Johns Hopkins University Student Government Association

Meeting Minutes, October 25, 2011

I. Call to Order, 7:32pm

II. Roll Call,

1. Mimi Gu, Kiran Parasher, excused absence
2. Stephanie Geller, unexcused absence

III. Minutes

1. Motion to approve minute from 10/18/11
2. Seconded
3. Motion passed, minutes approved

IV. Executive Officer Reports

I. Executive President: Ardi Mendoza

1. Dean’s reception went great! Sarah Steinberg is hoping to attend one of our meetings in November
2. Dean Boswell and I have been coordinating Halloween buses from Fell’s to JHU.
3. 4 buses that will pick up at the beach each at 9:30, 10:30, and on the return at Fell’s at 1:00 am. Invoice will be coming in tomorrow. Possible photo booth on the Beach! The Student Life Office may be funding it. Maps will be available.
4. Shadowing Program: Information should be coming in by Friday. The possible administrators and their availabilities will be sent out.

10.  Thank you for the Donna’s gift card!

II. Executive Vice President: Wyatt Larkin

1. Parents Council meeting went well and they want us to do a video for them! They will be filming the Exec. Board, but if you would like to participate please let me know!

III. Executive Treasurer: Joanna Gawlik

1. List for improving the SGA Office. Suggestions welcome as are donations!
2. Appointed liaison for SAC, Khuram Ali
3. Budget numbers:
   1. Contingency $28, 400.00
   2. Events $8, 368.00
   3. Operations $1, 476.00
   4. Bike Share: if you’re interested, I will be setting up a once a week meeting. Eco-reps have 2 people who will be helping out
   5. Nate Evans- Baltimore Bike Share Program. We would lobby to have the city have more bike hubs near our campus. Meeting with them will occur next week.
   6. Housing and Dining Office for OCHD will be creating a logo and market it this semester to Juniors and Seniors

IV. Executive Secretary Annie Scavelli

1. If you are experiencing difficulty with the HopkinsSGA Googlegroup, please let me know and I will use your preferred e-mail.
2. The meeting with Dean Conley has been set for November 14th! Issues pertaining to ISIS and ideas for Online Syllabi will be discussed in Open Discussion. Please use this opportunity to voice your ideas. We would like to present Dean Conley and the other administrators in attendance with well-thought out, feasible ideas that will reflect the opinions of the student body at large.

V. Committee Reports

I. Academic Affairs: Alexandra Larsen

1. Meeting with Dean Conley 11/14!
2. Hardest Classes at Hopkins. We are getting students who did well in the class to report on the top 5 helpful habits for each course. Take a look at the classes and if you have done well in them, send in your advice! E-mail me back for the classes you can write a blurb for. Also, if you would like to add classes that is fine too! It will hopefully be integrated into ISIS.

II. Appointments and Evaluations: Mimi Gu (Kirk Sabnani in her absence)

1. 2 qualified nominees have been chosen for the Curriculum Committee.
2. We discussed how we will approach new student groups with a two meeting-span (an interview and an information session)

III. Campus Safety and Development: Nick Trenton

1. Spoke with Ed Scrotsky with Scott Barrett. We will be rescheduling our neighborhood walk to next Thursday at 8pm. Please come! Free stuff!
2. Mattin Markets went awesome! Thanks to Moses! We expect 400 at our next market, which will be November 16th!
3. This Friday we will be meeting at the Central Control Facility, let me know if you would like to come!
4. Met with Alex Villa about an energy drink delivery service. Will report back with details. It has already been approved by Finance.
5. Meeting with Peter Lee about the new Today’s Announcements format.
6. Alex Dash: The proposal for the ice rink is in draft stages. It will possibly be outside of Mason Hall.
7. Our committee will be working with Wyatt Larkin on amassing student opinion about what to do with the Olmstead lot.

IV. Finance: Merrill Anovick

1. When we approved the Energy Drink Delivery service, we approved any profit made to go to self-sustaining or a charity.
2. Our committee wants to approve one of the three other ideas and confer with CSD more about the other two.
3. Our meetings are Fridays at 2:30.

V. Student Services: Kirk Sabnani

1. Maaiz Khan has officially joined our committee in addition to Academic Affairs.
2. OCHD being pushed to Juniors and Seniors to get reviews, ratings, comments, pictures, etc.
3. Contact information on OCHD has been updated
4. Online taxi share program is going well, projected to be completed by Thanksgiving
5. Chargers in the library are in its beginning stages. Discussed with Dean Tabb today, he seems on board.
6. Rodolfo and I went to the H&D meeting on Friday and discussed our own ideas and concerns with them. We also discussed future Wolman construction.

VI. Class Council Reports

A. Senior Class President: Luke Sand

1. Our pub night went great!
2. Free donuts on Thursday.
3. Maxie’s event will now have free finger food
4. We will be having a wine tasting event soon as well.
5. More videos to come.

B. Junior Class President: Alexandra Larsen

1. We are speaking with Dave Furhman to do a free event as well.

C. Sophomore Class President: Merrill Anovick

1. We will be having our Class Pumpkin Carving night tomorrow!
2. Had our first meeting with a focus group yesterday.
3. I will be meeting with Provost Minor about our results.
4. I recommend the focus group to amass popular opinion.

D. Freshman Class President: Joshua Goodstein

1. We are in the midst of planning a Freshman Formal with the Sophomores. We are hoping to rent out Nolan’s and hopefully sell RedBull and water.
2. Evan Brooker met with Meals in a Minute to be able to get them in the FFC.
3. The charging station should be up and running in the next few weeks.

