Senior Class Council hosted its second annual “100 Days Dance” in the Dahnke Ballroom in Duncan Student Center on Thursday night. The dance marks the final 100 days of school at Notre Dame for the class of 2018, and seniors were invited to join in reminiscing on their 3 1/2 years together.
Senior Class Council secretary Matthew Peters said he was excited for the class of 2018 to have access to the newly-completed Duncan Student Center for the second installment of this dance.
“The space is unbelievably classy and the facilities are top-notch, so moving to Duncan seemed like the right move — it was a no brainer,” Peters said. “Furthermore, we believe that an on-campus venue would continue to bridge the gap between the senior off-campus community and those still on campus.”
The dance, which overlooked Notre Dame Stadium, featured a DJ, professional photographer, photo booth and hors d’oeuvres such as chocolate-covered strawberries, mini tacos, pot stickers and cupcakes.
In addition to the prime location, Peters said he hoped the free shuttle service offered for the dance would attract off-campus seniors to the event.
“We decided to provide a free shuttle service to safely and effectively draw off-campus seniors to Duncan the night of,” Peters said. “Our bus service makes a loop between Duncan, Irish Row to the east of campus, Eddy Street Commons to the south of campus and Dublin Village to the west of campus.”
The main purpose of this event, Peters said, was for classmates to reflect on the memories made throughout their time at Notre Dame as their senior year begins to wind down.
“More than anything, our goal with this event was to celebrate our last 3 1/2 years together at the greatest university in the world, all while remembering that our days here are numbered,” Peters said. “It is our hope that through this event, our classmates truly recognize and cherish every last day, every last experience and every last encounter at Our Lady’s University.”
Senior Olivia Mikkelsen said the dance was a welcome burst of camaraderie in a nerve-wracking time for many members of the class of 2018.
“I think it’s a scary, but exciting, time,” she said. “I feel like that’s a common theme around most seniors, but having a 100 Days Dance is a great way to bring everyone together and really have a collective experience of being seniors and being together and having this.”
Senior Shane Ryan said the dance was the perfect opportunity to bring together students from many different groups in the senior class.
“It’s great to celebrate getting through Notre Dame for four years with all these people,” he said. “People have different groups along the ways and it’s beautiful to see everything converge when you’re seniors and people all kind of finally get to know each other and all of a sudden you just have all these friends coming out of the woodworks and having a really great time.”
Peters said the event took a considerable deal of planning, a duty made easier by the help of his Class Council task force — made up of seniors Sarah Ritten, Kelly Smith, Thomas Walsh, Alexandra Snyder, Andrea Bae and John Ahn — whose dedication he said helped make this dance possible.
More important than the details of the dance, however, were the members of the class of 2018 and their memories of Notre Dame, Peters said.
“Our measure of success does not come through ticket sales or the number of chocolate covered strawberries eaten,” he said. “Our measure of success will be the memories made among classmates — memories that we hope will last a lifetime.”
