SGA Meeting 2/10/13
Vrinda calls the meeting to order at 7:10pm.
Absent: Lija Geller, Alicia Makepeace, Hannah Smith, Tina Chang, Neha Kamran.
Question and answer with Bernie Chung-Templeton and Jerry Berenson:
Vrinda: we are going to move right into our question and answer with Bernie and Jerry. We will also go over some of the questions we talked about involving dining services budgeting, then we will go to our normal meeting agenda. So, thank you Bernie and Jerry for coming out today. I am going to go over s0me of the questions we asked you all ahead of time and if you could speak to those first, and then if anyone has any questions, feel free to line up at the mic. Some of the things that we have questions about were about:
- Dining services events and equipment and how those will be affected
- How the budget in ds will be allocated
- What’s going on with Haverford
- How can students help besides just signing the petition
Bernie Chung-Templeton: regarding the first question, what will be affected? Possibly anything and everything. Right now, as you know, we have made some changes to the dining hall offerings. As we are tracking, right now at this very moment, without any additional cuts, we will over spend our budget, which I have been told I cannot. So additional cuts need to be made which is why we had the forum and survey. All the things on the survey are a possibility. They are just the things we can possibly cut out. I don’t think, say shutting down a dining hall or eliminating lunch, none of those things are realistic options. We are certainly open to other ones. At the last forum, quite a lot of students came and some suggestions were made, which are being implemented. Some have already been implemented as of yesterday. We certainly look for suggestions, but anything on the survey is on the table. Does that answer the question? How does the budget within dining services get allocated? I am guessing that means once I get money, how does it get decided where the money goes? Is that the question? Well, there has been a budget since I got here in ‘94. The budget is broken into labor, food, equipment, equipment repair, all of that stuff, dishes. We used to adjust it every year based on how we performed in that line. So sometimes if you are under in one, you move it over to another; sometimes programs come up. It is not a lot of sliding around. A majority of our money goes to labor and food. Lately, that money has not been moved because there is no additional money. So for the majority of our time here, we have gotten some sort of increase. 1% or 2%, I don’t think it has ever been more than 2%, and we could say put all that 2% in the food or wherever. So internally, once I get money, that is how that goes.
Jerry Berenson: in addition to the labor.
Bernie Chung-Templeton: right. So the college decides how much everybody gets. I don’t get to decide that we won’t give the staff increase and use it for something else, that happens automatically. Haverford. How does Haverford play into this? And what is happening there? As far as budgets, their budgets are sort of fine. They are able to keep up with the increases in such a way that I have not had to make any cuts. That is kind of a broad question, but I assume that is where you are going. They are not causing our financial problems. This came up at the last forum. When a Haverford student eats here, and a Bryn Mawr student eats there, there is an exchange, and the same thing with Swarthmore. It is not that more Haverford students eating here are causing the problem.
Kersti Francis ‘13: I was wondering is the only reason their budget is higher even though we are doing similar things at similar schools is because their administration has chosen to increase constantly it and ours has not?
Jerry Berenson: yes
Bernie Chung-Templeton: theirs has always been higher, and yes they do get more money per year. My boss at Haverford told me that has always puts away 5% for food costs for increases that is allocated to the dining services budget. What can students do besides sign petition? Going forward, I think coming to our next forum. I am going to talk to Vrinda to help pick a date. We are going to pick the best date and time and come to the forum and asking questions, but also volunteering suggestions is also helpful. Other than that, helping us save. One of the things that has baffled me since I got here is that I have watched how the Honor Code effects other areas, but seemingly not so much in dining. In some cases, depending on what we are talking about, a little bit of a joke taking more than what is budgeted and what is under the policy to take out, but including take out. We have watched all kinds of stuff go on which is why we had to pull back on the take out policy because that is one of the biggest areas of abuse. Also, taking that bowl, that fork, that cup. Those things cost us an upwards of $20,000 to replace. The housekeepers tell us that a lot of those items get tossed in the trash; students have also told me this. So if you work for dining services, as an employee at that moment, if you see someone breaking that policy, you should feel like you can go over and say something. Something like, “the take out policy does not include filling an entire box and then some with chocolate chips or you know. There is a lot of abuse like that going on. Also the taking other things, like entire boxes of tea, cereal. All of that has a large weight on our budget because we are not budgeted to fill every tea pantry to the hill with stuff. An abuse; so if you see someone letting someone in that shouldn’t be in; if you see someone passing someone a takeout and eating in; all of those things really just stretch our limits and makes it hard to provide the services that we want to. So that’s one way. You may have noticed if you have been to the dining halls within the last day, the composing bins are now out front where you return the tray rather than it being in the back, which is where we prefer. We brought it out front after the discussion with the students at the last forum as a visual of all the food that is wasted every meal helps everyone so people will watch what they are doing. So that helps.
Julie Mazziotta ’13: I had a question about Haverford. Now that the dining services of the two schools have been combined, does it change anything with budgets or has it within the last year?
