SGA Meeting 02/24/13
Natalie calls the meeting to order at 2:10 PM.
Absent: Kendra Kelly, Michelle Lee, Karina Siu, Amanda Beardall, Anika Ali, Taj Meyer, Jenn Burns, Lija Geller, Noor Masannat, Alexandra Kirsch, Raminta Holden
Announcements:
Lindsey Crowe ‘14: Princeton is hosting an East-Asian Popular Culture Conference, where I will be speaking. The conference will address issues such as copyright issues, business issues involving the music industry, involving all sorts of music from J-Pop to K-Pop. The dates are April 26-27 at Princeton. If anybody is interested email lcrowe@brynmawr.edu for budgeting for travel.
Also, there will be a class of 2014 tea next week – emails and Facebook events will be sent out.
Natalie Kato ‘14: The counseling center is having another forum called Sex ‘n Stuff on Mondays from 5-6 PM in the waiting room.
Next week we will be voting on the Seven Sisters constitution for campuses with different governments. Different campuses had representatives from their governments and formed a constitution. Look for an email about that on Thursday!
Your Two Cents:
E-Board Introductions:
Amani Chowdhury ‘14 Honor Board Head
- Better incorporation of the Honor Board during Customs Week and DLT training.
- Getting in touch with Haverford’s Honor Council.
- Continue to improve on archiving Honor Board cases.
- Community Events and Confrontation Workshops.
- Increased utilization of the Conflict Resolution Committee.
- Making the Honor Code and Honor Board more present on campus through better outreach and more presentations to the community.
Rebecca Cook ‘15 Vice President
- Make the student body more aware of appointed positions & how to apply.
- Utilize Moodle as a tool in applying for positions & streamlining the interview process.
- Promote accountability through increased communication within the Appointments Committee within the Committees we monitor.
Natalie Kato ‘14 President
- Increase accountability by inviting SGA appointed/elected positions to present.
- Create a comfortable environment that is productive and open to different ideas.
- Encourage expression of concerns along with goal-oriented suggestions and solutions.
- Increase networking between students/admin/staff/faculty/alumnae/etc.
- Utilize freshman dorm representatives in a meaningful and inclusive way.
Amy Chen ‘14 Treasurer
- Move Budgets to Google Drive and make the budgeting process more clear.
- Promote interclub interactions and budget collaborations.
- Hold clubs accountable to spending and prevent waste.
Syona Arora ‘15 Secretary
- In addition to posting Mawrk Notes via dorm presidents and M-a-L, formatting a virtual Mawrk Notes to be posted on the SGA blog and sent through activities emails.
- Better utilizing the Members-at-Large as a liaison between the student body and the Exec Board.
- Consulting with Assembly members about an SGA listserv.
EBoard Goals
- Transparency
- Get more people engaged and involved
- Increase our presence on campus
- Better utilization of SGA and its resources
- Being a more active community
- Encourage accountability within the assembly and exec board
- To promote better community within the Bi-Co/Tri-Co/Seven Sisters
- Revisit the Constitution/Honor Code
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anybody have any agenda topics that they would like to be seen in the future? Any administrators or faculty or groups on campus you would like to see present at future SGA meetings?
Kersti Francis ‘13: Will there be another Big Cheese forum this semester??
Natalie Kato ‘14: There is, on April 7. The meeting prior to that, we will do prep for Big Cheese – we will pick questions and send them to the administration, who will then choose people who are best suited to answer those questions.
If anyone thinks of any agenda topics or anyone to invite to our SGA meetings, email sga@brynmawr.edu.
Plenary Recap:
Natalie Kato ‘14: Last Sunday was Plenary. We also voted on Special Events funding. Two out of two of the special events received funding. The first one is the Hip-Hop and Political Activism Workshop, which was awarded $2,400. The second was a conference which Zami is hosting, which was awarded $2,000.
Three out of three resolutions passed at Plenary. One being the reaffirmation of the constitution. That was passed with an amendment to it, creating a Constitutional Review Committee through Appointments in April. The second resolution was regarding honor board abstracts, and the third was about financial transparency. If anyone wants to see the resolutions, they will be posted on the SGA blog at sga.blogs.brynmawr.edu, and the minutes will up within the next week. There will be a survey coming out, sent out by class presidents, and the link will be on Facebook, Twitter and the SGA blog.
The executive board and plenary committee were wondering if anybody had any suggestions or comments about this past plenary and how to improve it.
Nora Scheland ‘15: One of the things that I was thinking about, in terms of getting resolutions that people have been working on for a longer period of time is that, instead of coming to the last resolution workshop and rushing to form a resolution, trying to encourage different plenary resolution brainstorms at the end of each semester so that the executive board and plenary committee have an idea about people who are interested in presenting and what type of resolutions might be presented, so that next semester the executive board and committee can reach out to them to encourage them to write and present a resolution.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anyone have any other comments about how plenary went? How can we get quorum?
