Syona calls the meeting to order 7:10 PM
Roll Call
Present
Absent
Announcements
Molly MacDougal ’16: Nominations are closing nine am tomorrow! Positions open: resco, SCC, traditions, class presidents (2015, 2016, 2015) SOCO heads, CEO rep, Song Mistresses, Masters, Mistex (2015,2016,2017), Honor Board (3 1 year positions 2015, 1 1year for 2016, 1 year position for 2017, 1 2 year position for 2017) Candidates Forum is this Thursday 17th at 8pm in CC.
Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: Dorm president elections: nominations will continue until the April 20th I will be tabling in the back of TGH during the senior/junior draw 15th at nine and sophomore draw on the 16th at nine. You can email me your nominations and acceptances.
Colin Bauman ‘16: do you mean 11:59 PM on Monday or Tuesday ??
Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: I meant 11:59 on the 20th.
Karina Siu ‘14: The games this week are tomorrow, lacrosse at 4:30 pm, Tennis Tuesday at 4:30 pm. Crew is having fan appreciation this Saturday! They have a regatta in Philly. Email Holly Constance if you’re interested in going. If you want to go and you’re van certified, let her know. SAC is having elections if you know any athlete you want to nominate for an execboard please email me at ksiu, positions are president, VP, PR, secretary and treasurer.
Angela Blatz ‘16: we’re having class of 2016/2017 spring tea from 8-10PM in the campus center. Invite your friends!
Alexis De la Rosa ‘15: There is info session for appointed positions after this meeting. If you’ve previously held a position, stay around. There are a couple of things changing about appointments. If you’re eager and want to get started on the application, it’ll start at midnight.
Karina Siu ‘14: Claudia Keep broke the school record in the 1500-meter race with a time of 4:41.
Syona Arora ’15: Members of the representative council, honor board, and appointments committee, should have received an exit survey. The last day to fill them out is the May 4th. We appreciate feedback.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: I wanted to clarify the terms being used in this elections and appointments round. Because we passed this resolution, about gender inclusive language, we’re now using the terms used in that resolution in the appointments and elections. The result is change in the language and a task force, so we’re using update position titles. Feel free to spread that around and direct them to the EBoard with questions.
Your Two Cents
Sofia Oleas ’15: I wanted to ask how you all would feel about getting a punching bag for the gym. The options are: yes, punching bag, no punching bag, or abstain.
Sarah Lovegren ‘15 : if there were a punching bag would anyone be allowed to use it?
Sofia Oleas ‘15: Stacy said only people who were trained could use it, like the deadlift. She said she could put a cautionary sign up. I’m emailing Courtney and I asked the current Iron Owls trainer could use it, but I know someone whose a fitness instructor in Philly who could teach it. I wanted to take a straw poll to see if people in the BMC community were interested.
Karina Siu ‘14: If we were to vote yes, what would be the next steps?
Sofia Oleas ‘15: I want to show Stacey the support in the BMC community towards this.
Straw Poll outcome: Yes
Class Project for Multicultural Education
Natalie Zamora ‘14: Hi, I’m Natalie Zamora
Alyssa Young ‘15: Hi, I’m Alyssa Young.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: We’re taking a class in multicultural education. Part of our final project is thinking of ways to display multicultural education outside the classroom. Our group is focusing on SGA inclusivity, how people feel a part or not apart of it. I have a list of questions, and I’m going to split you up into groups where you can talk about these questions.
(after the break out discussion)
Natalie Zamora ‘14: We wanted to let you know that we’re also reaching out to community members like affinity groups. Feel free to contact us at nzamora@brynmawr.edu ayoung06@brynmawr.edu
Syona Arora ‘15: Thank you so much, including everyone for participating. We’re interested in using SGA as a space to foster these discussions. For example, the next agenda item! I think it’s important to have these conversations within and outside the representative council.
Discussion of Intersection of staff and Faculty and the Honor Code
Syona Arora ‘15: this is in light of recent events. A lot of groups have been talking about experience, how students interact with faculty and staff, vice versa. For example, test proctoring, knowing how to keep staff and faculty accountable and how they can keep students accountable. We want to open up this space to this conversation. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Rhett Richardson ‘15: Could you summarize that?
