The Student Government Association (SGA) held its weekly meeting on April 5 in order to discuss a committee reorganization bill, the senior class Met Gala, renaming of buildings and programs named after Woodrow Wilson, an election day survey, SGA’s sponsorship of the Hopkins Student Organization for Programming’s (HOP) Picnic Day and the Sophomore Class Paint Night.
Committee Reorganization Bill
Freshman Class Senator Kya Nicholson and Senior Class Senator Pritika Parmar presented an amendment to the bylaws that would require every senator in SGA to be in either the Finance Committee or Committee on Student Organizations (CSO).
- Parmar said that these two committees have the most power within SGA for the student body as a whole, and she believes that adding more people to the Finance Committee and CSO allows for more balance, considering not many are involved.
- Junior Class Senator Reid Brotmann questioned if adding more people to each committee will solve anything. Parmar replied, “Our body is 32 people and we all represent the whole student body. Four people are on the Finance [Committee] and are actually making decisions on who we are funding, whether that be about monthly grants or for the annual budget. That gives four people an insane amount of power over the $300,000 that we actually allocate.”
- Freshman Class Senator Jackson Morris added, “I would like to have more people on student boards because I think that you get a richer diversity of what organizations people are on, and people's backgrounds are coming into it. I think that when you have more people that have worked with more organizations, it just flows better.”
- Many in SGA wondered how the scheduling would be set up and how it would be implemented. Parmar answered that the logistics could be sorted out later; this bill was just a proposal for the reorganization of the Finance Committee and CSO.
- Senior Class Senator Grace Wang emphasized the importance of these two committees and the responsibility SGA has toward the student body.
- This bill passed with Senior Class Senator Veda Chanda objecting and Junior Class Senator Peter Huang abstaining.
Senior Formal Event Report
Wang presented a report on the senior class Met Gala, which was held Saturday, April 2 in the Engineers Club of Baltimore.
- Wang noted that they had planned for an event of 300 people. She said that about 250 people had signed into CampusGroups, but she estimated that at least 275 attended the event.
- “It was really nice to see people who don't usually get a date party or formal experience, as a lot of those experiences are there for people in Greek life or athletics, so that was really exciting,” she said.
- Wang observed that the majority of complaints at the event had to do with pricing at the venue, which they had no control over but could have been better advertised in the announcements.
- She pointed out that since the senior class council did not ask for any volunteers for the event, there was an immense burden in setting up and running the event for those in the class council.
Wilson Proposal
Senior Class President Nathan Mudrak shared with SGA a copy of his formal proposal of renaming any University-affiliated building or project named after Wilson.
- While the proposal is not being submitted under SGA’s name, Mudrak wanted to get feedback and review from the members of SGA as renaming buildings and fellowships with Wilson’s name has been a longstanding project of SGA.
Election Day Survey
Sophomore Class President Kobi Khong introduced a questionnaire that will be sent out to the student body to poll their opinions on whether Election Day should be a holiday or not.
- Sophomore Class Senator Raj Bhatt asked if there would be any identifying data connected with the survey.
- Khong clarified that no personal data would be collected. The survey will be approved pending institutional approval.
The HOP Schoolwide Picnic Funding Bill
Senior Class Senator Subha Bhatta introduced a bill to help the HOP fund a food truck at their Picnic Day event.
- The motion to vote failed as many senators asked for specific clarification on how the money was going to be spent and how the HOP was going to be using the funding from the event.
- After a round of clarifying questions, Bhatta emphasized that the plans were not fully put into place, as this was one of the last weeks that student organizations could ask for funding and grant approval. She clarified that much of the details would be put into place in the coming weeks and any money that is not used will be returned to SGA.
- A motion to vote was called again, and the bill passed.
Sophomore Paint Event Report
Khong presented a report on the Sophomore Class Paint Night event.
- “We wanted to do a paint night so that students can relax, especially as this time of the year things start getting a little stressful,” he said.
- The total cost of the event was $162.30, which included the cost of paint supplies and Pokémon cards.
