One year after Notre Dame elected its first female student body president, half of the four tickets running in this year's election feature a female president and a third ticket has a female vice-president.

Student body president Brooke Norton, who served as vice-president last year, said she attributes the changing gender make-up of the tickets to an overall change in the mindset of students about women in leadership roles.

"Our generation has grown up being used to having females right next to males in leadership positions ... in the past few years, we really have seen females taking many leadership roles on campus," Norton said. "I'm very proud of Molly Kinder [the first female on the Irish Guard] and Tambre Paster [the first female head drum major]. It's just a coincidence that I was in the right place at the right time to become Notre Dame's first female president."

The past five years have seen major changes in the gender make-up of electoral candidates. Out of 80 candidates who ran for election either as president or vice-president in the previous five years, only 14 people, or 18 percent of the candidates, were females. This year, three out of eight, 37.5 percent are. In the previous five years, 68.5 percent of the tickets were all male, 22.5 percent had a male president running with a female vice-president, seven and a half percent had a female president running with a male vice president and only one ticket — two and a half percent — was all females. This year, one ticket is all male, one ticket is a male vice president running with a female vice president and two tickets are a female president with a male vice-president.

All three of this year's female candidates emphasized that gender is not the most important fact in a ticket's platform and said they would have run this year regardless of whether or not one of the three women candidates was elected this year. Presidential candidate Libby Bishop, running with vice-presidential candidate Trip Foley, said she felt that last year's election helped to clear the way for more women to run for the office.

"It was very encouraging to see that Notre Dame is ready for a qualified female president. Seeing Brooke succeed this year really helped to energize me in my decision to run, but it was a very individual decision ... if Brooke wouldn't have won, I don't think it would have been because she's a woman," said Bishop.

Presidential candidate Nikki McCord, who is running with vice-presidential candidate Nick Williams, said last year's election showed students were ready for a change.

"What I think about Notre Dame students is that they get in a rut sometimes and they are looking for a change. Kids on campus are tired of the same old-same old. Sure the whole gender thing plays into it, but I think students on this campus are smart enough to see who will be enacting the most change and elect that candidate," said McCord.

Vice-presidential candidate Keri Oxley, running with presidential candidate Brian Moscona, emphasized that it was Norton's service to the entire student body that caused her to run, not her gender.

"I don't think that [Norton] has an agenda with women's issues and that she's very open to all types of views and I truly hope that when people look at the candidates, they don't factor in race or gender into that equation," said Oxley.

Norton said the biggest change her election brought about is the loss of a stigma associated with women running for student body president.

"There's not a barrier anymore ... I think the biggest change is that gender really isn't an issue anymore. When my class first got on campus, we were really surprised Notre Dame had never had a female president. Now, new students may be as equally surprised to learn that I was the first female president. Over time, it won't really matter anymore," said Norton.

The candidates all emphasized that there have been an increasing number of women involved in student government during the past years.

"I do think that Brooke's impact overall has caused more females to get involved ... it is Notre Dame's time for women to get involved. Now that women have been on campus for 30 years, things are equalizing as we go on," said Oxley.

McCord emphasized that while the fact that she is a woman puts her more in tune with women's issues, it is the job of a leader to listen to the entire student body.

"I'm a woman, but that's not my vibe ... it's possible for people to be caught up in the image of, `Look at me, I'm a woman and I'm running.' But when people look at me, I want them to say, `Oh look, there's a person who's willing to take a bullet for the student body.' "

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