Eastern Mennonite University
Student Government Association
Senate Agenda
21st of March 2012
A good head and a good heart are
always a formidable combination.
-Nelson Mandela
I.Call to Order
II.Roll Call/Prayer
III.Approval of Minutes lock down drill over the summer and next year with student body passed with changes
IV.Announcements
V.Committee Reporting
A. Elias- QEP
1. Talked about David Kline’s event—was pretty successful.
Jonathan Lance-Trissel talked about Creation Care Council- campus-
wide meeting. Talked about whether it was worth getting “star”
ranking (it’s a lot of paper work, but it would look really good for
us/good marketing tool). Freshmen and seniors are writing articles
on sustainability (both environmental and social)—apparently
students are not meeting the prompt/just focusing on environmental
sustainability. Talked about student/SGA feedback on the QEP—
seems like a lot of students feel like sustainability is being tacked on
unnaturally in classes/teachers feel tired of talking about it.
B. Carissa- Library Task Force
1. The library is trying to become more user friendly. Today Randy
Seitz from Blue Ridge Architecture came in/they discussed short-
term and long-term goals from previous meeting. Randy was helping
them to make sure their short-term goals lined up with their long-
term goals.
VI.Old Business
a.Sub Committee-Verbal Reporting
1. Some of the sub-committees need to add more to the report.
VII.New Business
b.Exec Elections
1. Exec elections have to be held before April 1st, according to the
constitution, so an all student email was sent out encouraging
people to run. Hannah encouraged all senators to consider running.
Elections will be March 29th.
c.EMSWA constitution- SGA reviewed the EMSWA (Eastern Mennonite Student Women’s Association) constitution and asked questions of Mila Litchfield, one of the leaders. Mila briefly talked about what EMSWA does. EMSWA was in existence before last year, but died out for a while/was revived last year. It is a very relationship-based group. Mila mentioned that she made the constitution purposefully ambiguous because she wanted future leaders to feel the flexibility to make changes without having to amend the constitution. Kari asked what kinds of events EMSWA may plan—Mila answered that up until now they haven’t done many events since they didn’t yet have funding (they weren’t an official club yet). She said that they may do another poetry slam next year (they did one last spring) and would like to explore bringing a female singer/songwriter to campus in the future. They would be events for both men and women. Taylor asked about the voting process since it doesn’t clarify how a vote will pass (i.e consensus, 2/3rds vote, etc). Mila said that they had talked about having a unanimous vote (and she will add that to the constitution). Ken said that in the membership section it says meetings are open “to all members of the community” and so he wondered if that meant just the EMU community or the wider Harrisonburg community. Mila said that the club wants to use the resources of the community, but generally the meetings will just be for members of the EMU community (though if a person from Harrisonburg would come to a meeting, they would be welcome). Ken suggested that they clarify what a “voting member” is (whether they want that to be open to just EMU people or the wider community). Jacob asked if there were EMU guidelines about having or not having a president of a club (i.e having or not having a hierarchical structure—EMSWA does not want to have a president. They want to just have a leadership committee.)—Ken said there must be a contact person, but there does not need to be a president. Erika asked if having “women only” events would affect funding from SGA. Ken said no. Carissa asked if the term “leadership committee” under the “officers” heading needed to be further clarified (if roles needed to be further clarified or the number of people in the leadership committee). Mila said that they wanted to leave the constitution open so that future leaders do not feel restrained. Ken suggested adding, “the leadership committee will consist of at least two people.”
VIII.Open Floor
A. If we want to bring in a speaker for next year under SLS, we need to
decide some people now so that we can work on contacting them now/over
the summer. Alli suggested bell hooks, Mila suggested Loretta Ross,
Taylor suggested Chris Haw.
IX.Adjournment James made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Laci seconded. Passed unanimously.