Bernie Chung-Templeton: the two colleges are completely separate operationally and financially. We are with collaboration is that we really get efficiencies with working together. We have always purchased together, so those efficiencies still go on. Since the bi-co, one of the things that has helped is distribution of labor, occasionally we need supplies, more so in catering, that they have, but we can go and borrow it a little more freely. Labor, our staff has gone over and helped them more so than they coming here, but that is more along the lines of what has changed. We have always purchased together as long as I have been here. So when we go to buy chicken or anything, we use the combine purchases from both colleges.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: before we move onto a bit of a Q & A, I wanted to give Jerry a chance to speak to some of the budgeting questions we posed. So, can you explain a bit about the budgeting process and what it looks like? And whether or not it is possible to have an overview of the budget broken down and then suggestions that you had about how students can get more involved in the budgeting process.
Jerry Berenson: let me say that I am pretending I am John Griffith for tonight. I have a pretty good idea of what the budget process is. John is the Chief Financial Officer of the college and couldn’t make it tonight, so I am standing in. I used to be the CFO, so I know some of this stuff. So how is the budget made? There is a budget committee of the Board of Trustees. It is a subcommittee of the finance committee of the board of trustees. So they pretty much discuss the budget and the parameters, John puts together various scenarios based on different sets of assumptions of how many students we have, what the tuition will be, how much we will be spending in financial aid, salaries, what benefits will cost, very kind of broad parameters for the budget. It is that group that decides basically why the priorities should be. So to give you an idea, what the priorities have been in the past few years have been r-and-r, which is the maintenance of buildings. We have increased the budget in the past 10 years it has gone from $2 million to $4 million a year. That has been a real party. Part of the reason for that is that the college didn’t do a great job keeping up the buildings in its first 100 years of existence. In the 1980s we found ourselves with significant problems in many of our buildings. And so we have been having to make up for that ever since. Another priority is faculty salaries. The reason for that is that our faculty has gotten paid on the low end to the colleges we compare ourselves to. They have always been less than the median, so it has been a priority that we do the best we can with faculty salaries. Staff salaries has also been a priority, but we have been close to market there so it has been less of a concern. Benefits for faculty and staff, you know what is happening with health insurance, well that has had a tremendous effect on us. Our health insurance cost has gone up 8-10% a year so that has been another priority. Financial aid that has been a huge priority of the college, particularly during the economic downfall. In the last 5 years, we have a commitment to want the admitted student to meet their full eligibility and of course if their parents financial situation gets a little worse, then that increases our need for rewarding financial aid. And the new students too; the new students come in and they tend to have a little more need for financial aid. That has been a huge priority of the college. Most recently, another priority has been to fund our college’s strategic plan. So the college is entering a campaign right now to raise lots of money. We haven’t decided how much and the campaign hasn’t started yet, but we have been talking about it, and we are doing a lot of preliminary work so hopefully we can raise lots of money for various things. In the meantime, the college has developed a strategic plan – things that we would like to do. It is focused on three areas. One is international programs and seeing some additions there. We call that “Women for the World,” but it is basically for international programs. One is called “the Center for Leadership Innovation and the Liberal Arts.” I don’t know how much you have heard about this, it is still very much in the planning stages. It is focused on connecting your education, a liberal arts education, with careers. Making that transition easy and see where the connections are, help students see where the connections are, and help employers see where the connections are. It will kind of connect the education here to various options. That includes things like increased internships, but it also includes a whole bunch of stuff. The final things are the STEM programs; so that is science, technology, engineering, and math. Of course I don’t think we have engineering, but the others we do. There has been a focus on that. A big piece of that is renovating the science building. If you are down there, you notice that parts of that building are pretty tired. There are a lot of other programs. We have created a science posse starting next year. It is a kind of separate posse program of students who are interested in science and math. The funny thing about campaigns are that all of these things are going to be funded through fundraising; we are going to raise money for all of these things. But in the meantime, while we are raising the money, we don’t want to wait four or five years. Sometimes you get pledges but the money doesn’t come in for 3, 4, or 5 years and so you want to start some of these programs now, which we have already done. We have just begun to raise money, but until you raise the money, these programs also cost money. These programs have been a real priority of the college and currently are costing the college a fair amount of money because we have raised some money but not enough to raised enough to fund all of the programs. So those are kind of the priorities of the college. Getting back to the budget process, there is a budget committee with the board of trustees and they are the ones that determine the priorities. There is a college budget committee and there are students on that budget committee and they have pretty much have been around discussing and educating the budget. The real prioritization of the budget has come from the board committee. It does talk to various groups.
The president’s cabinet has a lot of input into that. We have a group called the Thinking Forward Group where faculty and staff have developed the strategic plan so they have certainly been consulted along the way. That is basically what the process has been. The formal budget, so right now we are met this weekend, Vrinda was there. At that meeting, we took a look at next year’s budget; it is not set in stone yet, but it is fairly close. We always look at a budget in the context of a 5 year budget so that is what we looked at. It will be finalized at the April board meeting. It is not usually, unless there is unusual news, changed between now and then. The budget is really developed in the fall through January and kind of pretty much set at the board meeting in February. So that is kind of the process and the priorities.
Vrinda Varia ’13: does anyone have any questions pertaining to the budget or to dining services?
Sarah Henkind ‘13: since you said that there hasn’t been a budgeting increase, I was wondering why are you making these drastic changes now? Why didn’t you start reallocating money?
