SGA votes for committee to analyze campus tech

During its Tuesday meeting, the Student Government Association (SGA) focused on the addition of an ad hoc committee to the SGA roster, the Committee for Technological Advancement. The SGA also discussed the planning of a T-shirt burn to promote school spirit.

Sophomore Class President Alex Koren proposed the Committee for Technological Advancement in an effort to target University technology issues that the other committees are not equipped to handle.

“It’s not just building applications. It’s so much more than that. Anything that advances the campus is part of technology,” Koren said.

The group approved a motion to suspend the rules for the semester regarding the committee structure of SGA in order to accommodate an ad hoc Technological Advancement Committee. A second motion was made to approve the committee outright.

“Basically it’s an amendment that states a sixth committee. All committees have five to seven members right now, so the tech committee would take three members and the other five committees would have five people each,” Koren said.

Despite the eventual approval of the ad hoc committee, some members of the SGA argued against it as superfluous.

“In the case that we don’t have an Alex Koren or someone else who’s passionate about technology, do we have an empty committee?” Executive President Alex Schupper asked.

He suggested having the committee run for one semester ad hoc but wait to make a decision about its continuation into the spring.

“We can revisit it after there are some projects that have been done and some leeway from the finance committee,” Schupper said.

“I support this bill. As the chair of student services, I think a lot of the technological stuff that Koren is saying we need sort of falls through the cracks. We’re one of the larger committees and we don’t need that many people. Having a specified technology group could really solve that issue,” Senior Class President Sean Glass said.

The committee was approved through an amendment drafted by Executive Treasurer Dylan Gorman.

“My amendment is adding that the technology committee shall expire after the 2013-2014 school year. I think we should use this as a test case to year and see if it goes well,” Gorman said.

Also discussed during the “Old Business” portion of the meeting’s agenda was Hopkins Speaks Up.

Junior Class Senator Parth Patel updated SGA on Hopkins Speaks Up, a mental health organization that is in the works and was inspired by a similar Harvard group called Harvard Speaks Up.

“We got permission from the former president of the group at Harvard to copy the website for Hopkins essentially. We just need to make sure there are no legal issues. In terms of starting a campaign, we’ve identified three mental health groups to meet with later in the semester,” Patel said.

Under “New Business,” Executive Secretary Kyra Toomre announced that plans have been drawn up to produce live podcasts of SGA’s meetings. Viewers will hopefully be able to submit comments in real time to be considered and discussed by SGA.

The Appointments and Evaluations Committee announced the application of three new clubs to join the JHU roster: Music Dynasty, the Global Friendship Club and the Homewood Chamber Music Seminar.

“Music Dynasty is an acapella group. Basically, they want to specialize in Chinese folk and contemporary music. They also want to dabble in Korean and English language music to let everyone join. They hope to eventually be part of the O-show,” Mahzi Malcolm, a junior class senator, said.

“The Global Friendship Club is an international students club. They’ve reached out to the international students office. They want to help students that are international feel more welcome on campus,” Malcolm said.

“The Homewood Chamber Music Seminar is working somewhat with Peabody. And they’ve been in existence before, and they just want to make music a more important part of the Homewood campus through concerts et cetera,” he added.

In the treasurer’s report, Gorman announced SGA’s response to last week’s proposal by the Octopodes’ Duncan Crystal for funding. Crystal said last week that the money would go toward sound production costs at the singing group’s Oct. 25 workshop and concert in collaboration with Musae, the professional all-female a capella group from Boston.

“We gave $500 to Octopodes. We think their concert’s going to be really good since they’re getting a professional music group,” Gorman said.

In the Executive Secretary’s report, Toomre updated the group on plans underway for the T-shirt burn, an event meant to boost school spirit that she first mentioned at last week’s meeting. Hopkins students will be encouraged to trade in their gear from other schools in exchange for a Hopkins t-shirt. Though only one or two shirts will actually be burned, the event will be a symbolic commitment to school pride.

“I’ve met with the HOP, and I’ve talked to alumni about it. If we make it to football finals, it would be our goal to have the T-shirt burn for the event. The idea would be to have a pep rally the night before,” Toomre said.

Toomre is also moving forward with SGA’s shadowing program, which allows representatives to walk in the footsteps of University administrators to better learn how the school runs.

“Dan Ferrera and I have been working really hard to pull together a list of administrators for the shadow program. Last year [Glass] and I got to go downtown to a different Hopkins building. It’s really exciting to spend a day with an administrator,” Toomre said.