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Minutes

February 8, 2015 Minutes

Syona Arora called the meeting to order at 7:10pm.

 

Roll Call

Present: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Anna Sargeant, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Mikah Farbo, Swetha Narasimhan, Natalie DiFrank, Rhea Manglani, Ava Hawkinson, Brenna Levitin, Marian Slocum, Chanel Williams, Aleja Newman, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Rachel Bruce, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Julia Kim, Stephanie Montalvan, Angela Motte, Shaina Robinson, Lindsay Burak, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Leigh Peterson, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Nkechi Ampah, Cat Wagner, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi, Olivia Hollinger, Elaine Holehan, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Linh Tranh,

 

Absent: Heidi Gay, Pamudu Tennakoon, Kristian Sumner, Miranda Smith, Xavia Miles, Mikala Forster, Grace Kim, Dani Weismann, Jillian Moroney, Mowa Li, Julie Henrikson,

 

Announcements

 

Molly MacDougall ’16: I’m head of the elections board. February Elections are underway! Nominations are open until 9am Monday morning. Positions up for election are President, VP, Treasurer, Secretary, Head of the Honor Board, Head(s) of the Elections Board (may be co-held by two people), and Members of the Appointments Committee (up to 4 positions open). For nominations, email the name of the person you are nominating and position to elections@bmc
Candidates’ Forum is Thursday at 8pm in the Campus Center! For more info, check elections.blogs.brynmawr.edu, questions: elections@brnymawr.edu

 

Anna Kalinsky ’15: Hey all! I’m one of the Res-co heads, and I’m here to give a recap on the Board of Trustees meeting this past weekend.

[Haffner] This past Friday we attended the Buildings and Grounds Board of Trustees meeting. The discussion was primarily focused on Haffner reconstruction as well as the Park Renovation project. Haffner is moving along well, and the weather hasn’t been too much of a problem. We are on time and on budget but the schedule is tight. Currently 90% of the building has been roofed. Windows for new Haffner are expected to come in on the nineteenth.

[New Perry] New Perry is still going through structural renovations. There are student committees in place who are working on the design for Perry, but the Board of Trustees was really excited to hear that people hope to incorporate some of the college’s African and Latin American art collections and that there is collaboration underway with the Africana studies department.

[Park] There is a timeline in place for the first stage in renovating Park. We’ve hired Payette architectural firm. The Park renovation committee meets weekly, with Payette coming every other week. One of the main goals of this renovation is to increase the number of quality social spaces and study spaces. The design phase for the first renovation is expected to last from June to November of this year, and by April 2016 they plan on sending out the design bid. The first phase is expected to be completed in December 2017. The current budget for this project is $17 million, though this is subject to change. It is being supported primarily through bond issues and is supported by major gifts. The PROC committee is still figuring out what the exact goals of phase 1 will be.

 

Aleja Newman ’17: Is the dining hall being renovated?

 

Anna Kalinsky ‘15: The dining hall was renovated over the summer. They’re not planning on doing more renovations. They will be changing the entryway though when the dorm is completed.

 

Melanie Bahti ‘16: If your club, organization, committee, group, or team is interested in tabling at Plenary, please contact me at mbahti@brynmawr.edu. We have limited space available and it is first come, first served.

 

Syona Arora ’15: Plenary will be held on Sunday February 22 at noon. Please please please attend. It’s mandatory for the Representative Council to attend. Bring your t-shirts from last semester because we only have a few left for people who don’t already have them. We will be presenting the resolutions later this meeting. They’re really great and really important resolutions. If you are interested in tabling at Plenary you must contact Melanie. There are 12 spots and it’s first-come first-serve. There will be an alum panel that is open to the entire campus on Thursday April 23rd at 7 PM in TGH. We encourage you to come because we think it’s a great opportunity to connect with alums and hear about how their participation in leadership positions has influenced their careers and personal lives after Bryn Mawr. Save the date!

 

 

Your 2 Cents

 

Medoza Ameen ’16: This Saturday Nida Tapal and I, Will, from GSSR and Matt, from the graduate school of art and sciences, represented Bryn Mawr to the Board of Trustees. We told them about the student activism on campus. We talked about the die in at the Main line march and all of the activism that was centered on police brutality and Ferguson. We also talked about environmental activism.

 

Nida Tapal ‘16: We talked about using social media we can participate in activities hosted at other universities. Some of our affiliates use social media to raise awareness about causes all over the world. The more contingents that come together, the better the result is. There is a lot of support both on campus and off campus.

 

Shakari Badgett ’17: The Campus center fund starts March 1st. I’m going to do karaoke night March 20th. I wanted to get a straw poll on interest. There would be a cafe setting with a dance space with nice lights, and a stage, from 7-11. There would be slots for showcasing artistic talent for 10 minutes each hour. It will be a sign up just to keep everything running smoothly, and I will be one of two hosts.

 

Lindsey Marinello ’17: We’re from Bryn Mawr engineers, we’ve acquired a 3d printer, and we’re going to have workshops on how to use it.

