Fourth-Year Trustees flew high in a hot air balloon alongside a group of student donors last Friday to celebrate the Class of 2025 breaking the participation record for Class Giving. This was just one of a series of unique events for this year’s graduating class hosted by the Fourth-Year Trustees — the name given to the selected students who represent fourth-year students as part of Class Council.
In an interview with The Cavalier Daily, James Edwards, Fourth-Year Trustees president and fourth-year Nursing student, and Liv Schortmann, Fourth-Year Trustees vice president and fourth-year College student, shared the many successes and challenges of their time on Class Council. They spoke about how they attempted to preserve the many beloved University traditions while also creating new traditions for the student body.
“One thing I think everyone says that they love about U.Va. is the traditions, and I think Class Council plays a really special role in preserving and creating those,” Edwards said.
Upon being elected as President and Vice President, Edwards and Schortmann were responsible for choosing the approximately 60 students who make up the Trustees and plan events for this year’s graduating class. Edwards, Schortmann and these 60 selected students are tasked with serving in the role of trustees for the Class of 2025 for a total of six years, with five of these years occurring after graduating from the University.
This is a long commitment for someone who was not initially sure about Class Council. Edwards said that despite initial reluctance, he was influenced by his friend to run for vice president in Class Council and stayed all four years. Edwards served as vice president during his first and second year on Class Council before being elected as president in both his third and fourth years at the University.
“I really came to love the group that we had at Class Council, and I saw a lot of value in our mission, and I just wanted to continue,” Edwards said. “So I ended up sticking around [all] four years.”
In his fourth year, Edwards ran on the same ticket as Schortmann, who served as part of Association Council with the Residential Leadership Experience in her first year, then as Class Council marketing chair before being elected as vice president in her third and fourth year. According to Edwards, he and Schortmann campaigned on a platform of maintaining traditions, growing student connections and improving communication and representation of the student body.
“We worked a lot on connection. This was our final year, and we wanted to allow students to have an opportunity to be together, to form those connections as kind of their last chance before we graduate,” Edwards said. “We also ran on communication and selecting a group of trustees that will be representative of the fourth-year class … and plan programs and events that would be able to [meet] the needs of our class.”
According to Edwards, the trustees worked alongside other groups to maintain many of the traditional University events and experiences including valediction, merchandise sales and Lighting of the Lawn, which this year included a drone show for the first time in the history of this event.
Edwards said that the Class of 2025 Trustees also started new traditions including Pie Your President, where students can donate money to the Yellow Door Foundation to throw a pie at the face of the president of their Contracted Independent Organization, and the class giving campaign where students can donate money to a University-affiliated organization to receive a philanthropy cord and access to a donor party.
Edwards said that approximately 50 percent of the graduating class donated through this campaign, collecting nearly $50,000 for various on-Grounds organizations such as the University Library, The Women’s Center and U.Va. Health Foundation. According to Edwards, this campaign serves as a way to engage the student body in giving back to the University from which they are now graduating.
Edwards said that during his time on Class Council, he also took part in the planning of the First Year Formal, a Second Year Dinner Series of five dinners designed to facilitate student interaction with University faculty, Third Year ring Ceremony and several other University-wide events. According to Edwards, many of these events served to connect a community that had experienced several years of disconnection during the pandemic.
“We had kind of lost that sense of belonging with an institution in high school, and we really needed to bring people back together and make them excited to be at U.Va.,” Edwards said. “And so I think that was our initial challenge, and we worked really hard.”
The First Year Formal broke the record of attendees for this event, which to Edwards indicated that the hard work of the Council in fostering renewed connection in the post-pandemic era was successful.
According to Schortmann, planning large events — which were often for thousands of students — sometimes proved challenging for organizing and coordination. However, she said that Class Council pushed through organizing difficulties to ensure that each of these events continued as successfully as possible.
“People don't know the chaos behind the scenes,” Schortmann said. “We always say it's not an event if there's not some panic right before, but at the end of the day, we get it done and we love the process.”
As president and vice president of Fourth-Year Trustees, both Edwards and Schortmann took part in L2K — a leadership development program over the academic school year for students who have taken on representative and organizational leadership roles across the University. This program aims to build a community of student leaders while also providing these leaders with the knowledge and abilities to fulfill the needs of their leadership roles.
Schortmann said that she was grateful to be able to work with fellow student leaders as part of this program to bring students together to address important moments experienced by the student body, including the Nov. 13, 2022 shooting, which resulted in the death of three University students and the injury of two others.
“I think [one] of the best parts about being VP of trustees was being able to work with student leaders all across Grounds. When major issues came up, we were in a position to help in whatever capacity was possible,” Schortmann said.
As part of the L2K organization on Grounds, Edwards and Schortmann worked with several other student self-governance leaders to host memorial vigils for the three students who were killed. According to Shortmann, the organizing of these vigils — particularly the two-year anniversary memorial which consisted of students placing candles on the steps of Old Cabell Hall — occurred informally among student leaders in L2K as a way to unite the class in a time of grief.
“I think of the anniversary vigils for Nov. 13 … those were the most meaningful … I appreciate that we were able to be pulled into larger conversations when there were conflicts on Grounds,” Schortmann said.
In continuing the role of president and vice president after graduating, Edwards and Schortmann will be responsible for reunion events, including the Young Alumni Reunions which includes a celebration with alumni from the three most recent graduating classes. Over the course of the next five years, the trustees will also promote alumni connection by organizing networking opportunities for the Class of 2025 across various U.S. cities and through a Class of 2025 alumni newsletter.
According to Edwards, the University is likely to face many changes in the near future but he is optimistic that the younger representatives with which he served will be able to support and represent students regardless of the obstacles presented to them.
“I think the landscape of college is likely to change in the next few years, so I'm hopeful that this group and the representation they bring will be able to support students as those changes happen,” Edwards said.
Edwards said that he is grateful to the many Council members who supported him throughout his four years at the University and offered parting words to the incoming Class Councils.
“I am incredibly joyous and optimistic about the future of this community, about the student leaders in this community and their ability to support one another in the coming years,” Edwards said. “I think this opportunity … has developed me as a person and as a leader, and I really am excited for all the people that will get to experience that in the next few years.”
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