JHU SGAThe 114th Session
← All documents

Senate General Body Meeting #2 — Minutes (04/22/25)

Minutes / Senate · minutes · 113th session · dated April 22, 2025 · updated September 16, 2025

Filed in Drive as “Minutes of Senate GBM #2 ”

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.

113th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #2

April 22, 2025 / 07:20 PM / Hackerman Hall

MINUTES

  1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Absentees:
      1. Excused: Mercedes Rend, Imad Ahmed, Juan Hidrowoh
      2. Unexcused:
    2. Present

  2. Convening Business (50 min)

    1. Late Inaugurations - Judicial Branch
      1. Roster Luc inaugurated senators who were absent from the inauguration ceremony.
    2. Committee Placements Form
    3. Mentor Form
    4. Mentee Form
      1. The President of the Senate, Srigouri, took 2 minutes for everyone to fill out the mandatory forms presented above.

  3. Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)

    1. No amendments were made.

  4. Public Input (3 min)

No public input was made.

  1. Executive Reports (5 min)

Vishnu encouraged the senate to participate in the speakers' night along with the head of JHU. Omotara congratulated the senate for finishing the final GBM of the year. She also announced she will be reaching out to SGA members over the summer. Jessica reminded the senate to make a reservation for the speaker’s event.

  1. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

    1. Procedure Presentation - President Srigouri Oruganty and Secretary Sumire Sumi

      1. Secretary Sumi presented the Attendance Guide Summary Document for the 2025-2026 academic year. Surigouri announced GBM expectations, including closed session rules and GBM attire. Jason asked if the voting will be generated only via iClicker. Vishnu responded that constitution voting and anonymous sensitive voting will be through iClicker, but general voting that does not require anonymous voting will be open voting.
    2. GBM Starting Time Fall 2025 Vote - President Srigouri Oruganty
      1. Srigouri opened an iClicker voting on whether the GBM next year will be from 7:00 pm-9:00 pm or 7:20 pm-9:20 pm. Voting closed. With the majority of votes, it was decided that the GBM will be held from 7:00 pm-9:00 pm next semester.
    3. Administrator Form - President Srigouri Oruganty
      1. Srigouri announced that the senate members are encouraged to fill out this form to inform us which administrator we would like to have as our guests next semester. Vishnu announced that the form will be shared on Teams.
    4. Genetics Class Survey - Senator Amy Xu and Kevin Xu
      1. Amy presented a Genetics survey to evaluate the factors of low performance in the JHU undergraduate genetics class. Amy and Kevin presented example survey questions for general discussion. Amy also asked for more general input on potential improvements.
      2. The floor moved to a 5 minutes moderated caucus.
      3. Caraline shared that she recognized the genetics PILOTS LAs seem disconnected from the professor. She suggested they should assign LAs for students, given the large class.
      4. Paul suggested the form of enrollment should be reevaluated and make genetics not an easy elective for molecular and cellular biology majors.
      5. Steve also shared that as a student taking the genetics class, he suggested making more office hours periods since every office hour is overcrowded.
      6. Rebecca shared that the genetics professor does not answer students’ emails. Also, genetics is a requirement for many majors and pre-med, which factors into the class being overpopulated. She also suggested that genetics should be upper-level electives.
      7. Srigouri extended the moderate caucus for another 2 minutes.
      8. Gao shared that some assignments were similar to the art projects, and it seemed unnecessary. The teaching department is unorganized, and the classroom is as well.
      9. Jason asked Amy who the survey’s audience is and what the ideal outcome is. Amy responded that she is looking for specific and actionable data she can present to the biology department. Her ideal outcome is to open up the collaborative improvement to support the professor and not a confrontational initiative. She also answered that she will aim to send out the surveys to molecular and cellular majors, as well as any students who have taken genetics in the past 2 years.
      10. Karen suggested emailing the survey to the head of the biology department. She also suggested making the genetics reserved open class similar to the public health biostatistics class, so the students in the major will be prioritised.