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: An idea from a friend – try to put a cap on the time at plenary instead of extending time or having an ambiguous time. If we don’t have quorum, then plenary just doesn’t happen. It might be unconstitutional, but it might get the student body mobilized. For example – the cap could be 2 hours, and if there is no vote then we just don’t vote. One concern might be that people don’t care so they just don’t show up. It might make us not have to be there for 5 hours.
Kersti Francis ‘13: Do we know how quickly Haverford got quorum?
Emily Tong ‘13: One and a half hours, but they discussed the resolutions for about 4 hours.
Kersti Francis ‘13: We might implement things that Haverford does, like turn off the internet.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Haverford closes the libraries and the gym but do not turn off the internet.
Anna Kalinsky ‘14: Could we get wi-fi shut off in non-academic buildings, even for the first two hours? People are not coming because they say that they cannot do work there, but if they are leaving the dorm to go to the library they might as well go to plenary.
Natalie Kato ‘14: We could find out.
Chloe Baumann ‘14: I’m not quite sure specifically, but in the 80s it was a a running joke that we didn’t have plenary for 8 semesters running.
I also have a problem with shutting off the internet. If people don’t want to go, we shouldn’t be turning off the internet. There should be more outreach than punishing people who didn’t go.
Lindsey Crowe ‘14: This was discussed in previous semesters about shutting off wi-fi – in spite of no internet, they would not attend plenary in protest.
Carolyn Jacoby ‘14: I wanted to echo the sentiment that penalizing not going to plenary seems counterproductive – we value our self-governance and by forcing the campus to go it seems less supportive of self-governance and more that we have self-governance out of obligation and against the spirit of SGA.
Makala Forster ‘15: Would it be possible to get breakfast and lunch at plenary?
Natalie Kato ‘14: A lot of people wanted hot brunch but it cannot be served in Goodhart. We did that before but it did not work, which is why we pushed the time back from 10 AM to 12:30 PM.
Kersti Francis ‘13: Haverford starts in the evening after dinner. I like that Bryn Mawr pushed it to 12:30. Has it been considered moving plenary to the evening after dinner?
Natalie Kato ‘14: That is something that we are considering with the plenary committee, and the survey that will go out will have suggested times that go into the evening – later than 7 – so please get your constituents to look at that so we can get a more accurate reading about when to start plenary.
Sarah Bristow ‘14: I’m in support of Kersti – making it in the evening would prevent what happened the last two plenaries, when we get quorum right before 4 and then lost quorum when dining hall workers have to leave. Just something to consider.
Maddy Court ‘13: Haverford has breadsticks and pizza and they charge a dollar or so. As a student leader at Bryn Mawr, I know that people support either free food or cheap food.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Something going off of that, we might look into moving it into the gym. If we got pizza it would be served in the teaching theater or in the gym.
Emma Roseblum ‘14: In response to Kersti – We did plenary before Haverford on purpose so that if a bi-co resolution does not pass with us it could pass at Haverford. It might not be possible to do plenary at night unless we do it a week earlier.
Sarah Lovegren ‘14: Instead of seeing technology as something against us, maybe there could be a way that we could have a forum for people studying in the library to check in and be involved in the discussion. Is there a way to use technology to our advantage, and to help students abroad.
Nora Scheland ‘15: I was at the exit door this last plenary, and a lot of people had to go to rehearsal or practice. I know that coaches and clubs are informed – is there any way we could work with coaches and clubs, especially SGA-funded clubs, to have them not have rehearsal and practice during plenary?
Natalie Kato ‘14: It is something that we can get into communication with faculty and staff about.
Anna Kalinsky ‘14: Going back to the technology – I know that students abroad are counted into how to calculate quorum. I even had a friend who was technically abroad but didn’t know if she would be counted in. Is there a possibility of working in a voting system for students abroad, either by skype or by a preemptive vote?
Natalie Kato ‘14: I believe that for study abroad they are not counted towards quorum. The reason that we do not do skype as of now is that in case we lose connection with them.
Ali Raeber ‘13: I think it’s important that we advertise plenary as something they should want to do instead of something that they should have to do.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Going off of that, I’m going to pose a question to you. What is valuable about plenary? What makes it relevant to today’s campus? Going off of what Ali Raber ‘13 said.
Lindsey Crowe ‘14: It’s what defines us as a self-governing campus. It allows us to present ideas to the administration and say that the majority of campus has backed the idea, this is what we see and this is what we want.
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: We sometimes question the value of plenary especially because in theory the assembly is supposed to be representative. Plenary is supposed to be two times a year where the entire student body in theory should be able to vote on something without having to worry about an assembly member voting for them.
I sometimes think about the ambiguity about what is voted on at SGA meetings versus what is voted on at plenary.
Natalie Kato ‘14: We will take all your information and the executive board and plenary committee will get together and will come back to you after the survey with results.