Bernie Chung-Templeton: yes, dining services has been over spending for several years. I believe since 2002. The first couple years we look for efficiencies reduce ways, train, and things like that. But then at some point you hit the wall, I think that happened around 2005. Why we continued to over spend is because it wants a lot. Each year I meet with Jerry and we talk about what I should do each year it has been overspent, and I think that I personally had hoped that the college would give me more money. The difference and reason we have to stop now is because we doubled that in one year. I think the year before, in fiscal 2011 we over spent by $70,000, but last year was by $140,000 just in food alone. That was due to additional meals, which in our current access system, take out. If you take out a meal or you take out 10 meals and have unlimited access, all of that counts as a meal. But our meal count has gone up with each year. That is part of it. The other part is the abuse of services. Students are using it in a way that wasn’t intended. The third and largest piece is the increase. We have experienced it in some categories 11%, 12%, 13% increase in some areas in just one item. For example, milk or dairy. There is no way the college could close its eyes to $140,000.
Jerry Berenson: the other issue has been the overall college budget. The college budget is a contingency of a bit over a million dollars. In most of the past years, until last year really, we didn’t spend that contingency. If dining services was over by $100,000, we were still overall within budget because we had that contingency. What has happened in the past, really starting last year and continuing this year, is that contingency is pretty much gone. A lot of that has to do with increase financial aid expenses; it has also had to do with increases in costs, the costs of food going up 4% or 5% each year. It has had a lot to do with the weather disasters we have been having, but inflation in certain areas. Facilities has been pretty tight. There has been inflation in a couple areas where the college has been spending more areas in certain areas. Dining is not the only place where we have been over budget. There are others also and not just operations, all over the college. So the overall budget is part of this. We realized if there isn’t a contingency and we over spend dining services, and then we have a budget deficit, which we are not allowed to have. So there wasn’t the pressure because there was this contingency to fall back on, that we just haven’t been able to fall back on in the past two years.
Kendra Kelly ‘13: I had a question about Haverford, I believe you said in the past Bernie that the price is calculated on how much can fill a stomach or basically. I was wondering if Haverford meal plan is calculated the same way in how much they pay per meal. I am asking because I do see a lot of Haverford students just eating a lot more food than. Maybe this is a conjecture, but I see them eating a lot more food than the average Bryn Mawr student. I was wondering how that factors in.
Bernie Chung-Templeton: it does seem that way. Especially when students at Haffner tell me that they do see Haverford boys sliding entire pizzas onto their tray. I don’t think I have ever seen a Bryn Mawr student take an entire pizza. So to answer your question, there is one rate and the rate is set and it increases every year to help keep up with rising food costs and that rate is applied to both Bryn Mawr and Haverford students.
Nikki Colosimo, Graduate Student: thank you very much for letting us ask questions, we really appreciate it. Currently we have a pole out from the graduate students about asking them about their own experiences about their undergraduate experiences maybe to get some suggestions for dining services. One question a lot of us had is have you ever considered having Uncommon Grounds open for dinner? A lot of us are here very late and are looking for places to eat. We figured it might help. The graduate students would be interested in eating here and it might cut down on ordering from other places. It also might serve as a central place for those of us that are too cold to leave the dorm rooms and walk all the way across campus. That was just one question we had that might be a possibility. Also, this is Kristen, the other SGA graduate student rep. The other question we had was maybe having a meal plan that was more geared towards graduate students and students who live off campus. We were looking at some of the meal plans and there is one called the 85 Meals Declining Meals Plus, which seems to have a dollar balance as well. Having something that would allow us to use a meal plan, not only at dining halls but to make a meal like option at uncommon grounds. So those were just some of the things that we were curious about whether or not it would be considered.
Bernie Chung-Templeton: Uncommon Grounds, like Lusty and Wyndham operate as either break even or I would say for profit, but we have never made a profit there. They are completely separate from the board plan. We have tried in my time here to offer a dinner time hours by closing later during the day or opening earlier for the evening hours, and it has never been supported. It has been quite a long time since we tried that again. For years we battled with uncommon grounds losing money making my budget woes even worse. Last time we tried it there was not enough of a demand, not to say that you wouldn’t come or some people wouldn’t come, but there wasn’t enough to support the opening of it. That was the first thing. Allowing students on a meal plan. We could look at reengineering some meal plans. The partial meal plans that you are referring to try and entice more students to come, but the dinner thing is a separate thing. Our business, I am happy to say in the last, quite a few years, uncommon grounds has either broken even or had a small loss. We are doing pretty good here and don’t want to make it worse; we don’t want to go the other way. I don’t know if you asked this but as far as allowing students on the board plan take a full meal at uncommon grounds, all that does is spread out our labor. We are not getting any more money but we are paying someone else here to make a meal for another student. And then lastly why it has been difficult to expand uncommon grounds is that during the day, it is the only place for if you don’t have a meal plan; faculty, staff, graduate students, visitors, it is the place to get a meal. If you tried to go there during busy times, it is very hard to get in and out; it is a very small operation. It has no possibility of expanding. We have looked at it, I don’t know how many times, and have tried to expand it to accommodate more people. We are kind of stuck. So I guess, yes we have considered it, but there are no plans to do it right now.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: we can take one more question if anybody has it. If you have any more questions, you guys can come and write them up or write them on a piece of paper and we will make sure that Bernie and Jerry get them and we will have them email respond to you, just in light of time. There will be another dining services forum coming up. We will let you know and advertise the date through SGA.
