February 28, 2016
Agenda:
Agenda:
Roll Call
Announcements
Your Two Cents
Big Cheese Forum Discussion Spring 2016 Plenary Recap 2016-17 EBoard Introduction Old Business
New Business
Present: Mariana Garcia, Genesis Perez-Melara, Maria Minaya, Lillian Oyen-Ustad, Jess Shill, Erin Saladin, Melanie Bahti, Sam Heyrich, Bridget Murray, Alice Bell, Emily Gifford-Smith, Olivia Hollinger, Tyler Brown-Cross, Charlette Williams, Jasmine Rangel, Celeste Ledesma, Casiana Omick, Nora Dell, Sarah Andfrew, Kyra Sagal, Hannah Chinn, Modupe Olufemi, Connie Lam, Yitan Wang, Eve Cantler, Nolan Julien, Rachel Ofili, Mara Dominguez, Rina Patel, Miranda Smith, Stephanie Montalvan, Oona Ryle
Absent: Diamond Ray, Chanel Williams, Nikitha Shakamuri, Alexis Wiltshire, Dijia Chen, Radhika Singh, Daniele Cadet, Ana Llamas, Elizabeth Lorenzana, Sneha Soni, Tosin Ajiboye, Khadijah Seay
Summary: At this week’s meeting we began with role call followed by announcements. There was one announcement from Elections Co-Heads Genesis Perez-Melara and Mariana Garcia regarding the upcoming nominations period [this election was later ruled a mis election however a new round has been started, information available in the attached March 16th Agenda and Announcements email]. There were no Two Cents. Discussion regarding Big Cheese Forum moved the Representative Council and community members to discuss potential administrators to invite to the forum on April 17th. Several representatives proposed guests from Residential Life and Dayna Levy from CPD. A motion to extend time for this agenda item did not pass. It was decided that discussion would proceed at the next meeting so the community would have more time to consider the roles of administrators and issues to be discussed the forum. Discussion then began on Spring Plenary Recap. President Rhea Manglani ’17 gave a brief recap of the resolutions presented and passed at Plenary and then raised the issue of students not wanting to extend time and discussion at Plenary for resolutions. Several community members voiced their ideas regarding the issues from the previous Plenary, including the timing of Plenary, method, advertisement, and general apathy. Time was extended until the end of speaking order. The next agenda item was Executive Board Introductions from the 2016-17 SGA Executive Board: Rhea Manglani ’17 (President), Shaina Robinson ’17 (Vice President), Jocelyne Oliveros ’18 (Treasurer), Rachel Bruce ’18 (Secretary), and Swati Shastry ’18 (Head of the Honor Board). Haverford Representatives Rina Patel ’18 and Maria Minaya ’18 presented a recent initiative by Haverford College’s Students’ Council to add additional Blue Bus Stops at both Bryn Mawr and Haverford. Both Patel and Minaya were invited to join the committee at Haverford leading the initiative. Members of the Assembly discussed the idea, and some expressed a lack of interest given a recent Plenary Resolution to reinstate a Bryn Mawr Campus Shuttle. In New Business, Nora Dell ’19 (Member-at-Large) presented an update on her Plenary Resolution on Institutional Memory and Sarah Andrews ’17 (Rock Dorm President) announced the date for Rock St. Patty’s (March 19th at 9:00 PM in Rock Common Room). The meeting was officially adjourned at 8:02 PM.
Role Call:
Rhea Manglani ’17: Okay it’s 7:10 so we’re going to start the meeting with role call.
Rachel Bruce ’18: By the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania I am required to tell you that everything tonight will be recorded and posted on the SGA website.
Present: Mariana Garcia, Genesis Perez-Melara, Maria Minaya, Lillian Oyen-Ustad, Jess Shill, Erin Saladin, Melanie Bahti, Sam Heyrich, Bridget Murray, Alice Bell, Emily Gifford-Smith, Olivia Hollinger, Tyler Brown-Cross, Charlette Williams, Jasmine Rangel, Celeste Ledesma, Casiana Omick, Nora Dell, Sarah Andfrew, Kyra Sagal, Hannah Chinn, Modupe Olufemi, Connie Lam, Yitan Wang, Eve Cantler, Nolan Julien, Rachel Ofili, Mara Dominguez, Rina Patel, Miranda Smith, Stephanie Montalvan
Absent: Diamond Ray, Chanel Williams, Nikitha Shakamuri, Oona Ryle, Alexis Wiltshire, Dijia Chen, Radhika Singh, Daniele Cadet, Ana Llamas, Khadijah Seay, Elizabeth Lorenzana, Sneha Soni, Tosin Ajiboye
Announcements:
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Announcements is a time when anyone in the Bryn Mawr community can make an announcement.
