SGA Meeting 04-22-12
Vrinda calls the meeting to order at 7:10pm
Absent: Devanshi Vaid, Julia Stuart, Sarah Lovegren, Carmen Lai, Courtney Pinkerton, Melanie Rowe, Pam Lavin, Lindsey Crowe, Syona Arora, Lili Elsesser, Izzie Armentrout, Jessie Abreu, Kiki Anizoba, Dede Buck,an, Lynne Ammar, Danyelle Phillips, Emma Condy, Debbie Deegan, Christine Calderon.
Announcements:
Emily Kirchner ‘12: Get Your Spring On was on Friday and was well attended and everyone had a great time! Thank you for coming and voting for it.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: thank you who came to the Community Forum, It was a really big success and we hope to continue the conversation about what SGA will look like in the next 120 years and how we all stand in that conversation. If any assembly members were not able to fill out an exit survey, please do so after. Pets on the Green is happening again on May 1, from 1:00pm – 3:00pm on Erdman green. Also the Eboard is going to host a study break on May 2 at 9:00pm in the Campus Center and we will have food! There will be other surprises happening around campus, so check your emails we will keep you posted about that.
Saba Qadir ‘13: how is Pets on the Green funded?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: it is from the Health Center. They really enjoy it, so if anyone has any feedback, let us know and we can spread it their way.
Your Two Cents:
Sarah Theobald ‘12: on behalf of the elections board, I wanted to have a conversation about how dorm elections went. Does anyone have any comments or questions?
Adelyn Kishbaugh ‘12: I thought it was awesome that a lot of people ran for things. At a lot of the dorm elections I have been to, it has been hard to get people to run, and this year I think most were contested.
Sarah Theobald ‘12: there were four uncontested
Blair Smith ‘12: we were taking about ways to do a runoff election. In the dorms that have multiple groups running is important to have a runoff election.
Sarah Theobald ’12: so I guess what we will do is we will change that in the bylaws. So, that will go to Ali.
Amanda Beardall ‘14: we also talked about, at ResCo, how people on the waitlist for dorms do not really have a space to vote or run because they don’t know where they are living. Something to take into account.
Sustainability Leadership Group Introductions:
Vrinda Varia ‘13: The Sustainability Leadership Group is something that I recently was able to sit on and in spite of earth day, we thought it would be an opportune time to hear about their goals and how students are involved. So I am going to ask Victor Donnay and Karen Leitner to share their incite.
Victor Donnay: thank you very much for this chance to speak to you. I am Victor Donnay; I am professor of the math department and am now the chair of the Sustainability Leadership Group. A little history, in 2008 and 2009, the Greens brought a resolution to the faculty and president to have the college join the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. About 450 colleges have now signed. The purpose is to try and reduce the amount of carbon overall that the university produces. Because of the student initiative and the power of your voices, the faculty and president approved that and it is now official policy of the college. This probably would not have happened as soon as it did without the student voice. Our goal is to reduce the colleges carbon footprint by 10%. We made a larger plan, that does not only focus on carbon reduction, but a whole range of issues about sustainability, recycling, paper use, local foods, composting, and so the college now has this general plan. More focus on that has led to the 360 I am involved in. Now we have this plan and to help move that forward, the president formed the Suitability Leadership Group; we have a much larger sustainability committee, but we wanted a smaller group to help focus things based on the model of the diversity leadership group. Our vision is that rather than have one person be a sustainability coordinator thinking about suitability, we want everyone to be thinking about it, not only at the college, but students prior to coming to Bryn Mawr. We know a lot of prospective students are concerned about this and that a lot of alums are going to work in related to the environment and are eager to come back and contribute to the college. Our vision of the new plan is to get students before they come to Bryn Mar to think about suitability, while students are here be involved in various ways, and then along with the alums. As an example, for customs, we talked about having some kind of event during customs week for the new students, orienting to sustainability at Bryn Mawr and educating them on the types of things they can to reduce carbon footprint. Hopefully make that happen this fall and ramp up the awareness. Overall mission statement that the group (mixture of faculty and students and staff) has come up with:
- The College will be a responsible environmental steward and will include issues of environmental sustainability in its decision-making processes.
- We aim to educate all members of the College community (students, staff, faculty) to become knowledgeable about issues of environmental sustainability.
