Bryn Mawr College SGA Meeting – November 1, 2015
Roll Call
Announcements
Your Two Cents
Old Business
New Business
Roll Call
Present: Madison Wilson, Samantha Heyrich, Delaney Williams, Chanel Williams, Coco Wang, Eve Cantler, Charlette Williams, Bridget Murray, Ana Llamas, Ann Tran, Khadijah Seay, Danielle Cadet, Emily Gifford-Smith, Connie Lam, Sarah Andrew, Oona Ryle, Delia Landers, Hannah Chinn, Nora Dell, Melanie Bahti, Erin Saladin, Sedi Agawu, Mara Dominguez, Sneha Soni, Olivia Hollinger, Emily Siegel, Rhea Manglani, Elaine Holehan, Alexis Wiltsire, Tosin Ajiboye, Kyra Sagal, Shakari Badgett, Dijia Chen
Absent: JoyAngelica Chan, Rina Patel, Maria Minaya, Natalie DiFrank, Miranda Smith, Elizabeth Lorenzana, Diamond Ray, Jasmine Rangel, Celeste Ledesma, Lillian Oyen-Ustad, Nikitha Shakamuri, Lilly King, Radhika Singh, Emma Basen-Engquist, Lindsey Foster, Modupe Olufemi, Rachel Ofili, Stephanie Montalvan, Casiana Omick, Tyler Brown-Cross.
Charlie Bruce ‘16 called the meeting to order at 4:13pm
Charlie Bruce ’16: Hey everyone let’s begin with roll call!
Roll Call
Angela Motte ’17: Hello everyone! As a reminder, I record these meetings, so keep that in mind when you speak.
Present: Madison Wilson, Samantha Heyrich, Delaney Williams, Chanel Williams, Coco Wang, Eve Cantler, Charlette Williams, Bridget Murray, Ana Llamas, Ann Tran, Khadijah Seay, Danielle Cadet, Emily Gifford-Smith, Connie Lam, Sarah Andrew, Oona Ryle, Delia Landers, Hannah Chinn, Nora Dell, Melanie Bahti, Erin Saladin, Sedi Agawu, Mara Dominguez, Sneha Soni, Olivia Hollinger, Emily Siegel, Rhea Manglani, Elaine Holehan, Alexis Wiltsire, Tosin Ajiboye, Kyra Sagal, Shakari Badgett, Dijia Chen
Absent: JoyAngelica Chan, Rina Patel, Maria Minaya, Natalie DiFrank, Miranda Smith, Elizabeth Lorenzana, Diamond Ray, Jasmine Rangel, Celeste Ledesma, Lillian Oyen-Ustad, Nikitha Shakamuri, Lilly King, Radhika Singh, Emma Basen-Engquist, Lindsey Foster, Modupe Olufemi, Rachel Ofili, Stephanie Montalvan, Casiana Omick, Tyler Brown-Cross.
Charlie Bruce ’16: Thanks! We’re going to move on to announcements. During this item, any new items for discussion, questions, or announcements can be made. We have allotted ten minutes for this agenda item.
Announcements
Shakari Badgett ’17: Hey everyone, just letting you know, due to recent events, we have moved the Erdman party to December 4th. Also, we have boxes in common rooms. Don’t move them. It’s a pad and tampon drive for a club.
Kyra Sagal ’17: That’s it, thanks!
Samantha Heyrich ‘17: I want to thank everyone for coming to the Social Committee Halloween! We had over 500 people come- it was really great. Thanks for the support.
Charlie Bruce’16: Anyone else?
Gabrielle Smith ’17: The November 2015 Appointments round is here! The application will be open until Wednesday Nov 11th 11:59 pm. Positions up for reappointment: Traditions Committee (Class of ’17 and ’16), Financial Aid Advisory Board (McBride Representative), Dining Services Advisory Board, Alcohol Concerns Review Board, Customs Committee Heads, Customs Committee. Please visit appointments@brynmawr.edu for more information about the appointments process and for position descriptions. Email gbsmith@bmc if you have any questions.
Charlie Bruce ’16: Any more announcements? Ok Next item! Your Two Cents! Anyone in the BMC undergrad community can host a straw poll or bring up a topic for discussion.
Your Two Cents
Charlie Bruce ’16: Any cents? Ok, next topic!
Old Business
Charlie Bruce ’16: Any old business? Ok, new business!
New Business
Linh Tran ’16: I have a new business item. This past week Gabby and I attended a meeting with the budget committee, lead by the chief financial officer. One of the questions she gave us to think about is how to reduce cost, and how to increase revenue. In order to generate the most ideas, we thought we’d extend those questions to you. Before we talk about how to reduce cost and increase revenue, it’s helpful to give you a little bit of the information that Kari gave us. So if you look on the board, you can see a breakdown to know what we’re spending on. This is the detail of the spending of the most recent fiscal year. 37% is instruction, 14% is academic support, 11% student services, 17% institutional support, 14% auxiliary services, 2% research, 5% other. That’s the break down. Sources of funds are 9% other, 7% grants, gifts and endowment income is 37%, student tuition and fees (net of financial aid support) 47%.
