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(05/01/13 2:35pm)
The Student Government Association (SGA) held meetings on Sunday, April 21 and on Sunday, April 28.
Reminder to Vote
SGA Elections for the 2013-2014 academic year end 12:00 pm on Thursday, May 2. If you are reading this article before that time and have not voted, you are still able to vote. Voting is online and can be accessed at the link go/vote. If you are a graduating senior you are eligible to vote for next year’s president.
Finance Comittee Transparency
On April 21, The SGA unanimously passed a bylaw amendment that will create more transparency between the Finance Committee and the Senate. President Charlie Arnowitz’13 was particularly pleased with the agreement.
“The bylaw amendment will play a positive role in increasing communication within the SGA, between the Finance Committee and the Senate,” said Arnowitz. “I’m glad we all worked together to come up with a compromise that made sense for all parties.”
Budget Meeting
On April 28, the SGA held its annual finance meeting. Finance Committee Chair Peter Mattson ’14 presented the 2013-2014 budget at the meeting. The biggest challenge for the committee was to have a balanced budget despite having a fairly small total of reserves remaining from the previous year. The committee had $1,110,625 to work with for the 2013-2014 academic year. This total was a result of parking fees, each student paying a $395 student activity fee and reserves from past years.
The budget for all organizations that receive money from the Finance Committee came out to be $933,829.09. The administration provided financial assistance to help balance the budget, and will now be footing the bill for midnight breakfasts and extended library hours during exam weeks. Mattson stated that all decisions relating to the amount of money organizations received was a result of “hard metrics and quantitative assessment.”
The budget was deemed acceptable by the SGA, and passed with a unanimous vote.
“I’m very pleased with the SGA’s budget for next year,” said Arnowitz. “Despite the financial constraints of Middview, the Finance Committee did a fantastic job and managed to produce a balanced budget for the first time in many years. The budget balances a high level of student organization programming with responsible fiscal planning, and sets us on a sustainable course for the coming years. I’m very proud of this achievement, and working with Peter on budgetary matters this year has been a pleasure.”
Feb Study Abroad Reform
Senator Evan Allis’15.5 announced legislation to make it easier for Febs to study abroad. Allis hopes to make the process fairer and easier for Febs.
“As it stands, Febs choosing to study abroad must declare a major in order to do so after only two semesters on campus. Everyone else gets a year and half,” said Allis, “It seems like there’s broad consensus that this inconsistency in policy is unfair, and I have had enough Febs tell me they chose a major prematurely as a result of the current system to know that something has to change.”
Allis plans to work with the study abroad department to find a solution to this problem, and expects to have a bill ready for the senate by Sunday.
We The Midd Kids Submissions
Two “We The Midd Kids” submissions reached the necessary vote threshold of 100 to be announced to the SGA. Kit Tse ’16 submitted a petition asking for gym hours to be extended until midnight, so as to give busy students more flexibility to work out. This submission had received 106 votes as of this past Sunday and 114 by Tuesday.
Kathryn Benson’13 proposed that printing money that is not used by the end of the school year be used to plant trees. This petition has received the most votes so far of any petition with 149 as of Tuesday.
(04/17/13 4:18pm)
The Student Government Association (SGA) held meetings on Sunday, April 7 and Sunday, April 14.
Election Season
SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 announced that elections for next year’s open SGA positions will be held on Wednesday, May 1. A meeting for prospective candidates was held on Tuesday, April 16. A separate meeting at a time to be determined will be held for Ross Commons students who will be in room draw during the original meeting.
Appointments and Approvals
New Student Liaison to the SGA on Endowment Affairs Josh Rombach ’14 was approved unanimously by the SGA. Additionally, the SGA approved the Executive Accounts Restructure Act unanimously.
Finance Committee Concerns
Evan Allis ’15.5 addressed concerns that were raised against him to the Finance Committee regarding financial oversight.
“In advocating for continued oversight of Finance Committee spending, I referenced student body support for divestment efforts, hoping to illustrate a larger point about the community’s concern for the way in which money gets spent at Middlebury,” said Allis.
Allis clarified that his intention was not to prevent students from serving on the committee based on their personal opinions about divestment.
“Furthermore, as I understand it, the bill coming before the Senate next week has been amended to accommodate the very concerns I raised, including providing advance notice for which groups will be seeking funding on a given week, and regular reports concerning the Finance Committee’s approach to approving or denying these requests. If you ask me, this whole thing blew up over a misunderstanding.”
A bill relating to this subject will be presented to the SGA at the meeting on Sunday, April 21.
Constitution Committee
Dan Tenner ’13, the SGA Constitution Committee Chair, came to the meeting on the April 14 to discuss manners relating to constitutional review. He informed the SGA that steps were being taken to improve this process and make it more than a process of simply copying and pasting new information into constitutions.