Syona Arora ‘15: How do you think faculty and staff should abide by the honor code, should they abide by the honor code?
Danielle Arad-Neeman ‘15: I’m one of the faculty representatives. At the last couple meetings, we’ve talked about how the older faculty respect the honor code, but are having trouble teaching the newer faculty how to respect it. They’re trying to incorporate it more into training.
Nora Scheland ‘15: Follow up question: are the older faculty more worried about professors not doing self scheduled exams.
Danielle Arad-Neeman ’14: It’s more theoretical than practical. Younger faculty don’t understand the way the spirit of the honor code and how to work in terms of how they conduct themselves on a daily basis. I think that is that they want to give them a more experiential version.
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: I’m confused about the context of this conversation. Is there a particular reason we’re having this conversation right now?
Syona Arora ‘15: It’s a lot of different things. For me personally that I interact with fac/staff a lot as a member of the ExebBoard. Also, I know when CDAs hosted about diversity in the classroom, it raised a lot of questions about honor code in the classroom.
ADL: In light of town hall, both the spirit and the honor were brought into question. How do members of faculty and staff interact with it. Is there a space for faculty and staff to interact with it.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: I think those are examples of places where people are thinking about the intersection of the honor code with faculty and staff. I think it’s clearer in terms of academic ie how students and faculty interact, but social situations are less clear. One thing we don’t talk enough about is how staff fit into the honor code. The honor code does not strictly apply to faculty and staff, they aren’t bound to it, but since it shapes how students interact with one another, we’re curious to hear how you see faculty and staff fall into that framework.
Hannah Rifkin ‘17: This last plenary there was a resolution about content warning and the curriculum head viewed this resolution as more so an attack. Could someone speak to that?
Carolyn Jacoby ’14: I’m the SCC head. It wasn’t an attack. They were very hesitant to immediately embrace it because they were concerned about its implementation. It was frustrating for me as a person who supports it, what we’re saying as students and they’re seeing as professors is very different issues, but it’s a good space for opening up a dialogue. What I saw as a simple proposition, they saw as fraught in a lot of ways.
Michaela Olson ’15: One of the things I that I appreciate about the social honor code is that it is based with students. I appreciate the autonomy t gives students, at the same time there are situations were faculty and staff should immerse themselves with the honor code, meaning to be better educated with what it means, especially as we have these important conversations around race, microaggressions, gender, and sexuality and other ways students feel marginalized on campus. These issues the social honor code might not address, but I think that having them be better educated what the social honor code means is important.
Rhett Richardson ‘15: Earlier Melanie mentioned that faculty and staff aren’t bound in the same way and one issue I’ve seen is that faculty and staff don’t realize that they’re supposed to be part of by the honor code but how they’re effected of constitution in general. Consistently, I’ve experienced people not reading it.
Erin Saladin ‘16: I think students expect certain behavior from the staff and faculty and we as students don’t have a basis for. frequently as students aren’t we aren’t as familiar with the honor code as we should be. We expect things we don’t understand we have access to. I think it goes back to how do we get students involved in the honor code.
Syona Arora ‘15: Expand?
Erin Saladin ‘16: We expect people to understand when we ourselves do not understand the honor code.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: As an addendum: I would love to hear any suggestions if you have things you feel like you could address this with. I’m curious about ideas that we could better communicate with faculty and staff.
Elizabeth Vandenburg: We have conversations around the honor code, but providing space for faculty and staff and sometimes to have these conversations that are facilitated by students might create the space for a two-way conversation so that everyone is involved with the constitution. By allowing faculty and staff to be involved, we’re making a two-way conversation instead of imposing our ideas on that.
Sofia Oleas ‘15: Do we want to incorporate faculty and staff into the honor code? What are the repercussions for them if they break the honor code? There has to be something that keeps them accountable.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: Could you talk more about what you mean by them breaking the honor code? There are expectations for faculty and staff behavior, but…could you explain?
