Syona calls the meting to order at 2:10 PM.
Agenda for February 1st
Roll Call
Announcements
Your 2 Cents
Provost Osirim to speak about themed programming
Vote on inviting the Deans and President Cassidy to Plenary (Representative Council vote only)
Old Business
New Business
Immediately after the meeting: Hot Topic hosted by the Hell Week Community Liaisons
Roll Call
Present: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Anna Sargeant, Pamudu Tennakoon, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Mikah Farbo, Swetha Narasimhan, Kristian Sumner, Xavia Miles, Ava Hawkinson, Miranda Smith, Marian Slocum, Grace Kim, Chanel Williams, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Rachel Bruce, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Julia Kim, Angela Motte, Shaina Robinson, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Dani Weismann, Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Leigh Peterson, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Jillian Moroney, Nkechi Ampah, Catherine Wagner, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Julie Henrikson, Linh Tranh, Natalie DiFrank
Absent: Stephanie Montalvan, Heidi Gay, Rhea Manglani, Brenna Levitin, Mikala Forster, Aleja Newman, Lindsay Burak, Olivia Hollinger, Elaine Holehan, Mowa Li,
Announcements
Molly MacDougal ’16: Nominations for the February round of elections begin tonight! The positions up for election are President (list of positions) President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Head of the Honor Board, Head(s) of the Elections Board, Appointments Committee (4).
Nora Scheland ’15 I have an announcement: I have posters for the hell week committee’s consent campaign. Can dorm presidents please find me after the meeting to pick them up so that you can take them back to your dorms?
Dijia Chen ‘16: We wanted to announce some changes that will be made to Hell Week this year in order to address the changing needs of our community and make a more safe environment for people who choose to participate. As many of you know, Heller Training was online and Hellers had to watch a presentation and take a quiz in order to be a “certified heller”. “Calisthenics” changed to Warm-Ups. This is to help decrease anxiety that some students with accessibility concerns may have towards the event. With additional emphasis that warm-ups should be very easy exercise, such as stretching. We will also not be doing the swearing of, “Never Shall I ever” at Trials but move it to Friday.
Pam Gassman ’16: Each Dorm will have a Support Team, that will help with monitoring various dorm events during Hell Week to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable. This is to ensure that there are multiple sober, trained leaders at these events who are working together to control the craziness. There is a “First timers Guide to Hell Week,” which we encourage everyone to look at! There is a Rating system for Campus-wide events like Goodhart Performances based on criteria such as noise, crowds, etc. to provide a reference for first year students. We will be asking people to leave Goodhart if they are causing a disruption, bringing alcohol inside, or stripping down etc. We will be distributing wrist bands prior to Hell Week to help with entrance into Goodhart. Performers will have different colored wristbands. Additionally, to allow for more organization and more students to be able to perform, performances at Goodhart will be only for groups of 5 or more. Please check your emails for information about Hell Week, the Guidebook and our blog traditions.blogs.brynmawr.edu! Also feel free to reach out to the Hell Week Committee (hellweek@brynmawr.edu) or Traditions (traditions@brynmawr.edu) for more information.
Ann Tran ’18: The class of 2018 copresidents and the class of 2017 co-presidents are hosting a joint heller/hellee mixer. We’re inspired by the NYTimes article “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This”.
Odeymarys Garrido ‘17: We will be hosting it on Saturday, February 7th at 3pm in the Quita Woodward room.
Syona Arora ’15: Plenary resolution writing workshops will be held at 7:30 PM in Taylor Seminar from Monday February 2nd through Thursday February 5th. If you are interested in writing a Plenary resolution, you MUST attend a workshop. Plenary will be held on Sunday, February 22nd at noon. Quorum is 453. We had a very successful Plenary in Fall 2014 and we are looking forward to more success this semester. Please show your support. Representative Council, Charlie should have sent you information about attendance.
Melanie Bahti ’16: This is just a quick announcement to anyone who’s interested that I’m moving my office hour this semester to Wednesday 10:30-11:30am. Still in Guild Lower Lounge (outside the Dean’s Office).
