JHU SGAThe 114th Session
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Senate General Body Meeting #4 — Agenda (09/02/25)

Minutes / Senate · agenda · 113th session · dated September 2, 2025 · updated September 8, 2025

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113th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #4

September 2, 2025 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman Hall

AGENDA

  1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Absentees:
      1. Excused:
      2. Unexcused:
    2. Present

  2. Convening Business (1 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. First Reading (5 min)

  7. Second Reading

  9. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

    1. Initiatives Discussion - Vice President Omotara
    2. Dining Panel Initiative - Senator Siddharth
    3. GBM Time Change Vote - President Srigouri

  10. Cohort Time (30 min)

    1. Cohort Time Presentation- President Srigouri

  11. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

  12. 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 #1

April 16, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Scott-Bates Commons Salon B

MINUTES

  1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Absentees:
      1. Excused:
      2. Unexcused
    2. Present

  2. Convening Business (40 min)

    1. Late Inaugurations - Executive Branch
      1. Inaugurations have been conducted.
    2. Icebreaker - Executive Branch
      1. Buse introduced the icebreaker and asked everyone around the room to share their realistic and unrealistic goals.
      2. Starting with the executive board, the SGA members took turns in naming their goals.
    3. Reminders - Executive Branch
      1. The members have been reminded to fill out the roster form.
    4. Introduction to SGA - Executive Branch
      1. In the presentation, the executive board members asked the SGA to join the iClicker and introduced their goals.
      2. Later on, they went over the GBM rules and structure. Two major changes to the GBM structure are shortened cabinet reports and committee meetings that will be conducted in the second half of the meetings.
        1. Only the executive board members who have updates will have their names added to the agenda.
        2. Committees, instead of meeting at a separate time in the week, will conduct their weekly meetings at the second half of the GBMs.
    5. Election of President of the Senate, Vice President of the Senate & Committee Chairs - Executive Branch
      1. Vice President Amy Li started to run the elections.
      2. President of the Senate
        1. Disability Caucus Chair Jackson Morris raised a point of order stating there can not be discussions during the election of the President of the Senate.
          1. Programming Chair Tim Huang answered his point by stating that is the case only for committee elections.
        2. There were three candidates for the President of the Senate.
          1. KSAS Academic Senator Jaden Garcia was the first candidate. He served as the Parliamentarian last year and was an Internal Affairs committee member. He touched on his knowledge about the SGA constitution and Robert’s Rules of Order. While he was the parliamentarian, he helped the former Presidents of the Senate Dalhart Dobbs and Nasreen Naqvi. He wants to ensure everyone’s voices will be heard equally in the senate and promised to pour many hours into this position if he gets elected.
          2. The second candidate was the Media Senator Tyler Turner. Through this position, he aims to help those “without a voice” in the SGA. He wishes the 112th SGA to achieve more than the previous ones. He targets quick and strong change to make this senate prosperous.
          3. Lastly, Senior Class Senator Nasreen Naqvi was a candidate for the position. She was the previous President of the Senate. She emphasized that the senators are her priority. Naqvi wishes to serve the senate. She’s aware that SGA might seem distant and complex to some, but by embracing that every voice matters, she hopes to resolve this and reflect the SGA’s needs and ambitions.
        3. Naqvi won the election. She took over running the GBM after this.
      3. Vice President of the Senate
        1. President Stone Meng highlighted that the executive board is trying to extend this position more.
        2. There were four candidates for this position.
          1. Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basireddy aims to have better time management in the meetings and send out the agenda items much sooner than the GBMs if she gets elected. She wishes to build more connections with the admins through coffee chats or similar activities, while tracking the SGA initiatives through the spreadsheet and keeping it updated.
          2. Sophomore Class President Vishnu Dontu aims to achieve better student experience through this position. He mentioned a PILOT program he proposed that got approved. He added that he was able to bring free printing (up to 50 pages) to JHU students and extend vegan and vegetarian options at the cafeteria. He aims to support the President of the Senate by making the meetings more enjoyable and organizing attendance while working on initiatives.
          3. Junior Class Senator Srigouri Oruganty aims to get to know the senators better and to find more initiative ideas through this role. She talked about her work in bringing a South Asian Studies minor. She hopes to increase the diverse voices that are talking in the senate. Emphasizing the closure of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, she explained that communication is key. She wishes to update the senate about the executive board more often.
