JHU SGAThe 114th Session
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Senate General Body Meeting #7 — Minutes (10/06/26)

Minutes / Senate · minutes · 114th session · dated October 6, 2026 · updated October 6, 2026

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114th Johns Hopkins Student Government Association

Senate Meeting #7

October 6, 2026 / 07:00 PM / BSC 404

MINUTES

  1. Call to Order and Attendance (1 min)

  2. Absentees:
    1. Excused: Mahima, Shiran Hanono-Michli
    2. Unexcused: Andrew, Boyi, Srika
    3. Partial Excused:
    4. Partial Unexcused:
    5. Present

  3. Convening Business (30 min)

  4. Conversation with Student Affairs, the Office of Institutional Equity, and Student Health and Wellbeing; Conversation about safety and resources on campus
    1. VP student affairs Hernandez:
      1. Student broadcast sent on Friday → follow up today
        1. Signed by four different offices, SHWB, OIE, public safety
      2. Objectives: understand and know how to report sexual violence, understand process with OIE and public safety, highlight training that happens (BIT), other resources
      3. Will not be only conversation, will continue with student groups and residence halls
      4. Secure your nest blue-jay safety month
      5. Additionally training is always possible
    2. OIE - Julie (title IX coordinator) and Linda (provost)
      1. Oversees process of sexual misconduct process: students, faculty, and staff
      2. Prohibits sexual and sex-based harassment, sexual assault, sexual exploitation…etc
      3. What happens when OIE receives a report
        1. OIE will reach out to impacted person to share info about options and resources
        2. OIE will assess potential risk and consider supportive measures
        3. OIE will send at least one additional follow-up email if no response
        4. Individual can connect w/ other resources regardless of whether they engage w/ OIE
        5. Goal: make people aware of what the resources are at Hopkins
        6. OIE often does hear back right away
      4. Once someone decides to move forward
        1. Defers to individual about how they want to proceed
          1. Ie Excused absences, assignment extensions
        2. Talk about options to move forward with complaint at university, adjudicative and investigative process
        3. No time limit to file a complaint with office, but sooner is better
        4. Process: report of sexual misconduct → intake, risk assessment, supportive measures → title IX sexual harassment assessment → procedures for title IX sexual harassment OR procedures for other sexual misconduct
      5. OIE supportive measures, regardless of whether someone files a complaint or report
        1. Public safety related: security escorts, BOLO alerts, campus bans, assistance with contacting police, assistance with obtaining peace/protective orders
        2. Other : no contact orders, connection w/ confidential resources, change of work / academic schedules, parking accommodation, anti - retaliation plan
        3. Student-focused: rescheduling exams, withdrawal from classes, moving residences on campus, connections with case manager (students), designated times for use of facilities
      6. What Constitutues “Title IX Sexual Harassment" Under Regulations
        1. Quid pro quo, limited hostile environment (sexual), sexual assault, stalking, dating/domestic violence
      7. Procedures for title IX sexual harassment are required when
        1. Formal title IX complaint
        2. Conduct occurred in connection with a university education program or activity
        3. Complaint is filed by someone who is participating in or trying to participate in a university program or activity
        4. Alternative process to current Trump admin procedure (unless it falls within new Trump procedures?)
      8. Online resources
        1. OIE website (https://oie.jhu.edu/) → policies, confidential resources, religious accommodations, pregnancy adjustments, online complaint forms, comprehensive FAQs, ADA accommodations, annual reports
    3. Public Safety
      1. Jarron Jackson (Assistant Vice President for Public Safety)
        1. Role of public safety is to minimize trauma to survivor
        2. Connect to BPD, OIE, health
        3. Survivor can provide as little or as much information as person feels comfortable providing
        4. Working on the timeline of the survivor
      2. Quovella M. Maeweather (Deputy Chief for Support Services)
        1. Becomes the facilitator between different student services
        2. Up to survivors discretion the direction that they will go
        3. Are the direct contact that fills the gap
    4. Health & Wellbeing - Alyse Campbell
      1. Two important things
        1. Confidential resources for students who have experienced any type of gender-based violence
          1. We listen. You decide - wellbeing.jhu.edu
          2. Survivor-led problem solving (doesn’t need to involve any other offices)
