This year's campaign for Notre Dame student body president is filled with promises of social events and policy initiatives aimed primarily at improving student life.

What's missing, however, are "social conscience candidates" — candidates with platforms based on social justice issues. Last year, Yogeld Andre and Demetra Smith ran together with a platform that included a living wage for campus employees, community hot topics forums and leadership-based scholarships.

"Yogeld and I ran last year because we were approached by a group of students, and we all saw a need for a vision that was coming from an outsider's perspective," said Smith, now a senior. According to Smith, that vision was one that included both the Notre Dame community and the outside world.

"I certainly hope everyone running this year will include ideas that look beyond themselves," said Smith. She added that it does not concern her that no one is running on social justice issues this year, as long as they're running on what they believe is best for the Notre Dame community. Although Smith said she is not formally involved with a campaign this year, she said she has attended brainstorming sessions for the Brian Moscona/Keri Oxley campaign.

It is not clear why there isn't a ticket like Smith and Andre's in this election. Previously, candidates had to get 150 signatures to be allowed to run. The Judicial Council changed the requirement to 300 signatures for last year's election. This year, the council used the identical guidelines as last year, according to John McCarthy, the council's vice president in charge of elections.

Some of this year's candidates, however, believe they incorporate some social justice concerns into their platforms.

"We have increased student activism on our platform," said Moscona, who explained that he and Oxley met with Smith and Andre this year.

Moscona ran against Smith and Andre last year, when he was running for student body vice president with current student body president Brooke Norton.

"We really had a lot of respect for Demetra and Yogeld," Moscona said.

Norton and Moscona ended up winning the election, but the office of the president has adopted one of Smith and Andre's ideas during their term, Dinner with 7 Strangers. If he and Oxley are elected this year, said Moscona, they would like to expand the current dinner program.

In addition, Moscona said he believes student government should work with groups such as the Progressive Student Alliance to help those students communicate more effectively with the administration. The University tends to view activist groups such as the PSA as an unofficial student voice, according to Moscona, while student government enjoys the status of the official student voice.

Moscona and Oxley also plan to work with Students for Environmental Action, he said, to increase recycling when fans come to campus for home football games. Moscona and Oxley's platform also proposes sample service days once a month to give busy students a chance to volunteer.

Presidential candidate Nikki McCord similarly said that she and running mate Nick Williams incorporated social concerns into their platform.

For example, McCord and Williams are proposing a "Take a Kid to College" program. According to McCord, a student they were talking to suggested the idea while the ticket was campaigning.

The program would involve pairing up local school children with Notre Dame students on teacher in-service days. Domers would take the children to class, to the dining halls and to their dorms to show them what college is like so that the children "know that college can be for them," McCord said.

"It's a good and easy way for students to connect with the community in a personal way," she added.

Another part of their platform that incorporates social concerns, according to McCord, is the section about CSC vans. There is a chance that the University's risk management office will be taking the vans away from the center, she said. McCord and Williams want to make sure that does not happen.

"We don't think any resources need to be taken away from the CSC," McCord said.

However, while McCord stressed that social concerns are important to many Notre Dame students, she added that she does not think it is the role of student government to actually create service opportunities.

"There are so many different things going on on campus … The part the student government plays in service is publicity," said McCord. "Student government can help in publicizing the different avenues that students can get involved in service."

For that reason, McCord said that there is "nothing missing" from the student body election without social conscience candidates in the race.

"A lot of students are doing service. Student government doesn't need to make new initiatives," she said.

Other tickets are even more explicit that they are not social justice candidates.

"We're very direct about the idea that we're a student-based platform," said presidential candidate Scott Palko, who is running with P.J. Mercanti.

However, Palko added that because he works at NDToday.com, he helped make the decision for NDToday.com to endorse Smith and Andre last year.

Another candidate running for president, Libby Bishop, also questioned whether all of Smith and Andre's platform ideas were reasonable issues for student government to address.

"I think their platform last year was really inspirational, but it wasn't realistic," said Bishop, who is running with Trip Foley. Some of Smith and Andre's platform ideas also went beyond the realm of student government, according to Bishop. For example, she said their idea to start a semester abroad program in third world countries, overlapped with programs run by the CSC.

"We think there already are all these existing resources," said Bishop.

However, although Bishop said her platform does not currently involve many social justice issues, Bishop said that she and running mate Trip Foley would consider collaborating with existing organizations on such issues—if students wanted them to.

"Our whole theme is to try to be more responsive to students," she said.

Another element of past election that is not in this election, according to Palko, are "joke tickets."

"All the tickets are strong. That's why it's so interesting this year," he said.

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