112th Johns Hopkins Student Government AssociationSenate Meeting #9October 8, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17AGENDA
- Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
a. Excused Absentees: Ryan Alezz, Omar Gharib, Molly Kuzmab. Unexcused Absentees: Yonatanne Desta
- Convening Business (10 min)
- Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
a. MSE Resolution moved to second reading.
- Public Input (3 min)
- Reports (5 min)
a. Cabinet Reports (4 min)i. The Executive Board congratulated the freshmen.ii. Secretary Buse Koldas asked every freshmen to email hertheir Google Drive email.iii. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi asked everyone toemail her and Koldas.
b. Advisor Report (2 min)i. Advisor Jessica Snell also congratulated the freshmen.
- Non-Legislative Business (15 min)
f. Freshman Senator Confirmations-President Nasreen Naqvii. Freshmen senators introduced themselves and have beenconfirmed. Their committees have been announced andcan be found in the slides.
g. SGA Groupme -President Nasreen Naqvii. Naqvi had several conversations with SGA members, whostated that Teams feels too official. She agrees with this,so we created a GroupMe.
h. Vice President of the Senate Vacancy Election -President
Nasreen Naqvii. People who were interested in running for the VicePresident of the Senate position were either nominated orgot nominated by someone else. The candidates were
KSAS Senator Jaden Garcia, Sophomore Class Senator
Tarini Basireddy, Junior Class Senator Srigouri Orugantyand KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani.ii. Although Naqvi suggested the freshmen to not be able tovote as they do not know any of the candidates, since suchregulation does not exist in the By-Laws, it was decidedthat freshmen would be allowed to vote.iii. President Stone Meng encouraged the freshmen toabstain and Naqvi agreed.iv. Naqvi explained the duties of the Vice President of theSenate. The Vice President of the Senate is elected fromthe Senate members. The Vice President plays a key rolein facilitating communication between SGA positions andfostering community within the membership by assistingthe President of the Senate.v. The candidates have given one minute long speeches.
- Garcia said that he has proven history with the
senate in the approval of bills and amendments. Headded the attendance amendment to theconstitution, drafted the Rules Bill (which is stillbeing debated), and prepared guidelines to teachmembers what to say in meetings. He was theparliamentarian of the senate last year.
- Basireddy said that it is her second year in the SGA
and that she has been to almost every GBM. She isvery involved with committees and she’s also acommittee chair. She is knowledgeable about theduties of this position. She promises to do her bestin this position.
- Oruganty is the chair of the Health, Safety and
Sustainability committee. She wants to be the VicePresident of the Senate and wants to assist thesenate and make sure the GBMs go smoothly. Sheconsistently had items in the agenda like bills andpresentations. She said that she’d be willing to helpthe senators in presenting during the GBM. Sheorganized the Wellbeing Day, which reached 700students. She knows how to make initiatives cometo real life and communicate with people. She’sworking on creating a South Asian Studies minorand is in communication with other people outsideof SGA.
- Rouhani is the committee chair of Internal Affairs.
He is working on having PILOT sessions for GeneralBiology 1 and 2. He truly has so much passion in theSGA and is super participative. Highlighting that hecomes to every single meeting, he said that justyesterday he went to a meeting thaty Meng couldn’tgo and participated in that admin meeting. He has astrong will to learn and is passionate about SGA. Hewants to work up the ranks. He said that as he isfriends with Naqvi, it should help them worktogether.vi. After the candidates left the room, the members of thesenate deliberated which candidate should be elected.vii. Three rounds of voting were conducted where in everysingle one of them the candidate with the lowest votes waseliminated. In the end, Oruganty was elected.
i. Jay Games Updates- Chair Tim Huangi. Programming Chair Tim Huang thanked everyone forsupporting JayGames. It will take place on October 26,from 10 AM to 4 PM. We already have 45 peopleregistered. He especially wants freshmen to participate.He asked the SGA members to share the event. Hehighlighted the free prizes and Ekiben. There might belimited merch for this eventii. Huang continued by expressing the need for volunteers.Since this is a big event, he needs a lot of volunteers.People who are participating in JayGames can’t volunteer.iii. Rouhani asked if he can unregister to volunteer, andHuang said he could do that but asked him to not feel likehe is obligated to do that.iv. Naqvi asked every slot to be filled.v. A motion for a 5 minute Q&A with 1 minute speaking timewas passed. Sophomore Class Senator Omotara Tiamiyuasked Huang to add the date to the sheet.vi. Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun asked if shecould still play if she volunteered for the setup. Huangsaid that she could.vii. Freshman Class President Jason Yu wondered if thiscould also be the case for clean up. Huang approved.viii. Huang asked the members to put a star next to your nameif you are volunteering and playing.ix. Huang explained what JayGames is for the freshmen. Itwas created a few years ago and is a recreation of SquidGames. Teams will play a bunch of games where theymight get eliminated if they don’t perform well. At theend, teams get prizes depending on how successful theywere.x. Abiodun asked what happens if they get eliminated earlyon in the game. Huang said that no team will geteliminated until midway through and that there is aredemption game.