          4. Disability Caucus Chair Jackson Morris hopes to connect the SGA with the administrators more effectively. He stated that he is always a Teams message away and is ready to guide people in getting in touch with the right people.
        3. Morris won the election.
      4. Committees
        1. Naqvi introduced the committees and explained the significance of the chairs, who create the agendas for the committees and manage them.
        2. Civic Engagement
          1. There was only one candidate for this position.
            1. Senior Class President Angela Xiong was the only candidate for this role. She touched on her success in implementing new initiatives and extending the committee’s impact on the Baltimore community during her time as the chair of the committee last year. She raised awareness about the presidential elections through Hopkins Votes and had 6 years of advocacy experience in the Maryland county through SGA. She is also involved with a public policy consulting group and continues her work there. She hopes to allow the SGA senators to talk to elected members of the U.S. government on Capital Day, punctuating her ambitious goals.
          2. Since Xiong was the only candidate, there was no voting and she became the chair of this committee.
        3. Finance
          1. Treasurer Brandon Benjamin introduced the Finance committee as the old chair of this committee. The committee deals with event grants and semesterly allocations, which makes it one of the most important parts of the sga. The chair of this committee will work with Benjamin in the SGA Finance.
          2. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani was a member of the committee of Finance last year. Although he didn’t have time to participate much, he explained that he has experience with money and wishes to fund all student organizations in need.
            2. Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun wants to be in touch with the Executive Board by being the chair. She was in this committee in her first year. She knows how hard it is to distribute the SGA funds because there are multiple event requests. She doesn’t want students to go around and beg for money, so she wants to help them. Hoping to expand the budget of the SGA, she wishes to help clubs do what they want to do with their money and make them feel supported by Hopkins.
          3. Abiodun won the election.
        4. Student Services
          1. There were three candidates for this role.
            1. Dontu explained that his work has been mainly Student Services oriented because he enjoys providing for the student body by asking them what they want and helping them get those through the SGA.
            2. Sophomore Class Senator Omotara Tiamiyu explained that she worked on improving student life on campus, especially through the menstrual equity initiative on campus. She actively communicated with the Dean of Student Life. She communicates with the student body through her Instagram and is very passionate about improving the undergraduate experience. She stated that she had the passion and resources to do this.
            3. Turner was a member of this committee and served as the vice chair, allowing him to work closely with Abiodun. He connected with other departments and even made some of them come to the GBM.
          2. In the first round, no candidate received the majority vote, so a second round election between Dontu and Tiamiyu was conducted. Tiamiyu won the election.
        5. Academic Affairs
          1. There were three candidates for this position.
            1. Basireddy was a member of this committee. She has long term projects and a new initiative she’s working on that will compile course manuals and evaluations about classes. She is in communication with the deans about this. She believes that these initiatives are significant as the most important part of the Hopkins academic life is the classes students take, making course manuals key.
            2. WSE Senator Moses Frumkin believes it is a time for change in the university, involving internal change (which mainly concern WSE and KSAS as they are restructuring their own internal governments). He hopes to increase the interactions between the students and the faculty. He hopes to have less graduate students teaching and more professors instead.
            3. KSAS Senator Danial Nabizadeh stated that he worked hard with Huang and Resham Talwar (a previous member of the SGA) on academic issues. He promoted cross campus registration between Homewood and Peabody. He wants to achieve transparency and inform the students more on what will be happening during course registrations. He also hopes to more strongly advertise the work of this committee within the SGA, too.
          2. In the first round, no candidate received the majority vote, so a second round election between Basireddy and Nabizadeh was conducted. Basireddy won the election.
        6. Registered Student Organizations (RSO)
          1. There were four candidates for this position.
            1. Sophomore Class Senator Jazzlyn Fernandez knows how important this committee is as a current First-Generation, Limited-Income Network member. She worked with religious organizations on campus and volunteered, which is one of the reasons why she has experience working with RSOs. Fernandez emphasized that she is properly equipped with this role, and that she hopes to bring the best out of every RSO through partnerships.
