At the conclusion of a one-ticket race, Saint Mary’s students elected juniors Kat Sullivan and Maddy Martin on Thursday to serve as the 2013-14 student body president and vice president. Sullivan, a communications studies major whose mother was student body president of Saint Mary’s in 1976, said she is looking forward to stepping into the role April 1. “It was really exciting and I was glad that other students were just as [excited as] we were,” Sullivan said. “They realized the importance of voting, regardless of the fact that we were running unopposed. It is very important that students’ voices are heard.” The Student Government Association (SGA) sent an email Thursday to students opening up the election. Attached was a link to OrgSync, the College’s new communication system, where students were able to select the Sullivan-Martin ticket or chose to abstain. Current student body president Maureen Parsons said 262 students voted in this year’s election, and 91 percent of the voters were in favor of the Sullivan-Martin ticket. Martin, a biology and Spanish double major, said she is particularly excited about the level of voting participation from the student body. “Obviously it wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was still really awesome that we had enough participation from the student body,” she said. “Even though we were the only ticket running, I had great feedback from other students saying that Kat and I were going to be great leaders next year. It really gives me a lot of confidence going in to next year knowing that the student body supports us.” In the upcoming weeks, Sullivan said she and Martin will work on applications for other SGA positions. They plan to release the applications for these positions Friday to give students ample time to consider applying. “We would also like to have an Activities Night geared towards SGA so students can see what exactly SGA is and how they can get involved,” Sullivan said. “This will be important as we start to work towards transparency and better communication between SGA and the student body.” Martin, who currently serves as the vice president of finance for SGA, said she wants to alert the student body to the opportunities SGA offers. Outgoing leaders will assist the new team in learning the ropes of their jobs. “We will have a grace period starting April 1 where the new members essentially ‘shadow’ old members,” Martin said. “It provides some comfort going in because students have the opportunity to ask questions; they aren’t just thrown into the system.” Choosing the right students as fellow leaders for the College is the pair’s first priority once they take office in April, Sullivan said. “I would also like to sit down with all the newly elected leaders on campus once big board and class board elections are finalized,” Sullivan said. “I would like to hit the ground running and delegate tasks from the beginning of our term as student body president and vice president. That’s why it will be important to choose leaders as soon as we can so we can establish what roles people will take with events and initiatives over the next year.” Student Activities Board (SAB), Student Diversity Board (SDB), Residence Hall Association (RHA) and class board elections will be held March 7, Martin said. “I am so excited to continue expanding SGA,” Martin said. “We have a really great backbone set in place, and now it comes time to add on. We can now begin to perfect and modify the structure.” Sullivan, like Martin, said she is looking forward to working alongside her fellow Belles to get the student body more involved in SGA. “I am really excited to be working with Maddy,” Sullivan said. “I think that we will make a good team because we have different academic and extracurricular backgrounds. Through our current involvement on SGA, we have seen different aspects of Saint Mary’s that need to be improved. “Together, we can change the dynamic of the student body.”
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ND alum examines martyrdom of Archbishop
The Kellogg Institute for International Studies hosted the International Conference on Archbishop Oscar Romero on Sept. 25 – 27. The conference included guest speakers from universities and organizations from the United States, the United Kingdom and El Salvador, discussing the life and legacy of Fr. Oscar Romero.Professor of systematic theology Michael E. Lee, Notre Dame alumnus and current professor at Fordham University, gave a lecture on Monseñor Romero’s martyrdom Saturday afternoon.Sarah Olson “In Romero we have … a martyr of solidarity,” Lee said. “We can allow Romero’s death to deepen our understanding of martyrdom today.”According to Lee, some people do not consider Romero’s death to be a martyrdom. Romero was shot in 1980 as he was celebrating Mass and therefore was not called out to directly renounce his faith. However, Lee challenges this event by saying that Romero’s entire life was a testimony to his martyrdom.“Throughout his life, Romero lived a life of prayer and piety,” he said. “The witness of such utter devotion to God has been described as a martyr.”According to the U.N. website, Romero became known as “The Voice of the Voiceless” because he used his authority as archbishop to speak for the impoverished who could not speak out for themselves. Romero’s main focus was to speak out against the injustice and abuse that occurred during El Salvador’s civil war. Romero was also known for believing that no separation should exist between the Church and the poor.“Martyrs confront us with the holy mystery of the Gospel,” Lee said. “Romero’s case demonstrates that there is still progress to be made.”Lee examined two types of poverty: material and spiritual poverty. Lee defined material poverty as a lack of actual finances or possessions, and he said spiritual poverty is a dependence on God that each Christian is called to, a calling which Romero exemplified.“Martyrs function as a sign pointing to the path of conversion,” he said. “Martyrs … reveal the workings and real presence of sin.”Christianity involves an awareness of the preferential option for the poor, Lee said. According to the Center for Social Concerns (CSC) at Notre Dame, preferential option of the poor means “to strengthen the whole community by assisting those who are most vulnerable.”“The call of the Christian today is to make the commitment that is called the preferential option for the poor,” Lee said. “The solidarity called in the preferential option for the poor is essential in Christian discipleship.”Lee said Romero is an example of a “martyr of solidarity,” whose example is relevant today.“Recognizing martyrs of solidarity can even open doors to see how the Spirit moves outside the Church,” he said.Tags: Archbishop, International Conference, Kellogg Institute, martyrdom, Michael Lee, Oscar Romero, poverty
Why are Republicans rushing this tax abomination?
