Senate General Body Meeting #24 — Minutes (04/01/25)

112th Johns Hopkins Student Government AssociationSenate Meeting #24April 1, 2025 / 07:20 PM / Hackerman B17AGENDA

1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

a. Excused Absentees: Omar Gharib, Jennifer Tang Cabrera

b. Unexcused Absentees:

2. Convening Business (40 min)
3. Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
4. Public Input (3 min)
5. Reports (5 min)

a. Cabinet Reports (4 min)

b. Advisor Report (2 min)

6. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

a. SVC Presentation- Secretary Buse Koldas & President NasreenNaqvi

b. SGA Merch- Senator Tanisha Taneja

c. Closed Session

7. First Reading
8. Second Reading

a. Board of Directors Amendment- Senator Daarian Rouhani

b. JHU Snack Packs Bill- Chair Tim Huang

c. Chair of Programming Bylaw Amendment- Chair Tim Huang

d. Chair of Programming and Meetings Constitution Update-

Chair Tim Huang

e. Voter Turnout Bill- Chair Tim Huang

9. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
10. 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.112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #24April 1, 2025 / 07:20 PM / Hackerman B17MINUTES

11. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

a. Excused Absentees: Omar Gharib, Jennifer Tang Cabrera

b. Unexcused Absentees:

12. Convening Business (40 min)
13. Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)

a. Fraternity & Sorority Life Senator Yashas Mallikarjun gave amotion to add a closed session to talk about the ICEdeportations on campus. The motion passed.b. Agenda has been approved.

14. Public Input (3 min)
15. Reports (5 min)

a. Cabinet Reports (4 min)i. Student Body President Stone Meng wished everyonegood luck if they are running for the elections. He alsosaid that the executive board is creating transitiondocuments.ii. Student Body Vice President Amy Li informed that aprevious SGA secretary is joining the meeting today.iii. Chair of Programming Tim Huang informed that theJunior Formal raised $1,300 for the Children’s Hospital.They are thinking about how to send the money to thehospital and the photos will be out tomorrow. Hementioned that the Freshman Formal will be in a coupleof weeks.iv. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi will be leaving SGAafter four years. She proposed that instead of transitiondocuments, we could have transition videos this year. Sheasked the opinion of the senate. Our last GBM will be onApril 15th. The Storytelling Event on April 23rd of thisyear will include a new twist this year, which Naqvi is veryexcited about. This is a great opportunity for networkingwhile eating dinner.

b. Advisor Report (2 min)i. Snell wished everyone good luck who is campaigning.

16. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

d. SVC Presentation- Secretary Buse Koldas & President NasreenNaqvii. Naqvi and Secretary Buse Koldas introduced the Johns

Hopkins University Sesquicentennial VolunteerCommittee, which is a committee preparing celebrationsfor the 150th year of Hopkins. The committee’s motto is‘Sesquitize it!’ and the celebrations will take place fromJuly 2025 to December 2026. The events throughout theyear will have the 150th branding.ii. Koldas introduced the Sesquicentennial Awards Programto enhance existing academic programs and activities.They wanted to explicitly talk to SGA as an opportunity toget funding for an event towards the 150th year. As anundergraduate group, you will need a faculty advisor.There will be two application cycles, and moreinformation will be shared on Teams. Maximum funding astudent group can receive is $5000.iii. Naqvi added that this is an extra opportunity for thesegroups because they will have extra funding. Naqvi andKoldas wanted to bring this opportunity further so thatSGA can be aware in advance.iv. Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz asked about the numberof funds. Koldas answered that you can apply under thethree award categories she went over. However, there isn’ta specific amount of awards that has been talked aboutyet, Naqvi added.v. Senior Class Senator Jacquelyn Slade asked if an eventcan be proposed by an undergraduate and alumnus as acollaboration, to which Koldas said yes.

vi. Religious and Spiritual Life Senator Zachary Bahar askedif these will clash with the 250th anniversary for theUnited States. Naqvi answered that while talking to boardmembers this wasn’t mentioned, she will definitely bringit up next time.vii. Freshman Class President Jason Yu asked if it can be foran initiative. Naqvi answered that it has to be a schoolwide event; however, Koldas suggested applying under theCreative Vision award anyways.

