Students can now utilize a free ride service from campus any night until 4 a.m. They can also purchase food from local restaurants and bakeries on campus, attend a weekly farmers market, and enjoy a special game-day fan zone for home football games.
This is all thanks to the efforts of Student Government (SG), working with University of Miami administrators.
And three new faces are leading the organization this year. President Ivana Liberatore, vice president Kylie Quintana, and treasurer Victoire Wuyts are serving the top posts in the University’s Student Government, and they want every Hurricane to know that the organization is listening to their concerns and is prepared to share those with the administration.
“Our main goal this year is to stay connected to the student body,” says Liberatore, a senior majoring in finance and legal studies. “We want students to see us as a resource to connect with the administration—so that we’re shaping proposals based on what students actually need.”
The trio’s to-do list is long, but their priorities are clear: transparency, advocacy, and making campus life smoother for the student body. They’re launching a student leader roundtable to give organization leaders a direct line to student government, and they hope to roll out Sundaes with SG, where they will serve ice cream and talk with students about what’s working on campus—and what isn’t.
“It’s a lot of responsibility to know what 12,000 people are thinking, so we want to connect with groups across campus to be as well informed as we can,” added Liberatore, who rose up through the SG ranks and became a key member of the academic liaison council, where she reestablished ties with the Office of the University Registrar.
For Quintana, a senior studying political science and psychology, that feedback loop is personal. The oldest of five siblings, Quintana came to the University as a commuter student, unsure about how to get involved on campus, but eventually became an associate justice on the student government’s Supreme Court. As vice president, she is now responsible for running the First-Year Leadership Council, where she will mentor first-year students and give them the tools they need to understand how SG works, and how to succeed at the U.
“In general, freshman year of college is hard. It’s a huge transition,” said Quintana. “I was always interested in SG, but I was just very shy, and I didn’t know how to apply or join, so being that resource for these students is what I’m excited for.”
Quintana is primed for the role, as she has helped her family’s nonprofit, Kyan’s Kause, grow and expand in spite of challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers scholarships to kids who need swim lessons across South Florida and has now offered the grants to more than 7,000 kids.
Yet, Quintana and the entire SG leadership team and executive committees are also pushing for tangible changes: getting virtual Cane Cards, improving on-campus dining options, and expanding access to LSAT and MCAT prep materials.
“It’s about giving students tools they might not even realize they have,” she adds.
Meanwhile, Wuyts, treasurer of student government, is crunching numbers to make sure that all five agencies and many committees within Student Government have fair access to funding. She also serves as a delegate of the Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee, a role she first held as a first-year student. Being on this committee—which doles out money to more than 300 student organizations—helped Wuyts realize that it might help to offer more training for young treasurers throughout the University, so that these funds are used in the best interest of students.
“A lot of groups don’t even know what resources are available to them,” says Wuyts, a senior from Brussels majoring in business analytics and legal studies. “I am trying to reach out to all student leaders to offer training and transparency about what they can do and what they can’t. Budgeting is a tool to empower students on campus to put on great events, so I can help them organize these events that, without this money, they would not be able to do.”
What makes the SG team click? Their friendship. All three met in Alpha Kappa Psi, the campus business fraternity, and hope to attend law school. Now they see each other almost daily, and if not, they have an active group chat to discuss ideas.
“We’re honest with each other, we work as one, and we always ask for each other’s input,” said Wuyts, who is also an Isaac Bashevis Singer Scholar.
Liberatore calls the Student Government office “a home away from home,” and says she, Quintana, and Wuyts hope to keep that community spirit alive this year.
“We have a team that’s committed to being visible, approachable, and proactive,” said Liberatore, who is also executive vice president of her business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi. “Each of us have proposals within our councils that I hope to see realized by the end of the year. And we want to make sure we start new projects, so that even if they aren’t completed this year, they are intact for future students.”