Charlie Bruce ’16: If we were to pay tuition at the given dollar price, we would be paying a lot more for our education. We have a day called ‘Give a Hoot Day’ where the price that we are paying stops, and the student body is operating on money that’s been given by donors. Fun fact for the day!
Linh Tran ’16: So, a big part of our funding comes from donor and gifts. That is where our money comes from. Let’s move on to the questions we would like to pose. Try your best to look at everything on campus with fresh eyes. Think about why we do certain things, what things are critical, and what things are just nice to have, and then things we just do because we have always done it. We want to be able to reduce expenses to use them for other resources.
Charlie Bruce ’16: We’re going to do an activity called pair and share. You received a note card, you find a pair, and then you write down your group ideas. Then, you switch notecards, and someone else reads your ideas. Then, if everyone likes the ideas, you come up to the microphone and share. We’re gonna talk for five minutes, and then we’ll debrief for five minutes.
Groups Break Out
Charlie Bruce ’16: Please approach the microphone if you have ideas.
Coco Wang ’16: On my card, it says to turn lights off after certain times in buildings. Alum events? Like how much we earn from them. Also outreach via email, online banking system, reducing food waste.
Tosin Ajiboye ’17: Change landscaping, bins around campus to return dining hall dishes. Better insulations in buildings.
Erin Saladin ’16: Is Lusty a good expenditure? Are students using it enough to make it beneficial? Also, do we need 24-hour Canaday.
Kyra Sagal ’17: Employing student workers instead of full-time staff because we can pay them less, also making more fundraising events.
Linh Tran ’16: Point of clarification, alumni association- the cost for alum events in is the 17% of institutional support. It’s already taken into the picture. We get gifts and endowments from them.
Charlie Bruce ’16: Other ideas?
Rhea Manglani ’17: Is there any way to get a working group with board of trustees?
Charlie Bruce ’16: The board of trustees comes to BMC three times a year. They have a subcommittee to allocate funds for the college. The investors who work on the board of trustees will either approve requests for funding or deny requests for funding. The meeting Gabby and Linh went to was looking at creative ways to increase funds. So we really wanna have these cards to bring to the board.
Nora Dell ’19: What if we look at other colleges and see what they’ve done?
Charlie Bruce ’16: I don’t know if we have access to their expenditure, but I agree.
Linh Tran ’16: So it depends on what they do, I don’t know, as a board in our meeting, we compare with peer institutions. So they always consider that.
Charlie Bruce ’16: Any more ideas from the floors?
Dijia Chen ’16: Lights in Canday, and possibly insolating buildings, solar panels, excessive lawn maintenance, redo AC and heat systems, cleaning and updating systems, so they’re all effective.
Erin Saladin ’16: I just want to say to the lights in Canaday- this may be a good moment to bring up switching lights. We have no light plates to replace the ones we have.
Charlie Bruce ’16: Ok, so Gabby’s going to collect the cards.
Nora Dell ’19: What are we doing right now for Alumni events?
Charlie Bruce ’16: They’re not running at a deficient, but we can inquire into the cost analysis of that.
Shakari Badgett ’17: Do you know how much money goes into Lusty? I feel like it’s a very valuable resource.
Gabrielle Smith ’17: I don’t remember exactly when she said this, but Bernie did say that Lusty and Uncommon aren’t making money and the only reason the school keeps them open is because the students like it.
Erin Saladin ’16: On the note of 24-hour Canaday, speaking as someone who works at Canaday, the hours between 4am and 8am specifically, like we need to keep the entire library open for one person.
Nora Dell ’19: Is it possible to get a line-by-line budget break down.
Charlie Bruce ’16: I don’t know, but we’ll find out for you.
Shakari Badgett ’17: Can you look into a 24-hour Collier? Simply because all the science books are in there.
Elaine Holehan ’16: Also Carpenter, because it closes at midnight and I’m in the same situation with classics.
Melanie Bahti ’16: I would recommend to both of you to write a request in the request box that is available at all the libraries. It may not be able to make things happen, but it’ll at least bring these issues to light.
Charlie Bruce ’16: On that note, we have run out of allotted time. We either need a motion to extend time, or a motion to adjourn.
Samantha Heyrich ’17: I motion to adjourn.
Shakari Badgett ’17: I second.
Charlie Bruce ’16: This is a RepCouncil vote only, yes, no, abstain. Meeting adjourned.
Angela Motte ’17: Before everyone goes, please don’t forget to sign into the sign in book! Also, first years, happy lantern night!
Meeting Adjourned at 4:54pm