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Minutes

September 9, 2012 Minutes

SGA Meeting 09/09/12

Vrinda calls the meeting to order at 7:10pm

Announcements

Nora Scheland’15: I am on the Plenary Committee, and I am announcing the Plenary Resolution Writing Workshops for this week.  They are September 11th at 8:00pm and September 15th at 2:00pm n Taylor Seminar Room on second floor.  There will be three more workshops later on this month and we will get the information out to you. If you are writing a resolution, you have to come to at least one.

Ali Raeber ‘13: I am the Elections Head.  The first round of elections for this fall is going to open on September 16th, which is next Sunday. Nominations will open when the meeting begins and you nominate people via email. Positions up this round are:

  • 6 Members-At-Large
  • Off Campus Representative
  • 2016 Class Presidents
  • Faculty Representative
  • Committee on Public Safety Representative
  • Pensby Center Representative
  • 2 Honor Board positions (2014 position is one semester, 1 year 2013 position)

If you have any questions, you can find descriptions of the positions and more information at elections.blogs.brynmarw.edu.  If you have any questions, email me at elections@brynmawr.edu. Please nominate anyone you think is qualified.

Tyler Garber ‘14: The Appointments Round has begun.  The positions will be on the Appointments blog right now.  Also you will see in the activities emails, I will send out the positions available and a link to the application.

Irene Shin ‘13: this concerns everyone living in dorms we now have Honor Board Liaisons designated to each one of the dorms. If you have any concerns with the honor code, please email them and they can help address it.  I wanted to list these off right now so people have information regarding the Liaisons:

  • Dorm: Brecon and Rock, Liaison: Irene Shin
  • Dorm: Pem west, Erdman, and Haffner, Liaison: Eunyoung Park
  • Dorm: Pem east and Perry House, Liaison: Amani Chowhury
  • Dorm: Denbigh and Merion, Liaison: Emily Tong
  • Dorm: Batten House and Radnor, Liaison: Martha Johnson
  • Dorm: Rhoads North and South, Liaison: Sruthi Buddai

Sowmya Srinivasan ‘13: the budgeting process has now begun and budgets for clubs are due this Friday at 3pm.

Vrinda Varia ‘13: we also just wanted to thank all of those that attended the Bryn Mawr Leadership Orientation Workshop. We had a great turnout and we hope the information was useful.  If you couldn’t make it to the workshop or want to review the material again, it is available on the sga.blogs.brynmawr.edu under the “Constitution” tab.  You can look over things there.  That was also the beginning of the budgeting process like Sowmya mentioned.  Another announcement from dining services: we just invested in new table tents for advertising. This is supposed to cut down on the actual physical papers on tables.  If you want to have something put in there the dimensions are between 4 inches by 6 inches. And if you send to dining services, they will insert them for you.

Irene Shin ‘13: the Honor Bode will be hosting a meet-and-greet September 19th at 8:30pm in campus center 115. Just to say hi and we will be screening Mean Girls.  We just wanted to say hi and get to know everyone.  You are all welcome to join.

SGA 101 PowerPoint

Vrinda Varia ‘13: we are the liaisons to get things happening on this campus. We are also the self-government association and that is unique to us because we have the autonomy and authority and respect by others to have change on our campus and happen through the student level. We do a lot in a lot of different ways. If you have questions about specific things, please come talk to us.

What is SGA?

When students united to form the Bryn Mawr College Self-Government Association in 1892, the College became the first institution of higher education in the United States to give students responsibility not only for enforcing rules of behavior upon themselves, but also for deciding what those rules should be. It was considered a radical experiment at the time, and is still unusual. But most Bryn Mawr students and alumnae cite self-government as one of the most valuable parts of a Bryn Mawr education. The College’s tradition of respect for students’ autonomy and responsibility has created a unique campus environment where students participate in discussion and resolution of the most important issues facing the College — from the alcohol policy to faculty appointments to the College’s curriculum.

Basic Organization:

Executive Board:

  • President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, Honor Board Head

SGA Assembly:

  • Representative Council and Honor Board

Other committees, boards, and representatives:

  • Appointments Committee, Student Finance Committee, Film Series, Alternative Concert Series, Student Curriculum Committee, Landscaping Representatives, etc.

