JHU SGAThe 114th Session
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Executive Board Meeting — Minutes (111th Session)

Minutes / Executive · minutes · 111th session · dated September 22, 2023 · updated September 25, 2023

Filed in Drive as “PRDC Meeting Minutes”

Open the original in Google Docs ↗

This document is from a previous session and is kept for the record. It may have been amended or replaced since.

The source file is shared so that anyone with the link can edit it, so any change to it is held for review before it appears here.

9/22/23 @ PRDC Meetingw Present: Alan, Sharon, Vanessa Agenda:

  • Introductions
  • Three projects
    • Student legal aid program
      • Alan
      • UMD’s legal aid program
        • Structure (what office it’s under)
        • What specific services it provides
      • Student legal programs at institutions more broadly
    • Student tax support
      • Alan
    • SGA at other institutions
      • Kaitlyn and Vanessa
      • SGA structure - constitution
      • Bills, initiatives that work well - similar to hopkins
    • Affirmative action
      • Discuss specific goal and feasibility
      • Sharon and Jason
      • Start off getting student body opinion thru interviews/surveys
  • To do
    • Alan - first two bullet points
    • Sharon - brainstorming questions/interview/survey process for student body

9/13/23 @ 1:30pm Director’s meeting Present: Jason and Vanessa Agenda:

  • Brief recap of new members - interest and commitment level, any specific roles of interest
    • Met with two interested members specifically in affirmative action case
    • Gerardo actually works with admissions office
  • Meeting with Professor Calder
    • Follow up with Dr. Amy Binder who specializes in qualitative politics
    • Undergrad senior who wrote a paper on college admissions
    • Gave some contacts
      • People familiar with statistical side, methodology
      • People familiar with subject matter
  • Review PRDC structure/operations
    • Assign senior researcher strategy/policy advisor
    • As directors we can delegate and have the senior researchers overlook their own project groups
    • Good to have projects aside from SGA to keep members personally interested and committed
  • Two main projects
    • SGA at other schools
    • Affirmative action report
      • Specify goal
    • Be clear about how much work/capacity they’re able to take on - this shapes our strategies for each report
  • Next steps
    • Schedule next meeting - send out when2meet
      • Make this a regular meeting time to fall back on - doesn’t have to be too long of a time slot
    • In terms of senior policy advisor - can decide a bit later if PRDC grows in terms of membership - senior policy advisor is not necessary right now
    • Write a summary for PRDC - include link for interest form - send to Jason
    • Jason will meet with third person of interest

9/6/23 @ 4:30pm PRDC 2023 Academic Year First Meeting Present: Agenda:

  • Recruitment survey sent out soon
  • PRDC purpose - write reports on
    • Student body concerns
    • Requests by SGA members
    • Student organization requests
    • PRDC own interests
  • Potential pathways
    • Chosen topic from tabling report
    • Something to do with Affirmative Action
      • Could create larger report to send out to student body and administration
      • Can inform future admissions decisions
    • Researching student political views/endorsements and general opinions on politics
      • Interesting topic but only use would be having the information - can keep in mind for future work
    • Discuss/brainstorm topics of most interest to PRDC members
      • Main idea is what do we want to do with the report we have - inform an administrative change, SGA policy implementation, etc
  • Next steps
    • Potentially focus on affirmative action pathway
    • Polling with student body to learn about general consensus - inform admissions or administration or SGA about what students think about it
      • Create survey about questions about peoples’ opinions regarding admissions
        • “Do you think this decision has any impact on your admissions, etc”
        • What their experience is, what they think about it (support the case decision or not)
    • Survey distribution
      • Emails are ineffective
    • Deadline of final product should be over this fall semester - in time for general admissions deadline
    • Potentially reach out to admin about their opinions/response on affirmative action
      • Brainstorm possible policies or how we can more concretely apply this report
    • Potentially relevant article
    • Look into past PRDC similar projects and outcome
    • Send PRDC Interest Form into GroupMe

7/8/23 PRDC SCOTUS Report Meeting Present: Kaitlyn, Jason, Vanessa Agenda:

  • SGA senate meeting
  • PRDC SCOTUS Report
    • Content
      • Brief history of topics and legal past
      • Summary of each case
      • Implications
    • Assign sections
    • Timeline - done by July 11 (SGA meeting: July 12)

6/7/23 PRDC Check-in Present: Vanessa, Jason, Rafael, Kaitlyn Agenda:

  • PRDC Roles
    • Assistant Director - Jason Shumsky
    • Secretary - Kaitlyn Jung
    • Senior Policy Advisor - Rafael Stamillo
    • Policy Advisor - Alan Perez and Emma Veingosh Weinthal
  • Tabling Report
    • Currently half completed, all events and student org, building operations, dining hall, dorm sections are missing. Finish by this Sunday, June 11th. People who are already finished can volunteer to write a section.
      • Jason to take over Emma’s sections on dining hall and dorms
    • Any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions direct to Vanessa.
    • Vanessa will go back through for a final read through, make sure nothing from tabling events are missed, and send over to SGA Exec
  • Will update for next tasks, Tuesday at 7pm will be default meeting time over the summer. Not every week, but keep this time open.
  • Rafael: Who are the current members of PRDC? Alan is still interested. Reaching out to Emma.
  • Check groupme for updates!

5/22/23 Initial Onboarding Meeting Present: Ryan, Jackson, Rafael, Alan, Kaitlyn, and Vanessa Agenda:

  • Introductions
    • Name, pronouns, year, major
  • PRDC History
    • Write reports
      • Student body concerns
      • Requests by SGA members
      • Student organization requests
      • PRDC own interests
  • PRDC Structure
    • Access to shared drive
    • Roles (mostly AD, Secretary, and Policy Advisors)
      • Suggestions/editing on structure
      • Personal preferences/areas of expertise
  • Tabling report
    • Tabling Report feedback
    • Structure
    • Assign sections - suggestions for sections
  • Ideas for projects
    • Tabling suggestions
      • Dining hall/food issues
    • Mental health issues and resources on campus
    • Free access to course resources/textbooks
    • 11 for 111
      • Undergraduate Life Point 2
        • Serve as advocate for undergraduate student body
        • Get a better sense of how students are feeling and synthesize into reports/actionable items
      • Bmore and Beyond Point 11
        • Use PRDC to keep SGA informed on issues, both institutional to international
        • Use information as institutional power to advocate for issues
    • Suggestions? - use other school initiatives for inspiration
  • To-do:
    • Begin considering roles you’re interested in and let me know?
      • Need to assign “secretary” to take meeting minutes every week
    • Work on individually assigned tabling report sections - start new doc with assignments
    • Vanessa
      • Send out SGA Bylaws
      • Send out past feedback tabling
      • Schedule meeting in ~2 weeks