SGA Meeting 11/04/12
Vrinda starts the meeting at 7:10pm.
Absent: Alice Fischer, Kayla Bondi, Sarah Bristow, Anika Ali, Christine Newville, Taj Meyer, Kelly Wilkinson, Marian Slocum, Xavia Miles, Kaeun Bae, Nikki Ditto, Nitya Hajela
Announcements:
Vrinda Varia ‘13: November 6th is elections. Actual elections, not Bryn Mawr elections. So remember to vote if you are voting in Pennsylvania. Molly, do you want to say something about them?
Molly Kaufman ‘14: I am Molly and I am the Civic Engagement Representative. You should have received an email earlier in the week from Ellie Esmond who runs the CEO at Bryn Mawr and on Election Day we will be coordinating rides to the polls to ensure that everyone has a chance to vote if you are registered in PA. If you have any questions as me, or email Emily Esmond (eesmond@brynmawr.edu) directly.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: the Deans Office is hosting a viewing party in Thomas Great Hall as the numbers are coming in on November 6th at 8pm.
Tyler Garber ‘14: applications for appointments positions are on moodle. They will be closed on November 11th at 5pm. If you know anyone interested in the following appointed positions, please encourage them to apply. Check them out on the appointments blog or on moodle.
Positions up for appointments:
- Access Services Representative
- Computer Access Coordinator
- Customs Committee
- Customs Committee Co-Head
- Financial Aid Advisory Board
- Independent Major Representative
- Orientation Reorganization Committee
Your Two Cents:
Irene Shin ‘13: so I am interested in if people would go to TGH and use TGH as a quiet study space during finals week. It would be a space where you could eat food, so it would be a way to prevent eating in the libraries. The trick is though, it would only be available starting Monday of finals week, not the weekend beforehand.
Devanshi Vaid ‘13: would it be open 24 hours?
Irene Shin ‘13: I can look that up. I want a straw pool in that.
Julia Stuart ‘13: I think depending on whether it is 24 hours or not, could that be an option?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: yeah. So let’s say the options are yes if it is not 25 hours, yes if its 24 hours, no if its 24 hours, no, and abstain.
Hannah Lehman ‘13: would there be more seating, desks and stuff like that?
Irene Shin ‘13: yes
Straw Poll:
Yes it would be used even if it is not 24 hours: majority
It would only be used if it’s a 24 hours space: minority
Abstain: few
No: none
Vrinda Varia ‘13: if we can see if it is possible for it to be open 24 hours, it would be beneficial. Irene has been looking into getting a space where we could study and eat in so that the libraries do not get gross. More information will come.
Seven Sisters Updates
Vrinda Varia ‘13: as you know a bunch of us from the Eboard and some community members had the opportunity to go to Smith as part of the Seven Sisters Leadership Conference. Topics focused on the Women in Public Service Project, which you might know is a project that the State Department is working on with the Seven Sisters Colleges in looking at getting 50% participation of women in public service by the year 2050. There are different ways in which the project is being taken on by the different colleges. Bryn Mawr is hosting a colloquium next summer and mostly these events are being targeted to 25-40 year olds who are at the beginning of their careers. They are still trying to figure out ways to involve students and undergraduates in particular into the program. That is a conversation that we as student leaders will be talking about. We want to give you all a little feed back that we had, not only in talking about the Women in Public Service Project, but also in talking about the collaborating with the Seven Sisters Colleges. As you also might know, we have a Seven Sisters Council/Coordinating Board that is working to better connect the Seven Sisters Colleges and develop a consortium on the student level because each of the colleges still identify on the administrative level. So we are in the process of still developing a constitution and a mission statement. So as soon as we have something drafted, we will bring it back to you guys and decide whether it is something we still want to continue to participate in.
It is a really wonderful opportunity to meet other students that understand our college experience. It provides a lot more insight into getting to notice things at Bryn Mawr. I was hoping that if everyone who went to the conference could come up and say a few words about the experience
Amanda Kennedy ‘13: I went to the conference as a community member. I thought it was a great experience to interact with people and students from other seven sisters colleges. Before this conference I never got the opportunity to do that and it was a great way to network and learn about issues that have arisen and that they face on their campuses. I feel if we come together as a seven sisters schools, it would not only raise awareness, but also provide support.
Kate Elliot ‘13: I attended the conference as a community member. Something that I learned was about how the different SGAs function on the various campuses and how unique Bryn Mawr’s SGA. That was something that was really great to see and share with the other leaders from the seven sisters and learn more about how leadership works and how they envision leadership on the campuses. So then we learned how we can work to together and use our different resources and techniques to better leadership.
Lija Geller ‘15: I went as a McBride representative. For me seeing the other nontraditional programs was very interesting and the way that they run. Bryn Mawr is definitely the smallest out of the other sister schools. They usually have 100-200 women in the nontraditional programs. So seeing how they have on campus housing and their involvement in the community was really interesting. Also seeing how various SGAs were set up. It gave me a lot of positive feeling about the SGA that Bryn Mawr has as well.