 

Syona Arora ’15: The community day of learning on Wednesday, March 18th surrounding diversity on campus is being hosted by the President’s Office. On this day, classes are cancelled but that does not mean that it is a free day. Rather, this is a day for our community to come together and learn from each other. There are many events planned and the President’s Office is looking for volunteers or facilitators. They need students to keep time limits in small groups, participate in panel discussions, and submit or suggest activities that they have hosted in the past through their clubs. For example, I know that SAS did a video project – they would be more than welcome to submit some of those videos to be shown on that day. It is a tremendous amount of work and planning that is being put in for this day; it will really be successful if all students participate. Students have asked for a campus-wide event and they are doing their best to make successful. Contact Ruth Lindenborg if you are interested in participating in any way. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to share now!

 

Vote on Spring 2015 Budgets

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: When we started out in fall 2014, we had a budget for 40,000$, and we usually had 5,000$ roll over, but this semester had more money than usual roll over. As you can see from the slides, Bico budgets have gone up significantly, and that is because of the increase in Bico clubs. I hope to allocate a larger fund for mid-semester reviews. Are there any particular concerns?

 

Brenna Levitin ’16: I saw a discrepancy between the 2015 and other class budgets.

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: It’s the senior week budget. It costs a lot of money.

 

Anna Kalinsky ‘15: What are grievances?

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: Basically, people email me before budgets are finalized asking for an emergency fund. It’s just a pool for last minute spending. For this fiscal year, we’re projecting both net revenue and net expenses of $106,108,000, leaving us, ultimately, with a balanced budget.
Yes: Anna Kalinsky, Sofia Oleas, Anna Sargeant, Pam Gassman, Dijia Chen, Molly MacDougall, Mikah Farbo, Swetha Narasimhan, Natalie DiFrank, Ava Hawkinson, Brenna Levitin, Marian Slocum, Chanel Williams, Aleja Newman, Odeymarys Garrido, Ann Tran, Connie Lam, Rachel Bruce, Matison Hearn-Desautels, Julia Kim, Stephanie Montalvan, Angela Motte, Shaina Robinson, Lindsay Burak, Rachel Feynman, Lyntana Brougham, Jessica Bernal, Shakari Badgett, Leigh Peterson, Angie Koo, Gabrielle Crossnoe, Sneha Bendapudi, Nkechi Ampah, Cat Wagner, Carly Breen, Prerana Vaddi, Olivia Hollinger, Elaine Holehan, Alexis McDonald, Modupe Olufemi, Linh Tranh,

 

No one objected

 

Abstain: Rhea Manglani

 

Finance Subcommittee Meeting Recap

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: This year we’re going to have a balanced budget. Tuition and fees are going up 2.7% while financial aid is only going up 1.9%, leaving us with a net increase in tuition of 3.3%. In total, between Tuition, Room, and Board, there’s a 3.5% increase.  Last year’s discount rate was 47% — this year is 46.7%
Discount rates are likely to increase due to some changes in our merit aid policy. Basically, the college is now trying to concentrate merit aid on higher achieving students, and reduce the amount of merit aid given to other students. This is a model that’s fairly new, and they’re not quite sure how it’ll pan out. If you have any feedback or input on this particular model, I would really like to hear it.
One of the biggest drivers of increases in tuition has to do with a need to maintain high faculty and staff salaries, which are pretty contingent on cost of living. We’re actually slightly below our peer group in increasing salaries, though we’re getting better at meeting that median mark. We’re increasing our faculty salary by 3.45% this year, and the average is 3.60%. For a lot of [fairly obvious] reasons, it’s important to remain competitive with other colleges’ salaries in order to have higher faculty retention.
In terms of the endowment, we’re doing pretty solidly. We have a return rate of about 12% within the next 3 years, and are expected to stay slightly ahead of our peer group, even as that return rate drops.
Looking forward toward the incoming class, we had a really big pool of ED applicants. We’re budgeting for a class of 370, and 140 students have already been accepted to the class of 2019.

 

This slide shows where we stack with our peer institutions. We’re pretty much right in the middle or close to the bottom of our group.

 

Rhea Maglani ‘15: Why are we only looking at liberal arts colleges?

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: We use our peer group as a comparison of enrollment rates and endowment rates.

 

Brenna Levitin ‘16: I’ve heard that Wellesley gives a lot more aid than we do.

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: Aid stats are hard to get. It’s considered corroboration to share aid strategies.

 

Elaine Hollahan ‘16: If tuition and fees are going up 2.7% while financial aid is only going up 1.9%, how can they say they’re meeting 100% of aid?

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: We meet 100% of need aid. We’re putting less toward merit, but we’ll still meet 100% of need. If you have any other questions, please email me at bmctreasurer@gmail.com

 

Plenary Resolution Presentations

 

Syona Arora ’15: We will now hear from the writers of resolutions for Spring 2015 Plenary. There are four really great resolutions. This is a time to provide feedback and offer any suggestions to make these resolutions the best that they can be. I’ll go first. Every spring, we reaffirm the constitution. This is to dedicate our student body to the principle of self-governance.

 

Madelaine Dubin ‘16: I a presenting a resolution for the constitutional review committee. This resolution is just updating the constitution so that it reflects the way that SGA currently runs. It fixes a lot of the grammatical and structural errors.