            1. Connect to off-campus resources
            2. Navigate barriers to education related to gender based violence (helping to make spaces on campus safer)
            3. Team will be w/ survivor throughout entire reporting process if they decide to do so
          3. Other resources : Religious & Spiritual Life, BSCT, 24/7 sexual assault helpline etc.
        2. Education
          1. BIT, Consent Campaign, General Programming around healthy communication, program for survivor support etc.
          2. Health promotion & well-being workshop request form : https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=OPSkn-axO0eAP4b4rt8N7C1coiKiUaxOv5DwwonjynpUOFU0UDdNSFE5N1JKTDlOWDZWVkhRV09NRC4u&origin=QRCode
      2. Question
        1. Demarri: Motion for 10 min moderated caucus
          1. Passed
        2. Natalie: pathways for preventing sexual, building pro-consent culture on campus
          1. Alyse: Bystander intervention training, using public health model, 3-stages of preventative health (primary,s econdary, tertiary) → talk to people as active members of community (including intervention models), Red Zone programming, Consent Campaign (how to ask for consent, how to listen for consent, how to know when people are not consenting to something → bar : agency, autonomy involved)
        3. Abraham: OIE → 230 days to close a sexual misconduct case → up from 2023
          1. What is causing the investigation to take so long
          2. Linda: aware that timelines are long, shows day that report is received to end of supportive measures / intake / adjudication / appeals - required by law
            1. For Trump grievance issues: live hearing, cross - exam
            2. Provide updates as people feel that’s most beneficial to them (even if it’s no updates at all)
            3. Required to be thorough → asking for witnesses or other people to speak to; any other evidence to gather
              1. Talk to accused individual, their response → will share this to survivor in the case they want to respond (and for the other party to respond)
              2. Draw up report to be reviewed
        4. Veda: timeline for perpetrator, what actions are taken against them, what qualifies as it being a closed case
          1. Linda : Focused on complainant in beginning, if they even want to talk with them
          2. Need specific information to be put in written notice, accused don’t usually hear from the office for a while
            1. Once investigations starts, both parties will be able to review report (post evidence collection and discussion)
            2. Eventually party has opportunity to appeal
            3. Measures taken against perpetrator : no contact order, suspension, other measures to create distance, etc.
          3. Alyse: a lot of universities were not survivor-led, important that survivors are the one leading the effort, imperative and built into work done, ensure that survivor is as safe as possible when perpetrator is notified
        5. Veda : Motion to extend by half
          1. Passed
        6. Royce: will departments do anything differently in response to the assault case at Cornell
          1. Julie: Always working to make changes, news coming out of Cornell as shocking, working to make resources fit what students need and that they’re aware of what’s available
        7. Member #1: Regarding the JH Broadcast, the inclusion of bluejay safety month felt inappropriate; what was their intent ?
          1. Hernandez: reason it was included was because the training throughout month is meant to support the conversations being had; training and education throughout the month that’s available to students that’s readily accessible and made aware of
          2. Alyse: part of creating broadcast, wanted include all possible resources → took advantage of larger student population looking at broadcast due to recent events
        8. Natalie: readdress question towards student affairs, LEED, etc. (not just Alyse’s office) → organizations often accused of sexual misconduct, frats only have approx 1 hr of anti-hazing training → how do we proactively change this culture ?
          1. Hernandez: title IX and BIT as baseline (the expectation for staff and students) wants to show that the community doesn’t tolerate
            1. FSL/scholar athletes have ongoing/annual (?) trainings
          2. How do we get message out to all students that this training will be ongoing
          3. Evaluate who else will need to participate in ongoing, semesterly training
          4. Interconnected web of support, just need to reach out to one person
      3. Remaining Questions to be directed to : jferna57@jh.edu
        1. Andrei:
        2. Amy:
        3. Sophia:
        4. RC:
        5. Aishani:
  5. Swearing in of SGA Advisor: Tekeya Peterson
    1. Chief Justice Felix Titre
  6. Swearing in of freshmen SGA members
    1. President: Royce Willis
    2. Senators: Noah Sokol, Kevin Tse, Heidi Ding, Kevin Wu,
    3. Programming: Njambi Kamenwa, Sophia Zhang, Andrew Zhang

