The Four-Hour Phone Call That Changed Everything

The class of 2025’s Claire Wolf and Ruth Lopez-Espinoza lived parallel lives at Holy Cross, never crossing paths until halfway through their junior year, when a four-hour interstate phone call changed everything.

Both started their first year at Holy Cross having never visited campus, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and both had the intention of becoming an immigration attorney. Both are political science majors with outgoing personalities and a long list of Holy Cross student organizations in which they’re involved, including the College’s Student Government Association (SGA). Both were interested in running for the SGA co-presidency, but their friends in SGA were not. 

As the deadline to submit a letter of intent to run for the co-presidency approached in spring 2024, the women were even living in separate states – Wolf in Washington, D.C., working as a legislative intern through the College’s Washington Semester Program, and Lopez-Espinoza on campus. Still trying to find a running mate, Wolf recognized Lopez-Espinoza’s name from her SGA involvement, and encouraged by others who knew them both, decided to take a chance. They didn’t even have each other’s numbers; Wolf had to message Lopez-Espinoza through GroupMe at first. But once the two finally connected, the bond, they said, was immediately apparent.

“It definitely was an interesting beginning to our friendship and relationship,” said Lopez-Espinoza, who described Wolf as like a sister. “But it's been an amazing time. I think we balance each other well. We've gotten comfortable with each other now. It hasn't been that long, but it feels like it's been so long.”

“Honestly, it was helpful that we weren't friends before in some ways, because we're not afraid to say no to each other,” explained Wolf, noting they now count each other as best friends. “We've built a working relationship separate from a friendship, and then the friendship has come out of that.”

On historic positions

Wolf and Lopez-Espinoza are only the fourth SGA co-presidency comprised of two women in Holy Cross history – the first was Wolf’s aunt, Libby Reichard Sims ’99, and her co-president, Maggie O’Neill ’99, in 1997-1998, followed by Kerry Anne Hoffman ’07 and Erin Robert ’06 in 2005-2006, and Anna Parker ’23 and Erin Reinhart ’23 in 2022-2023. Of those four female duos, it’s also the first time one of the women has been a person of color – Lopez-Espinoza’s mom is Afro-Latina from El Salvador with Nigerian ancestry, while her dad is Indigenous Mayan from Guatemala. It’s a legacy that both of the co-presidents take seriously.

“That's not lost on Ruth and me,” Wolf said.

Lopez-Espinoza said she is honored to hold this position and the representation it brings: “As a student of color in this position, it gives a lot of visibility. My freshman year self would have never imagined I would have been a co-president.”

At the same time, she acknowledged that this responsibility is not without its challenges.

“As a student of color, other students on campus expect more from you,” Lopez-Espinoza said. She has to balance both her role in SGA with her identity as a person of color. She said she’s often working behind the scenes on issues her fellow students of color are concerned with – having conversations or working on initiatives that won’t come to fruition for a few years – but still feels pressure from her peers to address them now.

“I want to be there for my community in all my capacities, but sometimes it’s difficult,” she added.

Despite these challenges, Lopez-Espinoza said she is motivated to provide visible leadership representation for other students of color, whom she also encourages to get involved through her role as peer mentor. And she’s already seeing the results.

“This year, when we accepted our applications for cabinet, it has been a more diverse cabinet than we've seen in recent years, and I think it has a lot to do with the visibility,” Lopez-Espinoza said.

On balance

Sharing presidential responsibilities is a unique model for student government. Holy Cross is the only institution within the Jesuit Student Government Association — a cohort of student presidents at Jesuit college and university campuses across the country — to operate under a co-presidency model rather than typical president and vice president roles. Holy Cross made the switch to a shared governance model for the 1990-1991 academic year (although the positions were called co-chairs at the time).

“It's a really important advising model that we have here that is a reflection of our mission,” explained Patrick Rogers, director of orientation and transition and SGA advisor. “It's through relationship building and getting to know one another and working together that's where change happens, and that's how you're able to effectively govern.”

The shared governance model also helps balance a plethora of responsibilities. As co-presidents, Wolf and Lopez-Espinoza oversee the entire three-branch student government; sit on numerous governance councils and committees at the College, such as Faculty Assembly; and meet regularly with senior members of College leadership. The co-presidents also share responsibility for the College’s 100+ recognized student organizations and, with administrator support, manage a $1.3 million budget for student activities.

In addition, co-presidents advance the platform on which they ran, which for Wolf and Lopez-Espinoza was promoting student voter engagement for the 2024 election, increasing collaboration between SGA branches, improving outreach and relationships with the College’s multicultural student organizations and increasing community on campus and engagement with Worcester.

