112th Johns Hopkins Student Government AssociationSenate Meeting #14November 19, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17MINUTES
- Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
a. Excused Absentees: Zachary Bahar, Vishnu Dontu, JazzlynFernandez, Ryan Alezz, Jordyn Craig-Schwartz, Yashas
Mallikarjun, Karen Vasquez Luna, Justin Pokrant
b. Unexcused Absentees:
- Convening Business (40 min)
- Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
a. Motion to start the meeting approved. There were noamendments to the agenda. Motion to approve the agendapassed.
- Public Input (3 min)
- Reports (5 min)
a. Cabinet Reports (4 min)i. Programming Chair Tim Huang said that all class formalsare currently being planned. Dates are confirmed forfreshman and sophomore formals. Junior and seniorformals are in the works. Every programming memberwill be added to the website and Huang will share thenecessary documents. November Tabling will be from 1-3PM at the Breezeway and LOTQ Tabling will take place atthe event. People were asked to sign up as volunteers forthese events. There will be attendance incentives given.ii. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi asked everybody tofill out the volunteer sign up for LOTQ today.iii. Executive Vice President Amy Li said that the PresidentDaniels meeting rescheduled for December 2nd. Anyquestions, concerns, discussions can be communicatedusing the form from last time but also she will send a newform. There are no guarantees that the Executive Branchcan direct the conversation to a specific topic but they willdo their best. Topics that the SGA has been working onand President Daniels wants to discuss will be thepriorities. If anyone else has any initiatives they want towork on and want support from the executive boardmembers, they should message Li so that they can workon it together. There were some senators who reached outand they are working on them.iv. Treasurer Brandon Benjamin said that spring allocationswill be finalized by Friday. An email will be sent out.v. Meng said that he emailed Brittani Brown about the TownHall. They will try to have a Town Hall during the first orsecond week of December. An email will be shared ingeneral. Meng asked everyone to sign up for LOTQ.vi. Naqvi said that the last GBM of the semester is onDecember 3rd. She wants to make sure that the SGA isprepared for spring. If committee leaders change theirschedules because the time no longer works, the formshould be filled out to switch committees. SGA wants tostart as efficiently as possible in spring. Any committeewho changes their meeting location and time shouldinform Naqvi.
b. Advisor Report (1 min)
- Non-Legislative Business (15 min)
d. SDS Initiative- President Stone Mengi. Meng said that the shuttle doesn’t start until 5:30. A studentthat broke her leg tried to reach out for transportation and SDSdidn’t provide a response. If anybody is interested in thisinitiative, they can talk to Meng.
e. Lighting of the Quads Tabling- Chair Tim Huang & President
Nasreen Naqvii. Huang said that, as mentioned last week, people will come andspin the wheel. Therefore, there won’t be a request for feedbackas we prioritize the students having fun. There will be threetiers of prizes from the book store. They will get the prizes theywin through the wheel. Huang won’t be able to handle tabling,but he will be there for set-up.ii. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi said that there will beattendance incentives provided for spring.iii. Tabling is on December 6th.iv. Huang said that the closet has been cleaned, so he thanked theprogramming members. The closet is at the bottom of theLevering. People can get stuff for tabling, but they have toremember to put our stuff only in our section.v. Freshman Class President Jason Yu asked what the updated listis for LOTQ. Huang said that it is basically the same thing aswhat was proposed, except sweatpants were replaced withsweatshirts.
f. Cohort Timei. Naqvi said that since SGA has been busy, there weren’t manyopportunities to have cohort time. Since we have a lighteragenda today and will discuss the affirmative action resolutionafter, she wants the senate to have cohort time today. She wantseverybody to reflect on this semester's SGA so that we can makeimprovements in the spring.ii. Secretary Buse Koldas suggested everybody to take a look at theresolution if they didn’t have time and use this time for that ifthey want to.iii. After cohort time, members provided their feedback andinsights.iv. Senior Class SenatorJennifer Tang Cabrera said that SGA couldhave discussions about etiquette when we are havingdiscussions with the public to make sure that people feelcomfortable about their topics and criticisms.v. Meng brought up the meeting time issue for next semester.vi. Naqvi said that if people are taking Organic Chemistry with Dr.Nsengiyumva, the time clashes. Therefore, the GBM time waspushed back to 7:20 - 9:20 PM. There is no need to vote on itnow, but this is something to take into consideration. We needto address this issue or else we will wait for people to come.vii. Koldas asked to see a show of hands to see how many peoplehave this time conflict, which turned out to be a good amount ofpeople.viii. Naqvi said that this is something to think about and askedanyone who is not okay with changing the time to voice it.ix. Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basirreddy suggested havingsenators’ focuses on the website or Instagram as people don’tknow who to reach out to if they have concerns.x. Vice President of the Senate Srigouri Oruganty said that theyhope to invite admin to the meeting. Through these productivediscussions, the admin can directly respond to our questions. Ifwe are going to invite admin, we should have some type ofetiquette.xi. Meng said that we will have an anonymous feedback form sothat people can communicate their criticism.xii. Freshman Senator Kevin Xu hopes that everyone will readwhat’s on the agenda beforehand, especially if it’s somethinglengthy or heavy. For example, he wishes people did this for theday affirmative action resolution was discussed, so that the SGAcomments are more effective.xiii. Huang asked if people want a spring retreat, to which a majorityresponded yes.xiv. Freshman Class President Jason Yu said that freshmen felt alittle lost at the start of the semester. For the future reference,he believes it would be beneficial to have mentorshiprelationships within SGA (like a big and little system, suggestedby Naqvi).xv. WSE Senator Amy Xu said that people who joined this year intheir sophomore year went into summer with nocommunication from SGA and with no expectations. She didn'tknow how to prepare herself as a senator and knew her role asSGA. Not only freshmen, but also people newly coming in sufferfrom not knowing SGA as closely.xvi. Kevin Xu believes that there has to be an onboarding processfor specific committees because some of them are very specific.They are not similar to a general senate meeting. Secondly, helooked at the SGA Linktree Instagram page. The meetingminutes section hasn’t been updated for two years. The foldershared there is from 2022. Part of the constitution states tokeep the minutes public to the student body.xvii. Koldas said that there used to be a position like PublicationsDirector. The minutes were condensed for press releases andshe guesses that’s how SGA fulfilled that requirement.xviii. Naqvi said that we could appoint somebody to recap themeetings and make it digestible.xix. Senior Class Senator Jacquelyn Slade hopes to work onaffirmative action resolution and further work on theconstruction updates. It is important to send an email to theschool about these topics.
- First Reading
- Second Reading
a. Affirmative Action Resolution- Senator Nayshawn and SenatorCynthiai. Naqvi said that they met with the advisors a couple oftimes. The SGA will go over the edits, and then the Senatewill discuss.ii. Black Caucus Chair Nayshawn Ferebee said that someparts were removed to shorten the resolution and keep itfocused.
iii. Hispanic/Latinx Caucus Chair Cynthia Hidalgo combinedthe sections to condense from nine pages to six pages.iv. Naqvi asked to allocate a few minutes for the SGAmembers to read through it. She asked if the Senate feelsconfident to discuss this resolution today.v. The motion to vote passed. Then, the motion to approvealso passed.
- Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
- Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)
a. Motion to adjourn the meeting passed.Time-length and adjournment estimates are provided for the benefit ofguests at Senate meetings. However, SGA meetings are always slated toextend until 9:00 PM and SGA members are expected to remain in theSenate chamber until official adjournment by motion, whether before orafter the adjournment estimate.