112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association
Senate Meeting #12 October 29, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17
AGENDA
Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
- Excused Absentees: Justin Pokrant, Danial Nabizadeh, Jacquelyn Slade, Anisha Rasamsetty
- Unexcused Absentees: Jennifer Tang Cabrera
Convening Business (15 min)
- Presentation from Dining- Dining Team
Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
Public Input (3 min)
Reports (5 min)
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
- Advisor Report (2 min)
- Remarks from Jessica
Non-Legislative Business (25 min)
- Senior Class Programming Council Approval - Chair Tim Huang
- Senate Vacancy Elections - President Nasreen Naqvi
- Junior Class Updates - President Oluwakemi Abiodun
- Wellbeing Day Feedback - Vice President Srigouri Oruganty
Campus Surveillance Discussion-President Nasreen Naqvi and Senator Yashas Mallikarju- Initiatives (3 mins each)
- Senator Tyler Turner
- Senator Daarian Rouhani
First Reading
- SARU Funding Bill- Vice Srigouri Oruganty
- Affirmative Action Resolution- Senator Nayshawn and Senator Cynthia
- Lighting of the Quads Tabling- Chair Tim Huang
Second Reading
- November Tabling - Chair Tim Huang
- Leadership Workshop 2 - Chair Tim Huang
Prospective Legislation &President 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 #12 October 29, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17
MINUTES
Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
- Excused Absentees: Justin Pokrant, Danial Nabizadeh, Jacquelyn Slade, Anisha Rasamsetty
- Unexcused Absentees: Jennifer Tang Cabrera
Convening Business (15 min)
- Presentation from Dining- Dining Team
- The Hopkins Dining management team came to the meeting. The representatives were Director of Marketing Brianna Williams, Director of Dining Operations Demetrius Heckstall, Executive Director of Operations Michelle Mooney and Marketing Specialist Stephanie Sufczynski.
- They have given several updates.
- At Hopkins Cafe, they now have non-allergenic stations and a Poke Bar.
- At Levering, they have new stations like the Mosaic and Tossed. They want to hear feedback regarding them. They’ve also extended their hours.
- There are two new changes with their third parties as they’ve started to work with Niecy’s Fabulous Juice Bar and Kitschenette.
- Students can use Nutrislice to check the menu out at the dining facilities.
- They asked everyone to fill out the JHU Dining Options Survey. The deadline is November 3rd and it takes about 10 minutes. They want to hear our feedback on how to better their programs. There are giveaway prizes like Airpods Max, iPad Mini, Apple Watch to people who fill out the survey. The survey is conducted by an independent consultant and it is solely for internal use. Identities will remain confidential and won’t be linked to responses.
- They talked about upcoming events like Farm to Fork and Halloween with Hopkins Dining.
- Secretary Buse Koldas asked if the dining team is working on bringing healthier options and beverages to Levering and Charles Market.
- Hopkins Dining team said that they will be working on this and improving the beverage options.
- Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz said that as a healthier beverage option, press juices could be considered. He asked about the dietary restrictions at Hopkins Dining and if these are applied to events appropriately, more specifically if there are adequate and variety foods that are labeled appropriately for certain groups. He also asked if they were on Nutrislice.
- The team said that this depends on what they are offering. For a lot of them, they make sure that there are vegan or vegetarian options, but there isn’t as much work in halal as it is not always a top priority. They said that this is great feedback. They further explained that they build themed meal menus into the system. For pop-ups, they are mostly not in Nutrislice.
- WSE Senator Omar Gharib raised a question for students without a dining plan, asking how much it costs.
- For breakfast, it is around $12 whereas for lunch and dinner it is around $16.
- Sophomore Class President Vishnu Dontu said that a student approached him about food stamps. He said that this was a feedback he communicated to dining a while ago and got the response that it is not eligible for hot meals. He asked if this could be implemented to Charles Market.
- Mooney will look into this.
- Williams asked if there are any other comparable institutions that offer this.
- Dontu is not sure but he will look into it. He also raised the idea of offering dumplings and sushi with meal swipes at Charles Market.
- Koldas added onto what Dontu said, stating that Brown University offers sushi in exchange for meal swipes.
- Mooney will see the pricing and determine if this is doable.
- Alezz added that The Pennsylvania State University has food stamps.
