SGA Minutes
7:10 – Sophie Papavizas ’11 calls the meeting to order
Roll Call
Assembly Members Present: Katie Dahl ’11, Liz Ritchie ’11, Miranda Hansen-Hunt ’11, Aki Snyder ’11, Isidora Armentrout ’13, Jennifer Savage ’12, Blair Smith ’12, Sarah Kelley ’11, Gabby Marangell ’12, Mae Carlson ’12, Adelyn Kishbaugh ’12, Malina Toza ’13, Ellen Halbach ’11, Lindsey Turr ’11, Kyle Aguilar ’13, Akshyeta Suryanarayan ’13, Liz Kamel ’14, Hannah Smith ’14, Krista Imre ’13, Pragya Krishna ’13, Elizabeth Olecki ’12, Maya Sachdeva ’14, Dasiy Sheng ’14, Keshia Koech ’13, Ali Raeber ’13, Joo Park ’11, Hope Wayman ’13, Kate Gould ’11, Mary Margaret Peebles ’13, Jordan Cottrell ’13, Sarah Schnellbacher ’13, Tanvi Surti ’12, Sarah Abbasi ’12, Anna Perocchi ’12, Emily Zhao ’11, Vrinda Varia ’13, Naznen Rahmen ’13, Sarah Capasso ’11, Priya Saxena ’12, Sarah Henkind ’13, Tiffany Olszuk ’12, Callie Jensen ’11, Sumehda Niranjan ’11, Kerlyne Jean ‘11
Assembly Members Absent: Sara Jane Rodgers ’13, Giang Tran ’11, Duong Nguyen ’13, Courtney Pinkerton ’12, Priya Gupta ’13, Sarah Aubrey ’13, Julie Gorham ’12, Irene Shin ’13, Sam Salazar ’11, Heather Taddonio ’12, Olivia Xia ’14, Katharine Woolls ‘12
Announcements
Mae Carlson ’12: I’m the faculty rep and I went to the meeting last Wednesday. We talked about the bookstore, which will be owned by someone else, and how food is now allowed in classrooms and division requirements changes. That was an inconclusive conversation.Food is allowed in classrooms because no one was really following the rule against food in the classroom.
Julia Aranda ’11: This announcement is on behalf of Courtney Pinkerton, the COPS Rep.There is a COPS Traveling SafeTea which is being hosted on Monday at 12 noon in front of Canaday. This highlights how to handle various hazardous situations that could arise when traveling through inclement weather over the holidays. It’ll last for about an hour and we’ll have hot drinks and food!
Yong Jung Cho ’12: There are some changes to the Sustainable Foods Committee it will be a two-year position. More info on the blog
Susie Kim ’11: Last night we had the ASA culture show. Thanks to everyone who came, I hope you had a good time.
Sophie: Yong Jung and I went to the budgeting meeting, which talked about changes to auxiliary services. They’ve been losing money, and now they’re trying to make things more efficient. John Griffith can probably answer any of your questions. The biggest change you might experience is through the copy center. It should be cheaper to print now in both in black and white and in color.
Your Two Cents
Keshia Koech ’13: I had a question, two Sundays ago at the Big Cheese forum, the issue of campus vibrancy was brought up and I asked if JMac wanted to have more student involvement. I just want to take a poll of the room to see if there are students interested in being involved in taking part in a committee that would work with JMac on this campus vibrancy issue. Just to see if students want their ideas heard.
Seven Sisters Recap
Sophie: Last weekend was the conference, and most of you volunteered. We’re going to share some of the comments that we got from the other schools, which were really positive. A couple updates, we decided that we’re going to form a Seven Sisters Council. We decided that someone from the exec board and someone appointed would represent Bryn Mawr in the council. One of the big goals that came from the conference was that we decided we wanted to form stronger alumni network, based off of our extern program. We also talked about having different leadership academies over the summer, and maybe more conferences open to other students.
Blair Smith ’12: One of the things we talked about was elections and turnout at the other schools, and some of the other schools said they have fewer rounds of elections, which seems to get them a higher turnout. Is that something maybe we could think about?
Sarah Kelley ’11: The reason we have three rounds of elections is because we have so many positions and they might not get filled otherwise. I’d be open to have a discussion, but there are reasons for why we have them this way, February is so the exec board has a chance to transition, May to fill positions for the next year, and September to give freshmen a chance to run.
ACS/Mawrter Entertainment
Sophie: We brought up some things about the concert series a couple of weeks ago, and now ACS and Mawrter Entertainment have a proposal that they would like to present. ACS is also going to present how they’re spending the rest of their budget for the semester.
Kate Grant ’12: We’ve tried to look at the structures of both groups to find something that worked better and hopefully appeals to a wider group of the student body.
