SGA Meeting
Absent: Sara Jane Rodgers, Ellen Halbach, Maya Sachdeva, Olivia Xia, Jordan Cottrell, Katharine Garry, Sarah Capasso.
7:13 YJ calls the meeting to order
Announcements
Liz Ritchie and Katie Dahl ‘11: Room draw starts this week.The apartments, multiple occupancy, and hall groups draw will be this Wednesday (4/6) from 8-10.
Elizabeth Held ’12: We just finished a round of elections this Friday.
2012 Honor Board: Jessie Martzall, Kelsey Grimes
1-Year 2014 Honor Board: Darcey Glasser
-2013 Honor Board: Emily Tong
-2-Year 2014 Honor Board: Amani Chowdhury
-2012 Class Prez: Nora Chong
-2012 Songsleader: Tyler Williams
-2013 Class President: Kyle Aguilar and Akshyeta Suryanarayan
-2013 Songsmistress: Kersti Frances
-2014 Class Prez: Lindsey Crowe and Kelly Wilkinson
-2014 Songsmistress: Jackie Handy
-Appointments: Kersti Frances, Stephanie Clarke
-Board of Trustees: Julia Fahl
-Curriculum Committee Heads: Sharan Mehta and Sarah Theobold
-Faculty Rep: Kimberly DeRosa
-Res-Co Head: Lee McClenon and Blair Smith
-Traditions: Julia Stuart and Devanshi Vaid
505 people voted in first round of elections, 100 people more than last year. Stickers seem to have been helpful. 230 people voted in the run off elections. 45 people sent in nominations. 96 people were nominated.
Lydia Bello ’12: I’m the landscaping rep. On Monday, April 11 from 4:30PM to 6:00PM there will be a discussion with Ed Harman in campus center 200.
Liana Donohue ’12: I just got back from the Posse Plus retreat.I wanted to thank the140 community members who came to the retreat. We talked about Millennials and how we will define “generation.” We learned a lot about our community and it was a great discussion.
Gabby Marangell ’12: This week the Athletic Association will be putting out a box to collect shoes for Soles4Souls. Last year we sent 300 pairs of shoes to Haiti. Any kind of shoe, any size is welcome. The boxes will be there until the end of the semester, so please donate shoes!
Elizabeth Held ’12: If you ran for office and want your elections poster, talk to me because otherwise they will be recycled.
Courtney Pinkerton ’12: On Monday, April 11th a speaker from women’s center in Montgomery country will give a talk in Dalton 200 8-12.
Rebecca Sanders ’12: The April appointments round will be going on until Friday April 8th. We will be accepting applications for:
-BMCS Co-heads and Officers
-Landscaping Representatives
-Film Series Heads and Committee
-Student Finance Committee
-Financial Aid Advisory Board
-Health Center Advisory Board
-Elections Board
-Recycling Committee Co-heads
-Plenary Committee
-SGA Webmistress
-Student Curriculum Committee
Interviews next begin on Monday. We’re also hosting interview workshop Thursday, April 6th at 7pm in Dalton Basement.
YJ ’12: Monthly reports are due some time today. Thank you to everyone who has already completed their monthly report. There was no place for class presidents to post there’s on the website, but now that has been fixed. Next week is the Big Cheese forum. It will be on April 10th, at 6:10PM.Thanks to Krista and Maya for putting together the posters. Jane McAuliffe, President of the College, Michele Rasmussen, Dean of the Undergraduate College, John Griffith, Chief Financial Officer, Jenny Rickard, Chief Enrollment and Communications Officer, Elliott Shore, Chief Information Officer, Bernie Chung Templeton, Director of Dining Services, Glenn Smith, Facilities, Ed Harman, Landscaping, Mike Ramsey, Public Safety, and Mary Beth Horvath, Coordinator of Student Activities, will be there. There will be food! Class Dismissed? is an initiative which aims to further discussions class.We want to put something together as a project. If assembly members want to be part of it, or if you have ideas/questions/comments please come to the Campus Center April 12th 6-7 and/or email sag@brynmawr.edu. Congratulations to newly elected assembly members! We are going to do brief introductions. Please let us know your name, class year, and goals for their term.
Blair Smith ’12 and Lee McClenon ‘14: We’re the new res-co co-heads. Our goals are to reach out to the community, define the position of dorm president, and institute some type of training for dorm presidents.
Nora Chong ’12: I’m the class of 2012 president.My goals are to get input from everyone in the class and represent a lot of different view pints.