Genesis Perez-Melara ‘19: I just wanted to let everyone know, if you haven’t heard already, that there is an emergency election and the election is for Curriculum Committee Head, Member-at-Large (there are no candidates but you can do a write-in) and SGA Archivist. Candidate statements and minutes are posted on the Elections Blog.
Mari Garcia ’19: Also to keep in mind that April elections are just around the corner. Available positions are Dorm Presidents, Class Presidents, Songs Mistresses, Curriculum Heads, Traditions Mistresses, Social Committee Head, Residential Council Head, Civic Engagement Representative, CPD Representative, and Honor Board representatives.
Genesis Perez-Melara ’19: You can look at descriptions on the SGA Website. Member-at-Large and Curriculum Head are for the end of the semester, SGA Archivist will be for all next year. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Your Two Cents:
Rhea Manglani ’17: So now we’re moving onto Your Two Cents. Now during this time any items for discussion or questions may be asked of the Bryn Mawr community.
Big Cheese Forum Discussion:
Rhea Manglani ’17: So moving onto Big Cheese Forum. For those of you who don’t know, Big Cheese Forum is when we invite Big Cheeses on campus, usually senior staff members but we’ve been inviting mid-tier staff too. We’ll pull up a list of senior staff members you may not totally know about so you can keep them in mind too. Reggie from the Health Center has been invited a few times, and we invite them and we host Q and A sessions or have a group discussion. We just wanted to put out that in years previous… we want to ask everyone who is present to look at the senior staff and consider those who have not been invited recently, as well as to think of people you want to invite so we can see who is available, and start inviting them now so they can start putting it on their calendars. So these are the people that fall under senior staff. We always have KCass [President Cassidy], but there are also people like Pelema (he does a lot of our Admissions work), Bob Miller, Provost Osirim, I can’t remember if we invited Dean Balthazar but Stephanie Nixon is there. There probably aren’t a lot of people that you probably haven’t seen. Just take a minute an look through and see.
Casi Omick ‘18: I feel like I don’t know what these jobs are. Like, what is Chief Development Officer?
Rhea: He is responsible for a lot of different things we do at the College. He is mostly responsible for fundraising at the College so can talk about that, including working with the set budget. We’re actually really pushing for him because he would be a really great person to invite.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: I wanted to point out that Kari might be better because she works more with fundraising and would be able to give better information, though Bob Miller is great.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Actually Swati, can you pull up the Google Doc so we can take notes?
Swati Shastry ’18: Do you want me to do it now? Rhea Manglani ’17: Yeah, so they can see it.
Erin Saladin ‘16: I know that Gina would love to come She would be a good person to talk about the new email system going into place and I think that sometimes questions about the library would come up. She would be a good person to invite.
Rina Patel ‘18: I think it would be cool to invite Wendy from the Alumni Association based on the Duck Pond Tea because it would be interesting to see how the alums and the administration interact because I’ve heard different things.
Hannah Chinn ‘19: I know last time we made a list of things we wanted to ask, I’m not sure if it would be helpful to do that again.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: I just wanted to talk about whom we’re inviting for now. We want to have another section where we can talk and be more focused about things we want to ask them.
Eve Cantler ‘16: I am wondering whom we would invite to talk about house keeping and how much they get paid. I’m not sure who is in charge of that.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: I think…but I think if you wanted to talk about that. I can’t remember her name but she would be good.
Nkechi Ampah ‘16: I think Eve was just talking about pay rates in general, like support staff and some students.
Bridget Murray ‘17: I think for Housing Keeping you would want Denise Romano.
Rhea Manglani ’17: Is there any because I know people from last year wanted people from P-Safe. Do you guys want to break into groups—so you want PSAFE?
X: Yeah, that would be great.
Rhea Manglani ’17: There’s also the Health Center or any other departments you regularly interact with.
Nkechi Ampah ‘16: I think that it’s a little hard to come up with the people without thinking about the issues; I don’t necessarily know who is in charge or what the titles actually mean.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Does anyone want to recommend issues and then we can go back?
Nolan Julien ‘18: I recommend Dayna Levy to talk about the Not-for-Profit Career Fair and the issues surrounding that last Friday.
Rhea Manglani ’17: We’ve reached the time limit for this agenda item. Hannah Chinn ‘19: Motion to extend time by fifteen minutes.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Second? This is a Representative Council vote only. Raise your hand if you would like to extend time by fifteen minutes.