Gabrielle Logaglio ’12: In this combined group, we would have two appointed co-heads, three elected officers from within the group and three appointed to make up the board. That way there would be the structure of an appointed committee and a way to reward anyone else who worked hard in the group. The new group is still unnamed.
Sophie: From the SGA prespective, there should be flexibility with how the group is structured as long as there are two co-heads.
Gabrielle Logaglio ’12: It’s not a huge over haul, we’re just making it a little more open to the community.
Liz Ritchie ’11: Are there any qualifications for the elected positions?
Sophie: Another reason for this new group is so we aren’t taking extra money from Special Events.
Blair Smith ’12: I’m a little concerned about having some elected and some appointed positions, will this make it too political?
Gabrielle Logaglio ’12: It shouldn’t be, we’re hoping that it won’t be 6 people who haven’t worked together before.
Kate Grant ’12: We’re trying to make something sustainable. It might be weird now, but hopefully it will be better in the future.
Jordan Cottrell ’13: I remember we talked about the concert series just being a place for all concerts to get funding, is that still going to be the case?
Kate Grant ’12: The new group would be a place where other groups could go to as a resource, and maybe not get fully funded, but at least get some options.
Sophie: We did discuss just having a board to allocate money, but we think that having a group of people who plan/know how to plan concerts would be good. They will be open to co-sponsoring events though.
Hope Wayman ’13: Isn’t the resolution for co-heads appointed for the year? How would that work?
Sophie: They would resign.
Blair Smith ’12: As a name suggestion, Bryn Mawr Concert Series.
Kate Grant ’12: The way we’re going to use the rest of our budget is going to be an event with lots of cool components. It will feature Amanda Blank who costs a total of $6000 and Asaad, who costs $450. The cost of sound and lighting will be $1000. Mawrter Entertainment wanted to have a DJ party, so after the concert, we’ll transition into a student DJ dance party. This event will take place December 4th in Rhoads.
Sadie Marlow ’11: Will all this be taking place in Rhoads?
Kate Grant ’12: Yes, it will be one long event. Sarah Neidorf an alum who’s in a band called Pistol Monk wants to host an event with another band Ominous B
Sophie: Are there objections to voting for both these events at one time?
The concerts are approved.
Yearbook
Nic Yulo ’11: Senior art director,
Isabel Holmes ’12: Co-editor
Jen Bonczar ’11: Art director
Meg Fortgang ’11: Co-editor
Sadie Marlow ’11: Chairman
Isabel Holmes ’12: We’re here because we’ve wanted to form something to get the yearbook restarted.
Meg Fortgang ’11: There is currently not a yearbook in process yet for the seniors, so we’ve volunteered to work on it. We’ve talked to some companies to try and figure out how much it will cost. It will basically cost $13,000 some of which will go back to SGA
Isabel Holmes ’12: In the past, it cost $18,000 to $20,000 to pay for the yearbooks, plus the salary for the student worker who put it together. We’ve met with a rep from Jostens who is really willing to work with us to get them made at a much cheaper price. Everything that we order will already be paid for. Pre-selling books is going to be really important in making us successful.
Meg Fortgang ’11: It will be a more cost effective way for us to produce this yearbook. We can work the rest of this semester and next semester to sell yearbooks.
Sadie Marlow ’11: We don’t need the money until next semester. What we’re asking for is just pre-approval for next semester.
Isabel Holmes ’12: It’s really important that we get this process started as soon as possible.We’re already really behind in advertising and getting people involved. If we don’t have people working on it over break, it will be really hard to finish in time.
Meg Fortgang ’11: When we go to the publisher, we’ll already have 150 books pre-sold at a price of 20 to 30 dollars. When we go to pay them, there will already have been some money accrued. In terms of fundraising, the Jostens rep has lots of ways to help us sell these yearbooks. We have the option of showing preview pages, tabling to answer questions and also selling dedication pages in the back for fellow students, parents and alums to include.Through selling those, we hope to make money that will come back to SGA.
Isabel Holmes ’12: If we don’t pre-sell the 150 books, we won’t order any books and all the money will go back to SGA. We don’t want to have tons of books sitting around on campus unused.
Meg Fortgang ’11: If that were to happen, if we couldn’t sell at least 150 books, there would still be a file online for anyone to buy a copy from Jostens for full price.
Isabel Holmes ’12: The Jostens rep doesn’t think there should be any reason we won’t pre-sell 150 copies. He knows what he’s doing and he wants to make this happen.
Meg Fortgang ’12: We really want to emphasize that if there isn’t enough interest, then SGA gets all the money back. We think it’s really important not only for the graduating class, and for the 125th anniversary, but also for the rest of the undergrads. Jostens publishes for Haverford and Swat and they used to publish ours like a decade ago. The online software is also really good, and is only available to us once we sign a contract.