Kersti Francis ‘13: did anyone take minutes from the last dining service forum?
Vrinda Varia ’13: I do not think that there were any formal minutes taken.
Emily Tong ‘13: I took notes
Announcements:
Sofia Dauria ‘15 and Christine Newville ‘15: you probably maybe have gotten an invitation on Facebook. Tomorrow night from 7pm to 9pm in the Campus Center we are cohosting a tea with public safety with Mike Ramsey. A woman representative from Women’s Protective Services from Montgomery is coming to speak to everyone about your rights and resources both on campus and off campus for Bryn Mawr students. There will be Hope’s cookies and piece of pizza. We will be doing a raffle of six get-out-of-jail free cards with pub safe and also priority parking permits. You should come and hang out with us and Mike. It will be very fun! 7-9pm here!
Karina Siu ‘14: tomorrow the basketball team will have a game here at 7pm against Rosemont and it is their pink zone game. So please come out. All of the money being raised goes to breast cancer research and awareness. If you haven’t already met a basketball player, they are selling raffles. They have 5 prices including an iPod shuffle, Hope’s cookies, manicure/pedicure, frozen yogurt, lots of things. Find a basketball person if you cannot go to the game to go ahead and buy a raffle ticket. You don’t have to be at the game to win but we would like to see you there to cheer on our basketball team. Please come out at 7pm.
Sowmya Srinivasan ‘13: special events funding applications are due tomorrow night at 11:59pm.
They are on the activities website. Let me know if you have any questions.
Muna Aghaalnemer ‘13: can you repeat when the public safety thing is?
Sofia Dauria ‘15: 7-9pm here in the campus center.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: the counseling center is starting some groups. They are hosting one starting tomorrow, Monday, February 11 from 5-6pm called “sex and stuff.” It is in the counseling center waiting room. They are also starting a weekly support group on Tuesday, February 12 at 5pm in the counseling center waiting room called “grief and loss.” So check them out. We have elections results. Ali Raeber, who is not here right now because she is sick, did a great job running elections. She just finished her term as Elections Head. Yay Ali! She ran a successful election and we filled all of our elections. I wanted to make a quick announcement for our new positions.
- Appointments: Grace Kim ’16, Rachel Ofili ’16, Amelia Couderc ’16, and Srinidhi Nambirajan ‘16
- 2014 honor board rep: Hema Surendranathan ‘14
- Off campus rep: Sara Kim ‘14
- CEO rep: Amanda Beardall ‘14
- Curriculum committee head: Carolyn Jacoby ‘14
- Faculty rep: Chloe Baumann ‘14
- Elections head: Michelle Lee ‘15
We also elected a new Exec Board! The executive board will be having their first meeting on February 24, 2013 at 2pm. Remember that it is moved because of the Oscars, so don’t forget.
- President: Natalie Kato ‘14
- Vice President: Rebecca Cook ‘15
- Secretary: Syona Arora ‘15
- Treasurer: Amy Chen ‘14
- Head of the Honor Board: Amani Chowdhury ‘14
Congratulations! We are so excited to see what all of the new Exec Board and new Assembly members are going to do at Bryn Mawr. Plenary is on February 17th. As you all know, it starts at 12:30pm. Assembly we are asking you be there at 11:30am for check-in and please wear your shirts. If you were not at plenary last time, then you will get a shirt when you check in. We know if you came last time, so you are not getting two shirts. 11:30am; so the Assembly will be voting on special events funding at Plenary so make sure you are not late. We will be voting at 11:45 and we need quorum to vote.
Board of Trustees Overview:
Vrinda Varia ‘13: this weekend, the board of trustees met on campus. Our Board of Trustees representatives Yichin Fu and Alexis de la Rosa are going to report back about some of the things we discussed. This is also a really exciting meeting because this is where students report to the board of trustees, so they will talk about some of the things that we talked to the board about.
Alexis de la Rosa ‘15: one of the first things that happened on Friday was the board reps and the Eboard met with some of the board of trustees and we had a great conversation about activism on campus. Especially with everything that has gone on this year. It was a great conversation about how we are going to try and facilitate better relationships and communication between faculty staff, and students and what that means in the coming years. We were hearing about something call coffee hour that used to exist and we were like what’s that. It was when you would just get coffee and donuts and just chill with whoever passes by. Things like that were discussed.
Yichin Fu ‘13: it is an overarching way to solve problems before we need to move to the stage of having a petition. On Saturday during the board of trustees meeting, they gave positive comments to the divestment campaign. They thought the students have an organized and thoughtful presentation. They are trying to explore whether to vote on proxy for sustainability issue and they are going to have a second meeting on the phone to decide. They are going to have young alums on the trustees, and are moving on the process and they will have younger alums
Alexis de la Rosa ’15: They talked about SEADS and the program is doing well so that was acknowledged in the board meetings. So now I guess we will talk a little bit about our presentation. We circulated a survey after we got back from winter break about internationalization on campus. We got about 70 responses in two days, which was great. There was a lot to go through and read. When we went over the presentation, we separated out what the issues were for international and domestic students on campus and what they had to say. We talked about their relationships on campus; there was a little bit about self-segregation about groups splitting off and what that means for diversity on campus.