- President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi said that since the Charles Market staff is elderly, there are some employees who get paranoid when students purchase flu medicine or cough while paying as there is no protective sheet. Naqvi asked if that could be reinstated.
- Mooney will look into this.
- WSE Senator Ivan Alexander Kroumov said that people came up to him about vegetarian options. He said that the tables sometimes give wrong information where the menu doesn’t match the meal. Such as the vegetarian option seen in the table is not offered and rather substituted with a nonvegetarian protein option.
- Williams said that there are certain times when the food runs out, so that could be a reason.
- Heckstall said that there could be a variety of factors. When there’s a menu change, the time it takes to change the display depends. He asked the students to notify a manager if they ever see this situation happening.
- Freshman Class Senator Kevin Xu asked to have vegetarian options that are offered everyday. For example, he mentioned a friend of his who really likes the tofu steak, but that they can’t find it sometimes. He was wondering if the team would consider having permanent vegetarian protein options like tofu steaks.
- Williams said that they have menu rotations, so tofu steak comes out twice a week. They will consider making it permanent.
- Heckstall said that tofu is at the salad bar, meaning they can always get it.
- Mooney said that she can ask the chefs or people with blue collars, who are managers.
- Xu was also curious to hear if the dining team found a solution to the stains on the coffee mugs as one month into the semester, he was witnessing a lot of stains on the dishes yet now that is not the case. He was wondering if there were any systematic changes they made.
- Heckstall said that they heard the students, so they changed it. He explained that there are also disposables on the way out of the dining hall, which can be used by the students if they would like.
- Civic Engagement and Service Senator Prisha Agrawal asked about vegetarian options. At Hopkins Cafe and Nolan’s on the 33rd, she believes that the vegetarian options are very limited, mostly just beans, salads and rice. She asked if dining has any plans to implement vegetarian tacos and pizzas, or similar ideas.
- Heckstall said that they are building their menus and they are looking forward to adding more vegetarian options. For example, American breakfast changed to international breakfast. He said that every feedback counts and that they are interested in developing their menus even further.
- Agrawal followed up by saying vegetarian options often run out by the time it’s meal swipe time in Levering Kitchens and asked if the dining team is working on resolving this issue.
- Heckstall said that they call it production numbers. They anticipate how many people will eat a certain meal option and once they see what the students are eating, they either increase or decrease the production.
- Religious and Spiritual Life Senator Zachary Bahar said that the markup to dining dollars from regular money does not make it sensible to purchase them as it is higher than tax. He asked if there's logic behind this.
- This led to a discussion between the dining team and Bahar, which was continued outside of the meeting.
- Sophomore Class Senator Jazzlyn Fernandez touched upon two different topics. She asked about the app called Transact Mobile Ordering App, where students pay using dining dollars. She didn’t know this was a thing and believes that it’s very useful as students can order beforehand and then pick up their order. She asked if this could be advertised further. She also asked if swipes could be used in Levering during lunch as this is now the case for dinner.
- Williams thinks that this is a great point. She said that the app was not made a priority but they had a plan to run a promotion around the app by organizing giveaways. They will get the word out. For payment, she said that J-Cash must be working in the app.
- Fernandez then asked about the labeling of food in different stations. For example, for lamb gyro, staff says its lamb but the label indicates it could be a mixture of other types of meats. She asked if there are any plans to fix this.
- Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh said this is very common during late night, which impacts people with religious dietary restrictions, especially when there are shortages or spontaneous gaps. He said that it should be emphasized what type of meat it exactly is.
- Mooney said that it was not their intention to not have the correct option on display or have a shortage, especially when allergens are in question. She thanked SGA for the feedback and said that she’ll talk to the team.
Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
- Agenda was approved.
Public Input (3 min)
Reports (5 min)
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
- The Trunk o Treat tabling was announced and people were asked to volunteer for shifts.
- Programming Chair Tim Huang said that President Stone Meng, although he couldn’t have been present today at the GBM, wants to announce to the SGA that the executive board will meet with President Daniels next Monday. A form will be sent to Teams, so it should be filled out with questions to be asked to him.
- Huang announced that they will be working on the class formals. He added that programming council members haven’t been coming to the programming meetings. He asked everyone to urge the programming members to attend the meetings regularly. Now, there is one person interested in programming, so more people should be encouraged to apply.
