Emma W-B ’11 called the meeting to order at 7:10 PM
Roll Call
Excused Absences:
Amanda Ciegliewski ’09, Rodline Louijenue ’11, Patricia Lebron ’09, Weezie Lauher ’10, Gaby Vollum ’11, Chelsea Dunkel ’11, Jasmine Howell ’11, Judy Barr ’09, Susie Kim ’11, Katherine Redford ’10, Steph Hilton ’09, Christina Wagner ’11, Ean Oesterle, Rachel Awkward ’09, Cara Sogliuzzo ’09, Amanda King’10, Liz Hood’10, Nina Jankowicz ’09, Kendalyn Brown ’09
Unexcused Absences:
Sofia Nitchie ’09, MJ Crookes’10, Liana Donahue ’12, Sadie Marlow ’11, Caitlin McCarthy ‘11
Community Members:
Jill Walker ’09, Ashton Shaffer ’11, Lindsey Turr ’11, Becky Findlay ’10, Evan Schneider ’10, Katie Kellom ’09, Erica Seaborne ’09, Ashley Madden ’09, Julia Fahl ’12, Katie Robins ’09, Sarah Sherman ’11, Kate Gould ’11, Julia Aranda ’11, Emma Sheedy ’12, Elizabeth Held ’12, Rebecca Sanders ’12, Leah Bonnell ‘11
Announcements:
Emma W-B ’11: I have three announcements today.
1) In the spirit of the Honor Code, the Exec Board would like to remind elected members of SGA to stay through the entire meeting.
2) We would also like to remind everyone, both voting members and community members to sign in on the sign-in sheet that is passed around so that we can get an accurate count of who is here.
3) I would like to let everyone know that I have been in contact with Haverford’s Student Council Co-Presidents and have invited them to come see what our SGA meetings are like. They will be in attendance next week.
Health Care Advisory Board:
Leah Bonnell ’11: Health center advisory board will be holding a Question and Answer Forum with the board and the Health Center Staff on Thursday April 23, 7-8 pm. A lot of people have concerns and complaints so we hope all of you come to the forum and have a conversation about it. After the forum we will be publishing the results.
125th Anniversary of Bryn Mawr College
Elliott Shore: Thank you for this time tonight. In a year and a half we will be celebrating the 125th anniversary of the college. As you guys think about that let me give you some history. I have some members of the class with me here. So first, September 23, 2010 we will be commemorating the opening of the college. The college opened on September 23 1885. In September 23, 2010, we are going to have a conference on the past, present, and future of education and celebrating that. We are very grateful to our alumna, Joanna Rose, 1952, who has made it possible for us to think positively about the future in the wake of current budget cuts. This is the beginning of the year. At the end of the year we will be having a conference with other Quaker colleges and discuss the role of women within a Quaker education. We are also thinking of publishing a fancy coffee table, scrapbook-like book, with contributions from some of the students at this table. We are also going to have an exhibit of artwork, and books. We are also going to be inviting the students from the Seven Sisters as well as the Quaker colleges, and students from a girl’s high school in Philadelphia region, including students from Bryn Mawr High School
Deep Singh 09: Some of the stuff that we’ve learned this semester has been really cool. It’s been the history of the college that is hidden and that isn’t necessarily always seen. Something I’ve been really interested in are issues of diversity, and exposing them, and celebrating them and seeing how far we’ve come in 125 years. I think we should talk to alums and also older professors who have been here upwards of 20 years. I think that would be a really cool thing, and something that we could all relate to.
Elliott Shore: Speaking of old professors, tomorrow in the Eli Room an alumna graduating in 1949 created a film about professors–who didn’t necessarily know they were being filmed or interviewed—and those professors and that alumni is returning tomorrow for the premiere of this film.
Taline Cox ’10: I think bringing out the similarities and differences between the older graduated classes and the current classes would be a really interesting and that’s what I want to focus on.
Hannah Curry McDougald ‘10: One of the things that we are going to talk about in class is that Bryn Mawr was an anti-feminist college at the cusp of the feminist movement. One of the papers I wrote about was about Susan Walker who was the first SGA president of the college. She wrote one letter and sent it out and got 35 replies in two months discussing how this should be formed.
Erica Seaborne 09: What I think would be really interesting would be how traditions has changed over the years. What I’m going to show you is video footage from Grand May Day 1928. They had Grand May Day every 4 years and May Day was recognized every other year. People came from around the world, and there were diplomats and governmental officials including the First lady and the niece of a President. So in 1928, they charged $3 for entry into May Day, they had grandstands set up on Merion and one would have to pay to reserve grandstand. The budget for Grand May Day was $9640…
Elliott Shore: To put the money in perspective it cost about $300 to go to Bryn Mawr, and $300 to live on campus so they were spending what in today’s terms would be half a million dollars on May Day. Also, in reference to what Erica was saying before, Taft’s daughter was the dean of the college. And Calvin Coolidge’s wife visited Bryn Mawr on Grand May Day.