A new bylaw to the constitution was approved by the SGA. The language of the bylaw was not significantly different, but the big change is that organizations cannot be formed during winter term, and that all groups must have leadership or they will be classified as inactive.
We the Middkids
Without a great deal of business on the table, the SGA was able to discuss student concerns that have been voiced on the new online forum “We the Middkids.” Arnowitz was pleased by the discussion.
“The “We the Middkids” initiative is going well and we’re very happy about the high rates of participation and the diversity of petitions on it,“ he said.
Issues related to new printers, party registration and lounge spaces were all discussed, but no action has been taken yet.
Party Registration
Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life Doug Adams spoke to the SGA about the College’s party policy. He spoke briefly about the College’s party regulations, answering senators’ questions as to how the party scene at the College has changed over the past ten years.
Adams cited a significant reduction in larger registered parties hosted in campus social houses and lounges along with a corresponding increase in the more problematic unregistered events. Adams asked for SGA senators to volunteer to serve on a committee to review current policies and make recommendations for changes. Four Senators signed on.
Ross Commons Lounge Space
Firas Nasr ’15 voiced his support relating to a petition to turn the current language table space in Ross dining hall into a lounge space.
“Due to a crunch in housing space on campus, new students are now being housed in the lounge spaces on every floor in Hadley and Miliken in Ross Commons,” said Nasr. “Unfortunately, this takes away from our ability to connect with each other and build community. We would like to bring back the Fireplace Lounge to remedy this situation.”
No decision was made on the fate of the lounge space.
(03/20/13 4:39pm)
The Student Government Organization (SGA) held meetings on Sunday, March 10 and Sunday, March 17.
Finance Committee Report and Compromise
On March 3, the SGA approved every section of the Finance Committee Report, except the section pertaining to transportation reimbursement. A proposal was made to reduce the driving reimbursement to $0.24 a mile, but a compromise was reached to raise that value to $0.35. This final section of the Finance Committee Report was approved unanimously.
Housing Update
Doug Adams, associate dean of students and chair of the Residential Life Committee, spoke to the SGA about housing. There are no major upcoming changes regarding housing at the College. There could be changes in the future dealing with new residence halls, but nothing has been determined at this point.
Election of a New Feb Senator
Evan Allis ’15.5 has been elected to the newly created position of Feb Senator. He attended his first meeting on March 17.
We the Middkids
Chief of Staff Anna Esten ’13 and Senator Hasher Nisar ’16 helped create a new online petition system for students to address their concerns about the College.
“I’m very excited by the potential of We the Middkids to fill a communication gap between the SGA and the student body,” wrote Esten in an email.
“Oftentimes students don’t have a venue to share their ideas or suggestions unless they personally know a Senator,” she added. “I hope this will give every student the opportunity to pass their concerns on to the SGA and will give the SGA a better sense of what the rest of the student body wants and needs.”
Senators urged that the student body use the new website seriously so that legitimate concerns can be raised and addressed.
Re-Evaluation of Increased Parking Fines
Junior Senator Killian Naylor ’14.5 sponsored a bill titled “A resolution in support of the re-evaluation of fines for parking in faculty/staff designated spaces.”
The main concern of the bill was that parking fines had been raised from $10 to $50. Naylor argued that many parking tickets are a result of innocent mistakes, and that it is unfair to students to increase rates by 500 percent. He suggested that fines be changed to $25.
“A 500 percent increase seems too drastic and, given the complicated and intricate rules surrounding parking, excessive for what is often an honest mistake,” said Naylor.
SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 added, “I think the $25 fee that the SGA suggested represents a good compromise between setting the right incentives and not overcharging students who end up making a mistake. $25 is a significant enough disincentive and is on par with almost all of our peer schools.”
Ultimately, the SGA approved Naylor’s bill unanimously, and it will be recommended to Public Safety that parking fines be reduced from $50 to $25.
The Email Revolution Resolution
Arnowitz proposed a bill titled, “The Email Revolution Resolution.” The bill proposes to allow students to subscribe and unsubscribe to whatever emails they like from Middlebury accounts. The SGA approved the bill unanimously with little debate.
(03/06/13 5:42pm)
On Feb. 24, the Student Government Organization (SGA) held their weekly meeting. The Senate was informed that the “’Merica Dance” held the Friday before the meeting had been fairly successful. Senators Graham Shaw ’16 and Hasher Nisar ’16 had led the efforts in promoting the event. At its peak, approximately 200 students were in attendance.
Every four years there is an honor code review at the College. There is a review this year, and Karen Guttentag, associate dean for judicial affairs and student life, came to the SGA meeting to discuss the findings of the honor code review committee that she has been leading.
