112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association
Senate Meeting #9
October 8, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17
AGENDA
Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
- Excused Absentees: Ryan Alezz, Omar Gharib, Molly Kuzma
- Unexcused Absentees: Yonatanne Desta
Convening Business (10 min)
Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
Public Input (3 min)
Reports (5 min)
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
- Advisor Report (2 min)
Non-Legislative Business (15 min)
- Freshman Senator Confirmations-President Nasreen Naqvi
- SGA Groupme -President Nasreen Naqvi
- Vice President of the Senate Vacancy Election -President Nasreen Naqvi
- Jay Games Updates- Chair Tim Huang
- SGA Leadership Workshop - Chair Tim Huang
First Reading
Second Reading
- MSE Construction Resolution- President Stone Meng
- Trunk and Treat Funding Bill- Senator Nayshawn Ferebee
Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
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 #9
October 8, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17
AGENDA
Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
- Excused Absentees: Ryan Alezz, Omar Gharib, Molly Kuzma
- Unexcused Absentees: Yonatanne Desta
Convening Business (10 min)
Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
- MSE Resolution moved to second reading.
Public Input (3 min)
Reports (5 min)
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
- The Executive Board congratulated the freshmen.
- Secretary Buse Koldas asked every freshmen to email her their Google Drive email.
- President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi asked everyone to email her and Koldas.
- Advisor Report (2 min)
- Advisor Jessica Snell also congratulated the freshmen.
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
Non-Legislative Business (15 min)
- Freshman Senator Confirmations-President Nasreen Naqvi
- Freshmen senators introduced themselves and have been confirmed. Their committees have been announced and can be found in the slides.
- SGA Groupme -President Nasreen Naqvi
- Naqvi had several conversations with SGA members, who stated that Teams feels too official. She agrees with this, so we created a GroupMe.
- Vice President of the Senate Vacancy Election -President Nasreen Naqvi
- People who were interested in running for the Vice President of the Senate position were either nominated or got nominated by someone else. The candidates were KSAS Senator Jaden Garcia, Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basireddy, Junior Class Senator Srigouri Oruganty and KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani.
- Although Naqvi suggested the freshmen to not be able to vote as they do not know any of the candidates, since such regulation does not exist in the By-Laws, it was decided that freshmen would be allowed to vote.
- President Stone Meng encouraged the freshmen to abstain and Naqvi agreed.
- Naqvi explained the duties of the Vice President of the Senate. The Vice President of the Senate is elected from the Senate members. The Vice President plays a key role in facilitating communication between SGA positions and fostering community within the membership by assisting the President of the Senate.
- The candidates have given one minute long speeches.
- Garcia said that he has proven history with the senate in the approval of bills and amendments. He added the attendance amendment to the constitution, drafted the Rules Bill (which is still being debated), and prepared guidelines to teach members what to say in meetings. He was the parliamentarian of the senate last year.
- Basireddy said that it is her second year in the SGA and that she has been to almost every GBM. She is very involved with committees and she’s also a committee chair. She is knowledgeable about the duties of this position. She promises to do her best in this position.
- Oruganty is the chair of the Health, Safety and Sustainability committee. She wants to be the Vice President of the Senate and wants to assist the senate and make sure the GBMs go smoothly. She consistently had items in the agenda like bills and presentations. She said that she’d be willing to help the senators in presenting during the GBM. She organized the Wellbeing Day, which reached 700 students. She knows how to make initiatives come to real life and communicate with people. She’s working on creating a South Asian Studies minor and is in communication with other people outside of SGA.
- Rouhani is the committee chair of Internal Affairs. He is working on having PILOT sessions for General Biology 1 and 2. He truly has so much passion in the SGA and is super participative. Highlighting that he comes to every single meeting, he said that just yesterday he went to a meeting thaty Meng couldn’t go and participated in that admin meeting. He has a strong will to learn and is passionate about SGA. He wants to work up the ranks. He said that as he is friends with Naqvi, it should help them work together.
- After the candidates left the room, the members of the senate deliberated which candidate should be elected.
- Three rounds of voting were conducted where in every single one of them the candidate with the lowest votes was eliminated. In the end, Oruganty was elected.
- Jay Games Updates- Chair Tim Huang
- Programming Chair Tim Huang thanked everyone for supporting JayGames. It will take place on October 26, from 10 AM to 4 PM. We already have 45 people registered. He especially wants freshmen to participate. He asked the SGA members to share the event. He highlighted the free prizes and Ekiben. There might be limited merch for this event
- Huang continued by expressing the need for volunteers. Since this is a big event, he needs a lot of volunteers. People who are participating in JayGames can’t volunteer.