Kyle Aguilar and Akshyeta Suryanarayan ’13: We’re the close of 2013 presidents.Our goals are to fundraise and work sophomores to address study abroad concerns.
Sharan Mehta and Sarah Theobald ’12: We’re the SCC co-heads. Our goalds are to address the new divisional requirements in public forums, give students opportunities to interact with SCC, begin a dialogue about new majors, and work to extend the credit no-credit deadline.
Darcy Glasser ’14: I’m the class of 2014 1-year honor board member.My goal is to work with and for the honor board to the best of my ability.
Julia Stuart and Devanshi Vaid ‘13: We’re the new traditions mistresses.Our goals are to make Lantern Night great without the cloisters, and make sure transfers and McBrides feel good about traditions.
Plenary Update
Honor Code
Priya Saxena ’12: The online translator resolution passed, with an amendment that there will be a continued discussion of when online translators are appropriate to use in classrooms. We will be meeting with the faculty next year to talk about how guidelines for the use of online translators will go.As of right now, whatever your professor has said about it will continue to be in effect until the end of the year. Next year, make sure your professor has talked had a conversation with your class about it. Feel free to email me with questions/suggestions at psaxena@brynmawr.edu !
Canaday
Blair Smith and Jen Savage ’12: Overall the extension of Canaday’s hours to 2AM been going well. People have been taking advantage of later hours. Do you have any questions for us?
Liz Ritchie ’11: Was it going to be open until midnight on weekends?
Blair Smith ‘12: No.
Priya Saxena ‘12: Will they change the signs on the doors that say the hours? It’s confusing.
Blair Smith ‘12: We will ask Elliott Shore.
Keshia Koech ’13: Are they going to change the time limit for checking out books and movies on reserve?
Blair Smith ‘12: We will ask and report back.
Courtney Pinkerton ‘12: The time limit for checking out movies on reserve hasn’t switched over yet.
Sumedha Niranjan: Is it possible to have Lusty Cup open until 2?
Blair Smith ‘12: That’s up to Dining Services.
Jennifer Savage ‘12: They tried to do that for Uncommon Grounds and it didn’t work.
Katie Dahl ‘11: There hasn’t been interest and not enough staffing.
Paying equality and student employment:
YJ ’12: Here is a message from Emily Kirchner, who couldn’t be here: I met with Jerry Berenson, Chief Administrative Officer, and he informed me that they have requested for a position under Human Resources that will oversee student employment. The announcement for the position should go out over the summer. One of the jobs for this position will be looking at the system with four pay levels and determining if it should change.
BMC grading system:
Courtney Pinkerton ‘12:I’m still waiting to meet with the curriculum committee. Activities emails will go out with more information for anyone who is interested in being a part of this committee. There will be an interview process for the committee that we will define more clearly later.
YJ ’12: One of the most important parts of this resolution is creating a committee, because the administration/curriculum committee need to know what students want. We have to prepare a document explaining what kind of changes in the grading system students would like to see before the meeting with the curriculum committee. Please email Courtney at cpinkerton@brynmawr.edu if you have any ideas or anything you would like to add to this document.
Update on Pianos in Dorms
Kate Gould ‘11: People seemed okay with getting rid of one of the pianos in Erdman as long as the other was in functioning order. Most people said they didn’t use the pianos very much – maybe once a semester.
Emily Zhao ’11: The piano in Pem East is in pretty despicable condition. So it would be okay to get rid of it if the one in west is better.
Vrinda Varia ’13: In west, I only got two responses. One of the responses was against it, and the other was okay with it as long as the other ones were retained.
Raella Rothman ’13:I have been asking people about it and the only concerns have been about admissions and the symbolic value that pianos have. Mostly, people just want to take pianos away.
Katharine Woolls ’12: In Rhoads North, people also want to take them away.
Ali Raeber ’13: In Brecon, no one responded to dorm emails. Brecon is keeping its piano anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. People seem to not care if they tune them because they just play for fun.
Joo Park ’11: In Denbigh, the response I received over all was that we should keep them for decorative purposes, and people who seriously want to play can go to Goodheart. I will send out a survey.
Katie Dahl and Liz Ritchie ‘12: They will probably get rid of the pianos but we will make sure that admissions knows the kind of response you’ve received and we will talk about it with the dorms.
Issues we would like to see addressed – small groups
YJ: We’re going to split up into small groups to discuss what kind of issues on campus you would like to see addressed.
