SGA Genboard Round-Up 10/30

Luke Young

He/Him

Managing Editor

11/3/23

On Oct. 30, the Student Government Association held their Halloween-themed meeting. Jessica Dutille, SGA advisor, reported that The PAW, a student organization website, has been generally successful in its mission, with 114 events preemptively put on the website. She also announced that First Fire will be taking place on Nov. 8, and that the ski package will be revealed during the ceremonies. Jayden Candee, Parliamentarian, reviewed the attendance policy yet again. Jonah Rosenberg reported on the progress of the Blue Light Phones, stating there are plans to change their infrastructure, including replacing the cameras the pole contains. 

The guest speakers of the night were Amanda Grazioso and Chuck Crawford from Residential Life who have each worked in the field for over 15 years, across multiple colleges. Crawford informed the members of SGA that any decisions made by Residential Life draw from sources and colleagues across the USNH system. 

One of the first concerns addressed was related to the cleanliness of dormitories and the lack of paper towels in Mary Lyon Hall. Residential Life claims that since the implementation of the paper towel dispensers, there has not been a night that they haven’t been vandalized. They encourage students to bring hand towels into the bathroom as an alternative to the questionably sanitary hand dryers. When provided this information, one student ‘27 responded, “That’s fucking nuts.” 

Student Body President, Devonte Gilmore, responded with a potential solution of implementing a scan-in system on bathrooms to track who is in the bathroom at a given time. The same student considered Gilmore’s proposal as equally, “…fucking nuts.”

Grazioso informed the association that Belknap Hall has had three times the work orders and police visits this year compared to other dorms, which they responded to via a vaguely ominous email. Residential Life also states that their use of collective punishment in the form of fines is a scare tactic to incentivize residents to come forward with videos of perpetrators. According to Grazioso, as of Nov. 1, all Belknap residents are to be charged upwards of $45 to pay for the damages. Most students living in Belknap ended up there by selecting a “filled” dorm with requested roommates or through poor communication with ResLife. Because of this, they were shuffled off to a corner of campus that was not initially scheduled to receive residents this year.

The next question asked was why no outside furniture is allowed in apartments this year when it was allowed in the past. Grazioso informed the room that the change was due to the cold snap on February 5th of last year as well as an effort to replicate the USNH system. Personal furniture made the apartment repairs more difficult, and common areas in said apartments had furniture already. Cimino followed up with the fact that university furniture may be disheartening to students because of its generally old and stained appearance. The university cleans and disinfects all lived-in spaces across campus over the summer, so furniture isn’t dirty, it just looks that way.

Residential Life ended their visit to SGA by handing out gifts of stress balls and chapstick. As SGA does not identify as a governing body, this is unlikely to be considered bribery.

Lastly, members of SGA brought forward constituent concerns. Commuter Representative Will Hicking, expressed that he sees Women’s Power Hour in the HUB gym as discriminatory to male gym-goers and is possibly a violation of Title IX. The only other constituent concern was the integration of streetlamps around campus, more specifically surrounding Merrill Place. SGA is working on it, but the integration wasn’t finished by the proposed summer deadline. The truck used to put up new lights was broken down this summer, which made integration impossible. They reminded the room that only on-campus lights are controlled by the university, and that the town has control over all others. With this, the meeting was adjourned.