In fact, they’re rushing to jam the thing through before Doug Jones can be certified, in a stunning act of hypocrisy from the same people who demanded that Obamacare wait until Scott Brown was seated and held up a Supreme Court seat for a year.It’s outrageous.But it also looks like really bad politics, especially given what we know is coming: calls next year for cuts in popular social programs, because of a deficit Republicans just voted to explode.So what are they thinking?I don’t know for sure, but I’d suggest three possible factors in this mad rush.First, Republicans may be suffering from an officeholder’s version of the Pundit’s Fallacy: “belief that what a politician needs to do to improve his or her political standing is do what the pundit wants substantively.”For example, “Obama can win the midterms by endorsing Bowles-Simpson,” which the vast majority of voters never heard of. Today’s Republicans are apparatchiks, who have spent their whole lives inside an intellectual bubble in which cutting taxes on corporations and the rich is always objective No. 1.Their party used to know that it won elections despite its economic program, not because of it — that the whole game was to win by playing on social issues, national security, and above all on racial antagonism, then use the win to push fundamentally unpopular economic policies.But over the years the party has seemed increasingly out of touch with that reality, imagining that if only it preaches the gospel of supply-side economics loudly enough voters will be won over.Second, the GOP may also be engaged in the fallacy of points on the board thinking — I’m taking the phrase from Rahm Emanuel, who believed that Obama could gain electoral capital simply by racking up legislative victories.The idea is that voters are impressed by your record of wins, or conversely that they’ll turn away if you don’t win enough.The truth is that this strategy didn’t work at all for Obama, who won a lot of stuff in his first two years then got shellacked in the midterms.And think about the things that have been going wrong for Republicans in special elections: desertions by highly educated suburban voters, massive African-American turnout, weak turnout by rural whites. Categories: Editorial, OpinionSo, it seems that Republicans are responding to the devastating defeat in Alabama — which is part of a sustained pattern of underperformance in special elections, demonstrating that bad polls reflect reality, not bad polling, by … doubling down on a massively unpopular tax plan, whose main focus is on cutting corporate taxes. Which of these is likely to be improved by a massive, unpopular corporate tax cut?Still, the idea that you have to win something seems to have a grip on the GOP, and of course especially on our childlike president.Finally, for some significant number of Republicans we may be seeing what I’d call the “K Street end game.”Suppose you’re a GOP Congresscritter representing an only moderately Republican district, say in New York or California — and you see growing evidence of a huge Democratic wave next year, with election results so far suggesting something like a 15-point swing.What do you do?Well, you could say, “Gee, I’d better buck the party line and show my independence to win over swing voters.”But how likely is that to work? How many people even know how their representative votes?Or you could say, “Well, I guess I’ll be looking for a lobbying job/think tank position/commentator role on Fox News in 2019” — in which case your mission in what remains of your congressional career is to keep donors and the party machine happy, never mind the voters.Now, all of these stories work better at explaining the House than at explaining senators like John McCain or Susan Collins, who are working quickly to destroy all the good will they won by taking a stand on health care.Still, I think it makes sense to tell these stories about what the Republican Party is doing in general on taxes.And while Democrats should and will fight this attempt to ram tax cuts through with the vote of a lame-duck senator, if I were a Democratic strategist looking toward next November I’d be looking at current Republican moves and thinking, “Make my day.”Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a coljumnist with The New York Times.More from The Daily Gazette:EDITORIAL: Urgent: Today is the last day to complete the censusFoss: Should main downtown branch of the Schenectady County Public Library reopen?EDITORIAL: Find a way to get family members into nursing homesEDITORIAL: Thruway tax unfair to working motoristsEDITORIAL: Beware of voter intimidation