Yichin Fu ‘13: we talked about support systems for international students because if we do not have the support system for them, then what if they are not prepared for Bryn Mawr, it will not add diversity academically or socially to Bryn Mawr.
Alexis de la Rosa ‘15: the last two or three slides were all student pulled quotes. That was really great and we got a lot of excellent feedback after the meeting. We were approached by board members that were excited to hear from students and wanted to continue the conversation. We actually had to cut it off at a certain point and just leave, but hopefully this conversation continues to grow.
Yichin Fu ’13: We realize that this is just a conversation and we have a very preliminary survey. We are going to definitely collaborate with the faculty and staff to continue this conversation and to contribute to better dynamics on campus.
Budget Approval
Vrinda Varia ’13: assembly members should have received a copy of the pie chart of the overall budget and we also have a line by line budget if people want to look at it right now. Irene will scroll through it really quick. Does anyone have any questions about the budget?
Irene Shin ‘13: why are these clubs in red?
Sowmya Srinivasan ‘13: that was just for my notes.
Maddy Court ‘13: why does the class of 2013 get so much money?
Sowmya Srinivasan ’13: because you asked for so much money.
Devanshi Vaid ‘13: but seriously, what are we doing with it?
Kersti Francis ‘13: Senior week.
Michelle Lee ‘15: I was wondering for the film series, could we do a survey of how many people go to these movies? I would love to watch the movies and I really appreciate that we are spending money and the movies we get are pretty cool, but I wonder whenever I go, I don’t want to go because it is at a time that is not good for me. Maybe it is just a personal problem. I just wonder if maybe there isn’t anyone there and there is a movie running.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: we will pass on the question to the film series committee and have them run a survey.
Chloe Baumann ‘14: I know we are coming out of a deficit; how does it look now.
Sowmya Srinivasan ‘13: we are not entirely out of the hole but because it is spring semester, it is harder to cut back on things like traditions and senior week and things like that. So there will still be a little of a shortage in the fall.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: we are also talking to John Griffith about ways to expand the budget. Like Haverford does an annual increase. So we are talking to them about changing the model for how we do SGA dues. We are thinking about doing an increase this year and then doing an annual increase so that we will recover from the deficit this year and so that we don’t continue to fall into a deficit assuming that the SGA Treasurer is still around. It is on our minds.
Vote on Spring Budget:
Yes, I approve the budget – Kendra Kelly, Carolyn Jacoby, Hannah Lehman, Kayla Bondi, Karina Siu, Amanda Beardall, Anika Ali, Christine Newville, Jenn Burns, Maddy Court, Lindsey Crowe, Marian Slocum, Karunya Venugopal, Muna Aghaalnemer, Amani Chowdhury, Noor Masannat, Diana Tive, Elizabeth Vandenberg, Ana Kalinsky, Raminta Holden, Vanessa Sanchez, Vicki Sear, Nitya Hajela, Julia Stuart, Stephanie Clarke, Kellie Meyer, Cesiah Ordonez.
No, I do not approve the budget – Kaeun Bae ‘15
Abstain: Chloe Baumann ‘14, Xavia Miles ‘16, Michelle Lee ‘15, Sara Kim ‘14
So the budget is approved.
Plenary Resolution Presentation
Vrinda Varia ’13: There were 5 plenary resolutions to the exec board; 3 are going to plenary. One of them was a resolution presented by Lindsey Crowe about combining outreach and communications and the members at large, and we decided that that would be a better resolution for the fall once the outreach and communications and the exec board get a change to collaborate with each other. The second resolution was a resolution that is not going to plenary. It was presented by Chloe Baumann and Elizabeth Vandenberg about the constitutional review committee going through appointments. We decide it would work better as an amendment for the reaffirmation of the constitution presented after every spring plenary. These are both friendly agreements that the exec board and presenters came to. Does anyone have any questions or comments?
Chloe Baumann ‘14: if anyone is interested in seeing what constitution review committee resolution was, email me and I will send it to you what the amendment is.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: We are going to go over the resolutions that will be presented at Plenary. The first resolution is one presented by Irene Shin and Amani Chowdhury about Honor Board abstracts.
Irene Shin ’13 and Amani Chowdhury ’14:
Whereas, releasing Honor Board hearing abstracts are imperative in keeping the Bryn Mawr community informed and in holding the Honor Board accountable.
Whereas, both Article II, Section A, Subsection 2, Point f, and Article II, Section B, Subsection 2, Point e of the Honor Code read:
Once a month, at the first meeting of the month of the Assembly of the Self-Government Association the Head of the Honor Board will make a short, anonymous report of the hearing to the Assembly to be inserted in the minutes.