An example of this is when Guild was repurposed for the deans offices they never considered any kind of green, sustainability issues in making that decision. It just did not occur to anyone that that would be something to think about. So going forward, that will be a policy when different types of decisions occur. In the 360 program, it has been a praxis course. And one of the teams talked about the Suitability Leadership Group and all of the initiatives that occurred around the college related to sustainability. More follow up on that in the fall visiting people in dorms. The first picture is of Taylor Hall when college when the college first started in 1885, there weren’t any trees. All of the trees on campus have been carefully plotted to create a beautiful environment, and I think from the beginning we can honestly say Bryn Mawr has been paying attention to environmental issues. The Rhoads pond got build around 2002 to deal with waste and water runoff and got a grant from the state of Pennsylvania; the going greener grant. We have used the rain water from the roof of Cambrian row through a piping system to water hillside. The big initiative that I want to get yon your horizon, it grew out of my math senior conference course a few years ago where the students were looking at math and sustainability and they were doing practice projects. One group looked on energy use on campus. The total footprint of the college is: 57% from electricity, 24% from fuels, 15% is air travel (faculty and staff on official business). A lot of use is from electricity and fuel and they wondered if there was a way to reduce the in buildings. They looked into a few buildings and realized some things. For example, they found out that the gateway building is kept open 24 hours a day and is heated to 70 degrees so that students could have meetings at the gateway building in the middle of the night. The point was that we realized we have been really wasteful because there were a lot of places where students do have meetings. And so how could we be more conservative minded? Simply turning down the temperature when no one is there. So we asked the staff when they wouldn’t be there. If no one is going to be there, our new plan, is that we will let the temperature go down to the 60s and then turn it back up in the morning. It seems mindboggling that we haven’t been doing that. We hope to save 4-5% by enacting that of our footprint. We are going to keep visiting with the faculty and students to think about if there are times and ways we can go into conservation mode and see how we can do this. Some of the buildings that we have met with have already given us a time when we can reduce the temperature. So we want to be working with you because some of the buildings, for example, Taylor Hall, there are classrooms in there, offices, is that a space that needs to be heated in the middle of the night? But we want to make sure there are spaces where students can go and do their work that will not be in conservation mode. The other challenge, how can some of the dorms contribute to this conservation mode?
Emma Rosemblum ‘14: I remember another college I saw when visiting schools did energy competitions in the dorms for the entire year. So it was which dorm could proportionally use the least in terms of lighting. They would consider the number of residences and have a scale and work off of that. I think whoever got the highest, got some extra thing for an event for the month. So there was incentive.
Karen Leitner ‘14: the greens in the past have done the energy diet for the month of February. We decided not to do this because it would be hard to figure out because some dorms are connected to other spaces. Like Rhoads to the dining hall. Facilities is working hard to see how much energy each dorm is using.
Victor Donnay: one of my math students is measuring the energy of each building using data from facilities and trying to figure out which are the most efficient. For example, we know that Rhoads is going to be kept open now during winter break and we hope they will use this data to see which dorms will be most energy efficient. Facilities is going to put in four new meters to get a better handle on the different temperatures. Getting these measurements is beginning to help inform what we do. We are asking for your creativity and ingenuity in our 360 and have looked at ways to reduce waste on campus. We are going to start with think kind of idea of if there are ways to reduce energy in the buildings. Our goal is to work with you to come up with good ideas and solutions to not impose things from top down.
Karen Leitner ’14: that is not something that we are going to decide right now. It will be a long conversation with ResCo. We are just planting the seeds so you keep it on your mind. So just wait for that. I wanted to say that the suitability 360 is having their presentations April 27 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm in Rhoads dining hall. You can hear about project happening on and off campus.
Victor Donnay: one thing we will be starting with in the fall is that we hoped the president would be able to fund this sustainability coordinator to be the central point and that our group can help coordinate all of the suitability things happening on campus. So we don’t have like 3 different events the same day. So we will be doing that in the fall, and working on better web presence. Lee is going to be working with public information this summer. We are hoping to come visit the dorms in the fall to get more input on that.
Appointments Introductions:
Vrinda Varia ‘13: individuals who just got appointed. Could come up and introduce themselves and state one goal. We are doing this to make SGA more transparent in terms of accountability. Hopefully the goals we say tonight we will be able to see in the future.
Student curriculum committee:
Rebekah Adams
Muna Agaalnemer
Kristie Oh
Goal: to be more visible to the student body and continue the work of past committee
Recycling committee Co-heads:
Alisha Park
Johanna Gauthier
Goal: is to encourage participating with recycling in dorms and on campus
Plenary committee:
Natalie Zamora
Syona Arora
Nora Scheland
Eunhae Lee
Goal: is to increase the number of people who want to come to plenary by advertising certain resolutions on campus to all grades. Continue on path that has been set up for us.
Film Series Head:
Kimberly DeRosa
Film Series Committee:
Samone Rowe
Stephanie Bredbenner
Quinn Conlan
Nora Scheland
Goal: Main goal is to increase attendance at film series. To do this we are hoping people will look up our facebook page, which is a new way we are going to reduce paper usage on campus rather than posters.
Elections Board:
Nkechi Ampah
Michelle Lee
Stephanie Clarke
Pamudu Tennakoon
Goal: is to change elections website to be more user friendly
Seven Sisters Council Representative:
Nkechi Ampah
Goal: Strengthen alumni network
BMCS co-heads:
Vanessa Ide and Julia Sakamoto
BMCS Officers:
Jacinda Tran
Zoe Colman
Hannah Tucker
Ava Cotlowitz
Goal: to host a public forum to get feedback. We sent out a survey last semester, so another will go out to wrap up and see how we did and get feedback about what you want to see next semester.
