Senate General Body Meeting #14 — Agenda (11/19/24)

112th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #14

November 19, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17

AGENDA

1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

   1. Excused Absentees: Zachary Bahar, Vishnu Dontu, Jazzlyn Fernandez, Ryan Alezz, Jordyn Craig-Schwartz, Yashas Mallikarjun, Karen Vasquez Luna, Justin Pokrant
   2. Unexcused Absentees:

2. Convening Business (40 min)

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

4. Public Input (3 min)

5. Reports (5 min)

   1. Cabinet Reports (4 min)
   2. Advisor Report (1 min)

6. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

7. SDS Initiative- President Stone Meng
8. Lighting of the Quads Tabling- Chair Tim Huang & President Nasreen Naqvi
9. Cohort Time

10. First Reading

11. Second Reading

    1. Affirmative Action Resolution- Senator Nayshawn and Senator Cynthia

12. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

13. 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 #14

November 19, 2024 / 07:00 PM / Hackerman B17

MINUTES

11. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

    1. Excused Absentees: Zachary Bahar, Vishnu Dontu, Jazzlyn Fernandez, Ryan Alezz, Jordyn Craig-Schwartz, Yashas Mallikarjun, Karen Vasquez Luna, Justin Pokrant
    2. Unexcused Absentees:

12. Convening Business (40 min)

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

    1. Motion to start the meeting approved. There were no amendments to the agenda. Motion to approve the agenda passed.

14. Public Input (3 min)

15. Reports (5 min)

    1. Cabinet Reports (4 min)
       1. Programming Chair Tim Huang said that all class formals are currently being planned. Dates are confirmed for freshman and sophomore formals. Junior and senior formals are in the works. Every programming member will be added to the website and Huang will share the necessary documents. November Tabling will be from 1-3 PM at the Breezeway and LOTQ Tabling will take place at the event. People were asked to sign up as volunteers for these events. There will be attendance incentives given.
       2. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi asked everybody to fill out the volunteer sign up for LOTQ today.
       3. Executive Vice President Amy Li said that the President Daniels meeting rescheduled for December 2nd. Any questions, concerns, discussions can be communicated using the form from last time but also she will send a new form. There are no guarantees that the Executive Branch can direct the conversation to a specific topic but they will do their best. Topics that the SGA has been working on and President Daniels wants to discuss will be the priorities. If anyone else has any initiatives they want to work on and want support from the executive board members, they should message Li so that they can work on it together. There were some senators who reached out and they are working on them.
       4. Treasurer Brandon Benjamin said that spring allocations will be finalized by Friday. An email will be sent out.
       5. Meng said that he emailed Brittani Brown about the Town Hall. They will try to have a Town Hall during the first or second week of December. An email will be shared in general. Meng asked everyone to sign up for LOTQ.
       6. Naqvi said that the last GBM of the semester is on December 3rd. She wants to make sure that the SGA is prepared for spring. If committee leaders change their schedules because the time no longer works, the form should be filled out to switch committees. SGA wants to start as efficiently as possible in spring. Any committee who changes their meeting location and time should inform Naqvi.
    2. Advisor Report (1 min)

