Sunday March 22, 2009
Emma Wisienski-Barker called the meeting to order at 7:10 PM
Roll Call:
Excused Absences: Nina Jankowicz ’11, Patricia LeBron ’09
Unexcused Absences: Amanda Cieglewski ’09, Jasmine Howell ’11, Rodline Louijeune ’11
Community Members Present: Reggie Kukole ’10, Becky Findlay ’10, Katie Kellom ’09, Erica Seaborne ’09, Evan Schneider ’10, Madeline Veeltino ’11, Nelly Khaselev ’11, Ashton Shaffer ’11, Julia Aranda ’11, Kate Gould ’11, Alexandra Funk ’11, Melanie Bowman ’12, Rose Heithoff ’12, April Stewa ’11, Carolyn Soto ’11, Samanta Salazar ’11, Sarah Moser ’12, Anne George-Hullyz ’11, Sarah Theobald ’12, Steph Migliori ’09, Lindsey Turr ’11, Jill Wlaker ’09, Naomi Hamermesh ’10, Shira Cohen ’10, Katharine Woolls ’12, Mari Stein ’10, Amanda Darby ’10, Ana Milazzo ’10, Deborah Farrington ’09.
Exec Board Introductions:
Laurel Lemon ’11: Hi I’m Laurel, class of 2011. I’m from West Virginia, majoring in Anthropology, and your new treasurer.
Tanya Kaur ’10: Hi I’m Tanya, class of 2010. I’m from Jersey, and majoring in Political Science and minoring in Econ, and your new secretary.
Announcements:
Alex Funk ’11: We’re throwing a concert on April 11th in TGH. It will feature local bands and local artists selling their work. If YOU would like to have a table at the event to display or sell your work (visual art, cds, etc) let us know! our contact info is: Marina Fradera-mfradera@brynmawr.edu Alex Funk- afunk@brynmawr.edu
Sophie Papavizas ’11: Hey guys! Next weekend is a meeting we’re holding for all of you called SGA 101–everyone should come. We’re going to be going over all the different roles and responsibilties of SGA. There will be popcorn!
Tanya Kaur ’10: Hey Guys! I have two announcements. First, the SGA Blogs link is now on the Current Students homepage underneath the Dean’s Office x5375 link. Second, SGA has a campus mailbox that we want all of you to use if you have any comments/suggestions/questions that you want us to address. We will check the mail daily and address any concerns at Sunday’s SGA meeting. It’s C-1735.
Your 2 Cents:
Anne 10: Buzzing for change is happening April 23. Please join the facebook group/check your email.
Arts Groups Introductions:
Jessica Engleman ’09: I’m the President/founder of Mural Club: we paint murals around campus. We have a lot of enthusiastic staff who let us paint directly on their walls. 3RD floor of cartref is covered in mural club art/letters, so go check it ou! We have a ton of projects; this semester we hope to work with the MCC, Erdman, the new Art Studio, and possibly the gym.
Marie Stein 10: I’m here for Shakespeare Performance Troupe, it is an all student run acted/directed/produced theater group on campus. This semester it’s the Noble Kingsmen showing on April 23-25. You should all come. SPT is really awesome becuase women get to act in Shakespeare. Also, we have shirts.
Marie Stein ’10: I’m also here for Lavender’s Blue which is the campus’ only Oldies’ Accapella Group. We have 3-4 concerts a semester and we’re going to have one on Thursday 9 pm. We have a different vibe than other campus accapella groups.The membership is about 10-14, and we just got back from 3rd tour, and we are planning on releasing a CD.
Julie Brady ’10, Anna Mueser ’10: We represent Art Club on campus. It is a student organization whose mission it is to provide art to everyone. We want to have free art material for you so you can produce beautiful artwork that is in your soul. We have a brand new art studio across from Dalton called Arncliff. It opens this Friday in 7-10pm. We also can provide a lot of workshops; just had a bookbinding workshop; if anyone has artwork that you want displayed we would be happy to put it up. The more artwork the better.
