SGA Genboard Round-up 10/23

Jacob Downey, Luke Young

Hes/Hims

Editor-in-Chief/Managing Editor

10/24/23

The 10/23 meeting for the Student Government Association was as structured as it was eventful. Not very. The meeting opened with officer reports. Of note, Emily Coutermarsh reported that the board of trustees was impressed by the student leader presentations on Oct. 20th at their 8:30 breakfast event. Also discussed was SGA’s social norming event held the day of the meeting, which featured cupcakes and free contraceptives, the extras of which were offered to SGA members after the meeting. Jayden Candee, Parliamentarian, announced that they will be enforcing the attendance policy, which was backed up by Speaker Will Loughlin.

Most of the meeting was spent in smaller class council sessions to discuss what each class plans for the immediate future. Skyler Hammes ‘27 reported that the freshmen class, who have already begun meeting regularly, discussed ideas they had for class merchandise and events, with their proposed culmination being a time capsule event with a photo booth and cotton candy.

Christyan Cimino ‘26 announced that they would be holding another meeting after the regularly scheduled SGA meeting, in order to discuss fundraising ideas and debate a few potential ideas for events. These events may include a “Sof-S’mores” event, a fall-themed event with apple bobbing, and a Nov. men’s mental health month and prostate cancer awareness event.

The upperclassmen discussed similar things, with David Woltag ‘25 reporting that their priority is filling their cabinet through using social media and in-person recruiting and that they are hoping to have a class coffee session at Cafe Monte Alto soon.

Devonte Gilmore ‘24 revealed that most funds given to seniors for events are already spoken for to upkeep events that have become a tradition. He also announced that Adam Sandler has largely been unresponsive to their request to have him as the commencement speaker, but only time will tell.

Daniela Duque, representative of the IDEA center, announced the multicultural fair taking place in the fireplace lounge on Nov. 7. Any and all students are invited to sign up for this fair to table their identity-related beliefs, mostly centering around culture and representation. The IDEA center is also focusing more on the positive increase of undergraduate students, the lack of diversity in staff, and Diversity Connection courses, whether they should be increased or decreased. 

Constituent concerns were brought up next. Quinn Hagerty followed up with his concern about fruit flies and lint in dorms, which spurred a longer discussion on the disarray of bathrooms across campus, including the lack of paper towels in Mary Lyon bathrooms. 

This is representative of a trend Gilmore claims to have noticed where Residential Life collectively punishes entire buildings. Discussing Mary Lyon’s absence of paper towels as well as Geneva Smith Hall having bathroom mirrors removed, Gilmore claimed “our money, our tuition goes to it. So unfortunately, if we are going to break it, they should have money to replace it and constantly keep it there.”

The Clock was then asked if we had seen or heard anything worth bringing up. While we were able to corroborate the Mary-Lyon claims, we are journalists. Our job is to document the meeting, not feed SGA the student body’s concerns. 

The final concern of the night by Coutermarsh was brought up on behalf of the Board of Trustees about the cost of laundry in residential halls, stating “…respectfully you shouldn’t be having to pay for your laundry. If you’re living there that should be putting your tuition.” 

This proposal was responded to by Cimino’s objecting “I don’t want to pay for my own laundry either. But correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever been to, seen, toured, or heard of a college that has free laundry. So like, we definitely are not the only one.” 

Coutermarsh responded that the inquiry was to minimize costs in certain areas by having various funds factoring into other places.  A single load of laundry currently costs upward of $4 to wash and dry. Coutermarsh stressed that this plan would not be “free laundry” but moving the cost elsewhere, either as part of tuition, student fees or even being paid via FlexCash.

SGA depends heavily on constituent concerns being reported to class representatives. There does not currently appear to be an official mechanism to report these concerns outside of tracking down your class rep.