 

Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: does it go into position descriptions of SGA officers or is it just broader structural corrections.

 

Madelaine Dubin ‘16: it does go into position descriptions based off of the people who answered me. If you have any questions or comments, contact madubin@brynmawr.edu

 

Lindsey Marinello ’17: I’m presenting a plenary resolution on the creation of a STEM committee. This committee would advocate for stem needs, improvements on the Q center, suggestions on more technically focused workshops, while also acknowledging efforts done to make improvements to these areas. The difficult thing to write up in this resolution is the positions and how this would fit into working with LILAC and faculty. A significant portion is about how to advocate for more career preparedness.

 

Anna Kalinsky ‘15: Have you met with the dean’s office, science faculty, or the provost?

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: We’ve gotten information about some of the grants. We’re meeting with LILAC later this week.

 

Anna Kalinsky ‘15: I will email you with more suggestions

 

Michaela Olson: When you want to improve the q center, could you be more specific?

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: The q center provides a lot of support, but there’s not a lot of advertising for their services; there’s not a lot of staff; and there isn’t tutoring for pre-calc.

 

Rhea Manglani’17: I wonder if you’ve contacted people in the consortium with swat or Penn on engineering options

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: I would love to talk to you more about that. A lot of the resolution focuses on campus resources, but I do want to put some emphasis on partnerships

 

Aleja Newman ‘17: You should attempt to reach out to the CPD. Ask them to create more opportunities for more externships on engineering.

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: Will do.

 

Anna Sargeant ‘15: One of my first years was telling me that there weren’t opportunities for first years to get stem internships for the summer. When she was talking to a faculty member, they were very discouraging and she said LILAC wasn’t helpful.

 

Brenna Levitin ‘16: Have you talked to Betsy Horner?

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: she hasn’t responded to my email. Different question for everyone: how could I give criticism to lilac without coming off as too mean?

 

Brenna Levitin ‘16: Send out a survey; send it out through departmental listservs.

 

Prerana Vaddi ‘16: Students tend to be more receptive when faculty send out emails. Suggest to LILAC that they can increase awareness about the opportunities at LILAC through faculty.

 

Aleja Newman ‘17: Also something that would be helpful would be to see how many students have attempted this. It would be a good form of creating accountability.

 

Lindsey Marinello ‘17: Thank you for the feedback! My email is lmarinello@bmc

 

Felix Qiang ’17: I’m writing a plenary resolution about building a recording studio for spring 17. I’m working on the budget. I’ve been in contact with the Theater program, the equipment director, he would help the setting up and organizing, but I had some trouble with the budget. I’ve been in contact with a lot of departments.

 

Rachel Bruce ‘15: What would the recording studio be used for?

 

Felix Qiang ’17: For everybody who signed up.

 

Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: Where do you see the funds coming from?

 

Felix Qiang ’17: The theatre and film department and student activities.

 

Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: Who do you see being in charge of the maintenance of the recording studio?

 

Felix Qiang ’17: The director Justine McDaniel.

 

Michaela Olson ‘15: Where has the demand been for a recording studio?
Felix Qiang ’17: There’s a lot of clubs, acapella groups, and others that would need the recording space.

 

Namita Dwarakanath ’15: About 5,000 is spent renting spaces to record for clubs.

 

Nkechi Ampah ‘16: Where would this studio be?

 

Felix Qiang ’17: Probably the basement of the CC when it is renovated over the course of the next two years.

 

Aleja Newman ‘16: would you be interested in specifying the accessibility of the space in your resolution?

 

Felix Qiang ’17: There will be an assistant in this space

 

Brenna Levitin ‘16: by ADA regulations, this space would have to be accessible.

 

Felix Qiang ’17: Thank you for the comments, you can contact jqiang@brynmawr.edu

 

Update from Fall 2014 Plenary Resolutions

Syona Arora ’15: Plenary happened in the fall, some students who presented resolutions were unable to attend the meeting, so I will be reading their updates:

SEPTA Passes: “We met with Balthazar and Jerry. I were to send the survey to her for her revision to be sent to a wider campus audience. This was sent to her around Thanksgiving Break. Dean Balthazar has failed to respond back. We would like to reach out to her again in the near future to see how we can move forward.”

Halal and kosher meals:

“Since the end of last semester Halal meals are being provided a few times a week upon students’ requests. Currently we are taking student input on different recipes to make it better and collaborating on ways to make it more easily accessible.”

 

Brenna Levitin ’16: Last semester, we met with the faculty curriculum committee and the faculty in a monthly meeting. We got a bunch of suggestions, potentially an anonymous online form. This spring, Emmett and I have met with Gina Seising, they recommended that we meet with Helen Chang, the moodle specialist. We’re going to see if there’s a form that we can make content more accessible. We will present that at a faculty meeting later in the semester.

 

Syona Arora ’15: I know that students have expressed concern in the past and being accountable. It wasn’t necessary to give on updates on all of them, since some of them were updates to the constitution.

 

Old Business

 

There was no old business.

 

New Business

 

There was no new business.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:56PM.