The format should follow as seen below:
A student was found (guilty/innocent) of (insert broad description of the infraction, i.e. plagiarism or forgery) this week. The board came to the consensus that (insert summary of the course of action to be taken). A more complete description of the case, in the form of an anonymous abstract, will be released at a later date as specified by the Honor Code.
After at least two semesters, but within four semesters, an anonymous synopsis of the case is published for the benefit of the community.
Whereas, past Heads of the Honor Board have not abided by either of these sections of the Honor Code in recent years because of conflicts of interest and concerns about student privacy. As stands, the Head of the Honor Board does not release monthly reports to the SGA Assembly nor does she release Honor Board abstracts to the Bryn Mawr community.
Whereas, releasing Honor Board monthly reports as stated in the Honor Code may not take into consideration personal feelings and works against the Honor Code’s intent of restoration over punitive action.
Whereas, the Honor Code currently uses terms like “guilty” and “innocent” in the format for abstracts, working against the goal of mutual trust, respect and concern.
Whereas, the way in which the Honor Code dictates the Honor Board to release information may violate student privacy.
Be it resolved that abstracts be written and released in order to keep the Honor Board accountable. This is essential for reasons of transparency and in keeping the Bryn Mawr community informed.
Be it resolved that the Honor Code under Article II, Section A, Subsection 2, Point f will be modified so that Academic Honor Board abstracts be released in the following manner:
At the end of each semester, the Honor Board Head will release a final report of the hearings that took place to the Bryn Mawr Community. This report will include the number of academic hearings, the reason why they were brought to the board, and a broad description of the decision of each hearing. In addition, the Honor Board Head will present this information at the end of each semester to the SGA Assembly.
Included in the published report, the Honor Board Head must also include 5 to 6 random abstracts from no earlier than 2 semesters ago and no later than 6. This random selection should be representative of cases that are still relevant to campus life. All members of the Self Government Association have the right to ask the Honor Board Head for as many abstracts from hearings that have happened from no earlier than 2 semesters ago and no later than 4.
Be it resolved, the Honor Code under Article II, Section B, Subsection 2, Point e will be modified so that Social Honor Board abstracts be released in the following manner:
At the beginning of the spring semester, the Honor Board Head must release Social Honor Board Hearing abstracts from no earlier than 2 semesters ago and no later than 10. The Honor Board Head should take into consideration issues of confidentiality while selecting these abstracts as there still may be collective memory over the incident.
Be it resolved, that the 2013-2014 Head of the Honor Board follow this up by having it included in the Honor Code and have these procedures followed throughout the academic year.
Irene Shin ’13: In there, there are two things that are important. So what is happening in the honor code is that at the end of the month, a hearing that has come to the honor board has to be reported to the assembly with this format in here. I want to highlight what it asks for is that the head will present the abstracts to the community no earlier than two semesters ago and no later than 6 semesters ago.
Kersti Francis ‘13: so the part where you say all members of the association have rights to ask the honor board head? Does this mean if I want to see an abstract from every single cast that happened, I would email you and you would send them to be?
Irene Shin ‘13: Yes. I will say frankly that I don’t have abstracts from about 2011 or so. I will tell you upfront, if anyone asks me to give them these abstracts, I will try my best to give you as much as I have but I don’t have much.
Kersti Francis ’13: as a follow-up, is that a change from the previous?
Amani Chowdhury ‘14: we haven’t been doing that at all for a couple of years, and if this gets passed, we will not see these abstracts because we have to wait for the time span to pass. So it might be something that is not realized by all of us in this room. So this is a small step.
Kersti Francis ‘13: is emailing someone to get the abstracts currently stands in the constitution?
Irene Shin ‘13: it isn’t really clear to be quite honest. They are supposed to be released every single semester; actually it doesn’t really say that. It has sort of been a precedent that has happened. I know we haven’t done it that way, but in the past, they sort of assumed that as they came up, they would be presented to the entire school.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: remember earlier this year we had all of these questions about what an abstract is and what a report is, this is trying to streamline that process for the honor board so we don’t have to ask those questions every year. Our second plenary resolution is presented by Alexandra Spear and it is about campus transparency.
Alex Spear ‘13:
Whereas, Bryn Mawr College has a long and proud history of self-governance and the recognition of student leadership,
Whereas, both the students and the administration of the college have the same goal of improving the institution and the administration has made changes towards that goal,
Whereas, there lacks a consistent forum dialogue between the administration of the college and the students,
Whereas, current students and alumnae/i would be interested in knowing the general expenditures of the college,
Whereas, the College Budget Committee does not act as a forum to allow for student input or to accommodate student interests,
Whereas, some projects such as Perry House have lacked student input in the planning and budgeting process,
Whereas, many organizations, including the government of the United States, publish their budget every fiscal year for public access,
Be it resolved, that the student body recommends that the administration annually publish its budget for the current Fiscal Year, with detail down to the department budgets and project costs, on the college website,
Be it resolved, that a notice saying the budget has been published will then be emailed to all current students and alumnae/i,
Be it resolved, that the student body recommends that the administration host an open meeting at least twice a meeting, not to coincide with SGA meetings, to discuss future plans for the college and current issues that students and the administration face and that the President of the College, the Chief Financial Officer and the Executive Director of Dining Services are required to attend, and that the Dean of the Admissions is highly recommended to attend
Vrinda Varia ‘13: before we open this up to questions, some of this resolution has been edited since the exec board last saw it. I urge you to reach out to the people who you have stated in there who have to be at these meetings so you make that information known to them.