Sam Salazar ’11: Hi I’m representing Nimbus, which is the campus Literary Art Magazine. We recently just switched the name from just literary to literary and art because it has a lot of art work and 3 color photograps as opposed to 2. Please keep submitting stuff; we might be adding a musical component for next year. Woo Nimbus. Also, we might be having a party.
Lily Mengesha ’10: I represent People In Color on campus which is a creative ensemble that puts on skits about issues on campus. Last Spring we put on “Our Story Their Story” Last semester we put on “Goddamn Bell” We meet on Thursdays at 10 pm in Denbeigh. Please come! No experience is necessary at all.
Weezie Lauher ’10: Hi, I’m here for the Extreme Keys—the oldest bi-co accapella group.We have had a tough semester. We just lost four people for various academic and personal issues and our tour got cancelled. However! We have an upcoming concert at Penn with the UPenn Pensions if you want to come out and support us off-campus. We will be sending out emails! We will also be performing in April which is our Senior Concert, and obviously at May Day. Tryouts are next semester, we have four openings, so try out! Any other questions please email Janna Weaver, Weezie Lauher, or Nina Jancoweiz.
Cara Sogulizzo 09: Hey guys, the Acabellas are the newest female accapella group on campus. We are doing a lot this semester. We have a big final concert on Thursday April 16 in the Campus Center. We are also in the midst of working on our first ever CD–you should be able to get them by next spring–so we’re really excited about that. We have 12 girls in the group—please audition, we are losing a lot of seniors!
Nga Nguyen 12: Hi! We are a Bi-Co group which raised a lot of money for Sunflowers–a charity that supports women with HIV in Vietnam. We are looking for actors/producers/directors. Please contact me if you’re interested.
Sophie Papavizas ’11: On behalf of Nina Jankowicz ’11: Greasepaint’s had a very exciting semester so far. Next Saturday at 8pm at the campus center we’re having a Broadway Caberet Night. Featuring songs from all your favorite musicals! Additionally, this semester’s Greasepaint show is Hair. The production will be taking place outside in the cloisters from April 23rd to 25th. Yes, we are doing the nude scene.
Emma W-B ’11: We are now opening up the discussion for what everyone is currently feeling regarding arts on campus. Feel free to discuss budgets, or anything else you want.
Amanda Darby 2010: This semester Lavender’s Blue was upset with budgeting. Seems like there is a bit of discrepancy within budgeting for similar-type art groups.
Mari Stein 2010: Yeah, exactly what she just said.
Anna Mueser ’10: I’m the head of art club, and we did really well with the budget this semester. What we do in Art Club is to work with the different art clubs on campus and helping them in any way we can. We are very committed to helping support as many arts groups as we can. We might have to go to grievances but we are very commited to supporting art clubs on campus.
Sam Salazar 2011: Nimbus has a lot of problems with the budgeting process. We are going to grievances. It’s really hard because I’m not allowed to pay my printer till I get the stuff back, which time wise just doesn’t work, becuase you find out about your budget after you’ve agreed to print or something. I told him that I’m on a strict budget this semester and so this year he cut his prices for me but it makes it really hard to make budgeting decision.
Nga Nguyen ’11: We are really happy with our funding but we didn’t get it from SGA; we got funding from the Women’s Center. So go ask other groups if you have difficulty getting funding.
Cara Sogliuzzo ’09: Same with what Sam said. Budgeting doesn’t work practically. It’s sort of lose it or use it; I can’t get an invoice till I pay it, and I can’t pay it till I invoice it. And if you go to get an advance you basically need to sell your soul to the SFC–like they’re threatening not to let me graudate–to get it. So it’s a bad system.
Naomi Hamermash ’10: We have the same issue when it comes to recording; you need to schedule your recording hours months in advance, and then you have a set price recording price. So while I understand some groups pad their budgets so that if they get cuts they can still do their events, but when it’s a musical group and it’s for recording that doesn’t work. These prices are set prices and so cutting those prices doesn’t work.
Steph Miglori 09: I produce Vagina Monologues and it was really frustrating because you need to plan so far in advance but then you don’t know what you’re actually going to get. And groups that decided to sponsor the vagina monologues got it cut out of their budget and that was problematic.
Emma W-B ’11: Okay let’s change the topic to things that could be going better.
