SGA Meeting 04/14/13
Natalie calls the meeting to order at 7:10 PM.
Absent: Hannah Lehman, Chloe Baumann, Jenn Burns, Maddy Court, Kersti Francis, Muna Aghaalnemer, Raminta Holden, Nikki Ditto, Morgan Turner, Sam Terry, Lucy Gleysteen, Hannah Smith
Natalie Kato ’14: Welcome, prospective students!
Announcements:
Michelle Lee ’15: Elections start tomorrow at 9 AM until Tuesday April 16th at 7 PM. Make sure you tell everybody to vote! If you are a senior you can still vote. I need some people to volunteer to table to tell people to vote. Thanks!
Karina Siu ’14: This past weekend, Claudia Keep broke the school record in the 5K with a time of 17 minutes 35 seconds. Kat Magner on lacrosse scored 100th career goal against Haverford.
Also, crew is having a fan appreciation regatta this weekend in Philly. Interested in traveling down with SAAC? We have a van reserved! I will take names down for this Saturday. Tennis has a game on Friday against Swat at 4 PM. Lacrosse has a game at 1 PM on Saturday.
If you are interested in making a team for a cycle-a-thon next Friday, contact me. Make a team of 6 or contact me individually to be put on a team!
Ali Raeber ’13: Dorm president elections are still going on. Nominations are open until next Sunday. I will be tabling at room draws on Wednesday and Thursday. Please encourage people to be dorm presidents, or do it again! Senior assembly members, if you could help me out by running elections in your dorms, that would be so helpful. Email me araeber@brynmawr.edu.
Amanda Beardall ‘14: We’ll be volunteering with Weaver’s Way, an urban non-profit, two weeks from now, on April 27th from 10 to 4. Celebrate Arbor Day with the CEO!
This Saturday, April 20th, from 12-4, art club is having their spring event, Brynstock. We’re having henna and tie dye and it’s hippie themed. It’s on Thomas Green, rainsite TGH.
Natalie Kato ’14: Pets on the Green is on April 26th from 3PM to 5PM on Erdman Green/Wyndham Green.
Sarah Bristow ’14: There will be strawberries on May Day.
Your 2 Cents:
Big Cheese Forum Recap:
Natalie Kato ’14: Last week was the Big Cheese forum. We had some great discussions with the administration. We did have a question about how many students are going abroad in the spring and fall 2013-2014. Those numbers have yet to be made official because students have not yet confirmed when they will be abroad, but we have been told about 80 in the fall and 30 to 40 in the spring. We have also been told that Dean Rasmussen is very sure that everybody will be given housing in the fall. There will be a space for everyone. We were also wondering if anyone had any feedback for future big cheese meetings. You can say it now or email us at sga@brynmawr.edu. If there were any questions that went unanswered, please feel free to email us and we can get answers.
Presentations from Sustainability Initiatives on Campus:
Natalie Kato ’14: Lee McClenon, from the Sustainability Leadership Group, will come up first. Different groups and organizations on campus have been making great strides in sustainability initiatives and we would like to hear what they have done over the past year and where they are going in the future.
Lee McClenon ’14: I am an intern with the Sustainability Leadership Group on campus. This is a great opportunity to give out some updates about what is going on around campus.
The SLG is a committee formed of faculty, staff, and students. I am on it, the head of Greens is on it, Natalie sits on it, the chair is from the math department, a dean comes, somebody from admissions… We have been charged with overseeing policy recommendations for the college.
The college will be a responsible environmental steward and try to include environmental sustainability in decision-making. Also, aiming to educate members of the college community to be knowledgeable and take action on environmental issues.
One of the main things that we do, what the committee was born out of, is carbon commitment and climate commitment. We signed that in 2008. The goal is to reduce on campus CO2 emissions by 10% within a decade. We are halfway there. In our original audit, we had the overall emissions: 3% from commuting professors, 14% is from air travel for professors, on campus heating, electricity use. Electricity use uses up most of what we end up emitting. We are targeting cutting down on electricity and heating use. The percentages are what were expected about where our savings would come from. Optimizing equipment would be in Park. Park is 1/3rd of our energy on campus. That is being looked into. Green technology is 1%, but it has been a lot more with LED light bulbs. The culture of conservation: getting students to turn off lights, unplug things. Operational protocols: the new heating conservation hours that the Green ambassadors will talk about.