- Li said that class formals are very important as Class of 2026 still remembers their Freshman Formal. Establishing traditions is significant, which is why we should foster class communities. Huang would appreciate this.
- Huang said that they will get feedback from classes themselves. He added that people who sign up for the Trunk or Treat tabling will be given attendance incentives.
- Treasurer Brandon Benjamin echoed Huang on the programming council announcements. SGA has 16,503 USD in its discretionary budget. Since our total budget is 24,000 USD, we want to spend 12,000 USD every semester. He asked everyone to be mindful of this.
- Secretary Buse Koldas reminded that Class Council Presidents must take an active role in filling out the vacancies.
- Naqvi said that we will have the US elections next week. She has been working on follow up meetings after the forum. She is making sure no one’s voice remains unheard. She encourages everyone to watch the elections. There won’t be a meeting next week, which is why the agenda is packed. Now is the time to come forward with your initiatives, especially since the SGA Advisor Charles Norman is here.
- Advisor Report (2 min)
- Remarks from Jessica
- SGA Advisor Jessica Snell said that there will be a follow up email on the MSE construction resolution. Another update is that in a meeting with IT, they will draft a survey for Homewood students’ WiFi access. She’ll send out a draft email to us, we’ll check the survey and then they will send it to the student body. They want to make our experience more enjoyable on campus.
- Remarks from Jessica
- Cabinet Reports (4 min)
Non-Legislative Business (25 min)
- Senate Vacancy Elections- President Nasreen Naqvi
- All members of the public left the meeting as there will now be an internal SGA election.
- Activism & Advocacy Senator
- Krishna Kumar is a member of class of 2028. He talked about the concerns during the war in Gaza, wants to see the behind the scenes of SGA, and cares about the students’ perspectives and opinions.
- Arham Alam was a pro-choice organizer. He mainly talked about their reproductive justice advocacy journey. He wants to represent the students.
- Sara Mishra wrote to local politicians, worked in anti-xenophobic and anti-racist groups, unclear dorms and high tuition are the things she wants to develop initiatives on.
- Mishra was elected.
- Disability Senator:
- Raven McCoy is passionate about the position and wants to improve the experience of disabled students.
- Seungmyoung Lee wants to hear diverse voices and discuss the intersection of student life, knowledge and disability rights. DEI can’t be achieved without ongoing effort, according to her.
- Carissa Shuxteau understands the challenges disabled people go through. She wants to improve student accessibility, consider the needs of all students, and change university policies if necessary.
- Dubravko Rodriguez is the chair of student engagements at Peabody. He wants to bring his dedication, understand unique challenges, develop programs and policies that enhance accessibility.
- Since Rodriguez is a Peabody student, he was removed.
- Krish Kulkarni’s dad was diagnosed with a congenital hip condition and his sister was left with post-surgical seizures after her surgery. He spent time taking care of them, so he wants to become a senator and advocate for the rights of people who go through scenarios similar to theirs.
- Johnalys Ferrer thinks that there isn’t a strong sense of disability services on campus. She believes that the recent constructions affected pathways and there is no accessible feedback mechanism. She wants to amplify everybody’s voices.
- Ferrer was elected.
- Junior Class Senator:
- Sitina Mesfin criticized the library construction and dining.
- Zaynab Mirza is passionate and was the president of the SGA of Northern Virginia Community College. She went to conferences to build leadership goals. She had previous initiatives in other SGAs, such as student discounts, on-campus daycare system, and successful implementation of a community garden.
- Ali Asghar Kassamali values feedback, cares about community education in Baltimore city, and wants to collaborate and find sustainable solutions.
- Peter Jackson wants to advocate for students, and he is a transfer student from UMD.
- Junior Class Council endorses Mirza as the things she mentioned in the application aligns with the council’s goals.
- Mirza and Jackson were elected.
- Senior Class Programming Council Approval- Chair Tim Huang
- Members were approved.
- Junior Class Updates- President Oluwakemi Abiodun
- Voting registration event went well and 200 people attended. International inclusion efforts faced challenges. Some were unfamiliar with how voting works in their home countries, and they had limited participation. Vice President of the Senate Srigouri Oruganty assisted 15 students with out of state registration. She helped students register and provided information on voting.
