My fellow Laurentians, my fellow friends, I write this article as president of The Thelomasthesian Society to welcome everyone back to campus, express one piece of advice I have for the class of 2027, and finally conclude with a call to action for the entire student body.  

During my first year here at St. Lawrence University, my dad challenged me every week to do something new or interesting. Being from South Africa, I would most often only speak to my parents once a week due to the time difference. Every Sunday, my dad would give me my next week’s incredibly small challenge. The challenges included joining a new club, having dinner with a new friend, meeting someone new in the Sullivan Student Center, working extra hard in my economics class, and having dinner with someone from the town of Canton, New York. All these tasks were doable and could easily be done in a week. Many of these helped me step out of my comfort zone and gave me a sense of accomplishment for the week. My advice to first years is to set out to simply do one thing out of your comfort zone a week. Your first year is made up of more than 30 weeks, and you don’t have to meet all your friends, join every club you want to be part of and be ahead in every class by the end of the first week. By the end of the year, if you add up every week’s accomplishments, you will be surprised by how much you have done. Small wins add up.  

My call to action is for the student body to have a collaborative problem-solving outlook on life here at St. Lawrence. We all aspire to nearly the same objectives here at college, a campus where we make lasting relationships, have an incredibly enjoyable four years, and leave this institution with an education and fond memories. If there is change you want to see here at St. Lawrence, there are most likely many students who share that interest in seeing that change. The best way to move forward here on campus is for more diverse groups of people to work towards common goals. My fellow students, I challenge you all to not only identify areas where improvement is needed but take the lead and have an eagerness to be part of the solution. I and the student government cannot solve every problem on campus, but with a student body eager to become more involved, unthinkable amounts of problems can be solved. Bring what you would like to see change to the student government or lead the initiative with your fellow students.  

There are limited hours in the day, and we, as Thelmo, cannot do it all. We need you. During the summer, I had meetings at midnight, 1 a.m., and 2 a.m. in South Africa, working for the betterment of this campus, but I and the student government cannot do it alone. My goal for this semester is to get more students to work together to see incredible things happen at this school. We all want the same things; we just need to work together. Every student on our campus can solve one problem on campus this coming year. The problems I am speaking about range from making sure a residence hall’s common room is neat for one day to problems as big as making our campus more inclusive. With a student body of just over two thousand students, we have the capability to see two thousand areas at this amazing school improve. With a mindset of no problem being too big or too small to get involved in, addressing problems will become second nature to our student body. Students working together towards common goals is where the future of this institution lies.