Health Center Advisory Board:
Kristina Sandquist
Saba Qadir
Mary Miller
Deborah Centeio
Shireen SaxenaChristina
Goal: target health related issues that are in the community
Kendra Kelly ‘13: the results from that survey we took for the health center, when will they be published?
Saba Qadir ‘13: that information is being compiled right now, so expect it to be published and a discussion in SGA.
Honor Board Hearing Discussion:
Irene Shin ‘13: so in the bylaws for honor board, it says the honor board head presents the abstracts. However tis happened last semester during fall and there were issues that were raised to the old honor board head of confidentiality being breached. Should we continue on with these abstracts in SGA? That being said, they will still be available to students on the blog and emailed out as well, just not in this setting.
Adelyn Kishbaugh ‘12: what were the concerns that were brought?
Priya Saxena ‘12: some people who emailed me regarding the presentation of the honor board hearings as well as the sending out of the abstracts. What happens with the presentation is that you say more in depth description, which goes over personal issues that person might have had a the time. The abstracts that are sent out to everyone just gives the bare bones of the infraction.
In my personal opinion, we don’t need two forums to distribute the abstracts; it is a waste of time. I think that if it goes out by email, that that is more than enough. If Irene were to present the resolutions, there are no changes you can do. So people then emailed me about the amount of information being presented.
Irene Shin ‘13: anyone else have input on this?
Aya Martin-Seaver ‘13: is this the only time that the honor board gives a report to the SGA as a body? If it is the only interaction, there is some reason for this interaction.
Irene Shin ‘13: yeah, but we could talk about other ways of being transparent if that is of concern.
Blair Smith ‘12: I think that what Aya said that presenting is a great way to be accountable. The issue is a breach of personal confidentiality, making it less transparent.
Priya Saxena ‘12: I was going to say that in terms of interacting with SGA, it is important to remember that honor board doesn’t come to SGA to keep the two separate. In terms of honor board interacting, it is increasing with you (Irene).
Emma Rosenblum ‘14: can we change the times that this happens? So that way of things are presented in SGA, it would be less personal (making it 8 semester)
Priya Saxena ‘12: that is how it works now.
Sarah Theobaold ‘12: are the honor board members not supposed to come to SGA?
Irene Shin ‘13: they are not required to come to SGA.
VOTE:
Yes, Irene will edit the bylaw: 3
No, Irene will not edit the bylaws: 5
Abstain: 16
Blair Smith ‘12: why are we abstaining?
Adelyn Kishbaugh ‘12: I don’t believe I have enough expertise or knowledge of this situation. It is the honor board’s presentation, so I believe I don’t know enough or have any right to say anything about it. I don’t really know enough.
Nkechi Ampah ‘15: I think that the honor board has other ways to do this present without breaching confidentiality and still be accountable
Blair Smith ‘12: I think it is hard because a lot of the board is young and doesn’t know because they haven’t experienced one of these presentations. So maybe having another presentation in the fall and then discuss if it is appropriate
Kendra Kelly ‘13: Is think this would be an appropriate way. To have a presentation on any themes that come up as a result of the honor board presentation, so then the assembly has an active role in discussing what is going on.
Ali Raeber ‘13: I think because we have this vague idea that we could do something else, but we don’t know what that is, we aren’t clear what we want
Adelyn Kishbaugh ‘12: would an option be to figure out what parts are inappropriate and eliminating those details, maybe talking about themes in a way so that no one feels uncomfortable.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: this is what we are going to do. Let’s look at some sort of honor board presentation thing next semester, probably not in the same format that it has been presented to SGA before, but looking in terms of a new way that the same messages can come across. So a new way that the presentation can become more fair. Once we present that we, we can have a conversation about whether or not that is an appropriate means of doing that.
New business:
Karina Siu ‘14: how many people have been to an athletic event this year?
(people raised hands)
Old business:
Blair Smith ’12 and Lee McClenon ‘14: we presented a plenary resolution to create a ResCo fund. We wanted to report on that before we leave for the end of the year. We have talked to facilities about a bunch of projects and they are matching us on projects, but we don’t know exactly what they are going to be able to cover and what we are going to cover. So it will probably be voted on in the fall because things will be done over the summer. So housekeeping is figuring out what they are going to do anyways without us putting money in, so one that is established for the fall. Are there any questions?
Emily Kirchner ‘12: what is an example of an exciting thing?
Lee McClenon ’14: improving light in Rhoads, Denbigh common room, new furniture in rock, laundry shelving units, alternatives for spaces.
Saba Qadir ‘13: what is happening with the rock cushions?
Lee McClenon ‘14: rock is getting all new carpeting and furniture this summer.
Nkechi Ampah ‘15: is rock getting new bathrooms?
Lee McClenon ‘14: not that I have heard.
Blair Smith ‘12: point of information, rocks bathrooms are relatively new.