Here are some of the recent successes from the SLG:
- There are now LED light bulbs in many places. For example, all of the light bulbs in the chandeliers in TGH are LED. Those light bulbs are hard to change, but now they have been running for 15 months and not one has burned out.
- Brecon was turned into the first 100% LED dorm. Most dorms have LEDs in common areas. Facilities is working hard to roll out LED fixtures in each dorms. We need specially designed fixtures for what we already have.
- Conservation hours are happening not only in dorms but also academic buildings.
- We have recently made a commitment to get half of our electricity use from wind. We have a contract with PECO now that we are paying to get half of our energy from wind. It costs just pennies more. We have gotten 10-20% from wind, but now we will get 50%. That is a big way to cutting down 10% of CO2 emissions overall.
- Telemotion: it came out of the environmental studies senior seminar and will be a pilot project next year. There will be TV monitors in dorms – East, West and Denbigh – a TV monitor that shows, real time, how much energy is being used in the dorm. It will be a graph of how much energy is used. It is trying to contribute to the culture of conservation, show people what is going on, and be very interactive.
- We got solar panels on Cambrian Row. They are powering the houses on Cambrian Row.
- The trees on campus have been marked and labeled, a lot of them have QR codes. You can use your phone to look up information. That came out of grounds, and Ed Harmon is really excited about it.
A couple things the SLG is looking forward to for the next semester:
- In order to continue with our climate commitment through the official organization, we have to run an audit to make sure that we are on progress. It must be done by professionals and costs $15,000. We don’t have that money right now. I want to get feedback: Should that be a priority for us? Should that money be spent on other things?
- We are trying to get a Green Coordinator position for campus: a support for Green groups, an administrative contact, help run programming for the environmental studies senior seminar, bring in speakers, update the website, help with publicity… we have this support for some issues but not for sustainability, which is a growing demand.
- We are thinking about green architecture on campus. There are renovation projects going on. Think about how we can incorporate green architecture or conservation in those buildings.
Natalie Kato ’14: Does anyone questions right now about sustainability issues?
Stephanie Clarke ’13: Would the Green Coordinator position be elected or appointed?
Lee McClenon ‘14: That would be an administrative, paid position. Probably a part-time staff, somebody who would be a support program for the environmental studies minor because they only get 3 hours of administrator support a week. This person would fill that need and also help support Green groups to help coordinate running Earth Day celebrations or bringing in speakers or helping coordinate our audit! The SLG is now made up of volunteers. It would be a tremendous step for Bryn Mawr to have a paid position. It would show our commitment to sustainability to have someone who works actual time on this.
Natalie Kato ’14: Does anyone else have any other questions for Lee?
Marian Slocum ’15: The TV monitors in each dorm: How much energy would those take up? Would those run 24 hours a day?
Lee McClenon ‘14: I don’t have the exact numbers on this project. This project came about through the environmental studies senior seminar. They ran all the numbers and have looked into it: how much energy you are expected to save. They expected to save 8% energy in each dorm. It’s supposed to make up its own energy and more.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anybody have any other questions for Lee? If you think of more, you can ask at the end. Next coming up are the Green Ambassadors.
Johanna Gauthier ’13: We are the Green Ambassadors co-heads. We were formerly the Recycling Committee but expanded our responsibilities. We are a dorm-based committee, basically an attaché between facilities, the administration, and the students in the dorms. Each dorm has one or two representatives who attend weekly meetings where we talk about how we can make dorm life more sustainable. We take these ideas and talk with facilities and try and see if there is something that we can be doing to make life greener in the dorms.
Alisha Park ’13: How many people have heard about dorm conservation hours? That’s one of our biggest projects. In the fall/winter, we surveyed 300 people in the dorms abou what times would be best for students to turn down the heat. We came up with the hours 11 AM to 3 PM, Monday through Friday. We purposely did not choose night and weekend hours. Right now the dorm heating is set at 70 degrees. During conservation hours they go down to about 67 degrees. We are working with facilities to get the temperature down to 65 degrees.
