SGA talks plans for the spring semester

In its first meeting of the semester, the Student Government Association (SGA) reflected on the Fall 2016 semester and outlined some of its plans for this semester in the Charles Commons Barber Conference Room on Tuesday.

Senior Senator Matthew Brown announced that the Humanities Center, which faced the possibility of closure pending a review from the Neutral Committee, will stay open.

Syed Hossain, a senior senator, brought up the idea of doing a pre-professional event at some point this semester.

“Since there’s a new director in the Pre-Professional Office, we figured it would be a cool idea to do a lap event where people could come in and do some networking,” Hossain said.

Executive President Charlie Green outlined some of her plans for the forthcoming weeks. She will be speaking with former SGA Executive President Jason Plush, who resigned his post in Oct. 2015 citing mental health issues.

“I had a call with Jason Plush. He is coming to campus, and we’re going to be discussing mental health initiatives around campus, because he works closely with a lot of groups on campus,” Green said.

Junior Senator Kwame Alston, chair of the Finance Committee, brought up two groups that had applied for additional funding: WJHU Student Radio and the Johns Hopkins Outdoors Club (JHOC).

“WJHU is in need of some new equipment, and JHOC wants us to possibly co-sponsor their Black History Month event, which will be a film showing,” Alston said.

Senior Senator Sathvik Namburar, the chair of Health and Safety Committee, spoke about his committee’s plans to help increase education on sexual assault at Hopkins. He also spoke about the Smoking Ban Initiative, which supported moving ashtrays to areas 23-30 feet away from building entrances and windows.

“We had the idea of putting up sexual assault information in all public bathrooms on campus,” Namburar said. “The Smoking Ban Initiative is also out of my hands right now. It has been presented.”

Sophomore Senator AJ Tsang said that his Constitution and Bylaws Committee did not let the break affect their productivity.

“We had an awesome teleconference last week, and we created a summary for the Fall Forum, with a list of all the recommendations from two discussion sections. In addition to that, we finished adding all the Student Board revisions and bylaws,” Tsang said.

During the rest of the meeting, senators reflected on the previous semester. They were asked by President Green to write on a piece of paper what they felt they had achieved and what they plan to do in the next semester.