16. Non-Legislative Business (15 min)

17. SDS Initiative- President Stone Meng
    1. Meng said that the shuttle doesn’t start until 5:30. A student that broke her leg tried to reach out for transportation and SDS didn’t provide a response. If anybody is interested in this initiative, they can talk to Meng.
18. Lighting of the Quads Tabling- Chair Tim Huang & President Nasreen Naqvi
    1. Huang said that, as mentioned last week, people will come and spin the wheel. Therefore, there won’t be a request for feedback as we prioritize the students having fun. There will be three tiers of prizes from the book store. They will get the prizes they win through the wheel. Huang won’t be able to handle tabling, but he will be there for set-up.
    2. President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi said that there will be attendance incentives provided for spring.
    3. Tabling is on December 6th.
    4. Huang said that the closet has been cleaned, so he thanked the programming members. The closet is at the bottom of the Levering. People can get stuff for tabling, but they have to remember to put our stuff only in our section.
    5. Freshman Class President Jason Yu asked what the updated list is for LOTQ. Huang said that it is basically the same thing as what was proposed, except sweatpants were replaced with sweatshirts.
19. Cohort Time
    1. Naqvi said that since SGA has been busy, there weren’t many opportunities to have cohort time. Since we have a lighter agenda today and will discuss the affirmative action resolution after, she wants the senate to have cohort time today. She wants everybody to reflect on this semester's SGA so that we can make improvements in the spring.
    2. Secretary Buse Koldas suggested everybody to take a look at the resolution if they didn’t have time and use this time for that if they want to.
    3. After cohort time, members provided their feedback and insights.
    4. Senior Class SenatorJennifer Tang Cabrera said that SGA could have discussions about etiquette when we are having discussions with the public to make sure that people feel comfortable about their topics and criticisms.
    5. Meng brought up the meeting time issue for next semester.
    6. Naqvi said that if people are taking Organic Chemistry with Dr. Nsengiyumva, the time clashes. Therefore, the GBM time was pushed back to 7:20 - 9:20 PM. There is no need to vote on it now, but this is something to take into consideration. We need to address this issue or else we will wait for people to come.
    7. Koldas asked to see a show of hands to see how many people have this time conflict, which turned out to be a good amount of people.
    8. Naqvi said that this is something to think about and asked anyone who is not okay with changing the time to voice it.
    9. Sophomore Class Senator Tarini Basirreddy suggested having senators’ focuses on the website or Instagram as people don’t know who to reach out to if they have concerns.
    10. Vice President of the Senate Srigouri Oruganty said that they hope to invite admin to the meeting. Through these productive discussions, the admin can directly respond to our questions. If we are going to invite admin, we should have some type of etiquette.
    11. Meng said that we will have an anonymous feedback form so that people can communicate their criticism.
    12. Freshman Senator Kevin Xu hopes that everyone will read what’s on the agenda beforehand, especially if it’s something lengthy or heavy. For example, he wishes people did this for the day affirmative action resolution was discussed, so that the SGA comments are more effective.
    13. Huang asked if people want a spring retreat, to which a majority responded yes.
    14. Freshman Class President Jason Yu said that freshmen felt a little lost at the start of the semester. For the future reference, he believes it would be beneficial to have mentorship relationships within SGA (like a big and little system, suggested by Naqvi).
    15. WSE Senator Amy Xu said that people who joined this year in their sophomore year went into summer with no communication from SGA and with no expectations. She didn't know how to prepare herself as a senator and knew her role as SGA. Not only freshmen, but also people newly coming in suffer from not knowing SGA as closely.
    16. Kevin Xu believes that there has to be an onboarding process for specific committees because some of them are very specific. They are not similar to a general senate meeting. Secondly, he looked at the SGA Linktree Instagram page. The meeting minutes section hasn’t been updated for two years. The folder shared there is from 2022. Part of the constitution states to keep the minutes public to the student body.
    17. Koldas said that there used to be a position like Publications Director. The minutes were condensed for press releases and she guesses that’s how SGA fulfilled that requirement.
    18. Naqvi said that we could appoint somebody to recap the meetings and make it digestible.
    19. Senior Class Senator Jacquelyn Slade hopes to work on affirmative action resolution and further work on the construction updates. It is important to send an email to the school about these topics.

20. First Reading

21. Second Reading

    1. Affirmative Action Resolution- Senator Nayshawn and Senator Cynthia
       1. Naqvi said that they met with the advisors a couple of times. The SGA will go over the edits, and then the Senate will discuss.
       2. Black Caucus Chair Nayshawn Ferebee said that some parts were removed to shorten the resolution and keep it focused.
       3. Hispanic/Latinx Caucus Chair Cynthia Hidalgo combined the sections to condense from nine pages to six pages.
       4. Naqvi asked to allocate a few minutes for the SGA members to read through it. She asked if the Senate feels confident to discuss this resolution today.
       5. The motion to vote passed. Then, the motion to approve also passed.

22. Prospective Legislation & Announcements (5 min)

23. Adjournment (Estimated 9:00 PM)

    1. 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 and SGA members are expected to remain in the Senate chamber until official adjournment by motion, whether before or after the adjournment estimate.