Elizabeth Riley ‘14: I went as a community member. One of the best things about the conference was we had a meeting about social justice on the campus, and I think the big take away message was that the seven sisters need to collaborate more and support each other more with instances like the thing at Barnard and Columbia and Obama. They really wanted support in writing. Stuff that Wellesley and Smith are having. So I think we are going to try and stay connected through social media.
Vrinda Varia ‘13: thank you so much for coming. Special thank you, it has been a crazy weekend with probably more than 18 hours in a car with these girls. I think you should all be very proud of these women. They represented Bryn Mawr in a very very wonderful way, and it was a really heartwarming thing to see how Mawrters can come and represent our school and ourselves. So thanks you guys. As a side note, for those of you who are interested in working with the seven sisters council in our development, feel free to get in touch with Sarah Shaw (sjshaw@brynmawr.edu) and Caylyn Perry (cperry@brynmawr.edu) because they are the seven sisters reps along with Natalie and I. They are not here because they are returning our van, but if you have any questions or are interested in pursuing looking into this with them, email them. We are also going to have a blog post up, so read it!
Big Cheese Continued
Vrinda Varia ‘13: I contacted the administrators’ with a list of the conversation points we came up with, but in looking at this list in what we formed, we were finding that there were some things that we could probably work out in the assembly and the assembly could take on roles. So we wanted to bring that back to you and talk with specific assembly members about whether or not those particular projects would be feasible for them.
Kersti Francis ‘13: can you put the link to the blog post for the seven sisters in the minutes when you send it out?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: yeah. These were the topics we formed as a complication of what we discussed.
Irene Shin ‘13: Okay so these were the topics from last time:
1) Perry House: In light of the recently passed Plenary resolution, are there any plans to renovate Perry House? Is this actually feasible?
2) SEPTA funding: What are the statistics regarding student use about this? It seems that people like it and use it, is there an opportunity to increase funding for it?
3) Campus-wide Renovations: What renovations should we expect in the next year on campus? How is the green doing after the renovations this summer? Some student feedback on: student parking, seating on the turfs, Haffner, and Canaday
4) Academics: In looking at grading, is the discussion of implement a 3.5 grade feasible? Why do we not have one? Does this grade “deflation” impact us in looking for jobs and graduate programming?
5) Health Center: What does our health insurance actually cover? How has Obama Care impacted this?
6) Merit/Need Based Scholarships: Do we have both at Bryn Mawr? How is one eligible? Can current students apply?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: the other re-envisioning Big Cheese is a part of the conversation that we talked about actually having a structured presentation and time for questions on that topic. So an administrator will talk for x amount of time and then we will ask questions specifically for x amount of time so we can go through all of these topics in detail. I know this is getting into the nitty-gritty, but I want us to go through figure out all of the details because we want to make the most out of it. So those are the topics we came up with. The other topics we had outlined were:
SGA finances and in looking at this afterwards, Sowmya and I decided we could figure out more information and talk to John Griffith and get more information. So we will look into getting that so we do not have to allot that time specifically. Something else that we thought we could work on was there was a point where we talked to Grounds about giving them more insight about traditions and important spaces on campus. So that things like the friendship poles will not be an issue in the future. Somebody suggested making a fact sheet to distribute, so we are going to talk to traditions about being able to do that directly. We were just giving them time after lantern night. Even the renovations, Linh Tong, the Campus Greening rep who works with Ed Harmon who works on buildings and grounds could act as a liaison for these conversations as well as with ResCo. In looking in on intercollegiate public safety conversation, that is something that COPS Heads are going to move forward in so we will hear back from them once they obtain that information. ResCo will also bring up the fact that Wi-Fi is poo and how the Wi-Fi could be better. Is everyone comfortable with the new form of Big Cheese? Does everyone understand?
Diana Tive ‘15: how much time are we giving administrators?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: I have not defined time how much time because I wanted to see if we were going to add more topics and what not. I was thinking 2-3 minutes for them to talk and present information at us and then we could ask questions from 4-5 minutes about that topic. If no one is asking questions about that topic, then we can move onto the next one.
Diana Tive’15: what if a topic is heated?
Vrinda Varia ‘13: someone can motion for a certain amount of time. I want people to be mindful of the fact that there might be questions that people have that may not be able to be covered by these topics, so I want to keep a certain amount of time for that. I also think that it would be nice for admin to be able to ask us questions. I know it is hard to try and cram everything, but I think it is important that we cover all of the topics we want to be able to. I am waiting for administrative approval to get this policy change and that they are in accordance as well. But like I said last week, please come with questions for Big Cheese. We do not want to look like we are wasting their time and we want to get something out of this. Not a lot of schools are able to have this conversation with administrators. It is really something awesome that they are taking their time to do and something that we should be able to take advantage of. So come with questions, bring friends. The next time you have this won’t be until March so make use out of it. We will email out a list of administrators that will becoming once we have that list finalized.