- Only three senators from SGA showed up to support the event. This lack of presence is concerning and SGA should take a more active role, prioritize civic duty and lead by example.
- 88% of respondents agreed that the worst time to find parking on campus is 11 am - 2 pm. People who are living off campus, especially upperclassmen, missed classes and work. They were late no matter how early they left.
- Media Senator Tyler Turner talked to Brittani Brown. There are no current or future options for parking. Expensive parking permits are another challenge.
- Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun said that the administration doesn’t know how much of an issue it is. Nine East 33rd has a parking deck behind their building and it’s empty during the day, which could be utilized for the future. We can tell President Daniels about this.
- Future initiatives are included in the slides. Class presidents will include this information in their emails to their class.
- Wellbeing Day Feedback- Vice President Srigouri Oruganty
- One of the biggest events SGA put together is Wellbeing Day. There was yoga on Decker Garden, hammocks, and plant giveaways. Will Kirk took a bunch of photos.
- Engagement was high, hammocks were full, people dropped by to see the movie, and there were long lines for plant giveaways.
- There were several events. The fact that it was on 9/11 caused some concerns but people were positive about it. There were Sidechat posts on hammocks, clubs used the hammocks as promotional materials, and people were talking about it.
- SGA’s support could’ve been higher. There could have been more reposts and sharing with organizations. Not a lot of people knew about the details. The organization felt overwhelming to Oruganty and there was confusion on duties. There were unexpected outlet complications and they needed more time to set up and training from DMC.
- Campus Surveillance Discussion- President Nasreen Naqvi and Senator Yashas Mallikarjun
- The discussion was tabled to a later meeting.
- Initiatives (3 mins each)
- Senator Tyler Turner
- Turner presented the Blue Jay Crew, which is supported by Rachelle Hernandez and Brown. The idea is to create a group of students to expand Blue Jay Tuesday to be an everyday thing. This includes giving more tools, leaving them at class, and exciting people.
- Senator Daarian Rouhani
- Fencing entrapped the chairs and tables in front of MSE. KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani wants to move these out. Send Rouhani a message, so that we can have a meeting with Dean Long and talk to her about this, and buy more tables and chairs if necessary.
- Li said that we can talk to Cecilia Etzel.
- Hispanic/Latinx Caucus Chair Cynthia Sanchez Hidalgo thinks that we should ask for more furniture.
- There will be increased seating at the MSE Patio.
- Rouhani will address concerns about Foundational Abilities.
- Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basireddy is working on a survey to get freshmen’s opinions about the foundational abilities.
- Senator Tyler Turner
First Reading
- SARU Funding Bill- Vice President Srigouri Oruganty
- London Lloyd is a member of JHU Gender and Sexual Assault Resource Unit.
- All information is in the bill.
- This will be reviewed by the Finance Committee and will be voted on after that.
- Motion to refer this to the Finance Committee was passed.
- For questions, message Oruganty.
- Affirmative Action Resolution- Senator Nayshawn and Senator Cynthia
- DEI training is optional now, which is something the participants of the forum were not happy about. Staff said that more students took the initiative to take the training when it’s not mandatory. Hidalgo wants to make it mandatory for everyone and not only for students. Hidalgo introduced the DEI tag on SIS.
- Koldas suggested giving two options: either take a course with the DEI tag or complete a workshop.
- CDI is being rebranded as Community and Belonging. Staff weren’t even aware. They were trying to recruit for the new vice provost. New name change was included in the job description, so this is how they found out. There was no feedback from the staff.
- Suggestion from Meng was to change the conclusion paragraph and set a deadline. Hidalgo asked what would be a good deadline.
- Freshman Class Senator Kevin Xu thinks that the DEI tag is a good idea, but with the FA requirements, he thinks that it might put too much burden on the students. He thinks that making it mandatory might overwhelm the students. Xu suggested focusing on FA first and making them less demanding. Basireddy and Xu have been working on the FA situation and creating a survey for the freshmen. Once the requirements are more manageable, then DEI can be worked on.
- Hidalgo doesn’t think this would be adding an extra requirement as these already count.
- Xu said that if we don’t make it mandatory, it would work well, like adding a DEI tag so students can see. He suggested that maybe we could make it double count with some FAs.
