Meeting Minutes — Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Johns Hopkins University Student Government Association

I. Call to Order — 7:32 p.m.

II. Roll Call

1. Excused: Bennet Givens, Stephanie Hsu, Katy Lefkof, Mimi Gu, Mike Wu, Alexandra Larsen. Unexcused: Gauri Wagle

III. Approval of Minutes

1. Approval of changes from last week. Motion to approve minutes with revisions bySenator Moses Song, seconded by Senator Kirk Sabnani. Approved with revisions.

IV. Executive Officer Reports

a. President — Mark Dirzulaitis

1. Have a great spring break. Will have dinner April 4th with President and Provost at Nichols House.
2. Alongside Fabian Bauwens and chaplain of interfaith center to discuss a vigil with the victims of the tragedy in Japan. The JSI has taken the lead. Want to make sure support and attendance are maximal, sending an e-mail out this week
3. Wednesdays in April, the 13th and 17th, there will be Hood Internet and Milkman concerts, respectively
4. May use 2 bus companies for Wiz Khalifa. For Step Up week, Alumni Relations wants to give out something for free on the buses. Sr. Class President Josh Ayal: You should give it to people on the way back, not on the way there. Mark: It’s not our expenditure, it’s up to Alumni Relations.

b. Vice President — Elizabeth Duval

1. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mattin Markets. Sent out Mattin Markets schedule, mandatory, e-mail Liz or Diana if you can’t make your assigned time. Will resend.
2. Will talk about Interfraternity

c. Treasurer — Wyatt Larkin

d. Secretary — Diana Baik

V. Committee Reports

a. Academic Affairs

1. Soph. President Alexandra Larsen: Going to start working on reading period violations when they get back from spring break.

b. Appointments and Evaluations

1. Senator Kirk Sabnani Had a student group workshop for prospective student groups, went relatively well. Jason, Mike, and Alex Dash showed up. Two student groups did not show up out of 21 prospective groups. Interviews after break.

c. Campus Affairs

1. Nothing new.

d. Finance

1. Senator Nick Trenton: Chose winner of Student Services Grant. Campuswide voter registration drive. Revisions for start-up funding bill was e-mailed out before meeting.

e. Student Involvement

1. Jr. Class President Ardi Mendoza: After talking to Jason and Mark via e-mail, will divvy up groups on campus to SGA members so we can talk to them, ask questions. People can meet with/interview the groups. Five groups per person max, 130 groups total. Mark: Will create an online Google Form, take it to a 15 minute meeting, ask five questions to club presidents, see what they do with funding, etc. Max: What’s the end goal of this project? Any way it can be automated? Mark: We are making this easy to fit into your schedule. 15 minutes for each meeting in one evening. End goal: See if we’re allocating our funding efficiently. Let groups know that they are supposed to be doing something. Only way we can find that out comprehensively. We’ll give you a two-week window to do it. It’s not on you to send e-mail after e-mail. They should be responding to you. Ardi: I plan on creating a more comprehensive schedule for everything later this week.

f. Safety and Security Ad Hoc Committee

1. Josh: Met with Dean Boswell on Saturday. Getting in touch with Dept. of Transportation representative to find out if we can get safer intersections. To the people who wanted to be involved on this committee, will set up a walk with security to address other safety concerns such as traffic safety, blue light safety, etc.

VI. Class Council Reports

a. Senior Class Council

1. Josh: Senior Class Dinner, securing an outside guest speaker for that that will supplement future commencement speakers.

b. Junior Class Council

1. Ardi: Looking for rest of information to submit funding request for event at the end of April. Hope to do that after spring break.

c. Sophomore Class Council

1. Mark: We will be ordering sunglasses next week. Starting tp plan halfway to graduation celebration breakfast. Send out newsletter after spring break. Asking calss for Nolan’s suggestions, such as different coffee flavors.

d. Freshman Class Council

1. Freshman President Merrill Anovick: Had High Table dinner last Tuesday, had over 800 people RSVP, around 600-700 people, great turnout .Place looked spectacular. Amazing food. Liz: Can I recommend that you send out a survey to look for improvements? Mark: As we do things like High Table, planning the buses for Halloween, it’s good to write out evaluations for these. Diana: Could get a post-event evaluation form to track attendance, etc.

VII. Advisor Report — Jason Heiserman

VIII. Old Business

a. Start-up Funding Reform Bill

1. Nick: Took out cap for amount of money that the treasurer can allot. Starting next year, treasurer will manage year long budget. Changed phrasing and wording, almost exactly the same. Fixes problems with previous resolution, and helps start the framework for the budget. Line that sets eligibility means that this is tailored toward groups that don’t have any basis for start-up funding. Wyatt: The implication of this bill is that we will probably be giving much less money away. The last bill made it so that SAC groups did not have access to funds in a timely manner. Josh: How can we make this bill go into effect this semester? Why can’t it go into effect in the fall? Clarity with dates would take care of a lot of issues, instead of “Fall 2012,” etc. Wyatt: Because with the old one, we would be obligated to provide start-up funding to new groups unless it gets passed before new groups are approved.
2. Senator Karen Poreh motions to approve this bill. Roll call vote. Passes.

IX. New Business

a. Collegiate Housing Bill Endorsement Resolution

1. Show of support form Student Government supporting the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act. This would open things up for Greek organziations to fie tax deductions. Karen: Liz is going to propose this. It is not government spending, just a tax cut on organizations and housing. Max: Any non-profit group living on an off campus group can file for tax exemption. So we are voting to take this to congress. Kirk: Strong bipartisan support for this in Congress. Liz: Rob Turning is in complete support of this bill. Moses motions to approve this bill. Ardi seconds this. Bill passes unanimously.

b. Japan Natural Disaster – SGA’s Role

1. Mark: JSI has taken the lead on this relief effort. This Thursday, they are running an event in AMR I. Send this out to all the groups you are a part of on listprocs. Riding cars to relief workers. It’s a great cause, we should all show our support. Events: Thursday from 4-9, Friday from noon to 6 p.m.

c.  SGA Elections & Timeline

1. Mark: Election season is coming around. The week we get back will be the Exec info sessions and the vote will be the next week. Thus, campaigning begins as soon as we get back. We will soon be sending this out to everyone. Then info session for class elections, then the actual elections in the weeks directly following the exec election. If you want to talk about a position on Exec, we are all willing to have a conversation with you about the position, what it entails.

d. SGA Awards

1. Mark: Got a number of award nominations in. One award that no one has nominees for is the Dunn Family Award. They can go to anyone who has done a great job in an organization. Same for staff award (separate faculty award). Emerging Leader, for freshmen and sophomores. George Owen award is for good professors.

X. Announcements

XI. Open Discussion

XII. Adjournment

1. Motion to adjourn from Josh. Seconded by Senator TJ Bozada. Meeting adjourned at 8:09 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Diana Baik

Executive Secretary