We are doing sustainability teas, working with HAs and dorm reps in order to have open conversations with students in the dorms about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint.
Johanna Gauthier ‘13: We have the Free Light Bulb Exchange. We have LED light bulbs that are very efficient. You can bring an old light bulb and drop it off, and you can take a new, free light bulb. You can pick it up from Alisha’s room in Denbigh 221. It’s a good way to become more efficient.
We also take care of the red bins. In each dorm, on the first floor near the entrance way – that’s where you can drop off light bulbs, computer batteries, electronics… we can take them down to facilities so you don’t have to worry about it. We also have recycling stickers! They’re from the SLG. We’ve been putting them up in dorms; the SLG has been putting them in academic buildings. We’ve been putting them in common areas and bathrooms to remind people to be efficient. We have also been putting up posters on what can be recycled, which were recycled by the SLG. Now what we are working on is something during Customs week. We designed a guide for an event to bring sustainability to students right when they are entering Bryn Mawr. People come from all over the world with different backgrounds in sustainability.
Alisha Park ’13: How many of you know about composting in the dining halls? We are trying to get composting in the dorms so that students can compost on every floor. We cannot have black composting bins because it violates health code, but hopefully student representatives on the committee will be responsible for composting by the garden. We will continue the Light Bulb Exchange next year. Our committee members are dedicated to having more sustainability teas. We are continuing the red bin program.
Johanna Gauthier ‘13: Our dream: Red bins on every hall so that they are more noticeable. We are hoping to get sustainability stickers for freshmen, so they can put them on water bottles or laptops and raise more visibility.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anyone have questions for the Green Ambassadors, or about their appointed positions, or about what they have been doing throughout the year?
Next up is Greens.
Michaela Olson ’15: I am the President of Greens.
Meg Sumner-Moore ’15: I am the Secretary.
Sofia Oleas ’15: I am the Treasurer.
Michaela Olson ‘15: We are the main sustainability group on campus. We are who people contact from outside organizations if they want to have an event on campus. We have a seat on the SLG – Meg sits on it. We are in direct contact with faculty and staff members. We are also an open club! We meet on Wednesday at 8 PM in Taylor C. Everyone is welcome. We have six executive board members, and various general members. This structure will change in the coming year. We plan events with other Green groups and reach out to non-environmentally focused groups on campus. We are sustainability representatives to other groups. The BMC Democrats had an event and we brought a cohort to that meeting. We are also the umbrella organization for the garden and for bike share, which is happening soon.
Meg Sumner-Moore ‘15: We had a lot of stuff going on. In the fall we held an environmental forum. We got a lot of ideas about what everyone on campus thinks about green and sustainability. There was an environmental studies mixer that the minors set up. We started the bike share at the end of spring 2012 and developed it over this year. The garden committee is also housed underneath us. We also co-sponsored the Activism Training in January. We have been doing green-focused discussions in weekly meetings. We talked about GMOs, and an upcoming talk will be on ecotourism.
Our big event coming up is Saturday April 20th. It’s Earth Day! Most green groups will be holding activities then.
Michaela Olson ’15: There are posters everywhere. There will be planting in the garden, and music – it’s going to be really fun.
Moving into the next slide – we have been organizing ‘big green meetings’. They are events which bring together members from all sustainability groups on campus. We have the SLG, the Environmental Justice League, Batten House, Green Ambassadors, Garden, Bikes… We are hoping to continue with that as a mission for next year: to have coordination between environmental groups for coordination and planning for more big events, with speakers.
We are going to have more e-forums. It would be regular discussions that we would be able to have around topics of sustainability. There are lots of interesting debates and discussions to be had.
We are also working towards a slightly different structure. Next year we hope to have two SGA liaisons or group head coordinators who will be able to streamline the administrative process of Greens and make our organization a little bit simpler and have a rotating facilitation of our meetings and the events that we sponsor. We also will have a liaison between students and administrators.
