By Joe Wlos
wlosjose@grinnell.edu
Senator Austin Cote ’15 distributed dunk tank slips to the audience of this week’s Joint Board. Several weeks ago, Joint Board passed Cote’s resolution giving students the opportunity to dunk their favorite or least favorite member of SGA at the end of the semester, as long as they attend at least two Joint Boards. While contemplating this future plunge into the water, Joint Board began to dive into present issues.
President Colleen Osborne ’13 announced that Joint Board will be voting on its recommendation for Grinnell’s admissions and financial aid policies next week. Because the school’s finances are in deep water, three different policy changes to increase the amount of revenue generated by tuition have been proposed.
After several presentations by Vice-President for Enrollment Joe Bagnoli and multiple conversations between students and Cabinet members, Osborne still does not believe that the student body is prepared to endorse a specific plan. Instead, the resolution will focus on the values and goals supported by Grinnellians, ensuring that the administration does not throw the baby out with the bath water. The SGA Cabinet will be in the Grille at 4:15 p.m. on Friday to hear more student opinion.
Senator Nathan Forman ’15 originally disagreed with Cabinet’s approach, wanting a more pragmatic resolution that would be listened to.
“We can’t have a resoltion that says, ‘We oppose getting rid of need blind and we want class composition to remain diverse like it is now,’ because that effectively endorses the status quo, and would thereby make us irrelevant,” Forman said.
He is now in talks with Cabinet to help them draft the resolution.
Treasurer Raghav Malik ’13 and Assistant Treasurer Roni Finkelstein ’15 presented information on the SGA budget to the senators. The issue of the SGA surplus fund, which is invested in the endowment, is not yet water under the bridge. Malik explained that he discussed several different investment strategies in his meeting with Grinnell Chief Investment Officer David Clay, and Finkelstein displayed a graph showing the size of the surplus over the past decade. They then presented a preliminary budget for next semester and announced that voting on the new budget will begin next week.
Finally, Vice President of Academic Affairs Kelsey Scott ’13 asked for student input on the potential for a Peace Studies Conentration, and SGA discussed the lack of student workers in the D-Hall. If interested in making it rain to have some spending money for winter break, contact Kelly Edgington (edgingto@grinnell.edu) or look for the posters in the JRC.