Group 1: We talked about:
1.)Creating a committee on summer storage
2.)Revamping events in general – creating an event fund, changing party form to event form.
3.)Having DLT and dorm presidents work together.At the Posse plus retreat, they talked about fall out in terms of the honor code. Violations of social honor code may have something to do with lack of dorm communities.
Group 3:
1.)Campus vibrancy – increase attendance at school sponsored events – both on the weekend and during the week.
2.)We would like to see a more streamlined calendar process on the website, more information about how to post events on the website. We could think about the possibility of creating something similar to the Haverford Go Boards for Bryn Mawr.
Group 6:
1.)Moving candidates forum to Dalton went well.
2.)Virtual Bryn Mawr and TriCo Course Guide don’t always align.
3.)Summer storage.
Group 5:
1.)We talked about food and meal plans – especially the possibility of having a non-meal plan option and more options within meal plan.
2.)Creating a better calendar.
3.)Having vibrancy chairs moved to carp. green and the wooden chairs moved somewhere else on campus.
Sam Salazar ‘11: The reason behind where the vibrancy chairs are placed is so that we can move them where we want.
Group 5:
1.)Publicize the things we do in SGA so more people will come.
2.)Address how the administration engages with students – for example there was a miscommunication between students about vibrancy chairs.
Group 2:
1.)Dialogue between students and administrators.
2.)Increased communication about SGA. People don’t know who students are who can solve the problems they encounter. We need to clarification of the positions of SGA assembly members for the community.
Group 4:
1.)Communication in regard to changes for requirements for class of 2015 –knowing where the changes are, even if they don’t apply to the rest of the classes.
2.)Increasing more meal plan option.
Irene Shin ’13: What are the requirement changes?
Priya Saxena ’12: The incoming class has to take 1 class within 5 branches like inquiry into past, scientific reasoning – basically five core classes we took in high school (history, english, math, science, language.) It will be easier for new students to understand and give them a broader choice of what to take.
YJ ’12: Which of these issues do we want to bring up to Big Cheese Forum next week?
1.)DLT/dorm president unification process.
2.)Campus vibrancy
3.)Calendar process
4.)Virtual Bryn Mawr vs. TriCo Course Guide:
Priya Saxena ’12: If you have an issue with virtual Bryn Mawr and TriCo course Guide being out of synch, bring it up with department head.
5.)Dining hall options
6.)2015 requirements: Jenny Rickard can talk about this.
7.)How do we want to get information out about SGA?
Krista Imre ’13: It would be helpful if we had description of positions on SGA blog with pictures.
Blair Smith ’12: We should less about what we’re going to do and more on what we’re actually doing.
YJ ’12: The weekly addresses and monthly reports will help explain what we’re actually doing in SGA.We also have announcements. Rebecca is appointing someone to be webmistress so that we can have a website that better advertises what’s going on in SGA, who is in SGA and what their position entails. Tell your friends to apply! This month people had to submit position description, so we’re working on making a finalized one to send out for everyone for elections
BS ’12: It might be helpful for Mawrk Notes to get them done by Sunday Night so get them in the BiCo by Tuesday and have them in the newspaper.
Liz Ritchie ’11: We could get them done by Tuesday so that they could be in the bathrooms for four days.
YJ ’12: When the E. Board was looking over the old minutes from the early 2000s we found a slogan we really liked: decisions are made by those who show up.But everyone should have a voice. So please be sure to participate in the surveys like the one I sent out about issues you’d like to see addressed on campus earlier this week.
Irene Shin ’13: I think having the committees coming to SGA meetings is a good idea.As far as my experience with Plenary Committee goes, I think it would be great if we could get more feedback.
Rebecca Sanders ’12: I have a meeting with the appointments committee tomorrow to talk about how we want to get information out to SGA.
Courtney Pinkerton ’12: I think the appointments thing would be good because it would be good to know who is in what position.
Blair Smith ’12: I was wondering whether it would be helpful if the past exec board came her and talked about what they learned and what would be helpful in the future. It might be helpful to hear what their goals where.
YJ ’12: We can discuss that at our Wednesday meeting.Big Cheese Forum has been moved to 6:00. There will be emails and posters and food! There will be no official agenda items.
Old Business
Mae Carlson ’12: We talked about laptops in classrooms, the honor code and ACB boards, and the online readings vs. course readers going into the future, among other things.It was a really great conversation between students, staff, and faculty.Thank you to everyone who participated!