Rebecca Thayil ’16: Bikes has been gaining a lot of momentum. Last semester, we got mechanic-trained so we know how to repair bikes. We had two bike workshops. The bike share starts on Monday. On Thursday there will be an event at Haverford for learning how to ride in traffic; it’s a bike safety event. On Saturday, along with Earth Day, we have a “learn to ride your bike” event.
Maiya Zwerling ’13: Parking Day is an international day where we reclaim parking spaces and bring attention to the fact that there is so much space in the world for cars to sit, or move, or drive. On Parking Day, you reclaim a parking space and that space becomes a public park. We are reclaiming part of Wyndham. It will be closed on Friday and Saturday.
I have been the Garden Coordinator since I was a freshman. I founded the garden with two people who graduated last year. I will be passing on the Garden Coordinator position to Frankie! She was hired by the CEO. Just to give you guys a little idea about the garden: it’s between Haffner and Wyndham. We’re a vegetable garden. We grow a lot of food for Haffner during the summer.
Frankie Leech ‘16: This year we’ve had a lot of great gardening days. On Fridays from two to four, we and a bunch of volunteers to go the garden and do a bunch of weeding, we plant, we pick… whatever we pick, we bring to the dining hall. A lot of the tomatoes, some lettuce and bok choy are from the garden. It’s great to have volunteers come every Friday.
Maiya Zwerling ‘13: In the last year, I realized that we want to make sure that this is a permanent position on campus. We worked with the CEO to create a paid position for the garden. It is a position similar to Overbrook tutoring.
Garden initiatives have expanded in the last year. Part of it has been taking field trips. We have volunteered; we went to the Urban Tree Connection thanks to the CEO. We have been able to learn from the urban gardens and bring back techniques and enact them in our garden. We have an herb spiral that we got from Weaver’s Way.
In the last year, we doubled the size of our garden. We are a production-based garden. We are growing asparagus, lettuce… this is going to feed you guys in the dining hall and add a healthy option!
Frankie Leech ’16: Next semester we are hoping to expand what we are growing. We are primarily planting and picking during the fall and spring, and during the winter the garden is dormant. We are going to try to have winter planting. We will continue growing dark green veggies.
We are also hoping to increase outreach. This year we did some outreach with the ACPPA, which is an after-school art program for students in elementary and middle school in Norristown. We had a mural-painting activity. We had some interest from the Baldwin students as well as some Girl Scouts. We hope to have them come in and volunteer in the garden next year as well.
Maiya Zwerling ’13: Just a plug for Earth Day: Saturday is our yearly planting. All the food in the greenhouse is going into the ground. We need your help! We are asking for volunteers. This is my last planting and I would love to see a lot of people there.
Syona Arora ‘15: What are you growing in the green house?
Maiya Zwerling ‘13: In the past we’ve grown whatever we wanted, but now we are trying to grow things that the dining hall will use. We are growing lettuces, bok choy… there is a patch of asparagus in the garden. We’re hoping that it will become the token crop of the garden, at least in the spring, summer, and fall. We have tomatoes and different types of greens. We are trying to focus on production to make sure that all the food is going to you guys.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anyone have any questions for Greens? They will be here to answer questions, or you can email Michaela.
Next up is the Sustainable Food Committee.
Anne Claire Grammer ’16: I am co-leader of the Sustainable Food Committee.
Piper Martz ’16: I am also a co-leader. We are also missing another co-leader. We act as a connection between dining services and students. Our aim is to create transparency and also to be more proactive in increasing the sustainability of our food practices.
Anne Claire Grammer ‘16: We created the Real Food Challenge, which is a national campaign that tries to see more real food in college dining services. There are four things that constitute as real food: anything that is ecologically sound, anything that is fair, anything that is local, and anything that is humane. This year we tried to create more general transparency with dining services by having weekly and monthly meetings with them.
Piper Martz ‘16: Bryn Mawr is just about officially joining the Real Food Challenge, along with Villanova, Haverford, St. Joseph’s, UPenn… hundreds of schools are doing this. We started our own club, the Real Food Challenge Club, to get students interested in calculating for us. If you have any interest, contact us.
