Women's Senator

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Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Hi! My name is Olivia "Liv" Gauthier. I use she/her/hers pronouns. I am a First-Year Software Engineering student from Kingston, Massachusetts (45 min south of Boston). On campus I am involved in the Student Alumni Alliance, President's Commission on Women, Honors program, and Student Government's Accessibility Committee, as well as Alpha Xi Delta as the Community Service Director, Admissions as a Brick City Ambassador (Tour Guide), and Student Government as the current First-Year Senator.

If I am elected as Women's Senator, I want to be an advocate for ALL who identify as a woman on campus.

This past year I held a position in Student Government and I witnessed the hard work that our current Women's Senator, Leah Dibble did. I saw how much effort she put into her initiatives, but there was always something more to be done. As Women's Senator, I would continue Leah's work of creating a Women's RSO (Representative Student Organization). Creating a Women's RSO would allow for a team of students to work together to advocate and create programming for women on RIT's campus. It would also unite the preexisting women's clubs and organizations we have and allow for more collaboration and communication.

This past year, I was a member of the President's Commission on Women, an organization that consists of students, faculty, and staff who seek to make RIT's community a place where all students can be authentically themselves. With this organization, I helped organize the Women's History Month Kickoff expo, which highlighted women's clubs and organizations and on-and-off-campus resources for women. I will continue my involvement on the President's Commission on Women next year and I hope to be a part of initiatives that celebrate and advocate for the women on this campus.

One thing I am passionate about is increasing the number of women on campus and making RIT's gender ratio more even. While I understand something this big will not be solved overnight, I hope to make progress in the right direction. I will research our peer institutions and see in what ways we are lacking in how we are attracting women to apply, as well as how we are lacking in retaining women. Based on these comparisons and outside research, I will brainstorm some potential solutions which I then will present to the administration in the fall. From here, I will work with the administration to come up with realistic initiatives to bring these ideas to life. A specific idea I would like to pursue is increasing the number of scholarships that are centered around women, especially women in STEM.

As Women's Senator, I would listen to my constituents' feedback and then act as their advocate. I would be a representative and always have an open door policy to whatever issue my constituency may be facing. Thank you for your time and consideration.