Assembly:

The Assembly meets every Sunday at 7:00pm in the Campus Center Main Lounge; Community members are welcome.

The assembly is made up of:

  • Dorm presidents
  • Class presidents
  • Traditions mistresses
  • Residence Council Co-heads
  • SCC co-heads
  • Elections rep
  • Haverford rep
  • Off campus rep
  • McBride rep
  • Athletic Association rep
  • CEO rep
  • OIA rep
  • COPS rep
  • Faculty Rep
  • SoCo head
  • 6 members at large

What Happens on Sunday nights?

  • Roll call
  • Announcements
  • Two cents
  • Agenda items for discussion
  • New business
  • Old business

Agenda will be sent out the Thursday prior to the Sunday Evening Meeting.  Anyone can send a request for the agenda items.

Your Two Cents:

  • Is a place where community members can bring forth a topic for discussion, a question, or an announcement.
  • Is a place where representatives can speak as community members and not on behalf of their constituents.

New Business:

  • A place where representatives can bring up issues on behalf of their constituents
  • Only assembly members can bring up “issues”
  • BUT everyone can DISCUSS them and community members can ASK an assembly member to bring up an issue on their behalf.

Old Business:

  • A place where “business” brought by a representative on behalf of their constituents is revisited, questioned, or announced

Discussion:

—  In order for YOUR voice to be heard, you must be on the floor of the campus center.

—  The length of discussion is determined by the Exec. Board.

—  All timings will be monitored by the Treasurer.

—  Discussion is open to ALL individuals at the meeting.

Motions:

—  All motions must be MADE, SECONDED, AMENDED, and VOTED on ONLY by members of the assembly.

—  If you are a community member and wish to make a motion, please ask an assembly member

—  All motions (except a point of information and point of order) must be seconded.

—  In the case of a vote, all motions require a simple majority (50% +1)  to pass except for motions to extend time and call the question which require a 2/3 majority.

SGA Slang:

—  Main Motion: “I have a motion to discuss. If someone else agrees with me, then this is our topic discussion for the next five minutes.” Does not need to be seconded.

—  Motion to Extend Time: “I think we need to talk more about this…” This motion must be Seconded and needs 2/3 majority vote.

—  Motion to Call the Question: “Let’s Vote!” This motion must be Seconded and needs 2/3 majority vote.

—  Motion to Table Discussion: “Let’s talk about this later…” This motion must be Seconded.

—  Point of Order: “Woah! That was out of line!” Does not need to be seconded. Anyone can make a Point of Order.  Previous comment won’t be included in the minutes.

—  Point of Information: “Can I have more information please?” And/or “I know this piece of information that will help clarify the discussion”

—  Motion to Adjourn: “Let’s end this meeting”

—  Friendly Amendment: “Let’s just a change a little bit of the motion.” This requires no vote.

—  Unfriendly Amendment: “This change is a big deal. Let’s vote on the change”

Voting:

—  All voting will be done by hand count (by the exec. Board)

—  Only assembly members can vote except in the case of a straw vote, where everyone in the room can vote.

—  The president can only vote in the case of a tie

Ways to Get Involved:

—  Come to Sunday meetings!

—  Run for an elected position on campus or in your dorm!

—  Apply for an appointed position!

—  Attend Plenary! (NUMBER ONE MOST IMPORTANT!)

—  Talk to people about campus issues

—  Attend traditions, help make them possible!

—  Write a Plenary resolution

—  Speak up during Your Two Cents

—  Send suggestions to sga@brynmawr.edu

Mark Your Calendars:

—  Plenary is on October 7th in Goodhart

¡  Plenary is a time when members of the Self-Government Association (the undergraduate body) gather to discuss and vote on resolutions that are written and presented by our peers.  The purpose of doing so is to foster beneficial discussion and change within the community.

