At their second meeting of the semester on Tuesday, the Student Government Association (SGA) discussed several initiatives they will hold in partnership with the University administration. These included the annual SGA-Administration Dinner, a new Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) Curriculum and a new SGA-led initiative on improving civic discourse on campus.
Executive President Noh Mebrahtu emphasized the need to notify freshmen about their upcoming class elections, citing the high interest in SGA at the Student Involvement Fair.
He also mentioned the Ban the Box initiative, which would prohibit universities from requiring applicants to disclose their criminal backgrounds on initial applications. Mebrahtu is looking into what an implementation of the plan would look like.
“Ban the Box is a great initiative. However, we need to do more research into it. I’m going to talk to the Dean of Admissions and Vice Provost of Admissions to see... how it would be implemented at our university. Someone brought up the issue of sexual offenders, so that was an issue,” he said.
Executive Treasurer Mi Tu confirmed that the Student Activities Committee has finalized SGA’s budget.
Executive Secretary Rushabh Doshi plans to present a smoking cessation resolution on Sept. 26 and follow up with a total smoking ban two weeks later.
Executive Vice President AJ Tsang asked senators for their help in finding additional resources to include in the SGA’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) assistance database for undocumented students, which SGA recently distributed to all Hopkins students.
Student engagement also continues to be a focus area for Mebrahtu.
“I decided we needed to increase the presence of class presidents and senators,” he said.
SGA then confirmed 15 student nominees for the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ (KSAS) Curriculum Committee. Four students will eventually be selected by KSAS to serve on the committee to advise future changes to the University’s curriculum. The committee will review proposed programs of study and future distribution requirements.
SGA’s second formal action was to review a list of faculty members to invite to an SGA-Administration dinner on Oct. 17. The purpose of the dinner is to help SGA build ties with faculty.
Finally, the President’s Office has asked the SGA to brainstorm ideas for a Civic Engagement and Academic Freedom Initiative for this year. The initiative intends to bring students together to discuss civic issues. Senators discussed their visions for the initiative.
Senior Class Senator Tatiana Sorenson was interested in setting up debates, claiming that students are more interested in debates than it might seem.
“Last year, International Studies did a moderate Republican vs. Democrat debate on the standing of the constitution, which sounded boring, but surprisingly a ton of people came,” she said.
Junior Class President Ash Panakam stressed that initiative events need to be unique and different from events held by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS). Sophomore Class Senator Alex Walinskas, however, opposed having an event on civic engagement run by panelists.
“As much as I love hearing people speak and listening to panelists, one criticism I see is that it’s all talk and that people are talking at us,” Walinskas said.
Junior Class Senator Nina D’Amiano believes that holding debates might exacerbate tension and suggested having a speaker present their opinion. She believes that civic discourse would be better improved by holding an event aimed toward understanding the other side.
“Rather than having people attack each other... one person from the other side could come in and talk about their perspective, especially since politics today is so polarized,” D’Amiano said.
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