Charlie Bruce ’16: If you have an announcement, please send it to me at least thirty minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. This is so that I can read all of the announcements and email responses to clarify unclear language. If you are going to be more than ten minutes late to the meeting or will leave more than ten minutes before the end of the meeting, please notify me in advance. Please sign in for yourself and no one else.
Your 2 Cents
Bridget Murray ‘17: Sarah Andrew ’16 and I are the Hell Week community liaisons. We’ve been hearing a lot as liaisons and working towards a lot of productive changes have been made to Hell Week for this year based on community feedback as we move towards making Hell Week a positive, inclusive, and accessible experience for all. However, we recognize that this is a lot of behind-the-scenes work, and the student body hasn’t been updated on a lot of it, and not everyone can come to the events that we have (like the hot topic after this) so we wanted to share some of our suggestions. We’ll read them off and see if you have anything else, and then do a straw poll. Means of HWC information dissemination:
• Holding another round of office hours
• Doing a q&a panel with the committee
• Sending out a companion piece to the Hell Week Guide sent out earlier this week
• Distributing a Hell Week Happenings newsletter in the bathrooms
• Running a campaign similar to the one done for Plenary where we hang up signs that each highlight a major point of interest/change
• Do you all have any other suggestions?
Mikah Farboh ’15: Speaking on behalf of the athletes, they would like email updates, you can send them to the atletes listerv (athletes@brynmawr.edu). If you had a meet and great at the beginning of the year or anonymous concerns / questions box, that would be great as well.
Bridget Murray ’17: Those are solid suggestions, and we will start implementing those. In terms of event type things, we will take a vote on those, and see where we should channel our efforts.
Sofia Oleas ’15: Could you post your posters on facebook forums so that you can save paper waste?
Bridget Murray ’17: We could create a virtual newsletter in lieu of or in addition to a paper
Shakari Badgett ‘17: Also you could email me as the Erdman dorm president, and I can send it out to the whole dorm.
Provost Osirim to speak about themed programming
Osirim: Good afternoon everyone. I hope you’re aware that this year we’ve had themed programming. A lot of the activities that have been planned by faculty and staff have been revolving the theme dissent, violence, and justice. When we called the first organizational meeting, there wasn’t enough student input. The faculty and staff worked together to create an adhoc group. There are a number of reasons I feel strongly about this group. It’s not the only umbrella for having conversations, but it’s one vehicle for bringing us together as a community. If many students, faculty, and staff can attend these events, it can create a forum on many of these discussions around contemporary issues both in the US and abroad. It’s an opportunity to highlight the excellence of our students, faculty, staff, and our college. It’s a great way to invite interesting people to the college. It’s also good for enhancing the visibility of the college. For many events, we did advertising at WHYY, area and regional schools, and non-profits in Philadelphia. I think this kind of theme programming helped us build larger audiences. All of these events had 80-100 people at them. I wanted to come to SGA to begin to brainstorm with about possible ideas for next year. Semester one this year, we’ve had Mona Eltahawy
whose an Egyptian journalist and has been involved in the progressive movement in Egypt. We had Brian Barber who is involved in violence and trauma towards youth in Bosnia. The last event last semester was a faculty panel focused on structural violence. This semester, we’ll have a list of a variety of activities, including an art exhibit on the Arab spring. There will be a performance group in February around the issue of Japanese internment. There will be an Anthropologist coming on trafficking, women, and labor. I wanted to bring in a discussion to see what you would be interested in opening it up for programming. Syona is asking me about some of the other ideas I’ve had for themes. I will be talking about faculty chairs first. We had a discussion with students and faculty of color. One of the suggestions was Sweet honey and the rock who were here as a performance group many years. They are a group of African American acapella group who did a lot of singing and activism during the civil rights period. There were a lot of other themes around race, class, gender, and diversity.
Airen McClure ’16: I would be interesting to talk about violence against Trans women and Transwomen of color.
Swetha Narasimhan’15: Maybe the role of STEM and medicine in the issues of dissent, violence, and justice?
Syona Arora ’15: I think it would be interesting to hear about environmental justice.
Shakari Badgett ‘17: I’m interested in the intersection of identities.
Rachel Bruce ’18: The rise of hate groups against different religions in Europe.
Anna Sargeant ‘15: Cultural appropriation and regional discrimination of many types.