Sadie Marlow ’11: Just to outline again, we’re asking for $13,000 for next semester. If we sell 150 books then any money made from those sales will come back to SGA. Say we sell each book for 20 dollars, and we sell the minimum 150 copies, then SGA gets $3,000 back. Mary Beth Horvath likes to keep costs low for students, which is why the selling price is pretty cheap, but we might try to raise the price to around $30. This budget is already lower than in previous years. Eventually we’d like to try and make even more money or even break even.
Meg Fortgang ’11: I think we all know that everyone wants to know why we should have a printed yearbook. Keeping things online might not be the most stable way to keep track of these memories. We’re celebrating the 125th and not just the seniors but all students. The yearbook would serve as a published record of student life. It would include, photos, articles, and interviews with alums to share with future classes. We’d also like to include professionally taken photos from our time at the school, that might not otherwise be seen.
Isabel Holmes ’12: No funding means no yearbook, and we think it’s very important. For a school that places so much emphasis on traditions, we think this would be a good asset.
Blair Smith ’12: In the past, Student Activities funded the yearbook, why haven’t you gone to them?
Laurel Lemon ’11: Yearbook used to be a club so they did regular budgeting, but once it fell apart, we voted to have it be a paid position that was paid for by Student Activities.
Blair Smith ’12: Have you thought about going towards something like a Nimbus format since there hasn’t been much interest in a traditional yearbook? I think for budgeting reasons, it might be a better way to do things.
Meg Fortgang ’11: We’ve looked at other formatting options, and this still seems to be the best way.
Isabel Holmes ’12: It’s not really something we’ve seriously considered.
Sadie Marlow ’11: We liked the idea of changing the format, but most yearbook companies don’t have that option.
Jen Bonczar ’11: The reason we’re excited to working with Jostens, is that they seem really committed to helping us sell the books. We think the reason that maybe they haven’t sold in the past is because people don’t know about it.
Shantal ’12: I’ve noticed there’s been a paid editor in the past. Would that continue?
Jen Bonczar ’11: We’re doing it for free because we want to.
Mae Carlson ’12: I think it would be nice to have at least one for special collections in a book format.
Mary Margaret Peebles ’13: So essentially the funding is floating credit. If it falls through, SGA doesn’t lose any money. It’s win-win?
Sadie Marlow ’11: We think so.
Liz Anderson: What’s the long term plan?
Sadie Marlow ’11: Contracts are handled on a year-by-year basis with Bryn Mawr. We’re trying something new and different. Isabel is a junior and she’s interested in keeping this going.
Isabel Holmes ’12: We would like to try and get this back to being a club, and getting freshmen and sophomores involved.
Emma Rosenblum ’14: Do you have any ideas about what Jostens is going to do for fundraising?
Sadie Marlow ’11: Mary Beth is very adamant that we keep the cost low for students, which is part of the reason this amount we’re asking for is big. If we pre-sell enough, you’d only have to pay $20 for a copy.
Sarah Capasso ’11: I support keeping the price at $20 because it makes it really accessible, and doesn’t make it elitist. I’m super excited about this. Yay for you guys.
Keshia Koech ’13: I’m also really excited. When I was in high school we had picture day. What pictures are you going to have of the undergrads?
Isabel Holmes ’12: Traditionally in college yearbooks, there are professional photos only of seniors. The undergrads would really be in the candid photographs.
Laurel Lemon ’11: Who pays for the senior portraits?
Sadie Marlow ’11: I only know what Mary Beth has told me, but we’ve usually done them through Herf-Jones, the company who’s been doing the yearbooks recently. These photos can be used in Jostens yearbooks. I don’t know what the contracts are for that. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come out of SGA money.
Rodline L ’11: It would have a primary focus on the senior class?
Sadie Marlow ’11: Only in regard to senior portraits and graduation.
Blair Smith ’12: Would this said yearbook be available before the end of the year?
Sadie Marlow ’11: With events like May Day and graduation, we would have to finish it during the early summer and they would be delivered to a shipping address. Only the pre-ordered books would be printed.
Meg Forgang ’11: If people are interested after we take pre-sale orders, they can order later.
Emma Wisniewski-Barker: I know we’re looking at this now because they need the money, but where does it come from?
Sophie: We’re just pre-approving it from the Spring budget.
Jordan Cottrell ’13: If people pre-order books and you still don’t sell 150 copies where does the money go?
Sadie Marlow ’11: If we don’t sell enough, everyone gets their money back.
Liz Ritchie ’11: What happens if you decide you want to order one after pre-orders are over, could you still get it for $20?
Sadie Marlow ’11: Yes, you could still order it later, and pay $20.
Blair Smith ’12: Will this affect other budgets?
Laurel Lemon ’11: Anything affects anything.
Sophie: There will be a vote to approve, not approve, or abstain the 2011 yearbook budget.
The yearbook budget passes
Old Business
New Business
8:17 – Meeting adjourned.