- Rouhani asked if he can unregister to volunteer, and Huang said he could do that but asked him to not feel like he is obligated to do that.
- Naqvi asked every slot to be filled.
- A motion for a 5 minute Q&A with 1 minute speaking time was passed. Sophomore Class Senator Omotara Tiamiyu asked Huang to add the date to the sheet.
- Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun asked if she could still play if she volunteered for the setup. Huang said that she could.
- Freshman Class President Jason Yu wondered if this could also be the case for clean up. Huang approved.
- Huang asked the members to put a star next to your name if you are volunteering and playing.
- Huang explained what JayGames is for the freshmen. It was created a few years ago and is a recreation of Squid Games. Teams will play a bunch of games where they might get eliminated if they don’t perform well. At the end, teams get prizes depending on how successful they were.
- Abiodun asked what happens if they get eliminated early on in the game. Huang said that no team will get eliminated until midway through and that there is a redemption game.
- SGA Leadership Workshop - Chair Tim Huang
- Huang added that there will be a Leadership Workshop this Saturday from 4 to 5 PM. It will go over RSO Finance. There will be free Potbelly. It will be in a room in the Commons. An email to RSOs has been sent out.
- Naqvi said that, since most of us are members of RSOs outside of SGA, it is important that we make sure as many RSOs participate as possible.
- Abiodun asked if the SGA Instagram will share the event, to which Huang said yes.
First Reading
Second Reading
- Trunk and Treat Funding Bill- Senator Nayshawn Ferebee
- Naqvi explained to freshmen how bills are approved and what First and Second Reading is.
- Nayshawn explained that this is a Halloween event. Organizations will have a table where they can bring decorations to. They will connect with the community through these tabling events. You will get to grab some candy and learn about those organizations.
- Motion to discharge to Finance was given, yet since Finance has already reviewed it, motion to vote was passed and the bill was approved unanimously.
- MSE Construction Resolution- President Stone Meng
- Meng talked about the communications he had with the construction workers so far. The fencing will be there until MSE opens in 2027. He asked everyone to think about the seniors who can’t take photos in front of them. According to him, this is the most optimal time to send a resolution. If we wait, students will be adjusting through time and advocacy will decrease.
- Meng wrote this resolution to ask for change. The bill asks for a 5% tuition reduction and for enhanced communications, along with a call to improve study spaces.
- 5 minutes of silent reading time was given (especially because this was the first time freshmen would be seeing this).
- Meng asked to pass this today so that it can be sent tomorrow. He encouraged discussions on possible amendments and future steps.
- Motion for a 10 minute moderated caucus was passed.
- Special Interest and Hobby Senator Adithyan Neelamana strongly supports this. He doesn’t think anyone else wouldn’t support it. However, he asked how pointing out the issues about storage, transportation and shortcut connect to our point.
- Meng thinks that it is important for us to advocate for other amenities if we are losing a library. The issues highlighted are all important issues. He asks the admins to have a conversation with us through this.
- WSE Senator Moses Frumkin thinks that it’s better to start with negotiations. He thinks that we should talk about the ones that truly matter and can be fixed. He doesn’t think the shortcuts are that important, like study spaces.
- Meng asked if Frumkin was asking to move the shortcuts down and study places up. Frumkin agreed and said that it is important to mention this before.
- Media Senator Tyler Turner asked to clarify what the Impact Grant is.
- Meng said that Fraternity & Sorority Life Senator Yashas Mallikarjun also suggested removing this because it might advertise for this grant even though it doesn’t exist yet. On second thought, though, Meng changed his mind that we should keep it as it is just a proposal and it is good to include it.
- Turner expressed that raising the issue regarding pathways is critical according to him. Making the pathways less accessible causes people to change their routine.
- Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh thinks that this is a good thing to push for. According to him, a common strategy the administration uses is to pick the first thing you throw at them and then distract you from your argument. He thinks that it might be true that it causes a detour, but that it is not that important, so they might invalidate it. However, they can’t deny the miscommunication. He thinks we should bring up the loss of visual appearance in the SGA, too. JHU cares about its appearance, so we should “hurt them from where it hurts.”
- Meng said that he normally included that at first, but then people asked him to remove it in revisions, which was why he moved it down. He asked people to comment on the file and upvote comments they agree with.
- Tiamiyu believes that it’s important to talk about our loss to walking paths and decrease in accessibility. She thinks that we definitely need to highlight the lack of communication by making it mandatory for the admin to announce it and let us know.
- Meng will add the accessibility point.
- Senior Class Senator Jennifer Tang Cabrera believes that the disability argument would strengthen this. Lack of communication should be prioritized and saying “lack of visual aesthetic” can be more eloquent. She suggested us to include a possible solution, which is having local Baltimore artists paint there.