We are also focusing on creating a strong relationship with dining services. We want to talk to them and figure about what we can do to make their lives easier and to help them be more ecologically sound and financially efficient.
Anne Claire Grammer ‘16: Some of our goals for next year: the main one is to begin calculating the invoices. An invoice is the roster that dining services will give us that says what we’re buying, who we’re buying it from, and where we’re buying it. We want to start analyzing them and putting them through a ‘calculator’ that will help us see what percentage Bryn Mawr is at for real foods. We want to start that next fall, and hopefully it will reflect current dining patterns.
Piper Martz ‘16: We can figure out where we stand on realness and see what movement we need to bring us to 20%. Villanova is now at 15%. We want to get to 20% by 2020! We also want to initiate a student behavior campaign. Part of dining services problems isn’t just budget, financial things – it is also student behavior. We want to inform students about waste control, composting, portion awareness, and take-out boxes. Many of you have realized that take-out can only be used five times a week. This has had an incredible impact financially and in general for dining services. We used to be in the triple digits – about 300 take out boxes a day – to now 80 a day. It can definitely be lowered. We are going to amp up our transparency and visibility with some campaigns and forums and movie nights.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Does anyone have any questions for the Sustainable Food Committee? Feel free to contact them or us.
Next up is the Earth Justice League.
Lee McClenon ’14: I’m not an intern, now I’m a club member.
Sofia Oleas ’15: I am the Earth Justice League treasurer. We are the Earth Justice League. We are a non-violent direct action group focused on social and environmental justice activities. In the fall last year we worked with PNC Bank because they finance mountaintop removal, which is a detrimental type of coal mining. We have been protesting along with organizations outside of Bryn Mawr in order to show the distaste of the practice. We have been focusing on fossil fuel divestment, due to the effects that extracting fuels has on the environment and on society, especially in the area, like front line communities that are getting the brunt of the effects right now.
Lee McClenon ‘14: Some of y’all have heard about the divestment campaign. We are asking the Board of Trustees, which controls our endowment, to divest from fossil fuels. Our endowment is about $700 million. We are targeting a set of 200 companies that have the most carbon reserves. Companies that already own oil, gas, and coal that are underground and that they are ready to extract. These companies have the most reserves and the most potential to make a difference in combating climate change. We have met with the Board of Trustees in February and are lucky to go to a school that respects student opinion. We got information about the concerns of the board in terms of how practical divestment is, where to draw the line on what is a fossil fuel company, what we might divest from, what that might look like. We are working with them to see what could make the biggest impact as part of the social movement to make a change. We as students care about climate change and think that we need to make good progress on that really fast. We see divestment as a tool for that.
We are meeting on April 25th with the investments committee. We will be talking to get a more concrete answer about what Bryn Mawr needs to move forward on the issue. More information will come out in the next couple of weeks. Does anybody have any questions about divestment or Earth Justice League?
Marian Slocum ’15: Does this include companies that use natural gas?
Lee McClenon ‘14: The 200 that we’re working with is 100 coal companies and 100 gas and oil companies.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Are there any other questions?
Nora Scheland ’15: Did you say when the decision would be made by the Board of Trustees?
Lee McClenon ‘14: We are meeting with them on April 25th. We are going to push to get a real answer. In February they made recommendations. Now we are meeting with the most powerful trustees, and they are the decision-making body. If they decide, we will divest. We are afraid of indecision. If that happens, the Earth Justice League will take it next semester to ramp up student involvement to make a push to the board to say that it is something that people care about and that they need to make a decision.
Natalie Kato ’14: Are there any other questions for the Earth Justice League? Okay, Lee is going to wrap things up now.