            2. KSAS Senator Leon Ye thinks having extensive knowledge on student organizations is necessary. As the current president of an important RSO at Hopkins, he believes he has this knowledge. One of his aims is to organize training sessions for new officers in the RSOs.
            3. Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh was on this committee for the past two semesters. He mentioned that he worked with the Brain-Computer Interface Society as they were moved out from the Biomedical Engineering Department and had difficulties, so Singh helped them sort their finances. He aims to take this committee to a new direction: more like a place where student organizations can reach out to the SGA instead of the committee going up to them. He wants to move between organizations and plan events while being transparent.
            4. Junior Class Senator Shruti Tyagi was the previous chair of this committee, who is rerunning. She reached out to 175 student organizations and went to the GBMs of the RSOs to make presentations. She hopes to explain to these organizations how registration works. She is also the president of a club, so she is aware how tough it is to lead a club. Tyagi wishes to be proactive about registration questions. Also touching on anti-hazing statements and feedback to The Office Leadership Engagement and Experiential Development (LEED), she intends to take action on these and improve the experience of the RSOs.
          2. Tyagi won the election.
        7. Internal Affairs
          1. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. Garcia was on this committee last year and helped facilitate amendments to constitutions, serving as the Parliamentarian. He touched on his knowledge in Bylaws and Robert’s Rule of Order. He helped Dobbs and Naqvi with these. He expressed that he was trained by Meng himself, who was the previous chair of this committee, which is why he is knowledgeable about this committee.
            2. Rouhani accepted that Garcia might be the more qualified candidate; however, he asked the senate: “How am I supposed to get experience if I’m not given the chance?” He expressed that even though he is new to the SGA, he asked the members to give him the chance of getting more experience by voting for him.
          2. Rouhani won the election.
        8. Health, Safety and Sustainability (HSS)
          1. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. Oruganty serves as an intern at the Office of Sustainability at JHU. She took part in the organization of the Earth Fest and advocated for a student mental health day. She communicated with the Vice Provost Kevin Shollenberger and gained a lot of experience and passion. She is also an Environmental Sciences Major and was the vice chair of the committee last year.
            2. Nabizadeh congratulated Oruganty’s efforts, explaining the heart of the committee is in collaborations. She hopes to work with other clubs, create connections, raise concerns about mental health through dialogues with the professors, and advocate for safer transportations for JHU students.
          2. Oruganty won the election.
        9. Programming
          1. No chair election was conducted for this committee as the chair is Huang.
          2. Huang introduced the committee and asked for people’s participation as there are only two people in the programming committee right now.
        10. Naqvi congratulated the newly elected chairs.
    6. Committee Placements - Executive Branch
      1. Li asked all members to send their committee preferences through the QR Code.
      2. Meng explained that there will be changes to the committee meeting structures. He hopes to reduce the meeting times and increase productivity. The rest of the GBMs will be allocated to committee meetings. Everyone will join only one committee. He asked everyone to submit their top 3 choices.
        1. Oruganty explained that HSS typically meets with the admins during their meetings. She was concerned as to how they would continue doing this if the meetings take place too late. She raised this point as the new structure suggests the committees would be meeting from 8 to 9 PM on Tuesdays, which might be a late time for the administrators to come together with the committees.
        2. Meng suggested allowing HSS to have their separate meeting times.
      3. Morris asked to clarify if the members can only join one, to which Meng responded yes.
      4. Fernandez was curious if someone can join two committees if they are passionate.
        1. Meng said that it wouldn’t be encouraged as there have been a lot of absences last year. He believes that when a person is in two committees, it might decrease their productivity in the long run.
      5. Morris suggested to have a 5-minute-long moderated caucus time to discuss this, to which Meng said that could be done in the next GBM.
      6. Naqvi, empathizing with the new members, said that this might be confusing. She asked people to reach out to the Executive Board to get more information if they would like to. She said that this is a new idea and that it has never been done before. She hopes to figure this all out in the most efficient way.

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

  4. Public Input (3 min)

  5. Reports (5 min)

  6. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

  7. First Reading

  8. Second Reading

  9. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

  10. 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.