“If there has been a central question for the Honor Code Review Committee this year, it has been, what recommendations can we make to ensure that each constituency — students, faculty and staff — is working in concert to actively and consistently promote an environment of academic integrity?” she said.
Members of the committee and the SGA raised various concerns about academic integrity at the College. The College does not feel that there is a cheating crisis at the moment, but many feel that the problem is still apparent here (although no more or less than national averages). The Honor Code was amended in between the two most recent reviews (the previous one having taken place during the 2008-2009 academic year), to allow professors to proctor exams when they feel it is necessary.
A straw poll to approve the review would have passed unanimously if not for two abstentions from proxy representatives. SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 was happy to see the progress being made.
“Obviously the honor code is very important to both the academic and community experience here at Middlebury,” he said.
On March 3, it was announced that the Feb Senator referendum had passed. Febs will no longer vote for, or be represented by commons or class senators. There will now be two Feb Senators. Elections for the new seat will be held on Monday, March 11.
Peter Mattson, SGA treasurer and finance committee chair, also presented the proposed finance committee guidelines to the SGA.
Old Chapel has picked up many costs for club sports that would have crippled the SGA’s budget. However, drastic changes did not have to be made due to the help of the administration. Club teams must actively fundraise for their spring break trips.
Transportation reimbursements were planned to be cut significantly, and this was not popular among many senators. Senator Will Potter ’14.5 was one of the leading voices of dissent.
“The finance committee guidelines should support transportation reimbursement that realizes the true cost of driving and maintaining a vehicle, while minimizing abuse of the system,” he said.
But not all on the SGA were in opposition to the transportation section.
“I’m glad that the Senate approved the overwhelming majority of the guidelines. With regard to the transit section, it was tabled because some senators were uncomfortable with the decrease in per-mile compensation,” said Arnowitz.
(02/20/13 6:03pm)
The Student Government Association (SGA) announced at their meeting on Jan. 27 that they had received 1,295 student responses on their survey dealing with campus life, sent out in an all-student email during the second week of winter term.
SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 was pleased with the response rate.
“We were very happy with participation in the survey,” wrote Arnowitz in an email. “We met our goal of reaching half of the student body. As a result of this critical mass, we’re finding that it is providing us with very useful data.”
A concern brought up during the meeting was that female students were overrepresented among those who completed the survey. An additional concern was a low participation rate among varsity athletes. Varsity athletes make up about 33 percent of the student population, but only 18 percent of survey participants stated that they were varsity athletes.
The survey results will be shared with the student body at some point this year.
After the discussion about the survey, someone raised a concern about the availability of newspapers on campus. An ultimate decision was reached that while there may be a shortage of newspapers in print for students to pick up, any student can access the New York Times online by going to the link go/nytpass.
Then the Mid-Year Treasurer’s Report was presented to the SGA. At this time last year, the SGA had $180,000 budgeted to student organization planning, but the budget has decreased to $70,000 this year.
It was announced that student organizations no longer have to go to the finance committee to review spending. Old Chapel has helped take some of the financial burden off of the SGA to avoid a skyrocketing student activities fee. Had Old Chapel not provided financial support, the student activity fee was potentially going to be raised $60, but due to financial intervention, it will only go up $15.
By reducing overlaps in groups, the SGA was able to slash spending and still allocate $47,328.45 to 36 new clubs. The Committee expects to be working with a $1.1 million budget and maintain a small surplus. The SGA voted unanimously to approve the report.
At their meeting on Feb. 17, the SGA discussed the administration’s consideration in ending their practice of distributing free yearbooks to all graduating students. In the financial report presented by the SGA treasury, it was stated that potential reform on this issue could save the College around $50,000.
Every NESCAC College, except Bowdoin, provides a free yearbook to graduates. Bowdoin provides a PDF copy of the yearbook to all graduating students.
The SGA was then informed that pub nights in McCullough have not been very successful, with only 400 beers being sold over six nights. If pub nights do not yield more financial success, they are unlikely to remain.
Arnowitz hopes to continue pub nights, as he believes it could be a successful way to foster community on campus.
“I strongly believe that serving alcoholic beverages in an adult setting is a key component of both teaching responsible drinking behaviors and creating a healthier social scene on campus,” said Arnowitz. “I’m hoping that we continue to provide programming for the space to draw students in and help make that vision a reality.”
Senators Killian Naylor ’14.5, Will Potter ’14.5, Christian Holmes ’14 and Rachel Liddell ’15 presented their sponsored bill titled “Feb Senator Reform Act of 2013.” This act will reform Feb representation in the SGA.
Each class is currently represented in the SGA with two class senators and a single Feb senator. The proposed bill will exclude Febs from class elections in exchange for a second Feb senator.
Naylor explained the importance of the bill to allow equivalent Feb and September-entry student representation in the SGA.