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

    1. Moving survey tabling bill (Veda K.) to first reading
    2. Demarri: motion to approve agenda

  8. Public Input (3 min)

  9. Reports (5 min)

  10. Cabinet Reports:
    1. Student Body President: Jason Yu
      1. Main areas of focus
        1. Student engagement, morale, experience
        2. Coffee Chat → sit w/ any member of student body available (listening w/ intention) to increase engagement with student population
    2. Student Body Vice President: Sumire Sumi
      1. Engage in the GroupMe (any ongoing events, etc. to spread the word across campus)
    3. Secretary: Honora Muratori
      1. Make sure everyone is on top of attendance, reach out, etc
      2. Connect w/ people outside of SGA and bring it back to SGA → being proactive
    4. Treasurer: Amy Xu
      1. Spending : ~$317k / $512k → 60 - 62% spending for the year so far
    5. Chair of Programming: Grace Guan
      1. Talent Show coming up (10/17) in Shriver @ 7 PM
      2. SGA fall retreat (morning activity, provided lunch - ekiben, afternoon activity)
    6. Director of Communications: Sienna Kim
    7. President of the Senate: Jazzlyn Fernandez
      1. CC at least a member of exec (w/in committee plans) so that they can stay in the loop, push things through admin, etc.
    8. Advisor Report:
      1. SGA Advisor: Charles Norman
        1. No advisor reports
    9. Senator Reports Initiatives Updates:
      1. Grace Wang
        1. Academic Affair Initiatives : assisting w/ course manual initiatives → first milestone covered (includes being transparent on FAs, so they aren’t just seen as courses people need to take outside of their major); currently covering second milestone → arranging meeting w/ Dean Martin
      2. Isaac Zhang (Chair of Academic Affairs)
        1. Shoutout to Ella’s Initiative → class Adulting 101; class should be running next cycle
        2. Talking to Dr. Bard public safety about the underused resources that they offer
        3. Met with another public safety about active shooter civilian response, sexual assault aggression?
        4. Meeting Dean about AI and inequality (~ 1.5 weeks from now)
        5. Him and Shreeman have gotten dumbbells in Wolman Gym
        6. Peabody Government Association is interested in working w/ SGA in collecting data regarding fine arts organizations
      3. Cole Liazos-Coffey
        1. Student services committee - coordinating with rec to make sure equipment is in good status
          1. Gift certificates/cards to the juice bar
        2. Reached out to housing about housing improvements in Academy (nothing definitive yet)
        3. Religious and Spiritual Life Senator → went to Inter-varsity meeting & introduced himself (as well as to other organizations) as a resource available to them
  11. Non-Legislative Business (30 min)
  12. Discussion about safety and resources on campus
    1. Demarri: motion with 10 minute, fails
    2. WaSophia: Motion for 5 minute moderated caucus, passes
      1. Sophia : administration didn’t talk about fraternity culture enough → not sure how to change culture but should still try
      2. RC : hard to see accountability when only survivor / victim comes forward; what is the school doing to making it a better environment that the perpetrator would come forward / admit at a higher rate → any possible initiatives to be done to address this
      3. Nora : Meet w/ (?)
        1. Two things want to uplift :
          1. Repercussions for perpetrators → response was survivor led BUT when survivor wants repercussions for perpetrators what happens → what actually happens
          2. Online trainings don’t work
            1. How do we move these trainings in person ? Especially for these groups that have been reporting as higher rates of sexual assaults (mainly student athletes groups, FSL)
      4. Jackson : What can we do as SGA, do we know what students think about this? What do students want to see
        1. JHU 2023 Campus Climate survey (two staff members that ran this are no longer w/ the university) → lots of people talking about experiences of sexual assault
          1. Need data on what people want
          2. What leads to this pervasive behavior (ex. pledging process)
      5. Natalie (Member of Public): GBV space underutilized for perpetrators who want to work on violence behaviors (adding perpetrator hotline ?)
        1. Cultural issues: focus on FSL and athletic groups, anti-hazing doesn’t work
        2. SGA heavily supports organizations we support, should consider–members of public (frustrated with SGA)
        3. 80% people who filled out 2023 survey did not use resources
      6. Demarri: motion to extend by 5 minutes
        1. Opposed: Veda, Paul, Royce, Isaac
      7. Kai : dissatisfied / frustrated that admin used first 7 min (out of 10) to answer only 2 questions → admin only went over things that they’ve already gone through
        1. Do we have capacity to hold admin answers to a standard (ex. cut them off)
        2. How do we ensure that all our questions are answered and in a much more succinct way?
        3. Jazz: holding offices accountable by holding questions not yet answered
        4. Shreeman : (+ Jazz) will find a way to hold their answers responsible
      8. Andrei : answers did not answer questions, Natalie’s questions were especially important (about preventative measures, BIT is not enough to address people who want to commit violence → programs are just reactive, not preventative at stopping these things at the root)
        1. What are the actual preventative programs that can be enforced?
        2. Even with training, individuals can intentionally go through with these actions → how do we address this
      9. Aishani: As someone who has attended BIT trainings and FSL trainings, they do not work, need to hold groups accountable to attend training→ don't face repercussions for not attending
      10. Jackson: move to extend by 5 minutes
        1. Sid: second
        2. Opposed: Cole, Isaac, Veda, Aishani, Paul, RC, Royce, Shreemann, Kayla, Saanvi
        3. Demarri: abstain
        4. Majority: yes
      11. Noah : trainings (ex. BIT) are treated as checklist item; how can we address the culture surrounding perception of these trainings
      12. Julia: focusing on culture as generation, focus groups to talk about safe dating (discuss what questions that we should actually be talking about)
        1. No matter how many requests we put onto admin, it is us who are the potential survivor / perpetrator → what can we as students practically do
      13. Emin : admin not really answering questions, 230 day question not really answered → what do these meetings look like for it to take so long → wants more transparency on the length of each step of the process (how it realistically looks like)
      14. Sid : yields his time
      15. Rain (MP) : give members of public open forum for students opinions and frustrations to be heard, guiding questions
      16. Nora: Cornell wasn’t mentioned at all (from admin → they were tiptoeing), disappointed when one of the presenters were pointing out that the Cornell situation was “shocking” bc it’s happening everywhere → be unafraid to use that language surrounding these situations
      17. Abe: be able to follow up on questions that were answered (ex. questions being tiptoed around in the answers) → able to do so; at the discretion of Jazz
  13. Presentation from the Committee Chairs
    1. Student Services (Veda): committee split → each part has a direct liaison
      1. Focused on bringing awareness about SGA to student body: ie. tabling events
      2. Committee meetings on Thursday @ 7:15 - 8 PM
      3. Royce: how do you join a committee
    2. Finance (Peter): two main roles: (1) approving club budgets (RSOs; 100 - 200 club applications) → any caps that should be changed, etc. they address (2) funding bills
      1. Committee time : Tuesdays @ 5:45 - 6:45 PM
    3. Civic Engagement (Jackson): leads SGA interaction with Baltimore, local/federal government, recently worked on National Call to Action
      1. Thursdays @ 6:30 - 7:30 PM at CSC
    4. Community of Student Organizations (Kevin): recognize & support student organizations; supporting prospective student orgs (ex. Prospective student org fair → had ~ > 120 people attending; 28 prospective student orgs); working to distribute National Call to Action survey (specifically focusing bringing student organizations into meetings)
      1. Committee : Wednesday @ 8 - 9 PM at BSC 104
      2. Have total of 5 student organizations in contact w/ committee regarding National Call to Action
    5. Health, Safety, and Sustainability (Tanisha) : mental health initiatives (hopefully overlay w/ sexual assault initiatives), sustainability tabling
      1. Sunday @ 8:15 PM
    6. Academic Affairs (Isaac) : anything related to academics (FAs, Whiting, KSAS, etc.) → split into teams that takes on a specific initiative
      1. Saturday @ 3 - 4 PM biweekly
      2. Meet w/ Dean of KSAS (for ex.) to discuss these issues
    7. Internal Affairs (Shreemann): co chaired w/ Sumi; bylaws, Robert Rules, etc. → looking into suspensions of rules, inconsistencies, disciplinary marks, accountability → Constitution & Bylaws are fully updated
  14. Senator of the Month
    1. Demarri : motion to postpone until next week, passed

