SGA 1/30 Report

JUSTIN FORTIER ’18
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The Student Government Association (SGA) President Ryan Miller ’17 and Vice President Dana Wensberg ’18 welcomed back a number of officers, class senators and senators-at-large to the first session of the 2017 spring semester SGA.
The meeting began with a recap of last semester where a number of new initiatives were planned. The fall voting had just over 1000 votes in elections, which was a monumental step forward in voter turnout, thanks to an extended voter window and SGA-funded promotional materials for campaigns.
This past semester marked the first time in recent history all class officers put on a successful event. The freshmen put on a barbeque, the sophomores had a finals coffee hour in the library, the junior class ran an event at homecoming, and the seniors held the annual Senior Snowball. Campaign for Community hosted a block party, and the SGA is planning support for the event going forward to provide t-shirts for incoming classes.
Looking forward, a few of the SGA members are working with Susan Salisbury, Director of Residential Life, to convert the housing lottery to a digital registration process that will be similar to the course registration process. A team has been put in place to evaluate the quality of rooms for the purpose of the housing lottery.
The SGA’s gym facilities improvement initiative saw a lot of results in the last year, in addition to the fall improvements the gym facilities management have promised to replace the stretching and abs workout matting for the upper mezzanine.
This week the SGA had a visit from the President of ConnPIRG on campus, Trinna Larson ’20. They are pushing for increased renewable energy profile. ConnPIRG also helps with the registration of student voters. This group is partially financially supported by the student activities fund and has taken on a series of aggressive goals: to get Trinity to use 100% renewable energy by 2030 and all state-run building to be 100% renewable by 2050.
The Inter-Greek Council representative, Marjorie Burke ’17, noted that two new sororities formed in the last semester and both will be participating with the existing houses for informal rush this week.
Barnyard informed the group they have a number of plans in the works, such as a Comedy Show. In addition, the committee has secured a headliner for Spring Weekend (to be revealed at a future announcement date), as well as trying to drive more collaborative events, such as the successful Trinalina Wine Mixer/ Middle Eastern festival.
The SGA unanimously voted to invite a member of the Student Athlete Council (SAC) to the SGA to increase athlete representation in SGA decision-making.
This coming Friday, February 3rd, the Trinity SGA is hosting the NESCAC and CT Student governments for a monthly summit of student leaders.
In December, Miller was able to meet with some of the members of Action Coalition of Trinity (ACT) and the SGA as well as a few administrators last semester to address the open demands. The SGA has scheduled a follow-up meeting with members of ACT and plans to run a question-and-answer session for the SGA to better understand the demands and how to act on behalf of this student group.