We had a check-in chat with the President and VP of UGBC

This interview is the first of what we hope to be a very long, respectful, and open relationship with UGBC. We will be checking in with various executives throughout the year, but started off with the big dogs: President Thomas Napoli and Vice-President Olivia Hussey. Come back tomorrow for the second part of this Q&A interview. 

Senior Thomas Napoli and Junior Olivia Hussey are arguably two of the most well-known students on campus. And rightly so: they run the Undergraduate Government of Boston College.

Thomas, an International Studies and Polisci double-major, serves as President. Olivia, Vice-President, is majoring in History. The duo came together after serving in the student assembly, ran together, and have been working partners and presidents ever since.

Thomas and Olivia are the driving force between many of the policy changes (hello, free speech) and initiatives on campus (like mental health), as well as serve as key representatives for our student body of 9,000 in meetings such as the Board of Trustees, and with Dean of Students Tom Mogan.

We’re not looking to pass judgement on the student government or what they’ve been up to. We’ll let you do that – and we’ll let Thomas and Olivia speak for themselves.

How can individual students use UGBC as a platform for their own voice?

Thomas: I don’t think change-making at Boston College should be siloed to UGBC. We’re here to support students, to make a more inclusive environment, but I think a lot of students can bring their issues out. Student organizations, going out on campus, that stuff moves campus culture – and high-up administrators do talk about when something is written in The Tab that is compelling, or is in the quad that makes a difference.

Olivia: Directly connecting to UGBC, we have office hours, we did tabling for quite a few weeks in the quad – our website, our emails and phones are always available. We also have open meetings (the UGBC meetings, the senate meetings, the committee meetings are all open.)

I think the most that I’ve seen students want to get involved is when they have a single issue in mind, where if they’re like “I want to do this, I don’t know how, can you help me?” And I love doing that, I will sit down with anyone – they don’t need to be a member of UGBC.

A more low-key is we have campusvoice.ugbc.com, and that’s just a way that you can go on, type in any suggestion you have, and post it on there. We review them every week. And that’s where – I think there was a specific change in dining, someone wanted a different kind of salad dressing in Eagles, we have a person who meets monthly with dining and they’re like, “Oh, sure” and it gets changed.

Describe the UGBC administration in one word.

Thomas: Hungry.

Olivia: Driven. Or passionate.

Thomas: [Before we took office] we really wanted to see, in addition to cultural change, and unifying the campus, was policy changes, as well. In the long-term, that is really how you can make a tangible effect on students’ day-to-day living.

And we both – I listed off four major policies that are coming out in the spring – really looking forward to getting those out there, and how they can effect, there’s a lot of opportunity there.

Olivia: The biggest things that UGBC has done in its history, I mean UGBC worked from 1998 to 2005 to get sexual orientation included in the non-discrimination clause at BC. That’s a really, really long time, but they really worked, presented to the Board of Trustees multiple times. To create real concrete change and to make a difference – it really goes hand-in-hand with the programming we’ve done this year to also help.

If you could describe the administration in one word, what would you say? 

Thomas: Changing. Noticeably changing.

It’s a very hierarchical system, what comes from the top-down is what goes. I mean that literally, from the very top. And I think that we’re seeing more and more administrators who have a better understanding of student university life, that are kind of changing the system form the bottom up.

Olivia: Caring.

It is very difficult, and I’ve been so frustrated that change isn’t happening at the rate that we would like it to, but you can tell these people do care, and they are also maybe frustrated but they want to make the change, too. They are here to also make it a better place, as corny as it sounds. Well, most of them.

Describe the Boston College community in one word. 

Olivia: The opposite of apathetic.

Thomas: Inspirational.

The OLAA demonstration in the quad recently, on an issue that UGBC at least, has not been very talking about presidential politics or specifically, immigration. It’s just a reminder that there are so many passionate people at BC. Whether you’re in The Tab or UGBC, there’s always a group of students who we are not engaging with who are doing amazing things, and you can never reach all of them.

Olivia: Very frequently, people would say [students] are apathetic at BC. But I would reject that premise in that in this role, I see people – from all these different student groups, all these different internships outside of BC, who maybe they don’t care about the same exact issues that I care about but they care about something. And they will go above and beyond to do whatever it is for that something. I’ve been amazed at the caliber of students at BC.

What was one moment that really challenged you this semester, that was a life-lesson in your role? 

Thomas: It was definitely a tough start to the semester, in some respects, I worked a lot on free expression issues last year and in the spring, the dean of students came publicly and said we’re going to be making changes, this is something that should have been done a while ago, literally publicly on The Heights and then come back in September and no policy changes were made. That can kind of hurt, because you feel like you gave everything, so we’ve kept on working, we have taken executive action and trying to make it easier for people to demonstrate and to report expression, which I think has had a tangible difference in encouraging a more activist protest. But that was a tough way to start off the year in feeling that like your feet were taken under you right away from the start, for me.

Olivia: I’m not sure if there is one concrete moment, but more – we, the other executives, and everyone in UGBC puts in a ton of work throughout the year and a lot of it isn’t visible, or seen, but a big challenge for me, in my role, I meet with a lot of people informally and I have heard a lot of stories from students, from peers and friends, mentees about their pain or suffering at BC. Whether it’s not feeling included in the community, or not feeling supported in mental health efforts, or not feeling comfortable being gay at BC. It’s just in UGBC’s nature, especially this year, you want to help everyone you can and you want to make everyone have a positive BC experience, and that’s really challenging for me to hear those stories and really want to fix everything, but obviously in the three months we can’t fix everything, but that’s something I’ve personally struggled with.

Is there something specific you’d like the student body to know? 

Olivia: A coupon book will be launched online for all the Chestnut Hill shops over Christmas break so you can take the buses and there are great discounts.

We worked with the deans [in the Lynch school] to get free T passes for the students who do their practicum. I think that a lot of times though things go unnoticed, not major university changes, but we love getting new ideas on stuff like that. I do a segment in most of the Senate meetings called “How can we improve your week” and we do a five-minute brainstorming popcorn sesh – “What annoyed you this week, and what could be better?” and we’ve gotten some really great ideas from that. So I would love for more of the BC community to let us know what they would like to be better just in their day-to-day lives, too.

Thomas: And if they are unhappy with anything we said in the article, student assembly elections are coming up, they can run themselves. That’s the beauty of the system.