By Joe Engleman
engleman@grinnell.edu
Besides the “Money Brawl” debate, Joint Board proceeded normally. East Senator Gwenna Ihrie ’15, who sits on StiFund, declared that the committee would only purchase 3,000 condoms, instead of the original 5,000. Senator Mulopulos announced that the institutional boundaries to enshrining Environmental Science as an official major were too great to overcome at this time.
“We are making huge progress everyday,” he said. “We’ll be pushing to get a major, but in the meantime we’ll be strengthening the concentration, and pushing students to complete an independent major.”
Mulopulos also suggested putting professors’ office hours on DB. However, he was criticized for not bringing this to Cabinet before suggesting it at Joint Board.
“I forgot I was going to act unilaterally and shut everyone out of the process,” said Mulopulos sarcastically, referencing the Money Brawl debate. “I’m just trying to suggest something that should be on the agenda of the student government association,” he added, with sincerity.
Osborne encouraged senators to get their constituents to fill out the SGA Survey that is available to the student body on PWeb.
“We want to check on communication between SGA and the student body,” she said. SGA Outreach Director Chinar Verma ’13 announced that three percent of the student body had taken the survey. Mulopulos asked whether or not the results of the survey would be made available to the public. Osborne said, “We can talk about this later,” as she looked skeptically at other members of Cabinet. She also announced that Lead Psychologist and Director of SHACS Stephanie Brown was leaving Grinnell to become Associate Dean of Students at the University of Illinois.
Before moving into the resolutions, SGA Treasurer Raghav Malik ’13 announced that he would be developing a recommendation to present to Joint Board about how exactly to invest the SGA roll-over fund. It is not clear whether or not Malik will need Joint Board approval to invest the roll over fund. No senators asked about this.
Films Chair Emily Evans ’13 mentioned the possibility of a having a Nicholas Cage film festival.
A resolution calling for the overhauling the Campus Bikes program passed unanimously, and a resolution calling for the institutionalization of the Student Environmental Committee passed with 18 in favor and one senator abstaining.