Alex Spear ’13: absolutely.
Chloe Baumann ‘14: you list people who have to be at those meetings, you have president, CFO, and executive director of dining services, but why don’t you include someone like res life, facilities, athletics, or student activities? I believe that extends more than just dining services.
Alex Spear ‘13: so when I was writing this, in order to list specific positions that would be required to attend, I tried to take a survey. I understood that this would be difficult to do this with more positions, but I understand that it could be expanded to include things like athletics.
Julie Mazziotta ’13: how is this meeting different from big cheese?
Alex Spear ‘13: the big cheese, I believe are viewed as SGA meetings. So I feel that with the budget being published there needs to be more discussion with that. So by having this not coincide with SGA big cheese forums, this allows the broader community to engage. And say someone cannot make the big cheese forum, well they can still make possibly these two extra meetings because the budget and budgeting process is a continuing process, there is constant student input as new decisions are being made that impact students.
Julia Stuart ‘13: isn’t the schools budget decided once a year and not multiple times a year?
Alex Spear ‘13: the budget is cemented one a year, but the process of deciding where the money should go, what decisions should be made, there honestly could be more dialogue incorporating more dialogue to better understand the needs of the students. There are a lot of frustration and rumors about where money is being spent and a lot of guess in terms of why any of this is happening. The major point of this resolution is to get information out to the student body and to open more feedback about the decisions that are being made because this is our college and we want to make it great, but we want to make sure it is still Bryn Mawr.
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: what do you see as a means of faculty and staff to following this? How do you see a timeline to adding more people to this list? How do you see in coordinating this?
Alex Spear ‘13: Morgan Fine-Morris will be following up on this. I forgot to include her name on this. She will follow up on this next year. The real hurtle that I saw is not opening up meetings, but focusing on the budget being published. I fully admit that I am a graduating senior and I don’t know what is going to happen to the college. I wanted to lay a foundation so that there is a precedent for students to be in favor of this and writing more resolutions that have greater powers once this initial discussion with the administration has been established.
Devanshi Vaid ‘13: why do you want to publish the budget on the Bryn Mawr website? I just don’t think people who don’t go to this school should have access to that?
Alex Spear ‘13: why is that a concern for you?
Devanshi Vaid ‘13: I don’t think perspective students or random people browsing needs to see where Bryn Mawr is putting their money.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: that is one of the things we asked you to bring up with John Griffith before plenary.
Alex Spear ‘13: the reason why detail is only down to department budgets and project budgets is because I had a conversation with John Griffith about the budget and he was against having the line by line budget circulating among the student body because then people could figure out employees’ salaries. As I mentioned the government of the United States publishes its budget. I feel that in our case, just by the department level, it is there for information so people will know what is going on. I doubt that it will impact prospective students wanting coming to this college to understand what kind of college it is.
Chloe Baumann ‘14: point of information, the US government is a lot larger than Bryn Mawr College so they are able to give more detail but still maintain confidentiality. Bryn Mawr is much smaller and because of that, it is easier to diffuse confidentiality. Second, my question is how much contact have you had with different financial committees? How long have you been working on this? It seems like you have not put a lot of effort into it.
Alex Spear ‘13: to answer your question, this is why I am putting it down to departments’ budgets and project general budget, not the specific details. This is because it is enough general information to understand the priorities of the college in terms of where the money is going without exposing confidential information. Second, this budget is not written in anger; it is written from the perspective of a discussion between members of the student body who are very confused as to what is going on and this resolution is written from the perspective of there is a lot of things being changed and the administration is perhaps not listening. So what can be done to improve the situation. This resolution is being written from the perspective of lets work with the admin and not fight against it. I have sat down with John Griffith and talked about the priorities of the college and tried understand last semester what is going on. I tried to get more information but he never sent it to me. I spoke with Vrinda about the college budget committee to understand better what is going on in terms of existing structures, and I was told not once did they ask how will this impact students because of these decisions.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: here is what I am going to say. I am going to hold off on questions for one second. I think the general sentiment of what people are saying is that more direct contact and approval from the administration should be needed before this resolution can be pursued. So I urge you to again talk to John Griffith and show him this and see legally what we are allowed to present online and in various forms. Email is very different on a website. I urge you to see how this meeting can be different from big cheese and again who would be attending these meetings. So why don’t we brew over these things. These are the two sections that people are concerned about.
Julia Stuart ‘13: public universities, have their salaries published in newspapers. It is different for us because we go to a different kind of university. But this is not a weird thing.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: Yeah. I think the question is here is if we are asking of this by the admin, we want I to be responded to fairly. We don’t want them to ask them something that they will not be able to follow through with legally. If it is fair it is fine. Go back and have another conversation with the administration preferably by Wednesday and we will follow up with that. Does anyone have any last comments or questions about this resolution?
Kersti Francis ‘13: what I see as the pro of having one of these outside of big cheese is not having the time restraint of big cheese. There is a lot to cover during big cheese, so it is nice to have a separate meeting.