j. SGA Leadership Workshop - Chair Tim Huangi. Huang added that there will be a Leadership Workshopthis Saturday from 4 to 5 PM. It will go over RSO Finance.There will be free Potbelly. It will be in a room in theCommons. An email to RSOs has been sent out.ii. Naqvi said that, since most of us are members of RSOsoutside of SGA, it is important that we make sure as manyRSOs participate as possible.iii. Abiodun asked if the SGA Instagram will share the event,to which Huang said yes.
- First Reading
- Second Reading
c. Trunk and Treat Funding Bill- Senator Nayshawn Ferebeei. Naqvi explained to freshmen how bills are approved andwhat First and Second Reading is.ii. Nayshawn explained that this is a Halloween event.Organizations will have a table where they can bringdecorations to. They will connect with the communitythrough these tabling events. You will get to grab somecandy and learn about those organizations.iii. Motion to discharge to Finance was given, yet sinceFinance has already reviewed it, motion to vote waspassed and the bill was approved unanimously.
d. MSE Construction Resolution- President Stone Mengi. Meng talked about the communications he had with theconstruction workers so far. The fencing will be thereuntil MSE opens in 2027. He asked everyone to thinkabout the seniors who can’t take photos in front of them.According to him, this is the most optimal time to send aresolution. If we wait, students will be adjusting throughtime and advocacy will decrease.ii. Meng wrote this resolution to ask for change. The bill asksfor a 5% tuition reduction and for enhancedcommunications, along with a call to improve studyspaces.iii. 5 minutes of silent reading time was given (especiallybecause this was the first time freshmen would be seeingthis).iv. Meng asked to pass this today so that it can be senttomorrow. He encouraged discussions on possibleamendments and future steps.v. Motion for a 10 minute moderated caucus was passed.
vi. Special Interest and Hobby Senator Adithyan Neelamanastrongly supports this. He doesn’t think anyone elsewouldn’t support it. However, he asked how pointing outthe issues about storage, transportation and shortcutconnect to our point.vii. Meng thinks that it is important for us to advocate forother amenities if we are losing a library. The issueshighlighted are all important issues. He asks the adminsto have a conversation with us through this.viii. WSE Senator Moses Frumkin thinks that it’s better tostart with negotiations. He thinks that we should talkabout the ones that truly matter and can be fixed. Hedoesn’t think the shortcuts are that important, like studyspaces.ix. Meng asked if Frumkin was asking to move the shortcutsdown and study places up. Frumkin agreed and said thatit is important to mention this before.x. Media Senator Tyler Turner asked to clarify what theImpact Grant is.
xi. Meng said that Fraternity & Sorority Life Senator YashasMallikarjun also suggested removing this because it mightadvertise for this grant even though it doesn’t exist yet. Onsecond thought, though, Meng changed his mind that weshould keep it as it is just a proposal and it is good toinclude it.xii. Turner expressed that raising the issue regardingpathways is critical according to him. Making thepathways less accessible causes people to change theirroutine.xiii. Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh thinks that this isa good thing to push for. According to him, a commonstrategy the administration uses is to pick the first thingyou throw at them and then distract you from yourargument. He thinks that it might be true that it causes adetour, but that it is not that important, so they mightinvalidate it. However, they can’t deny themiscommunication. He thinks we should bring up the lossof visual appearance in the SGA, too. JHU cares about itsappearance, so we should “hurt them from where ithurts.”xiv. Meng said that he normally included that at first, but thenpeople asked him to remove it in revisions, which was whyhe moved it down. He asked people to comment on thefile and upvote comments they agree with.xv. Tiamiyu believes that it’s important to talk about our lossto walking paths and decrease in accessibility. She thinksthat we definitely need to highlight the lack ofcommunication by making it mandatory for the admin toannounce it and let us know.xvi. Meng will add the accessibility point.xvii. Senior Class Senator Jennifer Tang Cabrera believes thatthe disability argument would strengthen this. Lack ofcommunication should be prioritized and saying “lack ofvisual aesthetic” can be more eloquent. She suggested usto include a possible solution, which is having localBaltimore artists paint there.xviii. Motion to extend the moderated caucus of 10 minutespassed.xix. Meng agreed with her points and will see how doable theartist idea is. He asked the senate’s opinion on howimportant it is for us to present solutions.xx. Vice President Amy Li believes in choosing the ones thatare most ambitious. Last year, Vice Provost RachelleHernandez talked about increasing programming oncampus, which didn’t happen, so we could touch on that.She believes that we should also emphasize the urgency ofthe issue.xxi. Frumkin believes that it is worth asking for specificthings. It is valuable to discuss tech grants and tuitionreduction