Anna Mueser ’10: We want to provide a good opportunity to everyone on campus but we have a lot of logisitical problems. We are looking for ways to get the entire community involved.
Jessica Engleman ’09: A lot of people are supportive of mural club, but there have been a few problems. I was talking to Bernie chung in dining services and she said that I’ve wanted to get walls painted and murals done for 14 years and it has been really hard. There has been a disconnect between staff and students. And so I’m personally scared of facilities because they have the power to say no but not to say yes. So I’m scared that they’re going to paint over our artwork. We are going through the backdoor—we don’t know what to do so we are going through this underhanded way.
Weezie Lauher ’10: A lot of accappella groups struggle with trying to get large numbers to come to their concerts. But the only time we can have these concerts are at night or at weekends, and the faculty and staff can’t come as easily and they want to come. We would love to hear if we can coordinate a jam that is more avialbale to faculty and staff other than May Day, because most faculty and staff are encourage to leave before 1 pm because…well…beacuse you know.
Lily Mengesha ’10: I would encourage everyone to work with facitiles and let them know that this is also our campus, and that we pay a lot of money to be part of this campus and that our artwork shouldn’t be discouraged.
Emma W-B ’11: Okay great. Let’s talk about coordinating space issues and dealing with that
Amanda Darby ’10: When we were sining in Godheart we had a lot of problems with faculty that was there because they wouldn’t let us use that space even when it was technically free, and they would override our reservations. So now we rehearse in dorm common rooms, and that stinks for those dorm residents who want to be using that space/sleeping.
Weezie Lauher ’10: One of my jobs, actually my job as the business manager is to liase between other groups and accappella groups. A really interesting thing that happens on this campus is that we can get a lot of outside accapella groups on campus to perform but we can’t manage to get all the internal campus groupsto perform at one time. We have run into a lot of issues with the lack of Goodhart. We currently practice in Haffner in one of the common rooms that has a closing door. We are lucky to have a haffner resident. And thing for the community to know: it’s really hard to coordinate 10-14 people’s schedule to find an available time and then find available space. However that being said, if we are interupting you, your life, making it hard for you to study or sleep, please don’t hestitate to walk in and let accapella groups know that it’s interrupting your life.
Adrienne: Art club has this cool new space but we don’t know who is allowed to designate this space and so they can take it away at any point. Nevertheless we are very grateful that we have this space.
Liz Hood ’10: I’m one of the Erdman Co-Dorm Presidents—we have a lot of space so a lot of people try to practice in Erdman, and that has resulted in some problems between dorm residents and performance groups on campus. It takes a lot of coordination and it’s highly appreciated when groups sign up on the sign up sheets.
Chelsea Dunkel ’11: Hi I’m part of Chaverim which is a tri-co Accapella group and it takes a lot to get 14 people to be coordinated but we are open to hearing your concerns.
Lily Mengesha ’10: I feel like these are all really connected, so I wonder if we could coordinate a better relationship between the theater department and the performance groups. Also in terms of storage—what are other groups doing?
Sam Salazar ’11: As an active artist on campus, I find it’s really difficult to show work on a continuos basis on campus, and not just on small basis (like v-day, etc) I’m working on an indiviual piece for myself, and I wish I could show it on campus. I was lucky to be able to use the studio space at Haverford but that’s not even open to all of campus–you need to have special key card access.
Deborah ’09: I am the coordinator of STP—and we fought and fought to get this closet space to use as storage for our materials. But now it’s being used by the Women’s Center and other groups simply because they were also promised this little bit of space. So space is a definite issue.
Noelle Fair ’10: I don’t know if you guys have looked into this, but what about spaces in TGH?
Marisa Franz ’10: Also, Lunt basement at Haverford is a great space. Haverford is really lucky because they have this space, but we don’t have a space for small concerts to happen, you have either campus center or TGH and neither really do the job for small groups.
Taline Cox ’10: In terms of exhibiting art and such, a friend of mine, Ashley Madden ’09 used a floor in canaday to showcase her art. So you guys can do that.
Anna Mueser ‘10: We have a giant wall that can be used to put up artwork and we are really open to use this space and have as much as possible going on in this space. We have a second office, which can serve as storage for you. You would need to clean the space and you can come contact us or come to Open Art Night? On Thursday.