Lee McClenon ‘15: There are a few things that I would really appreciate getting some feedback on. First I want to go back to this idea about our climate commitment. How many of y’all knew that we had a climate commitment? The SLG is at an impasse right now. There are two options. We can either continue to pursue this climate commitment, which we’re really likely to succeed at this summer when the wind energy kicks in. The problem is that we need $15,000 to run the official audit. We need to decide if that is something that is worth our time and money and effort so that we can make a public announcement. The second option is to say that we can’t do that, and that there are other green programs that we can pursue. This climate commitment is just about energy use on campus, and we committed to that 5 years ago. We could start working towards something else. I wanted get feedback, information, thoughts, questions…
Kendra Kelly ’13: Could we wait to do the audit at the end of the 10 years?
Lee McClenon ‘14: In order to remain current and in the organization, we have to run an audit within the next 18 months.
Emily Tong ’13: Where would the money come from?
Lee McClenon ‘14: We haven’t asked for money yet because we don’t know. This would be a big push to get it into the budget. If I could go to the SLG and say that SGA really wants the audit to happen, we really want it to happen, then we could to go the treasurer. That’s what I’m looking for. It isn’t going to come from salaries… it’s hard to say with financial things.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Any other questions, comments, or thoughts for Lee?
Ali Raeber ’13: What is the value to us as an institution?
Lee McClenon ‘14: The institutional value around a lot of sustainability issues is getting media attention. It’s valuable for us, our moral values, we are saving a lot of money… But the reason we subscribe to wind energy is not just because it’s awesome but also so that we can announce to the world that Bryn Mawr cares about sustainability. If we are able to hit that 10%, especially in five to six years instead of ten years, then that garners more attention. It is 30% of what the college tries to do: to advertise itself to get more donors, to get more attention for student retention, it makes your degree more valuable when you hear the name. That’s a lot of what the college does, and this is one way of branding the college, in addition to being a really responsible thing to do.
Emily Tong ’13: If we did get the audit, it would happen during the summer. Is that the best time of the year to make the announcement?
Lee McClenon ‘14: It would take some time. What I’m asking right now is if is worth asking for the money. Then we would have to hire somebody and it would take three to six months to run the audit and then we would come out with the announcement maybe in the spring.
Nora Scheland ‘15: If we do the audit and they say that we reduced CO2 by 10%, what happens next? What do we do for the next five years? What else can we get out of it besides media attention? Are we going to try to reduce it more to make a bigger statement at the end of the ten years?
Lee McClenon ‘14: That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer to that. That’s a question that I will bring back to the SLG.
Emma Rosenblum ’14: I was wondering if there is anything along the lines of the school giving grants to help fund projects?
Lee McClenon ‘14: Some colleges have a green rotating fund. They have a pot that may be $15,000 that could be used to, for example, buy light bulbs, and then we would put money that would be saved from saving energy back into the pot to fund these grant opportunities when we need the money. That’s one idea that we’ve been milling around. That could be an initiative that SGA could take on, help us lobby for, and put together.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Are there any other questions for Lee? If not, I think it would be great if you went to SLG and we could get some feedback and invite you to a future meeting and get some of your questions answered.
Lee McClenon ‘14: One last announcement: I’m an intern, but I’m graduating next year and SLG is hoping to hire a second person for next year’s academic year to be with me so that they can be trained. If you’re interested in this position or know somebody who would be interested, let me know! We’re also looking for someone to work this summer. You might be doing something with climate commitment. If you’re interested in sustainability or climate issues, that could be a really awesome summer position. Email me at lmcclenon@brynmawr.edu.
Posting Policy Review:
Natalie Kato ’14: Natalie Zamora has been revising the posting policy. She has held a few office hours and has gotten feedback and is here to update us on what she is done. After she goes over the changes that she has made, and after we do some questions and comments, we will vote on if SGA is happy with this new posting policy or if we want to continue the discussion.
Natalie Zamora ’14: The things that are highlighted are things that people told me that needed to be changed or added. I sent out emails through res-co to dorm presidents. I got two responses. One was “yay”, and one was a request to include the posting policy for academic buildings. I will be copying and pasting the academic regulations onto this document, because I’m not allowed to actually change them.
I talked to Lisa in Conferences and Events, Mary Beth again, and Dean Rasmussen. I spoke to them for the plenary resolution. They are still on board with the changes.