Sofia Oleas ‘15: They don’t have to respect it the way a student has to respect it. If a student breaks it, they have to go to their dean, etc. Professors don’t have accountability to acknowledge that they made a mistake.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: The honor code gives students a framework in which we can operate and support one another, and we would all hope that faculty and staff are doing the same and would respect one another and respect us. The system we would use is that we were concerned about another student is that we would confront a student and their behavior. Those skills we would use with one another we would use with faculty and staff and try to have a discussion in that way.
Sofia Oleas ‘15: It addresses a general framework but it could be more situational specific.
Nora Scheland ‘15: How it could this be incorporated into course evaluations? Like a midterm or final evaluation: how did you feel the honor code was dealt with in this course? Sometimes if you have a pressing issue it’s not good to wait until final evaluations to bring it up, but that is the way that professors get feedback from the students.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: That’s an interesting idea
Meg Sumner-Moore ‘15: If we were to ask that question, we would have to define what the honor code is in the class room. We don’t professors think of the professors following it as students do. Going back to what you said bout how honor code can be used to confront the professor because there’s an inherent power dynamic, because they have power over you’re grade, so how can you force them to use it?
Erin Saladin ‘16: One of the conversations that came up was involving the honor code more in ESEM. If professors had to teach the honor code in ESEM, they would have to think about it more. If students were involved it early on, they would think about it more.
Danielle Arad-Neeman ‘14: I think that ESEM is the one thing that all first years must do, and it would be a great way to incorporate lessons.
Michaela Olson ‘15: I liked Nora’s idea of putting it into a course evaluation. I think it could be useful to have anonymous form where students could report problematic material in class. If there are things said, students could report them as opposed to talk to the professor. There could be a pilot program of putting it on course evaluations. I think you could get interesting responses and get people to think about it.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: I think idea of anonymous report form is definitely interesting. The issue with anonymous reporting is that it goes against spirit of confrontation, that is taking ownership of a problem and dealing with it face to face. I realize it’s different from between students than between students and faculty.
Sofia Oleas ‘15: I think that confrontation might become sketchy once you include content warnings because students don’t want to confront content warnings directly.
Aine Sheyhan ‘15: My concern with anonymous reporting is the professor’s would be their response to the honor code. They view it from a different perspective than we would. I don’t want them to feel attacked in an anonymous report.
Hannah Rifkin ’17: A lot of workplaces require confidentiality hotlines. Especially since this regards to staff and faculty, we do have bosses in workplaces with those resources.
I don’t think that having a confidential way of reporting would be a bad thing.
Danielle Phillips ‘15: Is there a way to make staff and faculty honor code?
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: I don’t know. The way it works right now, the honor code and honor board the jurisdiction extends to only the undergrad community. It’s an interesting idea.
Sarah Gilmour ‘14: Has there been any dialogue about a bico effort? I’ve mostly heard about Bryn Mawr students feel about being disrespected or the honor code being violated in Haverford classes. I know their honor code differs from ours. We should put expectations of what that should be like. I think that there’s more disrespect from Haverford professors. There’s not great communication between Bryn Mawr administrators and other institutions.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: One of my goals this year is to work closely to HC’s council. I don’t want to ask people to tell me about their specific experiences, but I’d be interested to know more about what specific things professors can do better so I can pass specific suggestions.
Syona Arora ’15: We can continue this conversation at old business but we can continue amongst your friends, constituents, faculty and staff.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: Or you can meet with me at my office hours ten to noon in guild lobby!
Syona Arora ’15: Please continue these conversations, they’re important. There have been a lot of interesting ideas presented.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: Feel free to email me at honorboard@brynmawr.edu or mbahti@ brynmawr.edu
Old business
New business
Karina Siu ‘14: In between new and old business. Either we continue now or later about the topic Natalie brought up. We got into a conversation in our group and we wanted to go more in depth.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: Would you like to come back to this at another SGA meeting? I would encourage you to email me or contact me about this? I realize that there were external factors that might hinder your answers. I can only determine your feelings from the questionnaires you filled out. I will follow up at a future SGA meeting with what I found.
