your house. In his speech, it will be one of his main points, along with more extracurriculars for students.

As to why he loves Seton, Christian responds that it’s because of the size. “That’s one of the main selling points of this school, how tight-knit of a community we are…Everybody at least knows who everybody else is, and just all the benefits of the school being small and the tight-knit family of it.” Christian believes he has what it takes to help take this small-knit community t the next level. He trusts that whether it’s him or not, students will make the right decision for the school during the election.

Cash Vaughan

Cash Vaughan (17, Junior) is one of the incumbent members of the student council, running again for re-election this year. Cash is known for his extensive extracurricular activity, such as playing lacrosse, participating in Academic Challenge and Science Olympiad, and managing Seton’s Instagram account.

Cash feels confident running for student council once again, having two years of experience in the position and much under his belt. “I think my experience makes me stand out from other candidates. I know how things work and I will be able to get things done efficiently, which will help the younger members learn,” Cash stated during an interview.

Given his experience, Cash filled us in on what he thinks is the biggest issue plaguing Seton now. “School spirit and involvement is not like what it used to be. I think that this panel of candidates is very diverse and will do an exceptional job at addressing this issue, no matter who gets elected. I have extremely high hopes for next year’s group, higher than they’ve ever been before and I think we will be able to get a lot of good things done for the school.”

The candidate stated that he will not make any promises he can’t keep for his potential next term on the council, but did confirm that he will do his duty to improve student experience as much as he can. Additionally, Cash reminded voters to vote for who they think will get the job done and for nothing else.

Conclusion

Whether reaffirming their seat on the council, or emerging as first-time candidates, this year’s roster for student council members is filled to the brim with eager contenders. Seton’s very own representatives hope to rejuvenate the sense of community and school spirit sidetracked by the pandemic, and follow in their predecessors’ footsteps, or rather leave even bigger shoes to fill for future candidates.