Nathan Bui and Jason Pham burst into the gym with a tremendous amount of energy for Jesuit’s 2025 kickoff assembly.
“The assembly was a huge success,” ASB President Nathan Bui said. “I feel like the assembly just got everyone really excited and increased the spirit overall.”
This year, student government is focusing on putting an emphasis on increasing school spirit.
“It is one of our main focuses,” said Student Government Director Mrs. Lauren Lakey. “There’s a need to have a committee purely dedicated to increasing school spirit.”
Senior David Ensminger is credited with the addition of the Spirit Committee.
“[He] proposed having a fifth committee fully focused on spirit,” noted Lakey. “That’s how it came to be.”
This new committee is fully focused on creating a spirited environment across the school and fostering connection among students.
Lakey encourages students to, “come out to all of our sporting events, to all of our club events, and to show up for whatever [their] interests are.”
Even with this new committee, student government members see challenges in getting participation from students. Specifically, in getting assembly volunteers, forcing Student Government representatives to step in.
“We definitely struggle with having people buy in,” Pavely Kamel, junior class president, said. “People try to think they’re too cool to do certain things, like freshmen who [are] too worried about what others think of them. They’re nervous.”
Despite this observation, Kamel believes the assembly set the tone.
“Seniors [got] up on their feet and [cheered]. When freshmen started winning games, people were chanting [and] buying in.”
As the year begins to progress, student government is excited to apply new ideas.
Bui mentioned the possibility of adding a Metro League Thrift store as a way to create community involvement when it comes to Jesuit spirit in collaboration with other high schools in the area.
However, both Bui and Kamel have already implemented some other changes, one of which is supporting individual groups and teams through “Spotlight of the Week.”
Kamel noted that although several clubs and sports teams get wide recognition, “as you go down the line, you start to lose that audience participation.”
The goal is “emphasizing the fact that you should be able to support all the Jesuit-affiliated names.” He wants to “make sure everyone’s voice is heard.”
In fact Bui and Kamel are working on implementing a “Student Government Wrapped,” which will feature an anonymous poll, “where [students] can give feedback to [their] class.”
“Bringing back the bell” for football is “something [students] want to do for touchdowns.”
The theme of school spirit is important because, “Jesuit isn’t a place, it’s a people,” Bui concluded. “People are what make Jesuit. It’s because of us that Jesuit is so great; and if we have spirit, that’s just going to make Jesuit so much better.”
With the new Spirit Committee and ideas, Student Government leaders hope that this year will be filled with school spirit in all events across campus.
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