“There was a problem of overrepresentation in the SGA,” wrote Naylor in an email. “With this bill, we hope to strike a balance in [SGA] representation. This was not a serious problem, but it should help define and clarify constituencies moving forward.”
(01/24/13 12:41am)
At the Student Government Association (SGA) meeting on Sunday, Jan. 20, SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 started the meeting by announcing that break buses from this past winter break were profitable. The only buses that failed to make a profit were those that went to White Plains, N.Y.
Next the SGA discussed the steps taken by the Community Council to allow second-semester first-years to join social houses and first-semester sophomores to live in social houses. The Community Council is optimistic that the College will enact its resolution to allow second-semester first-years to join social houses, and on Monday, Jan. 21, the Community Council passed a second resolution that would allow first-semester sophomores to live in social houses.
A proposed bill called the “Decolonizing Middlebury College Bill,” was put in front of the Senate and then tabled. The sponsors of the bill are Student Co-Chair of Community Council Barrett Smith ’13 and Feb Senator Anna Shireman-Grabowski ’15.5. The bill states that Middlebury College is occupying land of the Abenaki tribe. It recommends that the College meet with Abenaki leaders and potentially cede land to the tribe.
Senior Senator Nathan Arnosti ’13 and Arnowitz have sponsored a bill titled “An Act to Establish a Student Liaison to the SGA on Endowment Affairs.” If the bill passes, the SGA would propose the creation of a student liaison on endowment affairs, or SLEA, to work directly with the board of trustees. While a formal vote will not take place until the next meeting, the Senate discussed the bill at length. The SGA determined that a five-person committee, made up of Arnowitz, Director of Membership Syndey Fuqua ’13 and three senators would choose this student liason. Concerns were raised that the position should be elected by the student body at large. In spite of some objections, a straw pole was conducted that saw the bill pass unanimously.
(11/14/12 10:16pm)
SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 is leading an initiative to create a survey on student life at the College. The survey will examine a number of issues, including, but not limited to, distribution requirements, interaction between students and professors, the dining hall, the endowment, student access to athletic facilities, library hours and student mental health.
“A lot of surveys happen on campus, but they’re very topic-specific,” said SGA Press Secretary Olivia Noble ’13. “The idea behind the survey is that we’re polling students to determine everything they care about. We want to know to how we can better serve the student body in the second semester and the years to come.”
The SGA is aiming for 60 percent student participation or better on the survey. SGA cabinet members have voiced concerns that the survey should not be too long, citing fears that student participation may decline as the survey length increases.
In the Nov. 11 meeting, the Senate unanimously passed the “Resolution for Inclusive Athletic Injury Care on Campus” with a vote of 14-0-1. The bill, sponsored by Senior Senator Nathan Arnosti ’13, seeks to provide athletes from non-varsity programs access to the athletic facilities. Leaders of the Cycling Club, the Figure Skating Club, Living Dance, RIDDIM, men’s and women’s ultimate Frisbee and men’s and women’s water polo were the main proponents of the bill.
The resolution proposes that the College fund a weekly “Open Hours” program by professional athletic trainers for the benefit of all students. The proposed program would run for two to four hours per week and would be open to all students.
“It’s time for the College to recognize that varsity athletes are not the only students who are at risk of injury as a result of on-campus activity,” wrote Arnosti in an email.
Arnosti also emphasized the scope of the proposal.
“The SGA is not recommending that the College pay for students’ long-term injury rehabilitation,” wrote Arnosti. “Instead, this program would provide immediate, professional consultation for students with less serious athletic injuries … This proposed program is not meant to impose an additional burden on Middlebury’s current athletic trainers, but to advise the administration that a small increase in the athletic department’s budget would go a long way towards improving the well-being of non-varsity athletes on campus.”
SGA senators remain concerned over the disappearance of dishware from the dining halls, and invited Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette to speak at the Nov. 11 meeting to comment on the issue. In particular, senators say their constituents have raised concerns about a lack of cups and bowls in Proctor.
“The biggest problem in Proctor is that too many students take dishes and do not return them,” said Biette. “Blaming the problem on my staff is unfair and incorrect. Environmental concerns prevent us from having paper cups available and there is a bagged lunch program at Proctor in the morning for those students who are unable to sit down for lunch. Additionally, there are take-out containers available at lunch time if students ask the staff.”
While there are currently boxes for dishes in student housing, these boxes are not often returned to the dining halls. Dining Services does not want to send staff to pick up dishes around campus, as this would take away from meal preparation efforts. Biette argued that the dish crisis could be easily solved if students take the initiative to return dishes.
Chris Inzerillo ’13, director of academic affairs, came to the Nov. 11 meeting to briefly discuss establishing Student Advisory Committees for all majors. Although these committees are currently required for all majors, only some departments have established the committees.