Emma W-B ’11: What are everyone’s thoughts on a SGA Arts Rep?
Weezie Lauher ’10: Something that would be important would be making the distinction if the arts representative liase between different accappela group–would they be organizing concerts between say the extreme keys, and lavender’s blue, or would they be working the representatives of those groups to do something like that.
Katie Kellom ’09: So-Co head has lost a lot of authority/jobs on campus. So you could ask her to coordinate those efforts. If they’re okay with that.
Marisa Franz ’10: A lot of people here talk about why the arts aren’t represented as much. I think the logical step would be to have an arts representative. There’s an athletics representative; why isn’t there one for arts? What does that say about our priorities on this campus?
Emma W-B ’11: Another thing that has been brought up is do we have a Arts Rep and a Music Rep or combine the position?
Steph Migliori ’09: Just going off what Marisa said, yes we need an arts rep but the athletic rep also represents the athletic association. So we would need an Arts/Music association.
Sarah Capaosso 2011: I’m the so-co head, and no one really knows about it. I don’t have a committee, I don’t have any funds. So I’ve been trying to get stuff going with that. I would love to be involved with arts/music. I think social cultural events covers a lot of that ground. I’m down to help anyone that needs it to make a better coheseive social environment on campus.
Judy Barr ’09: As the Faculty Commmittee Head, I work as a liason between faculty, students, and staff, and it give you an authority and you are able to make stances that you wouldn’t be able to make otherwise. So I think this is a great idea—to have an arts rep.
Weezie Lauher ’10: I totes second Steph’s suggestion for having an arts association so we can foster dialogue and bang out our issues in a forum more appropriate than SGA and then maybe bring those issues to SGA. I’m totally in.
Old Business:
No Old Business.
New Business:
Laurel Lemon ’11: So this week I met with the person who coordinates the newspapers on campus. What do people want from the newspapers on campus? Do we want them? Do we want them renewed? Do we want the NYtimes USA Today, and the Philly Inquirer or just the NYtimes. So everyday we have Nytimes, USA Today, and Philly Inquirer to Erdman, Rhoads, and Jaffner. Per semester we spend 5,475 on newspapers. SGA covers all of this.
Marisa Franz ’10: Can we get the Philly Inquirer and NY Times because Philly is local news while USA Today is a competing newspaper with the NY Times.
Laurel Lemon ’11: No, because it’s a package deal and so it’s either all of them or just the NYTimes.
Judy Barr ’09: 85 papers isn’t a lot but is there a way to recycle the papers so that everyone can use them?
Melanie Boehman ’12: What about an online subscription? That can be given to the student population.
Hanna Curry-McDougald ’10: I asked the library to get an online subscription and it’s $20,000 and it’s just not a viable option.
Laurel: Four Options Total (look at attached powerpoint slides)
Option 1: $7,462/year (50 copies NY Times, 42 copies USA Today, 40 Copies Philadelphia Inquirer)
Option 2: $9,975/year (75 copies NY Times, 50 copies USA Today, 50 copies Philadelphia Inquirer)
Option 3: $7,560/year (120 copies of NYTimes)
Option 4: $10,080 (160 copies of NYTimes)
Sarah Kelley ’11: Are these numbers set?
Laurel Lemon ’11: Yes.
Liz Hood ’10: Can we keep the status quo?
Laurel Lemon ’11: Yes
Liz Hood ’10: A point of information: you as an individual can sign up for the nytimes.com by yourself and get access to all their articles and their entire archives.
Marisa Franz ’10: Can we change the ratios?
Laurel Lemon ’11: Yeah I can talk to her and lower the ratios–is that what you want?
Marisa Franz ’10: Yeah lower the USA Today by a lot.
STRAW VOTE
NYTIMES ONLY: 13
ALL THREE NEWSPAPERS STATUS QUO: 30
Laurel Lemon ’11: Should we be keeping the ratio low between USA Today/Philly Inquirer
STRAW VOTE
YES: 25
NO: 10
SGA Meeting Adjourned at 8:23 PM.