JHU SGAThe 114th Session
← All documents

Chair of Programming/Programming Guidelines for the Future

Unknown · 112th session · created June 25, 2025 · updated June 27, 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.

Hello!

If you are reading this, this is the “everything I can think of” document for things I did as the chair of programming; the good, the bad, and the “oh wait I need to do that”. Let me know if you have any questions!

  • Tim, Class of 2026

Chair of Programming as a trio of roles

In my opinion, the hardest thing about the chair of programming is that it’s basically split into three different roles:

  • Executive leadership: expectations of being a main leader in SGA and teaching people how to do certain things, giving advice, being a representative for administrators as a person on the main decisions of SGA
  • SGA general programming: the main things you really have to do is the SGA retreats, one should be a ‘formal introduction to SGA’, the other should be fun in my opinion. Also, I made a bunch of other events last year because I could and wanted to. Also, SGA collaborations are something that I also handled - this means every tabling, every SGA x (something) event, every funding bill, etc.
    • SGA Events I made:
      • Speed Dating
      • JHU Major Fair
      • Jay Games
      • SGA Alumni Mixer
      • SGA Finance Workshops (complete flops)
      • Most SGA tablings including external ones (Knotty one, LOTQ, etc)
  • Class Councils: creating ideas for every formal, leading all of those formals, being present at them, meeting every week about them, etc

No other SGA role does all three of these things. The closest is the treasurer which does all 100+ clubs funding which is also a lot of work. Chair of Programming is possibly the hardest role in SGA from what I could see from other people in exec.

COP: How to do SGA

So, as an SGA person, the chair of programming should probably be less involved than most. You aren’t really seen as an ‘executive member’ because half the time people don’t even know your role exists, so that’s pretty interesting. It’s a very new role.

Here’s some things you could do to learn how to separate the roles:

  • Figure out what ‘things’ you can do to bring SGA close together, and how you can use your events to do so!
  • Figure out what legislative things you want to change with the chair of programming role, if any are allowed
  • Try to see what ‘school initiatives’ you can work on but don’t stress about it beyond that
  • Act as a friendly face to people, especially new members, please build some morale

COP: Class Councils from COP Side

So, class councils from the COP side went a lot like this during the first semester:

  • Try to figure out all the events you need to do for each class
    • I didn’t have any class council members, so it was just me deciding we needed 4 formals because we had to have all 4
    • Try to figure out dates for all of the formals
    • Try to see locations ASAP for the formals and what is available
    • Do not worry about food, transportation, all of those - just dates and ideas
    • Themes can be talked about, but I didn’t really think about that

Second semester was a lot easier (thank you Hannah), as an overview of most of the stuff I did outside of meetings:

  • Make the budget requests
  • Make the purchases
  • Picked up materials
  • Made google forms and surveys
  • Sent and drafted emails
  • Contact some vendors (Hannah, thank you for taking this off me)
  • Brainstormed logistics
    • Transportation, budgets, layouts, etc

Here are some things I wish I did:

  • Put in some class council fall events.
    • I know some people were talking about a trip to a park or something like that
    • I know one person wanted to do the carnival earlier
    • I know seniors were interested in doing an event earlier to garner interest
  • Set actual standards for class council members (more on this later)
    • When I said I didn’t have class council members, it’s a bit of a lie - I had 2 in 2 different classes. However, I went on a break due to family things, and then the two proceeded to ghost me and I ‘impeached’ them from SGA for lack of duty.
  • Have actual equipment
    • This is a weird one, but basically at most events, I had to bring stuff from my own apartment or end up using my own money to provide for class councils because A. We forgot some things B. We didn’t have things C. No one else would provide stuff
    • This happened mainly in the fall with general SGA events actually
      • Some of the things I supplied throughout the year for events:
        • Extension Cords
        • Charging Cables
        • Audio Devices (speakers, headphones, etc)
        • Tablecloths
        • Utensils
  • Get authorized on ALL DMC stuff
    • I was authorized on all the audio equipment but not the camera. Please do so.
  • Get more people to help with DMC stuff
    • I had to carry so many speakers first semester by myself
  • Get planning committees together sooner
  • Get volunteers for events

COP: How to handle class councils

Ok so class councils. This is the main thing that I have a lot of recommendations and thoughts about.

So, class councils were a bit of a mess during the first semester. I didn’t receive members until November and December due to how long the process took to:

  • Approve Form
  • Draft email
  • Send email
  • Email goes wrong and have to redo
  • Nobody fills it out because no one is interested
  • Reask people
  • Resend form
  • Approve people

Normally, we would be able to ‘interview’ people, but there were so few people who even signed up to do programming that I just accepted everyone.

Also, during the first semester, because we didn’t have a lot of time, I had everyone in each class come to the same meeting to discuss what they wanted to host, the events they were interested in, etc. The only class I didn’t have together with the rest was the senior group, because they came later and their budget was much, much, larger.

For the Chair of Programming, please do the following:

  • Coordinate with each member in emails and other forms of communication, teams is the best
  • Tell people to please check their messages and be responsive
  • Get to know the classes and the things they want to do
  • Be strict about certain guidelines such as logistics
  • After being strict, try to use unique ideas

Guidelines for Programming Members

  1. Programming members should know that they need to come to the programming meetings. These can be set by class year instead of as a whole group.
  2. Programming members need to know their main tasks for the year, including:
    1. Being at their class events
    2. Planning the class events
      1. Formals need:
        1. Location
        2. Date
        3. Time
        4. Advertisement
        5. Prizes if need be
        6. Food options
        7. DJs - Usually students
        8. Photographers - Usually students, check the JHU Photography Club
        9. Class sharing (sharing info with SGA, etc)
        10. Ticket costs (typically 0 for freshman, 3-5 for sophomores, 3-10 for juniors)
      2. Seniors have more events to plan, but also a longer time to establish. Please check with Hannah for the other historical events.
    3. Getting tasks done on time
      1. Contacting vendors for information
      2. Bringing up brainstorming points in meetings
      3. Informing Hannah/Chair of Programming when confirmation occurs so they can put in purchase requests + send contracts
      4. Have all ‘purchases’ finished at least a month beforehand except for consumables
    4. Set up at events
      1. Aim to be at formals around 3 hours ahead of time
    5. Handling volunteers
      1. Please get volunteers