during COVID as pointing out a specific kind ofaction that JHU has done in the past shows that theuniversity has done it in the past and that they can do itagain in the future.xxii. Li suggested combining storage and increased funding forRSOs, which Meng agreed with.xxiii. Senior Class Senator Jacquelyn Slade added that the lossof the library is important for culture. When she wants tostudy somewhere, she needs to check from building tobuilding. She suggested having a seat tracking system likewe did in COVID to see where there is availability forsitting. Student body is more separated now due to theclosure of MSE. She suggested talking about ourinternational reputation and using their own work againstthem.xxiv. Cultural and Identity Senator Jordyn Craig-Schwartz saidthat seat tracking used to exist when they were freshmen.She asked to bring it back.xxv. KSAS Senator Danial Nabizadeh believes that due to thediplomatic tone of the resolution, we probably won’t getthe 5% tuition reduction.xxvi. Meng said that this is a negotiation strategy: asking formore than you’ll probably get.xxvii. Nabizadeh thinks that we are watering down theresolution by asking for something that won’t be possible.xxviii. Basireddy sees Nabizadeh’s point, but she doesn’t thinkthere’s harm in asking. They will either accept or reply ina way that will help SGA push for other things. Sherecommended SGA to print this out and put it aroundcampus and share it on social media.xxix. Abiodun agrees with Basireddy’s points. However, shesees Nabizadeh’s point and thinks that we should be a bitmore direct with it. She believes that the problem is thatwe find out the small things they added randomly justwhen we were on our way to class. She doesn’t think weshould mention Tech Grant as it had its own sole purpose.People needed technology for online education, so itspurpose was so separate. She thinks that asking for a 5%reduction is easy to say no to. She thinks that we shouldbring up the lack of parking lots as some people need toskip class because they can’t park. She asks us to addstronger points first. We need to be strong with what weare asking: we must be sure about what we’re wanting andbe more demanding.xxx. The moderated caucus was extended once again.xxxi. Meng thanked Abiodun for her great points. He will addparking. She agrees that when we are talking about thepathways, we should point out to their randomness, notthe seemingly minor inconvenience they cause. Heexpressed that this letter will be sent to the student bodyand the admin. Due to this reason, when we are asking forthe 5% tuition reduction, we should be considerate thatwe are contacting the high level administration. We wantto present that we are not criticizing the admin but rathertrying to sign to the students that we are working on thisand to admins that we want to work with them.xxxii. Junior Class Senator Anisha Rasamsetty said that wewanted this resolution to be as ambitious as possible. Shethinks that we should have more emphasis on the 5% part.xxxiii. Li suggested creating an appendix that has the data wecollected. She said that Dean Elizabeth Long’s MSESurvey only had 20 responses. However, we collectedmore than 100 responses. This shows that students wantto come to us to discuss these and we have data to proveour points, so we have evidence based points. It alsoshows that we are serious about the issues that arehappening on campus.xxxiv. Meng doesn’t want to include the data here because hewants to send it if the admin asks for it and he wants toreshare the survey after publishing the resolution.xxxv. Abiodun questioned: aren't 100 respondes enoughalready?xxxvi. Oruganty pointed out that they blocked one of the onlynice outdoor places. People liked to sit there, looking atGilman. We should emphasize the loss of community dueto construction. Survey data is important and 100responses is enough.xxxvii. Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz asked if we have ajustification for the 5%.xxxviii. Meng said that COVID was 15%, so we’re asking for lessthan that. There is no specific reason.xxxix. Tang motioned to address the senate. Although shedoesn’t know why we want to send this out tomorrow,Tang believes that we should take more time and havemore time applying the edits. She believes that we shouldlook at this with a new perspective. We need to be moredemanding and upfront.xl. Meng disagrees as this resolution was shared last Tuesdayand everyone had time to provide comments. He thinksthat her point is valid, though. However, he doesn’t wantto repeat what we did last year. He believes in quickaction and doesn’t want to spend time as it won’t make adifference according to him. If we don’t send it tomorrow,it will be too late.xli. Motion to vote was passed.xlii. Meng will implement everybody’s feedback and send it toTeams.xliii. Resolution passed unanimously.
- Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
a. Tang reminded the members that our SGA party is thisSaturday at 8:30 PM in the Levering Lounge. It will be a greatway to socialize and get to know new SGA members. There willalso be karaoke. She asked everyone to bring snacks.b. Naqvi reminded everyone to join the SGA GroupMe.
- Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)
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.