“I definitely think it makes us stronger,” Lopez-Espinoza explained. “It's not me just making the decision. It’s not just Claire making a decision. It’s us making a decision as a duo. It’s a partnership, and that takes so much of the worries away.”

The women say they also balance each other in other, less tangible ways. They’re both heavily involved in a myriad of other College groups, not to mention their academic coursework. If one person has a busier schedule for a day or a week, the other steps in. 

They share the unspoken labor where they can, for example. Lopez-Espinoza does not carry that sole responsibility as a person of color; for example, Wolf, not Lopez-Espinoza, attends the council of multicultural student organizations for SGA – a move that Rogers says was intentional on their parts. Even their personalities provide a sense of balance.

“When I'm in a position where I'm not good at saying no to something or I feel indecisive about something, she tends to be more decisive about it, and the same goes in reverse as well,” Wolf explained. Lopez-Espinoza concurred: “We've also been good with keeping each other accountable and reminding each other that we need boundaries.” 

“They ask each other questions rather than talking at each other,” Rogers noted. “And though they have different experiences on SGA and come from different pockets of campus, it feels like they're on an equal playing field with one another. They really respect the work that each other does. It demonstrates the value of the co-presidency structure here at Holy Cross, that they are partnering with one another to bring each other's strengths together and to lead the campus.”

Their respective backgrounds – and the fact that they didn’t know each other at the beginning of their co-presidency – also bring a deeper level of experience and perspective to their role, the pair said. While Wolf hails from the midwest (Cleveland) and has Holy Cross alumni ties through her aunt and grandfather (also a former SGA president), Lopez-Espinoza is from Los Angeles, speaks four languages and is a first-generation college student.

“We represent different demographics of campus and different groups, and our groups didn't really overlap a lot,” Wolf said. “As we've become friends, then I've gotten to know a whole different section of campus that I didn't know before, and same for Ruth. We've been exposing each other to a lot of different things in the same way that we balance each other out.”

Image

For Wolf and Lopez-Espinoza being seen was a priority: “When we came in as the co-presidents, we said: We want to be visible. And being visible is being present,” Lopez-Espinoza said.

“There's spaces that I've never entered on campus before that I get more insight from her,” Lopez-Espinoza explained. “And there’s spaces she hasn't been in that she can get insight from me. Even our upbringings and the different cities that we were raised in. It's definitely made our co-presidency very much more vibrant, more well-rounded. We can touch on different aspects of the campus community.”

On showing up

The duo is also determined to demonstrate the value of showing up for each other and for their community. Sometimes it’s in lighthearted ways. Whenever attending official events or meetings, they love to match outfits with each other. It’s something they do for fun, they said, but Lopez-Espinoza also acknowledges it presents a “girl power” visual presence when they walk into a room together. 

But that presence carries a more serious meaning behind it – that they are there for the students.

“When we came in as the co-presidents, we said: We want to be visible. And being visible is being present,” Lopez-Espinoza said. 

Whether it’s visiting the Spanish Club, going to Pub Night together or rallying other members of SGA to attend events, the co-presidents understand the responsibility they have to set an example for the student body.

“When Ruth and I go to events now, if we go together, it sometimes has this understanding that it's a co-president thing, even if we’re just hanging out,” Wolf explained. “She and I realized, though, that us showing up to events sometimes matters to people. It can mean a lot that they see us there and they see us supporting whatever work they're doing. And if we are sitting front row at an event cheering on our peers, I think it carries a different kind of weight than it would have if we just showed up before.”

“As co-presidents, we try to set the example because I feel like if we don't show up, how do we expect others to show up?” Lopez-Espinoza noted. It’s a way to build community, which has been one of the top focuses of their administration. “We're really prioritizing the community and what the College brings us to do – we're with and for others. And we're here. We're here for you. We're here to serve you. And also reminding students, yes, we are co-presidents, but we also understand because we're just students at the end of the day, as well."

On the future

As Wolf and Lopez-Espinoza look toward the future, they’re carrying the lessons learned during their co-presidency with them. They’ve both changed their initial plans of becoming immigration attorneys to make a difference in the world in other ways. Lopez-Espinoza has been accepted to a Ph.D. program in comparative literature, focusing on Indigenous literature with the goal of being a professor, while Wolf is applying for a Fulbright fellowship to spend a year abroad, before returning to Washington, D.C. to work in policy. But wherever they end up making an impact in the future, it’s clear they’ve first made their mark together at Holy Cross.

“I think they're planting seeds for generations of women at Holy Cross in the future,” Rogers said. “I don't know if we fully know the impact that they're having at Holy Cross yet. I do think that even students who are touring today, who will be students in the future, would have maybe heard from their tour guide about our two co-presidents, Claire and Ruth. And seeing two strong women, one being a woman of color, in that leadership role – it’s so, so significant.”