e. SGA Merch- Senator Tanisha Tanejai. KSAS Senator Tanisha Taneja suggested creating SGAmerch. She suggested this because they had multipletablings where it was hard to distinguish who was in SGAand who was not. They plan to talk to the FinanceCommittee. Once they have every member from SGAorder, they will order the merch.ii. Junior Class Senator Anisha Rasamsetty showed thedesigns, which can be found in the link above.iii. Alezz suggested looking at different colors to pop in thecrowd.iv. KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani stated that the quarter zipis the best option and the logo should go on the back withjust the letters SGA.v. Student Body Vice President Amy Li pointed out that itwon’t be possible to order the merch this year, Rasamsettysaid they are waiting to order it after the results of thenew SGA. The number of apparel is temporary.vi. WSE Senator Moses Frumkin pointed out that buyingapparel for student government members might make itseem that the funding is going the wrong way to thepublic.vii. Bahar suggests allowing the members to buy a sweater.viii. Alezz mentioned that the intention is not to give merchtowards SGA but rather visibility for finding SGAmembers. The quarter zips might be pushing it too much.They could use a local shop in order to not waste money.ix. Taneja mentioned that quarter zips will be better forweather versatility. She likes the suggestion of choosinglocal shops.x. Huang agreed with Bahar that it might be bad for optics.One idea is a merch order for all of the student body.There are designs that are ready. If you want to turn itinto a general body, you can have these types ofmerchandise for SGA and merch that people can buy.xi. Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh knows multiplepeople who are struggling with funding; and therefore,having a specific design just for SGA will be a bad look. Hesuggested choosing a better stand out merchandise. TheT-shirts seem overpriced, so he agrees to go with a localstore.xii. Slade understands the concerns about funding; however,she thinks that this is a good marketing tool and fostersthe visibility of SGA.xiii. KSAS Senator Danial Nabizadeh loves the initiative. He

pointed out that Senior Class Senator Jennifer TangCabrera sent out a form with some designs she broughttogether, so he suggested comparing these designs tohers. Nabizadeh added that the SGA needs something thatwill help them get more visibility.xiv. Taneja will look into Huang’s idea of going for local shopsto not spend SGA funding.xv. Freshman Class Senator Kevin Xu agrees that it is hard todistinguish SGA members from others, which could beresolved with badges or merchandise. It is not unordinaryfor other student body clubs to hand out merchandise, soit might not be a big problem. However, he agrees tolower the costs.xvi. Rouhani told Taneja and Rasamsetty to not getdiscouraged by bad optics. He personally doesn’t seeanything wrong with SGA getting merchandise when SGAhas been helping other clubs do the same.

f. Closed Session

17. First Reading
18. Second Reading

f. Board of Directors Amendment- Senator Daarian Rouhanii. Rouhani asked anyone with a question to ask him. The billintends to improve communication and transparencybetween committees.ii. KSAS Senator Jaden Garcia pointed out that there are twoco-chairs for Internal Affairs. Rouhani said that he willspecify.iii. Answering Alezz’s clarification request, Rouhani said thatthe only new thing being added is the new board, so it isnot creating any new positions.iv. The bill passed unanimously.

g. JHU Snack Packs Bill- Chair Tim Huangi. The event will be organized on April 30th. They will begiving out snacks and face masks. It is a collaborationwith Health & Well-Being. This will be advertised to thestudent body.ii. Yu asked if the food is for the volunteers, to which Huangsaid that it is for everyone participating.iii. Xu asked who the face masks are for, to which Huang saidthat they will be distributed.iv. Rasamsetty asked if it was the same catering service as theone in the Junior Formal, to which Huang said it’s not.v. Alezz asked if there were dietary restriction foods forvegetarians and vegans. Huang responded that it will beprovided.vi. The bill passed unanimously.

h. Chair of Programming Bylaw Amendment- Chair Tim Huangi. The bill changes the programming structure. It will takeeffect next year.ii. The bill passed unanimously.

