From 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Feb. 6, the class of 2026 celebrated the 100 Days Dance, a yearly formal dedicated to celebrating seniors’ last 100 days together before they graduate in May.
“It is 100 days until graduation, so it marks a really significant, exciting, sad, emotional night for the entire class,” said Vivie Koo, co-chair of the senior class council’s 100 Days Dance Committee.
Koo began planning the dance in the fall alongside a committee of about ten other seniors. The senior class council’s social committee split into two sections: half focusing on general social events and the other half focusing solely on the 100 Days Dance. Those assigned to the 100 Days Dance section were tasked with securing catering contracts, organizing buses and planning the logistics of everything from the bar to ticket sales and decorations.
Seniors were notified by email about the event, beginning in the middle of November, with tickets having gone on sale Wednesday, Jan. 21. 1,400 tickets were sold in 3 minutes and 14 seconds, and each student was only allowed to purchase one ticket due to high demand.
“This is the biggest event they host,” senior class president Diego Gonzalez Hernandez said. “Juniors have JPW; we have this one.”
Notably, this year’s dance differed from previous years, moving the location from the Dahnke Ballroom to the Stepan Center.
“This year, the executive of senior class council really wanted to make a difference in increasing the capacity of how many students could attend,” Koo said. “So personally, I felt it was my mission to help the team make this special and memorable, not only for our class, but as a representation of what this can look like in the future for other classes.”
Gonzalez ran his class council campaign on ensuring that as many seniors as possible could attend the dance.
“We began planning this the day after we came into office,” he said. “When we started buying these things during the summer, we were discussing things like, ‘Where can we do it?’”
Originally, the event was to be held twenty minutes away off campus, but due to the number of students and University protocols, the senior class council settled on the Stepan Center. Because of the location change, the committee was able to accommodate an additional 400 guests – 1,400 rather than the previous 1,000.
However, due to this location change, many larger logistical considerations were necessary.
“We had to hire all this external security,” senior class council vice president Erin Bauer said. “The garage door at Stepan had to be open at all times in order for that capacity to be allowed. And so there was a lot of, I’d say, convincing from the students’ end because we were originally going to go off-campus.”
At the dance itself, many seniors reported staying for the entire event, leaving only when the lights came on at 1 a.m., a departure from the usual custom of leaving early to stop by other functions.
“Once they got to the dance, I feel like everyone forgot that it was in Stepan, and it was a great atmosphere,” Bauer said.
Reflecting on the event itself, Koo described it as a special event and a highlight of seniors’ final semester at Notre Dame.
“I think what’s so special about the 100 Days Dance is that it has a significant time stamp on the last semester as a senior. I think that the camaraderie, as cheesy as that is, and the excitement and love experienced at the dance was super cool to witness,” Koo said.
