This past Student Government Association meeting took place in the Moore Community Room (ASAC 100) on November 14th at 8:05 pm. This particular meeting was important, as it was the very first one to be broadcasted online via Facebook Live. This allowed for real-time feedback from the student body on the subjects discussed. The livestream can be viewed on SGA’s Facebook page, under NVU- Lyndon SGA. I feel it’s important to note that despite these meetings being free to view, The Critic will continue to write these SGA reports.
Starting with news from the SGA Executive Board, Advisor Mariah O’Hara announced that she had turned in her letter of resignation and this meeting was to be her last with us all. She stated that her decision was for personal reasons, and that she was planning to return home and work at another school there. From now on, Erin Rossetti will act as the advisor for SGA and the Campus Activities Board. If you have any financial needs, go to her. On the subject of financials, the budget is at $27,970. This was more than expected based on previous calculations. They are encouraging clubs and students to keep coming with funding requests, as they’re here for the student body.
Moving on to student body comments, this was the time when the comment section on the live video was opened up. Students were eager to see the dog policy reformed so more animals can be brought on campus, with some reasonable rules–of course. Concerns were brought up about the walkways in the Stonehenge parking lot, with a combination of students coming down the center walkway in an unsafe manner and the busy traffic posing a threat to student safety. Student Life, Public Safety, and the student body are interested in seeing the parking lot revamped to be safer for everyone to navigate.
A particularly hot topic was the college and the town’s handling of the first few snowstorms of the season. Students complained that the roads and walkways weren’t salted early enough to be effective and that when it was, it was when it was warm and raining, making it useless and wasteful. Another large complaint was how the college managed to stay open on Tuesday the 13th when the hill road up to the school wasn’t safe to drive on and most other schools in the county were closed. Jonathan Davis responded that the road problems were more on the town, since the school doesn’t own those roads. He said that there may have been some communication issues, seeing as how it was the first major storm of the season; according to a comment on Facebook, the Town of Lyndon Road Division is understaffed. The school will try to talk to the town about it and the salting issue.
In reports and presentations, it looks like there are a lot of changes afoot for NVU-Lyndon. Provost Nolan Atkins announced a possible change to the graduation ceremony, which would involve eliminating the hooding aspect and replacing it with the more commonplace tradition of giving out colorful cords to represent certain achievements. The hoods have been a unique aspect of the graduation ceremony at Lyndon, but they’ve proven to be expensive alongside the rest of the graduation garb. By eliminating them, it would cut the garb fee in half. This has people divided; some students are in favor of adopting the cords and cutting costs, while others, especially alumni, are against the change and eliminating what makes Lyndon’s ceremony special among the other colleges. The school is considering opening up a poll to let the students decide what they want.
One reason brought up for this change was to have the ceremony be more like Johnson’s, which started another wave of complaints. Students felt that Lyndon has been adopting a ton of Johnson’s ways, but Johnson hasn’t adopted any of Lyndon’s. Jonathan Davis clarified that this wasn’t the case. He explained that Johnson has been adopting a lot of Lyndon’s registrar services and processes, as well as other behind-the-scenes things. A priority for President Collins is to keep both campuses unique, which isn’t easy with the merger. With the Strategic Plan in mind, both campuses should eventually share the best of both worlds while still keeping their unique aspects to differentiate the two.
More changes are to be made in terms of academics and curriculum. First off, the college would like to switch from Moodle to Canvas for learning management. Many of the faculty consider Moodle not to be up to snuff, and Canvas would solve that problem. It is also an easier program to learn, which may help more faculty adopt it in their classes, which in turn will make more grades available in the program. The next big change in unifying Lyndon and Johnson is redistributing some of the degree programs. For example, Business will become one program with qualities from both campuses inspiring it. Criminal Justice is contemplating becoming an online degree, and Education is going to become one department across both campuses. To see more of these changes, check the livestream at the 9:14 pm mark.
Under discussion and action items, a new club was proposed. The NVU-Lyndon Film Club strives to analyze and encourage the creation of cinema and film in the NVU community. They would like to start next semester, and want to avoid fizzling out after one semester. They already have a Facebook page, which will be host to discussions on what movies to check out, what can be improved, and to host livestreams for Executive Board meetings. For community involvement, they expressed interest in hosting Lyndon’s annual Film Festivals, as well as doing a Film Slam at some point. They were approved with a majority vote.
VSCSA revealed that NVU will lose 5% of its budget allocation among the Vermont State Colleges, with that 5% being given to Castleton for unknown reasons. Fortunately, it won’t affect the SGA fee or Student Activities. This budget tends to go toward running the school, in terms of utilities and related fees. The board of trustees will discuss how it may affect tuition down the road. The next VSCSA meeting will take place at 5 pm on November 30th in Montpelier.
In club updates, SAAC will be hosting Hornet Madness on Thursday the 29th, and partnering with AMS for the food drive. CanJam will be the same day at 8pm, hosted via Ultimate. It will cost $10 per team, and $5 per person. The winning team will receive passes to Jay Peak. AMS/NWA is collaborating with SAAC for the Winter Things for HOPE drive. If you have something to donate, talk to AMS. Model UN is registering for the Mock UN event in February. They are looking to talk to Erin about finishing registration and getting a budget allocation for travel. WWLR has cleaned the station, and is training to start up some radio shows. After break, 8 shows will start up. Veteran’s Club is looking into getting jackets for the executive board, and they are hosting monthly socials at Everybody’s Casual Diner on Tuesdays. Finally, the Twilight Players, Acapella, and MEISA are working on finalizing performances for the Holiday Spectacular.
The meeting adjourned at 10:12 pm. The next SGA meeting will be this Wednesday, November 28th, at 8:00 pm in the Moore Community Room. Be sure to tune in on Facebook Live and make your voice heard!