Nora Dell ‘19: Ten minutes.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Second? Options are yes to extend time by ten minutes, no, and abstain.
Nora Dell ‘19: We’re voting on both, right?
Hannah Chinn ‘19: I don’t really care, either is good.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Okay so ten. Take a moment to confer with your co-held position. Ten minutes? Yes: 7, No: 8, Abstain: 3 We are not going to extend time but if you have questions or suggestions please email us at the SGA EBoard email (sga@brynmawr.edu) and we will get back to you.
Plenary Recap:
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Next is Plenary Recap. Plenary was last Sunday. We had seven resolutions and all seven passed. First was the Constitution, second was waiving minutes from Honor Board hearings, third was the recommitment to the values of the Honor Code, fourth the Honor Board has discretion to report [violations] of the Academic Honor Code to higher institutions, the fifth resolution was to establish an SGA Archivist and Committee on Institutional Memory, sixth renaming and updating the Alcohol Concerns Review Board to BSLOW, and seventh was the re-installment of the campus shuttle. Really quickly we wanted to break into large groups. So this plenary we noticed whenever there was a motion to extend time and have more discussion people voted no. We want to see how you felt about this. Many of us see plenary as a time to talk about issues and confront views we don’t usually talk about and make our voices heard and good time to exchange ideas. Amendments are very interesting. Like I know nothing about the Honor Board and that would have been a
good time to hear about how people interact with it. Now we want to take some time to open this up to all of you.
Nora Dell ‘19: What if we extended the time of the question period time by like five minutes to allow more discussion:
Rhea Manglani ’17: I was just asking as far as feelings but okay.
Casi Omick ’18: I feel the reason that happens is not because of discussion but because it takes us so long to reach quorum, not because people don’t want to talk about it.
Nkechi Ampah ’16: Yes.
Rhea: So basically getting quorum. Do you have any ideas on we can try and do this faster?
Melanie Bahti ‘16: So one thing is that we started plenary at 11:30 rather than noon. I don’t know why that decision was made, but I feel like starting that half hour earlier did not help us do anything more quickly we probably would have received quorum the same time. Starting at noon might help, but that’s just a thought. I think starting that much earlier is not productive.
Jasmine Rangel ‘17: I feel like when we start guilt tripping on the Traditions page, people start to notice. I also posted stuff on the Traditions page. SGA is really does a lot and I think people loose sight of that. Maybe we should start educating people on what SGA does on campus.
Hannah Chinn ‘19: I think that our failure to reach quorum is somewhat indicative that a lot of people feel Plenary is not super beneficial and do not see the need for it and therefore do not come. A lot of people left because of work and other conflicts.
Nora Dell ‘19: I have a question for Hannah, can you elaborate on some of these conversations?
Hannah Chinn ‘19: Yes, I said hey you should come to plenary but I have work at a certain time. At least for me I know that Haffner has to be staffed. I know for the fall, people come in really excited but because it takes so long they start to lose that. People believe that SGA is not effective enough, believe that things that aren’t talked about at Plenary should be talked about at Plenary.
Lillian Oyen-Ustad ‘19: Completely unrelated…but I don’t know who plans the date but I know that the swim team was off campus, which is like twenty people. As a member of the Rep Council I had two absences. Maybe we should be more cautious of midterms, sporting events, etc. when we plan Plenary.
X: Where are we in speaking order?
Erin Saladin ‘16: Back to Jasmine’s point, I think that while the posts were effective, I think there are a people who wait for those posts to show up instead of waiting. I think that is because we talk about Plenary as something we have to do instead of something that is exciting.
Nkechi Ampah ‘16: So I think that one of the things is that the way we are talking about this is that we have to change the way we get quorum because I don’t think people are saying I don’t care about what happens at Bryn Mawr. Also, because plenary is something we expect the whole community to come to. This is a small meeting that makes these decisions and many people feel that this is a hostile, small environment and are afraid to speak their minds…They’re afraid people will get mad if they ask questions or “I don’t really understand what is happening or what the resolutions are,” “The language is inaccessible”, and “I don’t want to sit there”. They aren’t saying that I don’t like Plenary and that I don’t like SGA but just that there are too intimidated.
Rhea Manglani ’17: We’ve reached the end of time for this agenda item. Lillian Oyen-Ustad: Motion to extend to end of speaking order.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: Can I make a suggestion that we see who is added to speaking order before we move forward?
Rhea Manglani ’17: It’s Ann, Sarah, Hannah, Bridget, Coco, Nora, Connie, Nkechi, and Rina.
Ann Tran ‘18: Can we get a motion to extend speaking time by five minutes?