Some of the changes that I made: for the indoor posting policy, I reworded the first one to make it better. I changed the part about the bathrooms. I didn’t get a lot of feedback about what to do for the bathrooms, so I included the feedback from the last SGA meeting and what was reiterated in the office hours. Two of those things kept: what types of things should be posted in bathrooms (newsletter styles) and that no more than four posts per stall at any time. If someone adds a poster, they need to take down the oldest poster.
Number 9 is included in both the indoor and outdoor policy. Students posting material must follow the Honor Code and practice self-governance while doing so. Don’t post things that are obscene or offensive. Take down the poster if the event already happened.
Chalking was made more specific in the outdoor posting policy. I clarified it so that horizontal surfaces can wash away the chalk is permitted, but no chalking under arches. Those are the changes that have been made since the last SGA meeting.
Natalie Kato ’14: Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding the posting policy or any changes that have been made?
Carolyn Jacoby ’14: I have a question about how this relates to the plenary resolution.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: It doesn’t relate to the resolution. When I had the idea to make a resolution about revising, I spoke to the administration and they suggested that it was more of something that could be changed through SGA, not through plenary. They said that revising the posting policy was not fit for a plenary resolution. That’s something that I actually mentioned in the resolution. My resolution changed and shifted to something about visibility of the posting policy, such as including it in handbooks and posting it on bulletin boards at the beginning of the year. This is something different. Initially I just wanted to revise it. It’s not connected to the resolution, though I’m the same person who did that.
Carolyn Jacoby ’14: How can we change the posting policy here if not through a plenary resolution?
Natalie Zamora ’14: I wanted to make the resolution and they advised me that it didn’t need to be a resolution. They never explained further. I’m doing it through SGA.
Carolyn Jacoby ‘14: Do you have plans to also do the publicity?
Natalie Zamora ‘14: I spoke to Dean Rasmussen. She said to have the posting policy through to her. She said that if you revise it, have it in by the end of the year for the student handbook.
Elizabeth Vandenberg ’16: The administration is fine with us changing it?
Natalie Zamora ‘14: I just said that I talked to Lisa again and Dean Rasmussen and Mary Beth. They are all on board. They said to give them a draft, so I gave them a draft. Mary Beth said that it is looking good. They are just checking to see that I am not touching the academic building policy.
Elizabeth Vandenberg ’16: If we pass this tonight, how do we know that it becomes administrative policy?
Natalie Zamora ‘14: I will be presenting it to Tuesday Group. Lisa suggested that I should present it to Tuesday Group after approvral from SGA, see what I get oout of it, and then go from there. Tuesday Group ist he last level. That was Lisa’s suggestion.
Elizabeth Vandenberg ’16: You originally presented this as a plenary survey report. Since this does not relate to the resolution, I was wondering – you’ve had office hours and answered questions at SGA. This affects the Bryn Mawr community. Why are you the only author? It wasn’t presented in your resolution and it’s not something that came out of a committee and it’s not something that came out of the Bryn Mawr community.
Natalie Zamora ‘14: I tried to make sure that it was clear that it wasn’t part of the resolution. I’m the same person but they are not related at all. Once you make a committee it can become out of control. So far nobody has come to me about anything. During office hours, you talked to me about having more people and talking about things and possibly making a committee. I asked you if you had any input, and you didn’t really have any input except for the bathroom policy. I’ve spoken to HAs and they haven’t said that anything is a problem.
Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16: That’s my point. I’m only one person. You’re presenting it six months after the resolution. I was pushing for more community feedback because I had some issues and maybe other people had some too.
Natalie Kato ‘14: Please note that the first draft of the posting policy was sent out to HAs and club members via Moodle. They were also notified of the office hours.
Any other questions or comments regarding the posting policy? If not, we can vote on either continuing the discussion and editing the policy, or vote to support the posting policy as it stands through the edits.
Support the policy: 15.
Continue the discussion: 5. Anika Ali, Elizabeth Vandenberg, Xavia Miles, Michelle Lee, Vanessa Sanchez.
Abstain: 4.
Natalie Kato ’14: We have voted to support the posting policy as it stands. I encourage you to come back and let us know how the meeting with Tuesday Group goes.