Erica Seaborne ‘09: …Also you would get PE credit for participating in May Day in the past, and there used to be plays and theater that was put on May Day. Practices for some of these plays used to being in January and were conducted by the Director of the Green.
Elliot Shore: We would love to open this up to the floor to talk about what you guys think and what you think we should do.
Noelle Fair ’10: I think you already had this idea, but it would be great if sometime through the year there could be something set up during the year in the campus center so as people pass by they can see all these great images and read some of these accounts
Rebecca Finley ’10: I went through the Alumni forum and I really loved to be able to ask questions, and I think it would be great if we could figure out a way to have a one-on-one with alumni. It would be great if it could be recorded.
Elliott: Yeah, the one’s that did occur were recorded and we were hoping it could be available to the public
Shannon Ryan ’10: Instead of looking at the famous alumni which we always focus on, it would be really cool if we could look at the women through the ages and see how they have been progressed.
Elliot Shore: Yeah, that’s a great idea. Just so you know I also went to Bryn Mawr. I also went to Bryn Mawr College. My PhD is from Bryn Mawr from 1984.
Laurel Lemon ’11: So are we going to combine Grand May Day with the 125th celebration of the college and combine the two efforts for next year?
Elliot Shore: I’ve been set by the committee to find out what you guys think—so what do you think? Should we combine the two?
Audience: YES!
Emma W-B ‘11: I found out recently that the founder of my school was a Bryn Mawr Alumna and so I grew up with May Day and celebrating May Day and learning the dance and it would be great if we could either teach the dance or have a May Pole where people could just perform the dance like they did in 1928
Sarah Theobald ‘12: Someone said that you used to get PE credit for participating in May Day and so it would be really great if there could be dance class that would teach you the may pole dances and then get PE credit that way.
Anne George Halgren ‘11: Scottish Country Dancing Club knows many of these dances and would love to teach anyone that would like to learn. We also have a huge alumnae presence and I’m sure they would be interested as well.
Rebecca Finley 10: Maybe I’m just being selfish but I really think that Grand May Day should be over two days and should be combined with the 125thAnniversary of the college as opposed to any other tradition like Lantern Night
Shannon Ryan ’10: Also Lantern night is very personal and there’s a sense here that you are part of the community once you go through all the traditions so May Day would be the most appropriate place to have this celebration.
Elliot: Okay thank you for all these suggestions. We have a staff member, Anne Bruder, who can start talking to staff members and faculty about May Day. One of the cool things we’re talking about in class is how the past connects to the current. Any other ideas, thoughts, questions?
Shannon Ryan 10: One of the things we were talking about that could be cool is if this Bryn Mawr History class could be a C-Sem class.
Taline Cox 10: Yeah, I would really like that except we would have to be really careful in discussing Hell Week and things like that…
Erica Seaborne ’09: I really like that idea and I think it would be so great if it could be a C-Sem and if we could get alumni and students to talk in the class too that would be great
Ashton Schaeffer 11: About the C-Sem thing we did discuss the history of the college and it was really interesting. And it would be awesome if there could be a C-Sem about the history but would it be available to all classes, or only to certain students?
Shannon Ryan ‘10: I’m not sure how that would really work because I do think that it would be unfair for only 14 students to have access to all of this but at the same time I think it would be a great opportunity for people to have
Sophie Papavizas 11: Is it possible to have a discussion or forum with current students in SGA?
Katherine Bakke 11: It would be great to have some sort of leadership seminar over a weekend to talk about how to advance women’s education in America and abroad. And a lot of students could participate in it along with these really illustrious alumni
Elliot: Would this be a strand as the conference?
Katherine Bakke 11: It could go hand and hand in the conference and just have this opportunity for alumni to stay and talk with students or perhaps come back throughout the year through the Hepburn Center.
Elliot: Wow these have been really great comments and suggestions. Thanks for having us here. We would love to come back again.
Old Business:
Laurel Lemon 11: The Newspapers again. A contract for USA Today is in the works, and so what I’m suggesting is that we revise the numbers that we want next fall.
Emma W-B 11: So I wanted to talk about what Liana brought up last week at the Posse retreat. So the exec board met with her as well as some other students and we want to send out a survey that is going to talk about issues of representation.
New Business:
Sophie Papavizasas 11: Next week there is going to be a lot of prospective students on campus and the admissions office is asking us to have an SGA tea next Sunday at 3 PM. Any volunteers? Sarah Kelly, Liz Ritchie. Great, thanks.
SGA Meeting ended at 8:14 PM.