- Huang thinks that if we send this, we will be blasted by the university administrators. He suggested to change some of the wordings.
- Snell doesn’t think it’s too harsh.
- Hidalgo said that five members of staff and administrators read this and no one said that it’s harsh.
- Abiodun thinks that the executive board played nice enough so this should be okay.
- Basireddy asked if we will send out the survey first, to which Hidalgo said yes.
- Naqvi said that after the president is elected next week, we can add something relevant to that in the resolution, too.
- Sophomore Class Senator Omotara Tiamiyu asked about the deadline. She asked to be more specific and narrow it down: meeting or written documentation or statement? What do we expect?
- Hidalgo will change that sentence to transparency.
- Tiamiyu said to specifically show that we want a public statement to hold them accountable.
- Rouhani asked what the main benefit we’re hoping to see with the DEI tag is.
- Hidalgo thinks that people who don’t work in DEI don’t take time to learn about DEI, although it’s important.
- WSE Senator Moses Frumkin said that the faculty is not happy with the tag situation and they mostly regard it as a push from the administration. He raised the question: Who gets to have control on how the classes are taught?
- Hidalgo said that if we get a tangible feedback from the faculty about this, then we can definitely share that.
- Performing and Visual Arts Senator Deryck Yin asked what are some examples of courses that you’d double count as DEI.
- Hidalgo said that the number she has given in the resolution can be changed. Even independent study can count as a DEI.
- Special Interest and Hobby Senator Adithyan Neelamana said that people are voicing valid concerns about the DEI tags. He questioned to what extent this is doable. He talked to academic advisors who said that students have no flexibility based on their electives (especially those in STEM degrees). He asked why we’re not asking for a return to the DEI training. Just in general, in the spirit of this resolution, one of the issues is that Hopkins doesn’t do legacy admits. Within that logic, how can we use examples of universities who do legacy admits as those who preserved their admissions rate?
- Black Caucus Chair Nayshawn Ferebee doesn’t think this is about the legacy admits. Their practices were the main element as to how they achieved these rates.
- Neelamana said that admissions pushed out a vague explanation as to what they’re planning to do. Why are we not including those in the resolution?
- Hidalgo reiterated that there was an increase when training wasn’t mandatory. She added that we shouldn’t be in a situation where we need to ask for transparency. They are not transparent even when they promise to be transparent. The diversity road map was updated back in Spring 2022, which Hidalgo thinks is too long to leave something unupdated for.
- Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz said that the purpose of this was affirmative action. A lot of the things here are very auxiliary. Some are not even related to the decision. He responded to Frumkin saying students pay for the tuition, so they should be able to ask for it. We don’t have clear feedback from the students. He asked to make it more concise and focus on affirmative action. Diversity should stay, but all these other DEI stuff could be separate initiatives. He said that the main purpose is affirmative action, so let’s focus on that. We are adding stuff that we don’t know for sure are even wanted by the student body.
- Ferebee asked about the status on the executive branch apology. Press release and apology will be in The News-Letter print and released with the next newspaper issue.
- This resolution is not being voted on today.
- Lighting of the Quads Tabling- Chair Tim Huang
- For LOTQ, there will be a general merch giveaway. Feel free to add merch ideas to the document. Price is lower than the one in the bill because we have a student discount.
- Neelamana asked whether we get reimbursed if we don’t spend the whole amount.
- Huang clarified that any money not spent will stay in the budget.
- Alezz asked for clarification on the custom merch.
- Huang said that Connie Weng resigned, so Huang is in charge of everything. It’s a little late to do custom merch. We have more money this year, so he doesn’t want to limit.
- Koldas said that The News-Letter has a great graphic designer, so Huang will talk to Koldas.
- Motion to refer this to Finance Committee was passed.
Second Reading
- November Tabling - Chair Tim Huang
- Hot cocoa part will be changed as working with vendors and catering doesn’t work too well.
- The bill was passed.
- Leadership Workshop 2 - Chair Tim Huang
- Since the attendance was low for the first workshop, this time we’ll do more marketing and now allocations are out, so this time we expect more attendance.
- The bill was passed.
- November Tabling - Chair Tim Huang
Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)
- Motion to adjourn passed.