Namita Dwarakanath ’15: immigration, emigration, and globalization.
Melanie Bahti ’16: Provost Osirim, what is your contact information?
Mary Osirim: Mosirim@brynmawr.edu you can call x5167. Please send ideas! You’re on the ground floor of the brainstorming. We can come back if there are other student venues. Maybe what I can do is convene a faculty meeting and bring in students for a discussion. Thank you for your participation!
Syona Arora ’15: If you have any ideas, please email her! These events are for students, so we want to you reach out to her. Thank you for helping and participating
Vote on inviting the Deans and President Cassidy to Plenary
SA: This is a representative council vote only. We’re going to hold yes/no/abstain on attendance of president and deans. Then on voting rights.
Shakari: What kind of speaking rights?
SA: No speaking rights means that they can attend and watch. If they have speaking rights, they can go to the microphones and contribute. Any other questions?
Yes to inviting Presdent Cassidy: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Anna Sargeant, Pamudu Tennakoon, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Mikah Farbo, Swetha Narasimhan, Kristian Sumner, Xavia Miles, Ava Hawkinson, Miranda Smith, Marian Slocum, Grace Kim, Chanel Williams, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Rachel Bruce, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Julia Kim, Angela Motte, Shaina Robinson, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Dani Weismann, Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Leigh Peterson, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Jillian Moroney, Nkechi Ampah, Catherine Wagner, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Julie Henrikson, Linh Tranh, Natalie DiFrank
No president: n/a
Abstain: n/a
Inviting the deans:
Yes: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Anna Sargeant, Pamudu Tennakoon, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Mikah Farbo, Swetha Narasimhan, Kristian Sumner, Xavia Miles, Ava Hawkinson, Miranda Smith, Marian Slocum, Grace Kim, Chanel Williams, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Rachel Bruce, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Julia Kim, Angela Motte, Shaina Robinson, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Dani Weismann, Leigh Peterson, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Jillian Moroney, Nkechi Ampah, Catherine Wagner, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Julie Henrikson, Linh Tranh, Natalie DiFrank
No: n/a
Abstain: Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi,
Speaking rights for Kim Cassidy:
Yes: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Mikah Farbo, Xavia Miles, Ava Hawkinson, Marian Slocum, Grace Kim, Chanel Williams, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Angela Motte, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Dani Weismann, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Jillian Moroney, Nkechi Ampah, Catherine Wagner, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Linh Tranh,
No: Anna Sargeant, Pamudu Tennakoon, Kristian Sumner, Natalie DiFrank, Swetha Narasimhan, Julie Henrikson, Miranda Smith, Rachel Feynman
Abstain: Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Shaina Robinson, Rachel Bruce, Julia Kim, Leigh Peterson,
President Cassidy has speaking rights
Speaking rights for Deans:
Yes: Sneha Bendapudi, Jillian Moroney, Modupe Olufemi, Rachel Bruce, Marian Slocum, Mikah Farbo, Xavia Miles, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Angela Motte, Ava Hawkinson,
No: Kristian Sumner, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Anna Sargeant, Pamudu Tennakoon, Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Nkechi Ampah, Catherine Wagner, Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Swetha Narasimhan, Natalie DiFrank Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Julie Henrikson, Odeymarys Garrido, Miranda Smith, Rachel Feynman,
Abstain: Leigh Peterson, Julia Kim, Grace Kim, Chanel Williams, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi, Dani Weismann, Lyntana Brougham, Molly MacDougall, Linh Tranh Shaina Robinson
The deans will not get speaking rights.
Old Business
There was no old business
New Business
Shakari Badgett ’17: I’m one of the Erdman dorm presidents. We’re planning a party called Heaven and Hell. It’s in April. If folks have comments, questions, suggestions, they can email me at sbadgett@brynmawr.edu
Julia Kim ’18: I’m a member at large, and I’ve been talking about creating posters to raise awareness about SGA in the international student community. I was lucky to have good customs people who taught me about SGA, but not all international students are close with their customs people. I’m trying to make posters, so if you have any ideas, please email me at jkim@bmc. I can speak Korean and Chinese, so I would love to inform them in posters in those languages.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:50 PM.