- Motion to extend the moderated caucus of 10 minutes passed.
- Meng agreed with her points and will see how doable the artist idea is. He asked the senate’s opinion on how important it is for us to present solutions.
- Vice President Amy Li believes in choosing the ones that are most ambitious. Last year, Vice Provost Rachelle Hernandez talked about increasing programming on campus, which didn’t happen, so we could touch on that. She believes that we should also emphasize the urgency of the issue.
- Frumkin believes that it is worth asking for specific things. It is valuable to discuss tech grants and tuition reduction during COVID as pointing out a specific kind of action that JHU has done in the past shows that the university has done it in the past and that they can do it again in the future.
- Li suggested combining storage and increased funding for RSOs, which Meng agreed with.
- Senior Class Senator Jacquelyn Slade added that the loss of the library is important for culture. When she wants to study somewhere, she needs to check from building to building. She suggested having a seat tracking system like we did in COVID to see where there is availability for sitting. Student body is more separated now due to the closure of MSE. She suggested talking about our international reputation and using their own work against them.
- Cultural and Identity Senator Jordyn Craig-Schwartz said that seat tracking used to exist when they were freshmen. She asked to bring it back.
- KSAS Senator Danial Nabizadeh believes that due to the diplomatic tone of the resolution, we probably won’t get the 5% tuition reduction.
- Meng said that this is a negotiation strategy: asking for more than you’ll probably get.
- Nabizadeh thinks that we are watering down the resolution by asking for something that won’t be possible.
- Basireddy sees Nabizadeh’s point, but she doesn’t think there’s harm in asking. They will either accept or reply in a way that will help SGA push for other things. She recommended SGA to print this out and put it around campus and share it on social media.
- Abiodun agrees with Basireddy’s points. However, she sees Nabizadeh’s point and thinks that we should be a bit more direct with it. She believes that the problem is that we find out the small things they added randomly just when we were on our way to class. She doesn’t think we should mention Tech Grant as it had its own sole purpose. People needed technology for online education, so its purpose was so separate. She thinks that asking for a 5% reduction is easy to say no to. She thinks that we should bring up the lack of parking lots as some people need to skip class because they can’t park. She asks us to add stronger points first. We need to be strong with what we are asking: we must be sure about what we’re wanting and be more demanding.
- The moderated caucus was extended once again.
- Meng thanked Abiodun for her great points. He will add parking. She agrees that when we are talking about the pathways, we should point out to their randomness, not the seemingly minor inconvenience they cause. He expressed that this letter will be sent to the student body and the admin. Due to this reason, when we are asking for the 5% tuition reduction, we should be considerate that we are contacting the high level administration. We want to present that we are not criticizing the admin but rather trying to sign to the students that we are working on this and to admins that we want to work with them.
- Junior Class Senator Anisha Rasamsetty said that we wanted this resolution to be as ambitious as possible. She thinks that we should have more emphasis on the 5% part.
- Li suggested creating an appendix that has the data we collected. She said that Dean Elizabeth Long’s MSE Survey only had 20 responses. However, we collected more than 100 responses. This shows that students want to come to us to discuss these and we have data to prove our points, so we have evidence based points. It also shows that we are serious about the issues that are happening on campus.
- Meng doesn’t want to include the data here because he wants to send it if the admin asks for it and he wants to reshare the survey after publishing the resolution.
- Abiodun questioned: aren't 100 respondes enough already?
- Oruganty pointed out that they blocked one of the only nice outdoor places. People liked to sit there, looking at Gilman. We should emphasize the loss of community due to construction. Survey data is important and 100 responses is enough.
- Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz asked if we have a justification for the 5%.
- Meng said that COVID was 15%, so we’re asking for less than that. There is no specific reason.
- Tang motioned to address the senate. Although she doesn’t know why we want to send this out tomorrow, Tang believes that we should take more time and have more time applying the edits. She believes that we should look at this with a new perspective. We need to be more demanding and upfront.
- Meng disagrees as this resolution was shared last Tuesday and everyone had time to provide comments. He thinks that her point is valid, though. However, he doesn’t want to repeat what we did last year. He believes in quick action and doesn’t want to spend time as it won’t make a difference according to him. If we don’t send it tomorrow, it will be too late.
- Motion to vote was passed.
- Meng will implement everybody’s feedback and send it to Teams.
- Resolution passed unanimously.
Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
- Tang reminded the members that our SGA party is this Saturday at 8:30 PM in the Levering Lounge. It will be a great way to socialize and get to know new SGA members. There will also be karaoke. She asked everyone to bring snacks.
- Naqvi reminded everyone to join the SGA GroupMe.
Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)