  2. First Reading

  3. Second Reading

  4. SGA Positions Constitution Update - President Vishnu Dontu

  5. SGA Meetings Constitution Update - President Vishnu Dontu
    1. Vishnu reintroduced the constitutional amendment to discuss potentially removing the RSO senator position. He presented the options as follows.
      1. Removing RSO Senators entirely.
      2. Adding class council positions.
      3. Adding WSE and KSAS senator positions while keeping the ratio.
      4. Keeping 2 RSO Senator spots open without specific titles.
      5. No amendments.
      6. Keeping 5 RSO senators.
    2. The floor moved to a 5-minute Q&A session.
      1. Srigouri shared the current RSO senator Jose’s input with the general body. He is in favor of the amendment.
      2. Omotara shared a guiding question with the senate: Why would they be for or against condensing the RSO senator positions?
      3. Tanisha shared that keeping the positions open will provide more opportunities for the incoming freshman and rising sophomores, juniors, to stay in the SGA for the long term.
      4. Steven shared his input that having a point person for the RSO office will be an alternative option. Vishnu answered the lack of recognition surrounding RSO senator factors in vacant positions.
      5. Amy also agreed that the less recognition of RSO responsibilities contributed to the vacancy, and she suggested CSO’s corporation.
      6. Jaden asked what prevents current SGA members from taking an RSO position as their secondary position. Tara responded that RSO senators are responsible for representing the cultural groups in SGA, thus, current members multitasking will diminish the purpose.
      7. Tarini stated that inadequate explanation and information about RSO responsibilities may be the factors, and expanding the presentation about the position, providing contact information of RSO senators across the campus, will increase the involvement.
      8. Jason stated he is against removing RSO senators. He suggested we should keep the positions as they were made for diverse representation across campus. He suggested instead of removing the position, SGA can potentially communicate with the specific organizations and departments to encourage involvement.
      9. Luc responded from his experience in the election in the past 2 years, he recognized that SGA as a whole is too big at the current moment.
      10. Kirsten suggested revisiting the RSO position after the freshman elections. She also emphasized that student involvement is decreasing due to the lack of information.
      11. Jazz stated that removing a few RSOs would be ideal, but having only two point persons would not be sufficient due to the wide range of categories. Se suggested that the number of RSOs should be maintained, but the titles should be removed.
      12. Tara responded that Student Organizations should be responsible for providing resources to students. She emphasized that having RSO and Student Organization Representatives as resource providers would be unnecessary.
      13. Vishnu added an option to keep 5 RSO senators.
      14. Steve shared that less student involvement came from the past year’s trend, where the student body is less interested in representing.
      15. Tara shared her input that SGA positions should be based on student demand.
      16. Caraline shared that during her time at Hopkins, none of her peers knew about the RSO senator positions. She acknowledged that the RSO senator vacancy is not due to the lower demand, but rather less information about the positions. She also stated that if there are many cultural organizations available, then the position of representation should be condensed.
      17. Kirsten suggested that the cultural clubs should conduct internal elections to represent their organization in the SGA.
      18. Jazz requested a point of order. Her request was approved. She proposed that caucus chairs must participate in the CSO committee to be involved.
      19. Vishnu responded that the option of the nomination process among each organization can take place during the next election cycle.
      20. The iCklicker voting process was conducted with the least voted option being removed each cycle. With the majority votes, the senate kept the option to have 5 RSO senators.
      21. Vishnu amended the RSO senator description on the constitution to “Five senators from student organizations SGA recognizes, elected from amongst the student body.”
      22. With over ⅔ of the general body, the amendment was passed.
      23. Vishnu presented another amendment on having GBMs, executive meetings, and internal meetings open to the public.
      24. The floor moved to the voting session. The Senate agreed to have these meetings open to the public.