  15. First Reading (20 min)

    1. Survey Tabling Bill - Student Services Chair Veda Kommineni
      1. Peter: Motion to table until next week, passed

  16. Second Reading (10 min)

  17. Nutrition Tabling Supplies Funding Bill - HSS Chair Tanisha Taneja
    1. Nutrition infographics (focusing on fiber) w/ trivia questions (prizes : olipop, fiber heavy nutrition bar)
    2. Demarri : Motion to pass bill, passed
  18. Sexual Assault Awareness Tabling - Student Services Chair Veda Kommineni
    1. Banner that students can sign w/ prompts : Consent looks like ____; I can make a safer community by ____
    2. Display at a public location (ex. FFC, Student Center)
    3. Asking for banner + markers
    4. Want students to feel supported and acknowledge the current events
    5. Passed with positive recommendation from finance committee
    6. Motion
  19. Black Jays 90s Photoshoot Funding Bill - Senator Oluwanifemi Ajayi
    1. Make instagram page that acknowledges everything black about Hopkins (students, staff, etc.) → make photoshoot a networking event
    2. Met with 20/24 Black student groups on campus
    3. Funding for food and photoshoot for networking event
    4. Jackson: Point of Information → would this be open to any student? Yes
    5. RC: Point of Information → would alumni be able to come? Yes, anyone able to come can come
    6. Demarri: Motion to pass bill, passed

Prospective Legislation & 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.