Copy of Senate Meeting #17

112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #17

January 28, 2025 / 07:20 PM / Hackerman B17

AGENDA

1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

   1. Excused Absentees:
   2. 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)

   1. Cabinet Reports (4 min)
   2. Advisor Report (2 min)

6. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

7. SGA Expectations - President Nasreen Naqvi
   1. Committee Expectations
   2. Admin Invites
8. SIF Tabling- President Nasreen Naqvi
   1. Updated Posters and Stuff
   2. Spotlights: https://www.canva.com/design/DAF6n8WLA78/_IPuCXQWMV2fwyuRbGsPrg/view?utm_content=DAF6n8WLA78&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h4e16acf671
9. Foundational Abilities Survey- Senator Kevin Xu
10. SGA Mentorship Program- Senator Tanisha Taneja & Amy Xu

*** Cohort Time

7. First Reading

8. Speed Dating Bill- Chair Tim Huang
   1. Date: Feb 21st
   2. Evening 7pm Great Hall

9. Second Reading

10. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

11. Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)

Time-length and adjournment estimates are provided for the benefit of guests at Senate meetings. However, SGA meetings are always slated to extend until 9:00 PM and SGA members are expected to remain in the Senate chamber until official adjournment by motion, whether before or after the adjournment estimate.

112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #17

January 28, 2025 / 07:20 PM / Hackerman B17

MINUTES

11. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Excused Absentees:
    2. Unexcused Absentees:

12. Convening Business (40 min)

13. Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)

14. Public Input (3 min)

15. Reports (5 min)

    1. Cabinet Reports (4 min)
       1. Stone: Happy Lunar New Year. Off-season housing → Asked SGA to make the students aware of the office. February 4th event. Stone will meet with them. They might come to meeting.
       2. Stone: With Tarini, classroom initiative. In a few GBMs, Brown will come and give more updates about the new items.
       3. Tim: Couple of events. Spring Retreat → dinner with SGA alumni, planning with Koogle from alumni association. SGA Sponsor Fundraiser will be organized, more details to come. Senator Spotlights, has some rough drafts, can be accessed on the agenda, message Tim with some of the things you’ve done this semester. Will start posting after SIF. If interested in chair of programming, reach out to Tim.
    2. Advisor Report (2 min)
       1. Jessica: Thank you to the 8 people that will be going to the student government event (from different universities).

16. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

17. SGA Expectations - President Nasreen Naqvi
    1. Committee Expectations
       1. Let Nasreen know if committees changed their meeting times or dates. Please update Nas with what you’re doing.
       2. Tim: Programming changed and it depends on the class
       3. Tarini: AA is 6-7 on Sundays, Brody/Zoom hybrid.
       4. Ryan: Finance 4-5 on Mondays
       5. Srigouri: HSS will be finalized
       6. Nas: Starting next Tuesday, have these finalized.
       7. Nas: Agenda meetings should be submitted by sundays. Put it as a reply to the agenda email. If not presented in the email, then you won’t be able to present it. Important to see what is presented before in order to screen and see if information is relevant and appropriate. Attendance on iClicker and random photos. Email Buse and Nas for not coming to GBMs, don’t do it on Teams. Attendance incentives from LOTQ will roll over to this semester. All policies of attendance are the same as before.
       8. Nas: Committee updates are not done during GBMs anymore. But committees should still be sending updates. Nas might ask committees to share during cohort time for example.
    2. Admin Invites
       1. Nasreen worked with Jessica and Charles during winter break to compile a list of admin to be invited.
       2. Leah Horton, Dean Long, Rachel, Brittani, Dean Cha (?) have been invited.
       3. Tarini: WSE and KSAS Deans, can we add them to the list?
18. SIF Tabling- President Nasreen Naqvi
    1. Hope more people can sign up so the table will be more crowded, SIF will be an attendance incentive
    2. Updated Posters and Stuff
       1. Tim: Posters are the same as last time, in the middle is what will be changed on campus, left side, right side are senator spotlights
       2. Tim: Free posters/fliers will be printed, whatever free prints that we have could be distributed during SIF. Tablecloth and banner will be included.
       3. Nas: 3-5 time slots should be filled out, and the whole thing should be filled before we leave today.
    3. Spotlights: https://www.canva.com/design/DAF6n8WLA78/_IPuCXQWMV2fwyuRbGsPrg/view?utm_content=DAF6n8WLA78&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h4e16acf671
19. Foundational Abilities Survey- Senator Kevin Xu
    1. Started drafting in the AA committee. Contributions from AA members and freshman senators. A few rounds of editing, approved by Jessica toward the end of last semester, postponed to this semester as there were finals. 380 responses already, although it was sent just last week. Students are passionate.
    2. Demographics are in the slides. KSAS students responded more often than WSE students as the situation mainly affects KSAS.
       1. Restricts interest exploration
       2. Negatively affects course and career planning
       3. Make double majoring more difficulty
    3. Students believe that:
       1. The students are now required to take too many credits
       2. Some advisors are unhelpful
       3. Lack of transparency from the university as many of them learned about these requirements way too late; a quarter of them found out when they were here.
    4. Students said that this FA requirement would be important in their decision to come to Hopkins
    5. Students ask for:
       1. A reduction in the number of credits
       2. More double counting across FAs
          1. Some can be double counted but FA2 cannot be double counted with other FA categories. Those that cannot be counted have the most amount of credits required, which contributes to students frustrations
       3. Streamlining labeling process (labelling things that haven’t been labeled yet)
       4. Modifying majors themselves to make it more compatible with FA credits
       5. Sizeable support from (14~19%)
    6. All data has been attached toward the end of the slide
    7. Daar: Talked

My comments:

• shift the school towards a liberal arts focus (upper-level admin find it too “STEM-my” (Daar)
• Met with the Vice Provost of KSAS (Jaden). Semi-dependent on majors/departments. You would have to convince each department.
• Jazz: Takes away potential and forces you to take things that you may not actually want to take. You were promised to be able to pursue what you wanted
  • Potentially just allow Overloading (which was taken away). Taking away overloading seems like there’s another goal under there, taking away the opportunity to double major. Putting us on a strict course and look at the possibility of bringing back overloading
• Ryan: Implementation to WSE
  • FA is clustering credits, rather than adding more credits. It only adds 20 more credits or so. It is about increasing the competency of their students → breadth in many areas and specializing in one. Increasing their fluency in other areas. They’ve been doing this for years and suggesting changes (T-shape model); been through countless committees. More of a misunderstanding of FA requirements and people are hearing different things from their advisors. Not just the students who are confused. Should be advocating for clearer communication and further transparency pertaining to FAs and future changes → This is more of a failed implementation rather than requiring changes to the actual FA requirements.
• Spelling out how it doesn't work out for the double majors of a lot and get some evidence for how the credits don’t work together.
• Allow double-counting in the sense that WSE classes would have FA labels and be able to be counted to KSAS FA requirements. We want more double-counting. Make advising a bigger part/play a bigger role in Hopkins’ student experiences, set up more meetings, etc.
• Issues in the implementation of FAs and most people were unaware of this. This was something prioritized in their info sessions and events. It makes people feel forced to do XY and forcing department hands. Administrative overreach → forcing departments to create more
  • Not helping people actually pursue their interests
  • Forcing departments to change their curriculums to adjust to new requirements that they don’t want

8. SGA Mentorship Program- Senator Tanisha Taneja & Amy Xu

*** Cohort Time

17. First Reading

18. Speed Dating Bill- Chair Tim Huang
    1. Date: Feb 21st
    2. Evening 7pm Great Hall

19. Second Reading

20. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

21. Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)

Time-length and adjournment estimates are provided for the benefit of guests at Senate meetings. However, SGA meetings are always slated to extend until 9:00 PM and SGA members are expected to remain in the Senate chamber until official adjournment by motion, whether before or after the adjournment estimate.