  6. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

  7. Adjournment (Estimated 9:20 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 9:20 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 #1

April 16, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Scott-Bates Commons Salon B

MINUTES

  1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Absentees:
      1. Excused:
      2. Unexcused
    2. Present

  2. Convening Business (40 min)

    1. Late Inaugurations - Executive Branch
      1. Inaugurations have been conducted.
    2. Icebreaker - Executive Branch
      1. Buse introduced the icebreaker and asked everyone around the room to share their realistic and unrealistic goals.
      2. Starting with the executive board, the SGA members took turns in naming their goals.
    3. Reminders - Executive Branch
      1. The members have been reminded to fill out the roster form.
    4. Introduction to SGA - Executive Branch
      1. In the presentation, the executive board members asked the SGA to join the iClicker and introduced their goals.
      2. Later on, they went over the GBM rules and structure. Two major changes to the GBM structure are shortened cabinet reports and committee meetings that will be conducted in the second half of the meetings.
        1. Only the executive board members who have updates will have their names added to the agenda.
        2. Committees, instead of meeting at a separate time in the week, will conduct their weekly meetings at the second half of the GBMs.
    5. Election of President of the Senate, Vice President of the Senate & Committee Chairs - Executive Branch
      1. Vice President Amy Li started to run the elections.
      2. President of the Senate
        1. Disability Caucus Chair Jackson Morris raised a point of order stating there can not be discussions during the election of the President of the Senate.
          1. Programming Chair Tim Huang answered his point by stating that is the case only for committee elections.
        2. There were three candidates for the President of the Senate.
          1. KSAS Academic Senator Jaden Garcia was the first candidate. He served as the Parliamentarian last year and was an Internal Affairs committee member. He touched on his knowledge about the SGA constitution and Robert’s Rules of Order. While he was the parliamentarian, he helped the former Presidents of the Senate Dalhart Dobbs and Nasreen Naqvi. He wants to ensure everyone’s voices will be heard equally in the senate and promised to pour many hours into this position if he gets elected.
          2. The second candidate was the Media Senator Tyler Turner. Through this position, he aims to help those “without a voice” in the SGA. He wishes the 112th SGA to achieve more than the previous ones. He targets quick and strong change to make this senate prosperous.
          3. Lastly, Senior Class Senator Nasreen Naqvi was a candidate for the position. She was the previous President of the Senate. She emphasized that the senators are her priority. Naqvi wishes to serve the senate. She’s aware that SGA might seem distant and complex to some, but by embracing that every voice matters, she hopes to resolve this and reflect the SGA’s needs and ambitions.
        3. Naqvi won the election. She took over running the GBM after this.
      3. Vice President of the Senate
        1. President Stone Meng highlighted that the executive board is trying to extend this position more.
        2. There were four candidates for this position.
          1. Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basireddy aims to have better time management in the meetings and send out the agenda items much sooner than the GBMs if she gets elected. She wishes to build more connections with the admins through coffee chats or similar activities, while tracking the SGA initiatives through the spreadsheet and keeping it updated.
          2. Sophomore Class President Vishnu Dontu aims to achieve better student experience through this position. He mentioned a PILOT program he proposed that got approved. He added that he was able to bring free printing (up to 50 pages) to JHU students and extend vegan and vegetarian options at the cafeteria. He aims to support the President of the Senate by making the meetings more enjoyable and organizing attendance while working on initiatives.
          3. Junior Class Senator Srigouri Oruganty aims to get to know the senators better and to find more initiative ideas through this role. She talked about her work in bringing a South Asian Studies minor. She hopes to increase the diverse voices that are talking in the senate. Emphasizing the closure of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, she explained that communication is key. She wishes to update the senate about the executive board more often.
          4. Disability Caucus Chair Jackson Morris hopes to connect the SGA with the administrators more effectively. He stated that he is always a Teams message away and is ready to guide people in getting in touch with the right people.
        3. Morris won the election.
      4. Committees
        1. Naqvi introduced the committees and explained the significance of the chairs, who create the agendas for the committees and manage them.