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Did anyone want to second? Okay we will vote for speaking order and then for five minutes. Please take a moment to consult your co-held positions. For end of speaking order, please raise your hands. Yes: 14, No: 1, Abstain: 2. Okay, now for five minutes. Raise your hands if yes: 4, no: 1, and abstain: 9. Okay, we’re going until the end of speaking order. That means Ann is next followed by Emily.
Ann Tran ‘18: So I guess one idea is instead of inundating Facebook with posts the morning of or the instant it begins, maybe begin a hash tag the night before just to start having the Rep Council post things. Maybe something like #whypleanrymatters so we can start making sure people show up.
Emily Gifford-Smith: I’m the president of the SAAC, and to follow up on Lillian, in the future look we should look into athletic dates. Our positions are contingent on participating in various sports (I can’t hold my position without being in a sport). Maybe when we set quorum, we could take into account people who cannot get
there in time (i.e. the swim team). Take them out of quorum just like study abroad because they cannot be there.
Sarah Andrew ‘17: Something a lot of my friends said was that with the aftermath of WTF Week that no one wanted to spend their Sunday at Plenary.
Hannah Chinn ‘19: I wanted to clarify— it’s not that people don’t care, they do, but I think SGA and Plenary in specific is not only because we have a small group making decisions, but also because people do not want to spend that much time doing something that they think doesn’t matter. We should make sure they know how much it does.
Bridget Murray ‘17: If people see there’s seven resolutions they’re like “nah, I’m okay.” We know as members of the Rep Council that it isn’t that bad (there were three by the Honor Board and another was the reaffirmation of the Constitution).
Coco Wang ‘16: So I think what we have been talking about is how we can better accommodate but I want to rethink the structure Plenary whereas technology as developed because throughout the years. We got electronic signatures to present the resolutions, is there anyway we can do it electronically? We need a certain amount of signatures, does it seem redundant to do it again and may be can leave more space at plenary to talk about more relevant resolutions.
Nora Dell ‘19: If we had better publicity and talked more to the general public on what has happened. I think Coco’s point is really great but I do want to bounce off of that. Do you mean that we should do that once we get the number of signatures or that we should not wait for quorum?
Coco Wang ‘16: Can we pass around the mic?
Nora Dell ‘19: Once we get the number of signatures online it shows that we can proceed with the resolution?
Coco Wang ‘16: It depends but if we get enough signatures then yes. Nora Dell ’19: Okay.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: We are going to move onto Connie.
Connie Lam ‘18: So I know that for Community day of Learning that they closed down some of the libraries, at least Collier. Maybe we could try to do that during Plenary for certain amount of time.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: Rina is next.
Nkechi Ampah ‘16: I think that that is not a good idea because the spirit of Plenary is that we all care about Bryn Mawr and the issues and I don’t think we should be closing our dining halls and libraries. I don’t think that will make people happy or excited about going to Plenary.
Rina Patel ‘18: I just wanted to comment related to that point that Haverford’s plenary is done during the evening and they kind of shut down the campus. It is expected that they go. Customs Groups have Plenary recaps, someone is in charge of bringing the Customs Group to plenary. Part of that has to do with being in the evening because they are done with their day and their homework. Maybe that would work better for athletes. That worked really well for Haverford.
Rhea: Do you want to move on? We’ll move on.
EBoard Introductions:
Rhea Manglani ’17: So now EBoard Introductions! I’m Rhea Manglani, she/her pronouns, class of 2017.
Shaina Robinson ‘17: I’m Shaina Robinson, she/her pronouns, class of 2017.
Jocelyne Oliveros ‘18: I’m Jocelyne Oliveros, she/her pronouns, class of 2018.
Rachel Bruce ’18: Position?
Rhea Manglani ’17: President.
Shaina Robinson ’17: Vice President.
Jocelyne Oliveros ’18: Treasurer.
Swati Shastry ’18: I’m Swati Shastry, class of 2018, Head of the Honor Board.
Rachel Bruce ’18: I’m Rachel Bruce, class of 2018, Secretary.
Old Business:
Rhea: All right so New Business. No wait, Old Business is a time that any members of the Representative Council can revisit a previous announcement. This must have been previously presented and pertain to the Representative Council member’s position.
Rina Patel ’18: We [Rina Patel ’18 and Maria Minaya ‘18] are your Haverford Liaisons. We just wanted to bring up a recent development with the Blue Bus. Haverford has a Blue Bus Committee that reached out to us about increasing times. We expressed to them that we already tried this but they are insisting we send out a
survey in addition to the plenary resolution. We want see how you all are feeling about because we feel it would be redundant given the Plenary Resolution. Would you guys be interested around Brecon? Yes, no, abstain. Questions?
