JHU SGAThe 114th Session
← All documents

Nov 26, 2024 Exec x Advisor Meeting

Minutes / Executive · 112th session · created November 25, 2024 · updated February 23, 2025

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.

SGA Executive Board Advisor Meeting Nov 26, 2024 / 1 pm EDT / Teams Virtual Meeting

Present: Stone, Amy, Buse, Tim, Brandon Unexcused Absent: Excused Absent: Nasreen Agenda

  1. Meeting with President Daniels
    1. Construction
    2. Affirmative Action
    3. Next Meeting Time
  2. Leverage & Work together (Closed Meeting)
    1. Social Media
    2. Anticipated Responses

Minutes

  1. Exec Feedback Form
    1. Everyone approved the executive board feedback form.
  2. Meeting with President Daniels
    1. For this meeting, there are several factors we don’t know yet. For example, we are unclear as to whether 30 or 50 minute meeting. This will change how we approach the meeting. If it’s 30 minutes, we will minimize small talk. We will discuss the construction and affirmative action issues, also we will ask for a follow up meeting before Christmas. We should address construction more if it is 30 minutes as we already have a meeting scheduled with the deans on affirmative action.
    2. Brandon said that we should still touch on it briefly, but it makes sense that it won’t be the main topic. He asked if the meeting would be for the senate or for us. Stone said that it will include us, Cynthia and Nayshawn.
    3. Amy said that there are people who are surprised about the construction and people will be even more surprised when they come back to campus and see the new fencing.
    4. Stone asked the university’s likely response to our construction resolution. There are three possible responses. They will accept the 5% tuition reduction, they will give a little tuition reduction along with some improvements as compensation, or they will not give tuition reduction but more compensation will be provided. Stone thinks that the third one is the most likely
    5. Brandon does not know what they are going to say but he hopes to see a detailed plan.
    6. Stone asked what we will do if President Daniels gives a flat no. We have little to no leverage. Stone suggested to create this leverage. Previous SGA member Jackson suggested going to news channels, but he doesn’t support this. There are several content creators on campus. If they can put videos on their accounts and make those go viral (such as “JHU is number 6 in the rankings, but full of construction”), we could show proof to President Daniels that students are upset. We could say how we understand that the university can’t compensate, but students are upset and there are barely any walking spaces. Thus, we can work with the administration to prevent the students from revolting.
    7. Tim doesn’t know if the university will care depending on the current trend.
    8. Buse said that they would only care if the creators received some type of reaction.
    9. Tim said that the admin could say constructions will make the campus better in the future.
    10. Stone said that we can’t ignore the experience of the students now. If they say no to 5% tuition reduction, they can give more dining dollars or something similar, which would still be cheaper than tuition reduction.
    11. Amy said that we could ask for a construction advisory group.
    12. Tim said that this likely won’t do anything and said that we need to do something different.
    13. Stone said that we should target general improvement and something additional to compensate the students. We could reach out to creators if President Daniels actually flat out rejects us.
    14. Tim believes that we need to come up with a series of questions that we can ask him by anticipating his responses. He can go off on all the future stuff but the fact is that we represent the students of now and that’s the leverage we have.
    15. Stone asked what we should do if President Daniels asks for a closed session.
    16. Tim still thinks this is the best leverage we have. To him, this should be enough leverage if he actually cares.
    17. Stone said that this is business. Unless he genuinely cares about the students, he won’t ask for a closed session. We should ask these questions but we should still think about how we can get a result out of this. We can show a slideshow of all the construction on campus and screenshots of people complaining. If he says we won’t do anything, we can go to social media creators.
    18. Tim said that if he tells us that the meeting is closed and that they won’t do anything, we can push questions out as the administrators won’t want us to share something that shows they’re not doing anything. He wants to prevent negativity from Sidechat.
    19. Brandon asked why he would even close the meeting. Stone said that he could decide to provide sensitive information.
    20. Brandon said that them saying they won’t do anything is not a good reason to close the meeting. We could push against the meeting being closed as it is not acceptable to have the meeting closed.
    21. Buse said that President Daniels will likely won’t ask to close it because she doesn’t think he knows it’s an option.
    22. Stone said that we should schedule a meeting for the future and work amongst ourselves to find a solution. We should acknowledge the problems and give the student body some compensation.
    23. Amy said that classroom access hours could be extended in Gilman.
    24. Tim said that there is some difficulty with transportation on campus (further than shuttles). We should push President Daniels on these inaccessible pathways.
    25. Stone said that we should create an implementation timeline. We should have an announcement from Daniels so that SGA is not the scapegoat.
    26. About the Affirmative Action issue, Stone said that the university is working on recruiting from veterans.
    27. Amy suggested implementing supplemental essays to promote diversity on campus.
    28. Stone said that there were insights on why peer institutions could increase it but Hopkins couldn’t. He wants to hear how President Daniels will respond to the resolution. This question is better for the next meeting, though.
    29. Stone said that Nasreen told him that in the past, they invited President Daniels to a Christmas meeting. He thinks we could do that.
    30. Charles wants the Executive Branch to prepare three questions to ask President Daniels.
      1. What is the university’s response to the construction issue and our resolution?
      2. What actions will you take for the affirmative action situation?
      3. How can we ensure consistent lines of communication with the administration in ways such as but not limited to exec meetings and GBM visits?
        1. Can we schedule a follow up meeting before Christmas?
        2. We know that there are a lot of issues on campus and we want to resolve them as much as possible. How can we increase lines of communication? We could invite President Daniels to the GBM.
    31. Brandon said that Oluwakemi told him that the AMRs will be rebuilt and freshmen will be moved to nearby buildings.
    32. Amy said that they are delaying the AMRs probably because she and a couple of others who are living in the Academy got to renew their leases.
    33. Buse said that Nine East is also allowing its residents to renew the lease.
    34. Stone said that if this is not happening this year, we can discuss this next semester.
  3. Leverage & Work together (Closed Meeting)
    1. Social Media
    2. Anticipated Responses