        2. Civic Engagement
          1. There was only one candidate for this position.
            1. Senior Class President Angela Xiong was the only candidate for this role. She touched on her success in implementing new initiatives and extending the committee’s impact on the Baltimore community during her time as the chair of the committee last year. She raised awareness about the presidential elections through Hopkins Votes and had 6 years of advocacy experience in the Maryland county through SGA. She is also involved with a public policy consulting group and continues her work there. She hopes to allow the SGA senators to talk to elected members of the U.S. government on Capital Day, punctuating her ambitious goals.
          2. Since Xiong was the only candidate, there was no voting and she became the chair of this committee.
        3. Finance
          1. Treasurer Brandon Benjamin introduced the Finance committee as the old chair of this committee. The committee deals with event grants and semesterly allocations, which makes it one of the most important parts of the sga. The chair of this committee will work with Benjamin in the SGA Finance.
          2. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. KSAS Senator Daarian Rouhani was a member of the committee of Finance last year. Although he didn’t have time to participate much, he explained that he has experience with money and wishes to fund all student organizations in need.
            2. Junior Class President Oluwakemi Abiodun wants to be in touch with the Executive Board by being the chair. She was in this committee in her first year. She knows how hard it is to distribute the SGA funds because there are multiple event requests. She doesn’t want students to go around and beg for money, so she wants to help them. Hoping to expand the budget of the SGA, she wishes to help clubs do what they want to do with their money and make them feel supported by Hopkins.
          3. Abiodun won the election.
        4. Student Services
          1. There were three candidates for this role.
            1. Dontu explained that his work has been mainly Student Services oriented because he enjoys providing for the student body by asking them what they want and helping them get those through the SGA.
            2. Sophomore Class Senator Omotara Tiamiyu explained that she worked on improving student life on campus, especially through the menstrual equity initiative on campus. She actively communicated with the Dean of Student Life. She communicates with the student body through her Instagram and is very passionate about improving the undergraduate experience. She stated that she had the passion and resources to do this.
            3. Turner was a member of this committee and served as the vice chair, allowing him to work closely with Abiodun. He connected with other departments and even made some of them come to the GBM.
          2. In the first round, no candidate received the majority vote, so a second round election between Dontu and Tiamiyu was conducted. Tiamiyu won the election.
        5. Academic Affairs
          1. There were three candidates for this position.
            1. Basireddy was a member of this committee. She has long term projects and a new initiative she’s working on that will compile course manuals and evaluations about classes. She is in communication with the deans about this. She believes that these initiatives are significant as the most important part of the Hopkins academic life is the classes students take, making course manuals key.
            2. WSE Senator Moses Frumkin believes it is a time for change in the university, involving internal change (which mainly concern WSE and KSAS as they are restructuring their own internal governments). He hopes to increase the interactions between the students and the faculty. He hopes to have less graduate students teaching and more professors instead.
            3. KSAS Senator Danial Nabizadeh stated that he worked hard with Huang and Resham Talwar (a previous member of the SGA) on academic issues. He promoted cross campus registration between Homewood and Peabody. He wants to achieve transparency and inform the students more on what will be happening during course registrations. He also hopes to more strongly advertise the work of this committee within the SGA, too.
          2. In the first round, no candidate received the majority vote, so a second round election between Basireddy and Nabizadeh was conducted. Basireddy won the election.
        6. Registered Student Organizations (RSO)
          1. There were four candidates for this position.
            1. Sophomore Class Senator Jazzlyn Fernandez knows how important this committee is as a current First-Generation, Limited-Income Network member. She worked with religious organizations on campus and volunteered, which is one of the reasons why she has experience working with RSOs. Fernandez emphasized that she is properly equipped with this role, and that she hopes to bring the best out of every RSO through partnerships.
            2. KSAS Senator Leon Ye thinks having extensive knowledge on student organizations is necessary. As the current president of an important RSO at Hopkins, he believes he has this knowledge. One of his aims is to organize training sessions for new officers in the RSOs.
