St. Thomas’ Undergraduate Student Government met on Oct. 20 to discuss improving the 2025 strategic plan, including new athletic facilities, and a new club proposal.

Guest speaker: Robert Vischer

Interim University President Robert Vischer discussed efforts to improve St Thomas’ 2025 strategic plan by focusing on two points of improvement.

“There are 99 different metrics in that strategic plan,” Vischer said. “If I have to simplify it to two words, I would say these are the two words that we need to focus on, visibility and culture.”

The visibility of St. Thomas does “really well” in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but “lacks” from other parts of the country according to Vischer.

A vehicle to bring St. Thomas more visibility is Division I athletics. This includes pursuing the plan of a new hockey arena on campus, as well as a softball and baseball facility by Highland Bridge.

“We want to have the facilities that allow us to achieve a level of excellence in athletics that we can leverage both to enhance the student experience and raise our national visibility,” Vischer said.

The second focus point is culture. Through conversations with alumni, Vischer commended St. Thomas as a place “where relationships are front and center in a way that you may not find that large state research university.”

“One of our challenges is, can we maintain that relationship centered culture as we get bigger, as we get into new academic areas, new programs and new initiatives,” Vischer said.

Focusing on the culture of St. Thomas means continuing to improve our goal of diverse student voices. In the fall of 2018, 16% of students were people of color and this fall was 27%.

“I caution though, improving the D in the D-E-I is not really cause for celebration,” Vischer said. “Now the work begins because now we have to support the E-I and make sure that every member of our community feels included.”

Financial updates:

The Hispanic Organization for Leadership and Achievement, hosts an annual campus wide event called Dia de los Muertos.

Dia de los Muertos is an important Mexican cultural tradition that is shared and loved by various Latin cultures according to HOLA’s event proposal to USG. This event will be a celebration open to all students to help share the culture.

USG passed funding for HOLA’s event for the amount of $2,535 to go towards catering, decorations and other activities.

Club approved: Purple Strokes

Diversity Activities Board Representative JK Balle proposed a new drawing club called Purple Strokes.

When Balle was a freshman, he was disappointed by the lack of a drawing or art club on campus.

“One of my first reflexes was to look for some sort of artistic club,” Balle said. “There was no drawing club nor art club.”

The club’s “foundation will be drawing,” according to Balle, but he mentioned that students are free to paint or sculpt as well.

Balle proposed the idea of an end of year art exposition, to showcase pieces of work from each student in the club.

“It’s meant to show the work of the club to the rest of campus to the St. Thomas community, it might be an opportunity to show progress,” Balle said.

Purple strokes was passed by USG and is expected to start this fall.

Sydney LaBelle can be reached at labe7208@stthomas.edu