VII. Message from Rob Turning

1. I have been here for eight years and am excited to take on this new position.
2. My family is from the Chicago area and I went to the University of Akron in Ohio.
3. Most of my work has dealt with fraternity and sorority supervision.
4. Until my position on the Panhellenic Council is filled, I will be splitting my time between there and here.
5. A national search will be executed to fill my old position, which is now under my supervision in my new role in the Student Life Office.
6. My office is in Mattin 210. My e-mail is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please e-mail me or stop by with any questions!

VIII. Message from Dean Boswell

1. Excited to have Rob here! I will still be attending meetings.
2. Buses will be figured out for Halloween.
3. Shadowing Program is getting great responses. It should be a lot of fun.

IX. New Business

A. Curriculum Committee Appointments

1. Chose two: Anisha Singh (IS major) and Chet Connor (Neuroscience major)
2. Their applications were chosen from seven.
3. Motion to approve the appointments by Erin Reilly
4. Seconded
5. Motion passed by unanimous consent

B. iPhone Ad Hoc Committee

1. Moses, Mahzi, Kirk, Luke, Hyun-Sik, Josh, Nash, Wyatt have expressed their interest in participating.
2. After the meeting, we will be meeting to pick a chair of the committee.
3. Kirk Sabnani: Similar to Harvard, Duke, and Stanford have, an iPhone application would be a great student service. Ours would uniquely feature athletic, campus dining, and event information.
   1. Alex Dash: Would it be able to work on other smart phones?
   2. Kirk Sabnani: We would firstly be concerned with the iPhone, depending on a survey of the most popular iPhone.
   3. Merrill Anovick: If we could make it a mobile site, all with a smart phone could use.
   4. Alexandra Larsen: They just launched a J-Card application that looks really good
   5. Ardi Mendoza: Is it possible to contract through Blackboard like other schools?
      1. i.     Kirk Sabnani: Yes, that is a possibility
4. Nash Jenkins: Josh, Kirk, and I have been brainstorming ideas, we welcome everyone else’s as well

C. Sustainability at Hopkins

1. Michael St. Germain: We need a general student consensus that sustainability is something that we want. I motion to form an ad hoc committee for sustainability.
2. Seconded by Kirk Sabnani.
3. Objection: Merrill Anovick, Does it not fall under any other pre-existing committees?
4. Michael St. Germain: The BJS is consuming 19, 000 gallons of fuel. I would like to look into reducing that and if not, reduce the carbon footprint from that. It may fall under CSD; however, it is bogged down with multiple other issues. If our committee were to meet for the semester and come up with a proposal, I feel it might be more efficient.
5. Ardi Mendoza: In the past, we have not drawn the line of accountability. Once we run into that problem, then ad hoc committees should not be created.
6. Moses Song: You should join with Joanna and the Bike Project.
7. Joanna Gawlik: I would welcome joining students at our meetings. It may be very efficient in getting things done and a forum for students who would otherwise not have one.
8. Alex Dash: Should we wait until the idea is discussed further until next meeting?
9. Joanna Gawlik: Michael and I believe we should definitely team up at this.

10.  Motion unanimously passed

X. Open Discussion

1. ISIS/Online Syllabi database
   1. Wyatt Larking: Use this time to voice complaints about ISIS and my.jhu.edu.
   2. Merrill Anovick: SGA link on the portal.
   3. Nick Trenton: We should take advantage of my.jhu portal for student events and links to student pages.
   4. Moses Song: my.jhu is very difficult to use. I suggest we have a more clearly organized site page.
   5. Maaiz Khan: The page does not pertain to us.  Perhaps, similar to iGoogle.
   6. Cameron Ahmad: Class registration is not very visually oriented. Can we improve this?
   7. Nick Trenton: The name search tool is very useful, but not always dependent.
   8. Erin Reilly: Not all professor e-mails are there, can we make this possible?
   9. Luke Sand: Can our website be more reliable in class registration? It crashes at very inopportune times.
   10. Debra Schwitzer: Can all courses be centralized to Blackboard?
   11. Alex Schupper: A lot of classes do not list what professors teach each section. It might be less problematic if this information was available.
   12. Alexandra Larsen: Think about what you want to see when you click on a class.
   13. Alex Schupper: A syllabus with a professor’s e-mail address and contact information would be very useful.
   14. Alex Dash: A more user-friendly list of all the available courses would be very friendly.
   15. Wyatt Larkin: The non-sign in version of ISIS is more along these lines.
   16. Alex Dash: Can we change the time of registration?
   17. Alexandra Larsen: The registrar likes to be open to help students that morning.
   18. Alex Dash: Can we extend the menu so that you do not have to click on the link for section times?
   19. Nash Jenkins: I agree with Erin that we should have a centralized professor and course list. It will also be on the iPhone hopefully.
   20. Minerva Kim: Is a link to the Learning Den possible to place on that site?
   21. Cameron Ahmad: Can we create a default semester option and more accurate course descriptions.
   22. Moses Song: Can we possibly not print syllabi for sustainability purposes?
   23. Lighting of the Quad
       1. Erin Reilly: Is it possible for the ice skating rink to be at lighting of the quad.
       2. Alex Dash: I’d like to look into that and discuss it!

XI. Announcements

1. Erin Reilly: We will be reserving your seats should you fill out a Google Doc.
2. Kirk Sabnani: Rodolfo and MSG have the most liked post on ‘This is Hopkins’! Congratulations!
3. Wyatt Larkin: Dropbox invite has been sent! Join!
4. Alexandra Larsen: Respond to my course e-mail!

XII. Adjournment

1. Motion to adjourn meeting
2. Seconded
3. Motion passed, adjourned at 8:42

Respectfully Submitted,

Executive Secretary Annie Scavelli