JHU Student Government Association Senate Meeting #5 September 10, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17 MINUTES
- Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)
a. Absentees: i. Excused: Jacquelyn Slade, Hailey Saya Tomlinson ii. Unexcused: Karen Vasquez Luna, Cynthia Sanchez Hidalgo, Omotara Tiamiyu, Tyler Turner b. Present:
- Convening Business (20 mins)
a. KSAS Senator Jaden Garcia motioned to start the meeting, which passed.
- Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)
a. Garcia motioned to approve the agenda, which passed.
- Public Input (3 min)
- Reports (10 min)
a. Cabinet Reports (4 min) i. Executive Team- Exec ii. Executive President Stone Meng informed the senate that they prepared an email to send to the administration regarding campus construction. It’s awaiting approval. iii. Junior Class Senator Srigouri Oruganty thanked everyone for volunteering for Wellbeing Day. She asked anyone who’d available for the art activities, from 10 AM to 3 PM, to lend a hand. She said that everything is ready and more or less set up. iv. Secretary Buse Koldas reminded everyone to speak more loudly so that the minutes can be prepared more accurately. v. Treasurer Brandon Benjamin stated that the SGA got their budget on Monday morning. SGA was allocated $321,309.00, which is a couple thousand dollars less than the previous years. RSO budget requests will be opened soon. Senior Class Senator Ryan Alezz questioned if the process of getting allocations could be streamlined in a better way. Programming Chair Tim Huang said that he met with Brittani Brown today, who said that it’s out of both her and our hands. We can still ask her to prioritize our budget. Benjamin added that they can not do reimbursements, so the allocation has to be made prior to the event. b. Advisor Report (2 min) - Jessica Snell i. Snell asked SGA members to participate in the certain watch parties around campus for the Presidential Debate.
- Non-Legislative Business (15 min)
a. President of the Senate Expectations- President Nasreen Naqvi i. President of Senate Nasreen Naqvi made a presentation about her expectations from the Senate. ii. Committee timings can be found in this presentation. iii. If you filled out the form by Friday, then you’ll be in the committee you wanted. But if you didn’t and/or the time doesn’t work, we will do our best to figure it out but we are asking for your cooperation. iv. She went over every committee’s roster. Everyone who can’t make it to their committee will message Koldas. v. Agenda items should be submitted to Naqvi by Sundays at 11:59 PM. If you send it after this deadline, then it is up to her discretion to add it. Agenda will be sent out by 10 PM every Monday. She will still be understanding and do her best to accommodate people’s requests. vi. To be excused, you have to email Koldas and Naqvi before the deadline (Tuesday, 12 PM). vii. Naqvi explained that there’s no set thing to do during cohort time and that it’s for senators to meet and discuss, share updates, collaborate, and take a break. b. Junior Class Council Voting Registration tabling - President Oluwakemi Abiodun i. The Junior Class Council is working with the Junior Class Programming Chair Priya Dubey to organize a tabling event at the Breezeway. ii. Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun explained that this year’s elections will be the first Presidential Election in which the Junior Class will be legally eligible to vote, so she wants to acknowledge that. iii. She went over the significance of such a tabling event and her key points can be found in the slides in detail. iv. The current plan is to have a tabling at the Breezeway. They will target the Class of 2026, so giveaways will be related to that class. Once someone registers to vote, they will enter a raffle for a onesie and spin for a prize. v. They will collaborate with two sororities (Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated (AKA) and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated) because the chairs of these sororities are experienced and trained in the procedures of voting. vi. The planned date is October 7th. vii. She believes that SGA hosting a tabling event for this purpose is significant as not everyone can be reached with a single event, so if SGA also organizes one, we can help these efforts to reach more people. viii. An email will be sent out. Instagram posts and stories will be prepared. All collaborators will promote the event with flyers. The designs are still in process and pins will be the responsibility of AKA. ix. She asked for the opinions for any giveaway items. She suggests onesies because other items like Hopkins sweatshirts are overdone and can be found in Barnes & Noble easily. x. She asked if international students would feel excluded. xi. Vice President of Senate Jackson Morris motioned for a 3 minuteQ&A with 1 minute speaking time. xii. Morris suggested using the TotalVote website. xiii. Huang wishes he was looped into this as it relates to programming. He asked them to reach out to him if they ever need help. September tabling might coincide with the date of this tabling, so they need to plan that well. xiv. Special Interest and Hobby Senator Adithyan Neelamana suggested that international students could give a fun fact to enter the raffle, so they wouldn’t feel excluded. xv. As an international student, Koldas said that she wouldn’t feel not included personally. She thinks that maybe volunteers could answer questions from international students about the US elections. She thinks the fun fact idea also sounds nice. Abiodun said that the people from the sororities should technically be trained to give information about the elections and voting procedures. She will look into this as she’s hesitant to misinform anyone. xvi. Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh motioned to move to the next agenda item, which passed. xvii. Naqvi asked everyone who had questions to ask during cohort time. c. Parking Initiative - President Oluwakemi Abiodun i. Abiodun explained that when you get to junior year at Hopkins, you get forced to live outside of campus as there is no on-campus housing available after sophomore year. This requires some students to buy cars as some are forced to live quite far away where public transportation might not be available. ii. The idea of using parking garages was given after considering student testimonials. iii. She explained that not being able to find a place to park could cause students to be late to school. Safety and mobility are things that should be considered if you are living in a city, which means you might even be forced to own a car and it’s hard if there is no space available around campus. iv. She shared that there are some speculations going on showing that Hopkins might be planning to build more dorms to increase space for on-campus housing, but none of these new buildings have parking areas. v. A questionnaire (a template can be found in the slides) will be sent out to acquire more data. vi. Alezz motioned for a 4 minute Q&A speaking time with 1 minute speaking time. He thinks that the form should include why people are forced to use cars or other non-public transportation alternatives. He also believes that we should consider the people who earn money through parking spaces, so that might be an obstacle. Abiodun said that she’ll edit the questionnaire. She agrees with his second point, but she still wants to work on further parking opportunities. vii. Meng asked if she knows which admins to reach out to. He recommended her to contact Greg Smith from Transportation and The Off Campus Housing Office. viii. Naqvi said that Hopkins is planning to build a new parking lot in front of the student center. Another idea she proposed was to connect those in need of a parking lot to people who want to rent out their parking space. ix. Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basireddy supports this and mentioned that she knows students who are forced to leave their cars at sketchy places for 70 dollars a month. x. Benjamin said that he brought this up in the past but that Hopkins had some concerns about subsidization and increasing the rents at places close to campus. He recommended Abiodun to get data and tangibly express the interest. xi. Naqvi said that initiatives like this are Senator of the Week worthy. d. Project 2025 Cosponsorship Discussion- President Angela Xiong i. Senior Class President Angela Xiong said that the Civic Engagement Committee met with the Center for Social Concern (CSC). They are organizing a ton of events this fall for elections. One of them is about Project 2025, which is pretty controversial. They are organizing an event where political commentators will talk more in depth about the situation. CSC wants us to cosponsor the event. We won’t be sponsoring what’s being said in this event or anything like that, yet the purpose is to increase civic engagement. Project 2025 is very relevant, so she thinks it would be very helpful. She also thinks SGA’s position on this could set precedents for the future. ii. Neelamana motioned for a 5 minute Q&A with 1 minute speaking time. He asked what a co sponsorship constitutes (Funding, put our name on it, or anything else). He also asked if there are other events we can support for the same purposes. Xiong said that all they are looking for is publicity and explained that there aren’t many other confirmed events yet. She stated that it is urgent that SGA makes a decision regarding co sponsoring this event as it is next week. Future events haven’t been finalized yet. iii. Alezz asked if they talked to the SNF Agora Institute as they also do similar events and have co sponsorships. Xiong said that they are short in time and that they have less than a week until it. iv. Morris believes that there will be a lot of other political events as elections get closer. v. Responding to Fraternity & Sorority Life Senator Yashas Mallikarjun’s question about the previous co sponsorship situations, Morris explained that College Republicans and College Democrats weren’t convinced to cosponsor this event, so Morris believes it’s not a good idea for us to sponsor it ourselves when the situation is like this. e. JayGames/September Tabling Updates - Chair Tim Huang i. Tabling will take place on any date from the 18th to the 25th of September. It will be from 11 AM to 2 PM. Volunteer sign up will be sent out next week. ii. For JayGames, Black Caucus Chair Nayshawn Ferebee will help from The HOP side. A meeting with Student Life will be organized. Main verdict is to push it back a little bit because of logistical issues. f. Closed Session- President Nasreen Naqvi & Executive Branch
- Cohort Time (10 min)
a. Internal Affair members met with KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani (the committee’s chair). b. People with committee conflicts met with Naqvi.
- First Reading
a. JHUMA BBQ Bill- Senator Ryan Alezz & Senator Omar Gharib i. Alezz said that JHUMA typically hosts this BBQ. ii. The purpose is to bring other campuses to Homewood so Hopkins students can network. It got approved last year. He believes that even though the bill asks for a small amount, it provides lots of opportunities to network. iii. The motion to discharge to finance was given, which passed. b. Attendance Amendment- Vice President Jackson Morris & Senator Jaden Garcia i. Morris and Garcia want to make sure the constitution and By-Laws are in accordance with the Rules Bill. They are aiming for a better separation of powers, which would make the constitution more in compliance with other documents. Morris asked anyone with a question to contact him. ii. The motion to discharge to Internal Affairs was given, which passed.
- Second Reading
a. Rules Bill- Senator Jaden Garcia i. It was decided that this bill still needs further discussion. ii. The bill features setting a time the guest speakers who come to GBMs. Naqvi suggested moving this bill to convening business for the next meeting. iii. Huang thinks that our advisors should take a look at this bill in order to make sure the suggestions given in this document are doable. iv. The bill will be put in convening business for next week and got tabled.
- Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)
a. Wellness Day - Senator Srigouri Oruganty
- Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)
a. Motion to adjourn the meeting passed. 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 (10:00 PM over the summer) and SGA members are expected to remain in the Senate chamber until official adjournment by motion, whether before or after the adjournment estimate.