            3. Sophomore Class Senator Arihant Singh was on this committee for the past two semesters. He mentioned that he worked with the Brain-Computer Interface Society as they were moved out from the Biomedical Engineering Department and had difficulties, so Singh helped them sort their finances. He aims to take this committee to a new direction: more like a place where student organizations can reach out to the SGA instead of the committee going up to them. He wants to move between organizations and plan events while being transparent.
            4. Junior Class Senator Shruti Tyagi was the previous chair of this committee, who is rerunning. She reached out to 175 student organizations and went to the GBMs of the RSOs to make presentations. She hopes to explain to these organizations how registration works. She is also the president of a club, so she is aware how tough it is to lead a club. Tyagi wishes to be proactive about registration questions. Also touching on anti-hazing statements and feedback to The Office Leadership Engagement and Experiential Development (LEED), she intends to take action on these and improve the experience of the RSOs.
          2. Tyagi won the election.
        7. Internal Affairs
          1. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. Garcia was on this committee last year and helped facilitate amendments to constitutions, serving as the Parliamentarian. He touched on his knowledge in Bylaws and Robert’s Rule of Order. He helped Dobbs and Naqvi with these. He expressed that he was trained by Meng himself, who was the previous chair of this committee, which is why he is knowledgeable about this committee.
            2. Rouhani accepted that Garcia might be the more qualified candidate; however, he asked the senate: “How am I supposed to get experience if I’m not given the chance?” He expressed that even though he is new to the SGA, he asked the members to give him the chance of getting more experience by voting for him.
          2. Rouhani won the election.
        8. Health, Safety and Sustainability (HSS)
          1. There were two candidates for this position.
            1. Oruganty serves as an intern at the Office of Sustainability at JHU. She took part in the organization of the Earth Fest and advocated for a student mental health day. She communicated with the Vice Provost Kevin Shollenberger and gained a lot of experience and passion. She is also an Environmental Sciences Major and was the vice chair of the committee last year.
            2. Nabizadeh congratulated Oruganty’s efforts, explaining the heart of the committee is in collaborations. She hopes to work with other clubs, create connections, raise concerns about mental health through dialogues with the professors, and advocate for safer transportations for JHU students.
          2. Oruganty won the election.
        9. Programming
          1. No chair election was conducted for this committee as the chair is Huang.
          2. Huang introduced the committee and asked for people’s participation as there are only two people in the programming committee right now.
        10. Naqvi congratulated the newly elected chairs.
    6. Committee Placements - Executive Branch
      1. Li asked all members to send their committee preferences through the QR Code.
      2. Meng explained that there will be changes to the committee meeting structures. He hopes to reduce the meeting times and increase productivity. The rest of the GBMs will be allocated to committee meetings. Everyone will join only one committee. He asked everyone to submit their top 3 choices.
        1. Oruganty explained that HSS typically meets with the admins during their meetings. She was concerned as to how they would continue doing this if the meetings take place too late. She raised this point as the new structure suggests the committees would be meeting from 8 to 9 PM on Tuesdays, which might be a late time for the administrators to come together with the committees.
        2. Meng suggested allowing HSS to have their separate meeting times.
      3. Morris asked to clarify if the members can only join one, to which Meng responded yes.
      4. Fernandez was curious if someone can join two committees if they are passionate.
        1. Meng said that it wouldn’t be encouraged as there have been a lot of absences last year. He believes that when a person is in two committees, it might decrease their productivity in the long run.
      5. Morris suggested to have a 5-minute-long moderated caucus time to discuss this, to which Meng said that could be done in the next GBM.
      6. Naqvi, empathizing with the new members, said that this might be confusing. She asked people to reach out to the Executive Board to get more information if they would like to. She said that this is a new idea and that it has never been done before. She hopes to figure this all out in the most efficient way.

  3. Amendment and Approval of the Agenda (1 min)

  4. Public Input (3 min)

  5. Reports (5 min)

  6. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

  7. First Reading

  8. Second Reading

  9. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

  10. 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.