Hello Everyone and welcome back to another SGA recap!
At 7:10 on November 8th, 2015, SGA President Charlie Bruce called the meeting to order. Shortly thereafter, Secretary Angela Motte conducted roll call. We then proceeded to announcements, of which there are several.
First: Emergency Elections! Positions up for election are Election Committee Head and COPS Head. The nomination period started on Sunday, November 8th at 7:56PM and will end on November 16th, with a duration of approximately one week. Candidates forum will be on November 19th from 6-7pm. Elections themselves will take place in the days right before thanksgiving! Email elections@brynmawr.edu to nominate someone you know for these positions!
Second: The November appointments round is almost over! Wednesday the 11th at midnight is the last day to submit your applications! Positions up for reappointment: The McBride representative to the Financial Aid Advisory Board, positions on the Dining Services Advisory Board, the Alcohol Concerns Review Board, and the Customs Committee, as well as the head of the Customs Committee. We are also looking for members of the class of 2017 and 2016 for appointment to the Traditions Committee.
Note: You can hold both an elected position and an appointed position simultaneously.
Visit appointments.blogs.brynmawr.edu for more information and access to the application. Contact gbsmith@brynmawr.edu if you have any questions!
Following announcements, Shakari Badgett conducted a straw poll that gained a visual majority on the question ‘Would you guys want to host a panel with campus safety to ask questions about recent events or to ask them questions about their jobs’.
Next, Seven Sisters Representatives Elizabeth Vandenberg and Emily Spiegel gave a recap of the recent seven sisters conference and told us how we are going to improve our relationship with the other colleges.
The seven sisters conference is an annual meeting of representatives from the seven sister schools. This year it was at Barnard, and included workshops on leadership, inclusion, and diversity. Attendees of the conference had the opportunity to hear alumnae, including Bryn Mawr’s own Peaches Valdes, speak. The purpose of the conference is to help the schools’ student government organizations keep in touch, and to update each other so that we may all improve our organizations.
The conference itself has been around since 2009, and the location of it rotates alphabetically, every year, through Barnard to Wellesley. The document that established the conference is the Constitution of the Coordinating Board for the Seven Sisters Coalition. But the coordinating board itself hasn’t existed for a long time, so at this conference, representatives deciding to reform the coordinating board, start pooling our resources, and start moving toward becoming a more coordinated body. Representatives elected a president pro-tempore.
Next year, the conference will be hosted at Bryn Mawr! Elizabeth Vandenberg ‘16 and Emily Spiegel ‘18 will be planning the conference, and are creating a temporary committee for this purpose.
There will be three representative council votes next week in response to the seven sisters conference. In the first, we will be voting to re-affirm the constitution of the seven sisters. The second will to elect or re-elect representatives to the seven sisters coordinating board. The third will be to establish a temporary committee for the planning of the next seven sister’s conference, at Bryn Mawr. Note, any undergraduate student is eligible to be on the planning committee.
If you are on the representative council, it is suggested that you consult with your constituents on these issues. Contact seven sisters representatives Elizabeth Vandenberg, Emily Spiegel, or the SGA EBoard (sga@brynmawr.edu) with any questions or concerns.
In other news, President Charlie Bruce had an announcement from the President of Barnard’s student government organization. This year, at Barnard, there will be no winter break housing for students who are not athletes or tour guides. This leaves a significant number of people without anywhere to go over winter break. Barnard’s president asks Bryn Mawr alumnae and students who are in the greater New York area to open our homes and our hearts to those without anywhere to go. In the coming weeks, Barnard’s SGA will be discussing this issue, so stay tuned for more information.
In old business, at last week’s SGA meeting we brainstormed ways the college could increase revenue and decrease spending. Our suggestions have been typed up and sent to Kari Fazio, the Chief Financial Officer, and she would like to extend her thanks to members of the representative council! If you have any additional comments or suggestions, please contact her at kfazio@brynmawr.edu
In other old business, President Charlie Bruce is looking in to making the SGA Executive Board a paid position for those with work study. Bear in mind that the E-board at both Haverford and Vassar is a paid position for those with work study. We are looking into this because a position on the E-Board often requires hours equivalent to a part-time job, making positions less accessible to those on work-study. We believe that the SGA and the E-Board should be all inclusive. Email cebruce@brynmawr.edu with questions, comments, or concerns.
At this SGA meeting, we launched Bring-A-Friend-To-SGA-Day! It was a great success – many people came who do not usually attend SGA meetings. This year, the SGA is trying to become more focused on outreach and inclusivity – in the spirit of which, this event was held. Headed by the Members-at-large, attendees broke into five groups and talked about what the SGA can do to increase attendance, and to make SGA meetings feel like an inclusive space where anyone can raise a point.
From these breakout groups with members of the community, we learned that people usually don’t come to meetings because of the time they are held, and because they seem intimidating.
SGA meetings are held at 7pm on Sundays, in the campus center, which is a prime homework time, and also makes it hard for people who live off campus to be there.
Some students are intimidating by the setting and the arrangement of chairs, which makes it hard for people in the back to hear or make statements. Some didn’t know who was on the representative council. Some just felt unwelcome in general. Some things people thought would be helpful include: a list of commonly used SGA terms on the projected slide, as well as a short description of each section of the meets, and more outreach directed toward people who do not regularly attend meetings.
When we returned from bring-a-friend-to-sga-day break out groups, three more items were brought up in new business.
First, the people who give out the keys to the SGA kitchen will have a little card with a checklist of things you should do to keep it nice, if you are using it. Like putting everything away, cleaning up after yourself, or turning off the lights.
Also, if you attend an SGA meeting, please try to keep your use of electronic device at a minimum, unless you are using it for the meeting.
Lastly, next week we will discuss the language used at SGA. Roberts Rule’s of Order are not made up of the most accessible language. While at the seven sister’s conference, we learned that Mount Holyoke had everyone come together and write out a set of community guidelines to change the tone of conversations. Bryn Mawr’s SGA would like to do the same, so the representative council was asked to think about it and come to the next meeting with ideas. These guidelines would be announced at every meeting.
Following that announcement, the SGA meeting was adjourned at 7:55PM, Sunday, November 8th.