Spotlight on Steve O'Neil '09
by Mark Tarnacki
Staff Writer

Maybe they just like his attitude.

Steve O’Neil ‘09 figures the main reason he’s been uncontested in races for sophomore and junior class president and most recently for 2008-2009 Student Association president is that everybody believes in him and likes what he’s doing.

After all, O’Neil says, the apathy label never could be fairly applied to Saint Michael’s students based on his experiences in student government, Campus Ministry retreats and as an orientation leader, especially considering the college’s well-earned reputation for service-work.

One of O’Neil’s notable triumphs in his classmates’ view was this spring’s concert by the rap music performer Wyclef Jean at the Ross Sports Center. O’Neil and Colin McSherry, SA co-secretaries of programming, spent most of a semester handling “pretty much everything – stage, lights, sound, security, hospitality for the act, all the way down to printing tickets, running radio ads, printing posters,” O’Neil said.

“It was quite a production and we were very happy with the outcome. It was the first sell-out concert in my time here -- somebody said the first since Phish in the 80s,” he said. “I got to meet Wyclef, which was fantastic, and his whole crew was excellent to work with. It’s a good experience to be actually able to interact with these people who are professionals.” Fellow students and many staff have told him that despite some isolated negative side-incidents, the event was among the most popular and successful in recent memory.

This year’s SA President Alex Monahan has helped him a lot with contacts and advice, he said. The concert experience and this year’s SA meetings have exemplified what he likes most about student government at Saint Michael’s.

“It’s how we’re regarded as almost professionals. We’re held to high standards and they expect a lot out of us, but they take the student opinion into account and let us have a lot of say,” he said.

O’Neil, who grew up in Lancaster, Mass., is an American studies and accounting double-major. He’s also been a Resident Assistant the past two years, first in Alumni and then Canterbury Hall. He helped plan this year’s Welcome Back Dance, is a key organizer of the traditional spring P-Day celebration, has been on Campus Ministry’s LEAP Retreats three times and is a veteran Orientation Leader.

A graduate of Nashoba Regional High School, O’Neil has an older brother, a younger brother and a younger sister. He said that he in high school he was active in theater and played baseball and tennis, but he didn’t warm to school politics until college.

His high school guidance counselor encouraged him to check out Saint Michael’s when he was a senior. “I looked online, loved what I saw and took a trip up to campus. The setting was beautiful, and walking around, seeing smiling faces and friendly people, I already had a sense of how strong the community is here,” he said.

The president-elect started out as an accounting major but took on his double-major in American Studies soon after. Though he’s considering law school, his experience and success as an event manager for SA has caused him to ponder career possibilities in that area too.

Leading the Student Association can be demanding duty, he said, with long weekly Tuesday night meetings where he’ll be expected to keep order and assure proper parliamentary proceedings among at least 100 people including a representative from each student club on top of the elected representatives.

To ease the transition, Monahan allowed his heir-apparent to run a meeting at the end of this year for experience, which O’Neil found helpful. “Next year I’ll be able to help my co-secretaries of programming since it’s really a lot of work since it’s a professional performance,” he said, adding that Mark Litchfield of the special events office and Student Activities Director Grace Kelly are invaluable assets to student leaders.

O’Neil has worked for several summers at The International golf course in Bolton, Mass., and also got experience doing accounting in a school business office one summer. He said he’ll be back at The International before returning to campus early for Orientation to kick off next year. He said he became an Orientation leader after the “O-leaders” who introduced him to Saint Michael’s made him feel so at ease and welcome, “so I wanted to return that to the classes to come.”

His favorite part of being an RA is “just helping the residents, something as simple as how to fix something in a room, or a serious conversation. It’s just being there.” The only reason he’s not doing it again next year is that he wants to give his all to leading the Student Association.

O’Neil laid his top issues for next year. “I want to help Saint Mike’s work toward environmental sustainability and I’d like to work on a student lounge. We do have “Eddie’s” [Lounge on Alliot’s second floor], but it needs a make-over to be expanded or reworked in some way so more students use it on a regular basis,” he said.

Other ideas he wants to pursue include bringing in a car service called “Zip Car” to campus that could help students get around without bringing a private car to campus, thus improving the parking-space shortage and helping the environment. And he would like to help establish a “fourth meal program” through Sodexho so students could get late-night food.

One of his job’s chief demands – just talking to people -- “comes pretty easy,” O’Neil said, adding, “I never thought I’d be this involved, but it just kind of happened. I love Saint Mike’s and sharing my experience, just hoping others have as great an experience as I have had.”

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