—  Resolutions for Fall Plenary are due by e-mail to the Executive Board (sga@bmc) by midnight on September 23

¡  Mandatory Resolution Writing Workshops for Resolution Writers and presenters will be held in Taylor Seminar Room on the following dates:

÷  Monday 9/11 at 7 PM

÷  Saturday 9/15 at 2 PM

÷  Monday 9/17 at 8 PM

÷  Thursday 9/20 at 7 PM

÷  Saturday 9/22 at 5 PM (in Thomas 110)

Emily Tong ‘13: what time will plenary be this year?

Vrinda Varia ‘13: 12:30pm. SGA assembly members are obligated to work the event.

Meeting Procedure Vote

Vrinda Varia ‘13: we are going to go over the meeting procedure which the assembly received via email earlier this week.  It is required that we vote on these by the Constitution at the first meeting. We will recap them and then go to a direct vote.  These are the guidelines that we use every year. The thing I want to discuss in particular is the voting assembly and number of votes.  The things that are highlighted are yet to be filled because we have not had elections yet. But we are going to continue to have SGA. So our quorum is going to be 14 votes until elections.  The Haverford college representative is a position that will not be there this year.  There is not enough of a representative for us to hold that position this year.

Moving to a vote on the Meeting Procedures:

  • In favor: 20
  • Not in favor: 0
  • Abstain: 0

Meeting Procedures pass.

Old Business:

 

Irene Shin ‘13: on the agenda next week is something that was discussed and asked upon the assembly last year, which was to show the themes of honor board cases. The reason why was because people were not necessarily comfortable with abstracts being presented.  And I just wanted to know if you guys were still comfortable with this.  Last semester, the assembly asked that if instead of presenting abstracts of Honor Board Cases, that I instead present themes of the honor board cases. For example, how many were about cheating and stuff like that to promote confidentiality. Would you be comfortable with that or would you still want me to present abstracts instead.

Kersti Francis ‘13: how many years post the case are the abstracts presented?

Irene Shin ‘13: minimum of 2 semesters, max of 4 semesters.  If we are not comfortable with this, that would mean we would need to rewrite the constitution. I will go into more detail about this next week.  So do you still want me to do that? Should we do a straw vote?

Devanshi Vaid ‘13: so this vote whether we want to provide information next week?

Vrinda Varia ‘13: It is regarding whether the manner in which she is presenting it is appropriate.

Irene Shin ’13: So would you want me to provide the information in abstracts or in themes?

Vrinda Varia ’13: so recapping what happened last semester, we talked about the difference between Honor Board abstracts and what presenting them individually meant. There was some contention and questioning from the previous Executive Board because it kind of goes against the honor code because you were telling people about the specifics of honor board cases. Even though the hearings are confidential and they are two semesters out, people still know about the cases and things carry throughout the years. So in order to protect that and still be able to provide the community with adequate information, Irene is requesting approval of themes rather than specific abstracts.  Is this Assembly okay with that? To present on themes rather than abstracts?  So can we move to a straw vote?

Nora Scheland ‘15: question, so if we are in favor of the themes, do you still have to change the constitution?

Irene Shin ‘13: a potential yes.  I would prefer to go through the honor code before deciding any of this next week. There is informational bases that have not been instituted in a couple of years that would want clarify with you guys.

Megan McClure ’16: by themes you mean that these are the percentages of cases about cheating, percentages of about grades, etc.

Irene Shin ‘13: something along those lines.

Emily Tong ‘13: would you be giving those themes in addition to the abstracts or only the themes?

Irene Shin ‘13: if people approve of the abstracts next week, then yes.  We will talk about all of this next week.

Devanshi Vaid ‘13: so we are talking about this in detail next week, so we are discussing how you should present it to us next week.

Irene Shin ‘13: yes

Straw Vote:

  • In favor of using themes for next week only: majority
  • In favor of using abstracts for next week only: minority
  • Abstain: few

Irene Shin ‘13: Okay, so I will do themes.

Vrinda Varia ‘13: I think that in order to mediate the response, Irene will present themes and also have the abstracts available for SGA next week in paper to review. Usually you will get them in your email anyway, but we will have them up here at the front.  We will not announce them, but we will have them here and Irene will be available to discuss them.