Marian Slocum ‘15: I don’t understand the comparison drawn between why the US publishes its budget because Bryn Mawr is not a democracy. SGA is a democracy and we have a budget that is readily available, but the college – they are not comparable this institution versus the government. We have a private institution versus the government. So I do not understand why that has to be there.
Alex Spear ‘13: the reason why it is in there is to give an example; they are not directly comparable. But it’s not a big stigma to publish the budget, it will not be against the interest, it increases accountability, it allows people to have more information about what is going on in an institution that affects them.
Marian Slocum ‘15:a democracy has to be accountable?
Alex Spear ‘13: and our college doesn’t have to be accountable?
Marian Slocum ‘15: it does, and through SGA we have a big cheese meeting for a reason. But we don’t elect our Board of Trustees members to make decisions. If you have another private institution publishing its budget, it would be more appropriate than having this sort of grand United States government. s
Alex Spear ‘13: I hear what you are saying, but the problem is that decisions such as last semester’s reception with Perry house – yes we have structures in place already, but they are not working sufficiently to meet students’ needs. We attend this college and pay money to attend here.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: I am going to table this discussion in light of time, but Alex, if you could hang around after the SGA meeting so people can ask questions and we can talk about how your resolution will play out.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: Those are the plenary resolutions along with the reaffirmation of the Constitution, Honor Code and self-governance that will be presented – that resolution is presented every spring so we are not going to present it right now. More information can be found on the website. Every plenary we decide if we want to invite deans and president to plenary and then we will do an invitation to give them an opportunity to speak or not if they are invited. This is to vote to invite them to attend.
Vote to Invite Deans and Presidents to attend Plenary
Yes, only to President McAuliffe – 0
Yes, to only the Deans – 0
Yes, to president and deans – 21 people
No to everyone– 0
Abstain – Jenn Burns
We will extend an invitation to the deans and president. Now we will vote on speaking privileges
Vote to Let President and Deans Speak during Plenary
Yes, the President can speak only – 0
Yes, the deans can speak only – Emily Tong, Chloe Baumann, Julia Stuart
Yes, the deans and President can speak – 14 people
No one can speak – 8 people
Abstain – Lindsey Crowe
We will be giving the president and the deans speaking privileges.
2012-2013 Executive Board Goodbyes
Vrinda Varia ’13: as a means to make us accountable to the assembly, we wanted to talk about what we have done during our terms. We are going to go really quickly.
Kersti Francis ’13: Motion to extend time
Vrinda Varia ’13: until?
Kersti Francis ’13: to the end of the agenda
Vrinda Varia ’13: we will talk fast. If anyone has any questions, we would be happy to talk to you after or via email. We are still sga@brynmawr.edu for another week.
Emily Tong ’13: will this be posted on the website?
Vrinda Varia ’13: yes this will be posted. This is a really brief version because we were all trying to think about how we can put what we have done into a few bullets.
Tyler Garber ’14:
- Synchronize appointments process on moodle
- Make appointments more approachable via blogs, appointments committee being more friendly, set up of appointments room
- Bring more accountability to the positions via check-ups and reports
- Make appointed committees come to SGA and introduce themselves
- Website now has all information regarding appointments positions’ description and who is on the committee
Sowmya Srinivasan ’13:
- Attending Campus Budget meetings
- Switch to moodle- easy for clubs to see actual spending and access past budgets
- Making budget interviews more friendly by informing people about what to expect
- Working through budget deficit
Irene Shin ’13:
- Social Honor Code
- Confrontation Workshop
- Passive Aggressive Notes
- Mean Girls Movie Night
- Conducted Honor Board Hearing
- Revisions to the Honor Code
- Conflict Resolution Committee
- Abstract Release Revisions
- Assisted in Conflict Resolution Committee
Natalie Kato ’14:
- Mawrk notes
- formalized a system with the members at large for continuity between executive boards
- direct communication with dorm presidents
- seven sisters
- helped construct and include bryn mawrs systems of elections and appointments into the seven sisters constitution
- coordinated with constitution review committee to figure out a timeline for how to move forward
- photographed workshops and forums
- continued to establish a presence for SGA through Facebook, twitter, sga blog, and google+.
Vrinda Varia ’13:
- relevance of SGA forum (spring 2012)
- co-sponsored activism 101
- slg
- collaborated with pensby center and Rachel heiser on leadership development for students
- customs reorganization committee
- seven sisters
- sat in on budgeting meetings
- met with faculty
- worked with Ed Harmon
- developed a new format for big cheese
There are two things I wanted to say to you all. It has been an honor and a pleasure working with all of you this semester. Thank you so much for being such a wonderful assembly and dealing with us when I don’t remember to do things! We really appreciate all of the smiles and laughs that you have endured all year. Two things I wanted to say to you – be proud of what you do. There is not a lot of opportunity here to commend yourself and recognize what you do. So recognize it and be proud of yourselves and keep going. Second thing, don’t be apathetic. When you guys sit here and don’t nod your heads and don’t say it is good, it says something. You have the responsibility to sit here and ask questions, so do it. Use your voices.