Colin Bauman: I appreciate the conversation, but I feel that the assembly + rep council is almost inappropriate. I’m Soco head, when I’m at SGA I view my discussions as a part of my position. If you don’t want the opinions of my position, I would think a town hall meeting would be more appropriate. That would be a better use of rep council time and give you better responses that are more in depth.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: My original idea of coming to SGA and going to affinity group club meeting was to see … I think this conversation has been done plenty of times, we’re too involved with ourselves. Even the latest campaign, I want to know from the assembly what they think is effective/not effective.
Colin Bauman ‘14: I think you could’ve gotten the responses more in depth in a google form.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: I’m currently creating a google form.
Karina Siu ‘14: We didn’t discuss this in our group but we talked about how we as assembly members don’t know what outside of the meeting. I think that’s what struck me. That’s a conversation we should have
Lucy Gleystein ‘14: I also appreciated starting the discussion but its one that’s been started and the questions were pointed to talking about existing issues. I think the questions should be more solution oriented.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: It’s also a final project so I don’t know where this is going. I’m flowing with the wind. I don’t think this paper will find a solution to the student involvement problem.
Lucy Gleystein ‘14: I don’t think it would be one solution but suggestions from community members.
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: I respect the opinions about what everyone’s’ been saying. I wanted to add that there’s good reason to talk to the assembly, because it is our job to be representing people we have to understand how background comes into play in any given space. You’re background and your personal identity come in to being in whatever you do. So in terms of being able to accurately represent that, it’s important to ask the assembly. We are the eyes for this among the self-government association. We should be making ourselves aware of how aware we are.
Syona Arora ’15: Though this discussion was started for a class, this is a similar conversation to faculty and staff and the honor code. As an eboard, we’re interested. The assembly has demonstrated interest in this issue. If the assembly and the rep council feel that this is something worth pursing, please bring it up at old business, so we continue this conversation and find solutions. If you have any other suggestions, please share or email us or bring it up at the next SGA meeting.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: Another piece of new business. The deans office and the honor board are interested in implementing an academic integrity tutorial. This is something that Haverford has. It’s a set of clips and tutorials that they require of incoming students. The bmc’s dean office is interested in doing to get students involved in honor code and interested in before they get on campus. Does anyone have any thoughts feelings concerns or suggestions about this?
Karina Siu ‘14: Other seniors, did we have something like this?
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: It’s similar to College Alc, but completely different content. The way Haverford College does it, its relevant to the community. The videos include current students and professors. So it would be tailored to this community.
Karina Siu ‘14: Would it be in addition to that or in place of it?
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: It would be in addition.
Colin Bauman ‘14: I’m in favor of this. It takes away any form of ambiguity to academic integrity prior to BMC. There was talk last year about implementing title IX training into first .
Melanie Bahti ’16: I don’t know about progress made regarding title IX training. Does anyone else know? I can find out.
Colin Bauman ‘14: They were talking about involving it in the internet tutorial.
Melanie Bahti ’16: The issue of tutorial fatigue is relevant, so we’ve considered having the tutorial to be part of ESEM.
Sam Terry ‘14: So how does distinguish between academic training and honor code differ? And what is the Haverford tutorial like? Is it positive? Is it punitive?
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: The way that the Haverford one works is that they have video clips and text portions of: Why do we care about academic integrity, why is it important to use appropriate resources rather than consulting professors, and then there’s a multiple choice interactive part that describes correct behavior for certain situations. The idea is that it would get students ideologically on the same page. It would bypass the nitty gritty of knowing correct citation.
Sam Terry ‘14: yes it makes sense but it doesn’t get to the issue at hand. I don’t think all of the form of academic dishonesty is about ignorance. No tutorial will put people on a completely even playing field. I don’t think it gets at the structural issue.
MELANIE BAHTI ‘16: I don’t think it will solve all of the problems. I think having it as a resource is good.
Erin Saladin ‘16: Along those lines, the videos could include resources you could consult if you’re unsure.
Nkechi Ampah ‘16: I agree with Sam but I think that it would be good at explaining things relevant to Bryn Mawr. There’s murky water of what stuff is and isn’t needed when students get here..
Syona Arora ’15: The conversation is interesting; Melanie is in conversation with the deans. If you have any feelings about this, please contact Melanie. honorboard@brynmawr.edu.