The two remaining tickets will take the stage Tuesday night in the runoff debate before the student government elections Wednesday. The Ingal-Galbenski and Patidar-Patrick tickets place contrasting emphasis on how to most effectively improve the lives of students at Notre Dame.
The Patidar-Patrick ticket stresses the importance of campus presence. Their campaign centers around transparency in the daily activities of student government. They want to push for increased club funding through the student government senate and connect student groups with potential sponsors.
Noble Patidar is a junior from Keough Hall who is committed to promoting inclusion. He wants to implement diversity training for leadership positions, residence halls and student organizations. He seeks to instate a universal requirement that all RAs, Hall Staff and Welcome Weekend ambassadors take part in diversity training through the Multicultural Student Programs and Services department.
Connor Patrick is a freshman who is passionate about his Catholic faith. He is a member of the Gospel choir and teaches Sunday school at St. Adalbert’s on the weekends. He has emphasized the definition of the word “Catholic” as meaning “universal.”
“I want to make this university welcoming to every person of every religious background, or even if they aren’t religious. Notre Dame does a good job of this, but we need to do better,” Patrick said.
The Patidar-Patrick ticket calls their campaign team a “family,” and wants to replicate the same culture of community throughout Notre Dame through advocacy for physical and mental health. The platform stresses the necessity of breaking the stigma surrounding mental health through increased student government programming and implementation of more effective resources and support systems to educate students about mental health issues. They also want to pressure Campus Safety and University Operations to install blue lights and emergency call buttons in more areas across campus, specifically in less-traveled areas around the lakes and on the edges of campus.
Sexual assault is a large part of the Patidar-Patrick platform. If elected, they will advocate for the implementation of Callisto, a software used on college campuses nationwide that connects those who have experienced sexual assault to reporting channels, local resources and other victims in the same area to increase solidarity amongst sexual assault survivors.
The Patidar-Patrick campaign calls for feasible sustainability initiatives to set precedent for other colleges across America. Actions include creating dorm-customized reusable tumblers and informing students of the discounts of using these cups at popular locations like Starbucks, installing motion-detected lights in dormitories and incentivizing dorms to hold sustainability events.
The Ingal-Galbenski ticket believes that the University should include students in the dialogue of decision-making moving forward. They emphasize the necessity of building a respectful community, where every member is given opportunities to grow.
Rachel Ingal is a resident of Badin Hall who is majoring in political science with minors in business economics and international development studies. Among other endeavors, she is a member of Halftime Acapella, is on the Junior Class Council and works as a tour guide for the admissions office. She wants to strengthen the Notre Dame community and to ensure that “the Notre Dame Family is extended to everybody and that everybody feels like they have open arms.”
Sarah Galbenski is a junior majoring in Spanish and Global Affairs with a concentration in international peace studies. She is a resident of Walsh Hall, where she serves as the Chair of Service on the Hall Council. She is a member of the Notre Dame Folk Choir and a Kellogg International Scholar. Sarah can often be found in the Center for Social Concerns and is passionate about service. Among her many service-based endeavors, she has participated in multiple Community-Based Learning courses and Social Concerns Seminars, and spent a summer engaging in the International Summer Service Learning Program.
The Ingal-Galbenski campaign seeks to build a task force to identify donors and research possible funding sources for the creation of a Multicultural Center on campus. Other diversity and inclusion initiatives include creating an awareness campaign of the resources offered by the Office of Student Enrichment and increasing consultation with Class Councils and the Student Union Board to bring diversity to various campus events in an effort to make them friendly for all.
The platform also discusses ideas to improve student health and wellness, such as increasing funding for the University Counseling Center and partnering with McWell to increase communication with dorm commissioners, as well as increasing the flexibility of fitness classes and awareness of mental health resources for students abroad. The campaign also responds to the issue of student safety by advocating for the expansion of GreeNDot training to Welcome Weekend teams, athletic teams, football ushers and off-campus bars, among other safety initiatives.
Students may vote beginning at 8 a.m. on Wednesday via a link sent by Judicial Council to their emails.
Lucie Kneip is a freshman living in Ryan Hall and is a member of BridgeND. She hails from North Bend, Ohio, and is a political science and global affairs major. If she cannot be found petting the dogs around campus, she can be reached at lkneip@nd.edu. Lucie is a general member of the Patidar-Patrick campaign.
BridgeND is a multi-partisan political club committed to bridging the partisan divide through respectful and productive discourse. It meets on Tuesdays at 5pm in the McNeill Room of LaFortune Student Center to learn about and discuss current political issues, and can be reached at bridgend@nd.edu or on Twitter @bridge_ND.