i. Chair of Programming and Meetings Constitution Update-

Chair Tim Huangi. The bill has been changed according to feedback fromInternal Affairs and others.ii. Alezz said that if a committee consists of people who arenot enough to have a quorum in the whole group, thentheir meetings are exempt from being open meetings.Meetings where the members are more than the numberrequired to vote on something need to be open, which setsa good precedent for the future. He thus suggested closingall committee meetings.iii. Huang said that the reason why he decided to keep somecommittees open is because SGA is a pretty open club, sohe wants to make sure people find out about what’s goingon inside. People don’t come to committee meetings;however, it is still beneficial to keep them open.iv. Xu agreed that not a lot of people will come to SGAcommittee meetings. Xu agrees that we should maintainsome type of transparency instead of looking forprecedents to rationalize not having transparency.v. Slade wondered why this is being brought to the senatealthough it only interests the committees themselves.Huang said that it is required by the SGA constitution.vi. Sophomore Class Senator Jazzlyn Fernandez said that shedoesn’t agree with closing the committee meetings. Sheproposed that in the middle of a lawsuit, it is not a correctmove to close down the meetings. This is because themembers are elected in and it’s sending the wrongmessage to now have them be closed. It seems like there issomething hidden, which doesn’t seem fair to otherbranches. She also points out that there are documentsthat are given in discretion which are determined by onlytwo people.vii. Huang said that the lawsuit will happen either way andwill follow the old SGA constitution. This is not areflection toward it as this passing doesn’t have an impact.He said that Internal Affairs go through impeachments,logistical laws and other internal affairs, similar to theJudiciary meetings, which are not open to the public. Thisis why Huang thinks Internal Affairs should be closed tothe public. For the executive board, he said that when theadministration visits SGA meetings, they give informationto the executive branch, which they can not share withanyone else. He added that there isn’t any organizationthat has their executive board meetings open.viii. Garcia said that technically, even if nobody is looking at it,it should be there for the record. Garcia asked for aniClicker vote.ix. Fernandez said that the first thing people do when theyare running is to open their accounts to be as available aspossible. If someone is being impeached, then they arenot holding themselves accountable to those things. TheJudiciary closed because they went through things like thelawsuit. They have their own accountability. InternalAffairs go through things that are already public. Shethinks that closing the meetings because we don’t wantthem to see the behind the scenes, then we are limitingpublic opinion. She thinks that we should hold ourselvesaccountable to transparency.

x. Sophomore Class Senator Omatara Tiamiyu mentionsthat a lot of people don’t attend the meetings anyway, soshe questioned what is the harm of opening the meetingminutes and what problems have occurred before. Sheadditionally asked if the executive meetings are closed tothe general public or to the SGA as well.xi. Meng said that a lot of great points have been made, andhe suggested leaving this discussion to the nextleadership.xii. Huang said that he wants to pass the Chair ofProgramming part of the bill.xiii. Alezz states that it would be better to have an option toclose the committee meetings if they are discussingproposals or bills that need to be confidential. In finance,most meetings are open as people sometimes come in toask questions. In these cases, it is good that they are open.By implementing this will give meetings flexibility.xiv. Huang responded by suggesting to change Article 4,Section 5 to any branch meeting, meaning in a committee,if ⅔ of the committee votes to close the meeting, then itcan be closed.xv. Frumkin asked if committees have the power to decide ifthey want to close the meeting or the executive board.Frumkin understands that there are some topics thatshould be held in discretion, but SGA should hold theexecutive meetings accountable. The goal is to allowpeople to come to meetings.xvi. Huang said that in the past, these meetings have alwaysbeen open.xvii. Li asked to clarify ⅔ of the Senate to “voting members.”xviii. Naqvi opened an iClicker vote.

1. The Senate voted on the bill. There were 12 votes in

favor and 19 votes for tabling it and editing it.

2. The Senate voted again on the bill to decide whether

the Chair of Programming amendments should bepassed. Those amendments passed with 29 votes infavor and 2 against.

j. Voter Turnout Bill- Chair Tim Huangi. Huang said that this is involving the Committee ofStudent Elections. There has been low voter count in theelections for the past few years. Therefore, they want topass an initiative to encourage the student body toparticipate. The tabling will be on April 8th. The first 240people that come and show that they voted will be given aKrispy Kreme Donut. The whole order will cost $431.ii. Responding to Xu’s question about how exactly they willprove that they voted, to which Huang said that they canshow their Hopkins Groups form.

19. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
20. 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.