Members of the Executive Committee and Student Judicial Council hosted a panel to encourage women at Washington and Lee to run for positions in student government.
Four out of the 13 students currently on the EC are women. But only two women were elected to serve on the EC for the upcoming term, according to election results emailed to the student body on April 2 and 6.
Representatives from the undergraduate and law classes of 2030 will be elected in the fall.
But as it stands now, less than 20% of students on next year’s EC are female.
“We have seen a huge drought of women willing to run for EC and run for SJC and put themselves out there,” EC President Meaghan Endres, ’26, said at the panel, which was held on March 25.
The panel took place in Elrod Commons. Every first-year, sophomore and junior woman affiliated with a sorority on campus received an email notice prior to the panel. Recipients were encouraged to forward the email to women not affiliated with a Greek organization as well. Fliers were also posted around campus.
Endres organized the event with other women members of the EC and SJC.
“We just really wanted to talk to you guys about our experiences,” Endres said. “Encourage any of you guys who might be thinking about it to take the leap and do it.
EC members Marshall Wilt, ’26, and Jasmyn Pillay, ’29, along with SJC members Rebecca Vaught, ’27, and Claire Manning, ’26, spoke on the panel. They discussed what leadership as women looks like at Washington and Lee and why they chose to run for office.
“I ran for the SJC,” Vaught said, “because I was really passionate about ensuring that students were able to face representation in all of the levels.”
Endres said her decision to run was about taking action to fix the university’s problems.
“I don’t want to just complain when I can do something,” she said, “so I ran for representative.”
Endres has been campaigning for more women to run for the EC during her time at the university. She is the seventh woman to serve as the president of the EC since 1905. The first female EC president was elected in 1998, 13 years after the university became coeducational.
“I think it was nice to get to almost grab people and shake them, being like, ‘You can do it!’” Endres said.
Pillay said Endres’ encouragement motivated her to run.
“Had I not had [a] conversation with Meg,” Pillay said, “I definitely would not be sitting here in front of you doing things that I love, working with people that are just so incredibly driven about honor.”
Mollie Pack, ’29, attended the panel even though she did not run for a leadership position.
“I think it is a little bit hard,” Pack said about running for student government as a woman. “I mean, history plays a big role in it. I think that, especially considering where we were an all-male school for a long time, it was just kind of the trend to have the men that are running our student government.”
Pack said she was heartened to see women in leadership on campus talk about their experience.
“I thought it was so cool that such a diverse group of people could get up there and unite under one goal to push more women on campus to be on the EC,” Pack said. “I think that if we’re able to do that more in the future … that’s going to be huge for progress on our campus.”
Despite the decrease in female EC members, four of eight students elected to the SJC during the last election were women.
“I would love to see more women run for more positions,” Vaught said after the election. “But I’m excited about all of the winners. I’m excited to work with them.”