Genesis Perez-Melara ‘19: How did that work with the plenary resolution with the shuttle going to Brecon and the Pensby Center?
Rina Patel ’18: I believe what happened is that but the challenge is when a new stop is introduced that it would mess up the schedule because it’s already very tight. That’s why the campus shuttle might be more effective. Is that what happened, Rachel?
Rachel Bruce ’18: Yes, basically!
Lillian Oyen-Ustad ‘19: Haverford’s transportation wanted to add a new Blue Bus stop wants to add a new stop to our campus or just change the schedule?
Rina Patel ‘18: Both— add a stop there, one here, and add times so it’s not according to lunch schedules but more class schedules.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: So this is a working group at Haverford and they’re working in conjunction with the transportation department at Bryn Mawr which is Bi-Co so this is a…
Maria Minaya ‘18: He said that they have a committee and they’re working with them.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: So this is not Haverford Students’ Council coming out of nowhere.
Erin Saladin ‘16: Something people asked about at plenary was whether there was was enough demand to have a large vehicle going around to theses stops. The Blue Bus is a very large vehicle. The substance of our resolution is that we would not be able to justify having such a large vehicle.
Nolan Julien ‘18: Would the new route also include the R100? Maria: No.
Emily Gifford-Smith ‘16: So would their working group replace our plenary resolutions or would it work in tandem?
Rhea Patel ‘18: Probably in tandem but I told them we already had a plenary resolution about this. I don’t see why it would conflict with tier shuttle but if they
Nora Dell ‘19: So… we could tell them that if we added a new Blue Bus stop it could be by Brecon because they could add more buses but if we tell them that now and it ends up not working?
Rina Patel ‘18: They added a Brecon stop on their timetable.
Lillian Oyen-Ustad ‘19: Have they made any assumptions about how this would affect the Swat Van? A lot of students take classes there.
Melanie Bahti ‘16: Just going back to Erin’s point, the question of demand— who would be taking this bus and how often? I don’t see the harm in sending out a survey because it would give more information so it makes sense, like a pro-survey and anti-survey.
Rina Patel ‘18: I guess to tell you guys what the survey looks like. They said like, survey copy and pasted blue bus times and asked which do you use the most and students choose and then answer at the bottom if they are convenient or not. Maybe we could send out a survey— give out blocks to work with.
Casi Omick ‘18: I just want to say that if we send out a survey that we say how it would work with the plenary resolution but people might get very confused, because that could easily happen.
Hannah Chinn: Just a logistics question, who is on the committee? Is there anyone from Bryn Mawr?
Rina Patel ‘18: We [Rina Patel ’18 and Maria Minaya ‘18] are.
Bridget Murray ‘17: With the survey in mind, I don’t think it would be a great idea because people would get confused and also because the survey would be very jarring and that this would
Rina Patel ‘18: Keeping in mind, Haverford’s survey was sent out to the student body. Are you guys in favor of this survey, do you want us to send out a survey? Would you guys want to see a survey sent out about new Blue Bus times? Raise your hands. This is a straw pole. Hands for yes, hands for no, abstain. Cool, and anyone would you want us to be on the committee hands for yes, no, any abstentions. Cool, I like you guys back. And would you be interested in seeing more Blue Bus times? Hands for yes, no, abstentions. Okay, and would you be interested in another Blue Bus stop? Hands for yes, no, and abstentions. Thank you, we will report back to Haverford and let you know what happens.
New Business:
Rhea Manglani ‘17: New Business is a time when any new items for discussion, question, or announcements can be made by a member of the Representative
Council. This announcement must pertain to the Representative Council member’s position.
Nora: This probably should have been done during Old Business, but I wanted to update you all on the status of the plenary resolution and I wanted to give you some of the timelines. So they told me that it would take one year to transcribe all of the relevant articles they have in their archives, so I think we are going to move ahead with that. We also talked about adapting WordPress so I’m meaning with … to do that so we should have a data archive but the end of the semester. Questions? Thank you!
Sarah Andrews ’17: We wanted to let you know that Rock St. Paddy’s is March 19th at 9:00 PM in Rock Common room.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: We need a motion to end the meeting. X: Motioned.
Rhea Manglani ‘17: We need a second.
X: Second.
Rhea Manglani ’17: This is a representative council vote only. Raise your hands. The options to end the meeting are yes, no, and abstain. Yes? No? Abstain?
Motion passed by visual ballot.
Meeting adjourned at 8:02 PM.