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There have been many adjustments and additions to House this year at Hayes, two of the most substantial being the House Leaders and House Mentors programs.
House Leaders is a program aimed at getting students involved and implementing a culture where students take lead and have more influence in House.
“One of the things that we realize is students want to have input on change in House,” said Ryan Montgomery, head of the House Leadership program. “This is allowing students to have that input while we’re able to still guide them through the leadership process.”
One of the unique things about the House Leaders program is that it’s open to all students, as underclassmen are often not given the same leadership opportunities as upperclassmen.
“We really encourage people of all different grades because so many times we will see leaders as just seniors,” Montgomery said. “It’s not that, it’s anyone. People of all different backgrounds, all different social groups and all different activities can be leaders in the school.”
Montgomery said his goal for the program is to help students gain more confidence in themselves and become more comfortable among their peers in order to build relationships.
The House Mentors program, on the other hand, is designed specifically to help new students get acclimated to Hayes and feel more connected to our community.
The program is open to sophomores, juniors and seniors, because its primary target audience is freshman.
There is an overall vision for the House Mentors program, but each House is working on establishing what exactly that means for them.

“For Houk, for example, I’ve met with the mentors and kind of talked about my expectations and whatnot,” said Kathy Kraus, head of the House Mentors program. “And then a week or two ago, all of the House mentors met in small groups with the freshmen and just kind of talked to them, learned their names, learned what they like and dislike, and, you know, just talked to them.”

Kraus said her main goal for the House Mentors program is to simply make sure that everyone feels like they have somebody they can talk to.
“I tell my House mentors, ‘just be intentional about being a nice human,’”Kraus said. “‘Make sure that you say hi to the freshmen or the new students, make sure that everybody feels seen here, and that everybody feels like they’re welcome.’”

Senior Robyn Gurujal is a Lockport House mentor.
“I am looking forward to getting to know the freshmen and being there to help,” Gurujal said. “I feel like that would have been very useful to me my freshman year, so I am looking forward to being that person I didn’t have myself.”
The overarching goal of both the House Leaders and Mentors programs is to bring House back to what it was originally intended to be: community.
“I think a lot of times in house, we get fixated on the competitions and things like that, and we’ll forget that the sole purpose of house is to build community,” Kraus said.