By Cheryl Lai
An undergraduate career is often short, with any leadership opportunities lasting a mere semester or a year. COM Student Government is no different. How can our student leaders affect long-term change when they have so little time to? When representing an entire student body, how can we make sure that all voices are heard? Current and future COM StuGov Presidents Sofia Harris (FTV, ’26) and Natalie Reilly (PR, ’27) delve into this and the passing of the torch. Next semester, expect to see Reilly at work as President with Harris’ support as Vice-President.
Q: How have both of you contributed to COM this year in your respective positions?
Harris: My main duties as COM StuGov president is to represent the COM undergraduate student body when interacting with other student governments. As such, I go to monthly meetings with the COM DEI Committee, and President’s meetings among student government. This year, we’ve planned several events with CAS Student Government, and I execute those events along with anything else we’ve planned.
Reilly: This year, I was the Mass Communications Department representative. I got a lot of freedom in this position, so the other representative and I worked on projects in the fall to get more students involved and raise more awareness about what we do in COM StuGov. We set up a little study break during finals last semester, with Polaroid pictures and sweets just to give people a little break and just smile on COM Lawn.
Q: What are some things that COM StuGov has achieved this year that you are most proud of? What are some initiatives you’ve taken that past presidents haven’t?
H: This year, we had a few big events that I’m super proud of, like the Town Hall—our big fall event. We had a pretty big turnout of around 70 attendees! We brought in eight panelists from a variety of backgrounds, from faculty, to staff, to COM student ambassadors. It was cool to watch everyone come together and learn about all that COM has to offer. COM Prom was also fun in the spring semester. I feel like we don’t have a lot of big COM events, and so it was fun to see everyone dress up for one last trip at the end of the year.
R: We also did COM Merch! This is something we’ve been wanting to do for over two years. I know it was a goal of ours last year, and it never really happened, so to watch that come together was great this year. Keep your eyes out for anyone wearing our sweatshirts!
Q: As President and Vice-President, respectively, what are you hoping to achieve for COM StuGov in the next year? What are some long-term aspirations?
R: Definitely a lot more student involvement and engagement with COM, especially from incoming freshmen in the fall. Another thing is making more COM students aware of all the events that are happening, and a better turnout to the events that we host—we put a lot of work into everything we plan, and it’s a shame when people don’t get to see it!
So the next step is just to maintain attendance at everything we do, and increase dialogue between the faculty and students. As representatives of the student body, it’s important just to listen to what students want to see and make that happen, whether it be more coffee chats, faculty interaction, shoutouts, or student-run events.
Q: How do you foresee yourselves using your different experiences to bounce off of and support each other?
H: Well, my first position in COM StuGov when I was a freshman was a content creator. And I had a lot of fun doing that role, but I wish that I could have done more because I felt pretty limited by the direction we were given. I feel like I wasn’t able to focus on content as much once I became president because I had other things going on. But now that I’m VP and I run marketing, I’m excited to get back into social media. Again, that’s something that I’ve been wanting to push in StuGov more, so I’m excited to use my experience as a content creator to help in my marketing.
As Vice-President, I’m looking forward to supporting Natalie. I still text Wes—our former president—all the time with questions about how to move forward and how to plan events, so I think it’ll be nice to have that support in person.
R: Going off of that, it’s just been so great watching Sofia my first year and then getting to have her on E-board my second year, not just as a general member—someone who’s more experienced is definitely helpful to my role. It would just give me the knowledge to make things happen in a productive way.
H: I think it’ll also be nice that we repeat E-board members, because this year we had a completely fresh COM StuGov E-board. So it was pretty intimidating, coming in with a fresh slate, and I think it’ll be nice to like have a base again, a familiar face.
Q: As we wrap up this interview, what should COM look forward to next year?
H: Look forward to a revamped Instagram with a lot of COM pride! That was a goal of ours this year, But I think that’s something that we’re gonna really try to push next year—I feel that the work that COM students do often goes unnoticed and unappreciated; and there’s kind of joke within BU that COM students don’t put in a lot of effort.
R: As far as events go, I have a lot planned, but they’ll ultimately revolve around COM pride. It’s something that I want to emphasize because I have a lot of pride in our college, and I think all the students too. Especially when interacting with other colleges, I feel like there’s a gap between us, so I think just making it one big community that supports each other, starting with COM our biggest goal.
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