At this week’s Student Goverment Association (SGA) meeting, the key items addressed were a recently conducted security survey and the upcoming Fall Fest.
They heard from the Office of Student Life’s Rachel Navarre and discuss its efforts to help the office promote this upcoming weekend’s Fall Fest through mediums such as Facebook.
“I’m really excited for Fall Fest this year. The Hop has done a great job getting Lupe [Fiasco], which I’m sure will be a major highlight of the school year,” Nick Trenton, Class of 2013 Senator, said after the meeting.
SGA especially highlighted its “Yoga on the Quad” event on Friday October 1st, all proceeds of which are being sent to the Baltimore Children’s Hospital.
SGA also deemed its sponsoring of the screening of “The Social Network” a success. “It was awesome,” Joanna Gawlik, Class of 2013 Senator, said.
The event lasted from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm on Monday September 27th at the Landmark Harbor East Theater. Over $550 in tickets were sold for the shuttles to the screening.
“It was planned out over the course of one week,” Student Involvement Committee Chair and 2012 Class President Ardi Mendoza said. His committee led the organization of the showing in combination with the Finance Committee.
“[It was] very well executed — that’s what SGA does,” Duval said.
Going over SGA’s financial situation, SGA Treasurer Wyatt Larkin, 2013, stated that SGA’s contingency fund/reseves is currently at $36,000 along with over a budget of $10,000 for events and $500 for supplies.
Larkin, who is also head of the Student Activities Committee, stated that the SAC would soon begin to hold its meetings for the year.
“SGA has historically been very responsible with the money it budgets for itself, which has helped us accumulate a substantial cash reserve,” Larkin said after the meeting. “This year, as SGA attempts to expand its presence and activity on campus, it is likely that we will dip into our reserves in order to fund the new initiatives that we are pursuing.”
SGA also focused on several pressing student issues and complaints.
The SGA received over 1000 responses for its Security Van survey, and plans to soon talk with Campus Security regarding the findings.
The findings of the survey indicated that people use point to point service more than route service, that many give up on waiting for the vans, most wait for more than 10 minutes with some waiting for over 45 minutes and the van never showing up, and that the vans often don’t check for Hopkins IDs as they are supposed to.
“This proves it’s not just our concerns but the Student Body’s concerns,” a senator commented.
2013 Class President Alexandra Larsen provided a possible explanation for the delays, saying that “when HERU is called, all the vans have to go offline until the call has been terminated . . . a call lasts 30 to 40 minutes and there are about four calls per night.”
A Senator responded to this by describing the situation as “trading . . . security for . . . health.”
2011 Senator Sean Murphy described the survey as “the 3rd most successful survey by SGA ever.”
2012 Senator Karen Murphy said that the SGA Finance Committee will write up a report of the survey’s findings to give to security.
Near the end of the meeting SGA 2011 Senator Max Dworin brought up a point he believed might “ruffle some feathers”, stating that “we’re giving to MSE, but this is the worst lineup I’ve ever seen . . . ” Dworin went on to describe some of the speakers as being people “no one has ever heard of” and that Wes Moore, MSE’s first speaker for the year, will get “17 people in Shriver.”
“Why dish out the money . . . without knowing who’s coming?” said Josh Ayal, 2011 Class President, referring to the $40,000 SGA gave MSE for this year and the fact that MSE does not have its speaker line-up set up yet for the coming year when given the money.
2012 Senator TJ Bozada suggested appointing a liaison between MSE and SGA.
SGA President Mark Dirzulaitis, 2011, said “SGA is at the whim of alumni who want to help out” and that the issue of a student liaison should be discussed by the Appointments and Evaluations Committee.
Other upcoming events and issues the SGA discussed included but are not limited to SGA’s “Big Bro Big Sis” mentoring program, committee assignments for freshmen officers, how to increase traffic to the SGA website, and finding programmers for creating an Off-Campus Housing Database.
