2020 House Report

This year has proven to be quite challenging in terms of the normal duties allocated for the House Committee with Fordham’s United Student Government. In a typical year, the primary focus of the committee is to oversee the distribution and management of the club suites in the McGinley Center. Each club that requires storage has closet space dedicated to their needs. The committee is responsible for keeping the clubs accountable in terms of cleanliness, responsibility, and organization of their specific rooms. This semester many of the clubs were not in operation and therefore did not require access to their storage space. Despite this, the committee members continued to serve as liaisons to encourage clubs to reach out for support when events were allowed to take place in person on campus again.

Given the redefinition of the committee’s role this semester, the House Committee took on the responsibility of increasing student engagement throughout this time of Covid restrictions.With students living on campus, we took on the role of assisting other student organizations with providing options for students to feel safely involved within the Fordham community. The first event that we coordinated was a Covid friendly version of the annual House Committee “Keating Steps” event. At this event the Fordham performance groups were able to showcase their talents and allow them to work towards performing at something. These groups consisted of The Slainte Irish Dance Team, The Jetes Ballet Team, Fordham Dance Team, Flava, and the acapella groups Hot Notes and B-Sides. We were also able to involve the Fordham Developmental Theatre groupas the event’s MC. The event was relocated due to rain and took place in the McGinley Ballroom. With limited capacity and a virtual viewing component, we were able to put on asuccessful event through the help of dedicated committee members, USG senators and VP’s, and Stephen Clarke and Stephen Esposito.

The other event that took place this semester was an election viewing party. Given the unprecedented nature of this election and the conversations that ensued as a result, our goal was to provide a covid conscious opportunity for discussion and participation. We provided Pugsley’s pizza as well as interactive resources to keep track of the progress. Overall, the event lasted for 4 hours and was well attended by about 50 students throughout the night. Our final event of the semester was a Christmas fair, which we co-hosted with the Gabelli Dean’s council. At this event students were able to experience a bit of what it feels like to be on campus during Christmas time. We provided hot chocolate and some Christmas crafts as well as Christmas music as one final event before the end of the semester.

The overall objective of the committee this semester was to provide opportunities for those who felt comfortable with being in person to engage with other students on campus. We also began planning for events this upcoming semester to continue the initiative of in-person interaction as well as planning proposals for future community outreach events. Although we had to reschedule some of our larger events such as the McGinley Art Show, our hope is that next semester we will be able to continue with Covid-safe opportunities for students to feel involved and apart of their campus community.